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Welcome to Anchor Baptist Church. It is about time to go ahead and get started.
If you'd find a seat and grab a hymnal, our first hymn this morning, number 415
Victory Through Grace. 415, 415, Victory Through Grace.
415, they're on the first.
Conquering down...
Granted, this was...
At this time, we'll open with a word of prayer if you'll bow your heads with me.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, for another opportunity to gather together,
to learn from your word and seeing out praises unto you. I pray that this service would be done
with everything being done decently and in order, that you would open our ears and our hearts to
the message and that you would fill pastor with boldness and with your spirit. These things we
pray in Jesus' name, amen.
our next hymn this morning 167 all hail the power of Jesus name 167 167 all hail the power of Jesus name
167 there, on the first.
All hail the power of Jesus.
raise your hand and an usher will come and bring you one. We do have on the
front there our Bible memory verse of the week Genesis chapter 1 verse 13 of
course the kids that can memorize this and recite it to an adult non-family
member will receive an ice cream after the Wednesday service on the inside
there you'll see our service times are listed Sunday morning at 10 30 Sunday
evening at
430 and remember we've been going through that series the sayings of Jesus on the cross and we're gonna continue that this evening at
430 also our Wednesday evening
Bible study through Proverbs at 7 o'clock
We do also have all of our soul winning times listed there and all those meet here at the church building
One thing I wanted to let you guys know about regarding our soul winning is that on our invites this QR code on the right
That says stay notified has been updated to this special
splash site or whatever that
Collects people's names phone numbers and emails and when that email gets submitted it automatically signs them up for our
Master list where we sent out our sermons and our events and all that kind of stuff just to keep in touch with people
So if you like follow-up, this is like the best thing you could possibly do for follow-up
Is just have them pull out their phone have them scan that have them enter that stuff and submit it right there
As soon as that happens, I get a text notifying me, letting me know someone's signed up.
We already have over a thousand people signed up, which is really, really important being
that I don't know how long our days on YouTube are going to last.
I really have been enjoying the fact that it seems like YouTube censorship has gone down
a little bit, and for some reason, you know, we've allowed to exist on there, and our YouTube
channel is doing really, really well.
Over I think we're at like 1,100 subscribers for our YouTube someone could check that but our rumble is like 200
So if we lost our YouTube channel, we would lose a lot of people that we're you know in contact with and reaching through our online
Stuff so we want to make sure we have a way of reaching people if that stuff got nuked someday
Not really if but more like when you know knowing the new ifb
So if you would do that out soul winning even if someone doesn't get saved. They're just nice. They're interested
You have a good interaction with them.
You can have them sign up for that, and that'd be great.
Um, we do have our year to date statistics for soul winning and praise the Lord.
We passed the 2000 mark for the year and so that is a great accomplishment and of course
that is not all done here in Oklahoma City.
That's because some of our members have been really dedicated and have been just spending
months and months and months over in the Philippines.
So thank you to all those that worked really hard doing that.
But yeah, praise the Lord.
We hit that.
well this year so that's going to be great if we could do that we got to keep working hard though
and of course a couple Sundays from now we only have two more Sundays left until the Bahamas
mission trip so we're really looking forward to that it's going to be a great time of soul winning
October 12th the weekend we return is going to be the next men's preaching night for the Sunday
evening service
Don't worry about bringing something for the potluck that evening. I'll go ahead and order pizza for that event
So that'll be a good time October 31st is our next chili cookoff
Then our one-year anniversary as anchor Baptist Church is November 22nd and 23rd
We'll have a local soul winning marathon on Saturday if you'd love to join us for that
It'd be great and then pastor Shelly from steadfast Baptist Church will be preaching both services that Sunday
Then around the Thanksgiving time, November 26th, we'll have a pie fellowship after church for that evening there.
We do have on the right, if you're a first time visitor, if you wouldn't mind filling out that communication card by scanning the QR code.
Also, there's some information about online giving for our church, if you're interested in that.
And then, of course, our prayer list is updated.
If you have any requests, please do email the church.
We'd be happy to add that for you.
So let's go ahead and go to our third song at this time.
The third song this morning, number 53, Bula Land.
Ham number 53, 5-3, Bula Land.
53 there on the first
I reach the land of joy divine
And all its riches freely vine
day for all I died has passed away oh you the land sweet you the land pass on my
highest mount I stand by look away across the sea where mentions are
That's shot
And the shining glory sure might have my own forevermore.
Brothers, ever seem to put to me sweet sounds of heaven's melody
As angels lift the white rope from joining in the sweet...
And you, the shining, glory short, I have my own forevermore.
At this time, as the offering plates are being passed, turn, if you would, to Jeremiah chapter
Jeremiah chapter 20
Now past sure the son of Imre the priest
It was also chief governor in the house of the Lord
Heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things now past sure smoked Jeremiah with the prophet and
Put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin
Which was by the house of the Lord
And it came to pass on the morrow that past sure brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks then said Jeremiah unto him
the Lord hath not called
thy name past sure, but
Magor misabib
For thus say at the Lord behold I will make thee a terror to thyself
Into all thy friends and they shall fall by dice by the sword of their enemies
And thine eyes shall be hold it
And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword.
Moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labors thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies.
Which shall spoil them and take them and carry them to Babylon and thou
Pashor and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity and thou shall come to Babylon and
There thou shalt die and shall be buried there thou and all thy friends to whom thou hast prophesied lies
Oh Lord
Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed.
I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence
and spoil, because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me in a derision daily.
in his name, but his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and
I was weary with forebearing, and I could not stay.
For I heard the defaming of many fear on every side report, say they, and we will report
it.
he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
But the Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one, therefore my persecutors shall stumble,
and they shall not prevail, and they shall be greatly ashamed, for they shall not prosper.
Their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.
But, O Lord of hosts, thou hast tried, that tryest the righteous, and seeest the reigns and the heart.
Let me see thy vengeance on them,
for unto thee have I opened my cause.
Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord, for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
Cursed be the day wherein I was born. Let not the day wherein my mother bear me be blessed.
Cursed be the man who did tidings to my father saying a manchild is born unto thee,
making him very glad. And let that man be as the city's which the Lord overthrew and repented not.
and let him hear the cry in the in the in the morning and the shouting at noontide
because he slew me not from the womb or that my mother might have been my grave
and her womb to be always great with me, wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow.
that my days should be consumed with shame.
Let's pray.
Gracious Lord, thankful for these
that are gathered here today.
Thankful for our church.
We pray that you feel Pastor August is here for us.
I hope you preach boldly the word of God to us.
Pray that you give us tender hearts
and keep distractions to a minimum.
Jesus, then we pray and then.
Man, the title of my sermon this morning is Don't Get Blackpilled.
Don't Get Blackpilled.
And I just want to define what that term means for you if you've never heard it before.
Someone who is blackpilled is extremely pessimistic about their life, society and the future.
As a result, blackpilled people may become nihilistic and pessimistic and usually have
no qualms about saying so.
can inspire them to take extreme actions, including harming themselves or others.
And this is an emotion of just extreme despair
that can afflict anyone and everyone, whether you're saved or unsaved.
You see, unfortunately, many people in the Word of God
kind of get to this point in their life where Elijah, for example, requests to die.
Job is cursing the day that he was born.
You read some of the Psalms of David.
David gets pretty dark in some of his Psalms that he's talking about.
Of course, Jeremiah here gets blackpilled in this chapter
where he almost quits, he almost gives up on serving God.
Moses asks God to kill him at one point.
So I want you to realize that this is a normal emotion.
that some people will go through in life, but it's really important that you don't stay here,
that you don't live here because of the fact that this could be very destructive for your
literal life and your spiritual life as well. And unfortunately, today we're living in a time where
I see a lot of people being very blackpilled.
Now, I don't personally feel like this right now.
I have a lot of hope for the future.
I feel like our church is doing really well.
I don't know where everyone's at personally right now.
Maybe someone listening to this is feeling black-pilled right now.
But just out in the world and people I talk to,
even other types of Baptists I talk to,
I do notice that there's a lot of people that feel really black-pilled right now.
There's Baptist I'm talking to in my personal life where they say,
man, I don't know if it's worth it doing outreach anymore.
I don't know if it's worth it doing discipleship anymore
because they saw Charlie Kirk get killed and it's kind of making them scared.
And there's a lot of just young people that feel a lot of despair for their financial situation
or their dating situation.
And so I want to just do a Bible study through this whole chapter
so that we can kind of see
why someone gets blackpilled and what to do once you actually get to that point in your life.
So keep your your place there of course throughout the whole sermon in Jeremiah 20,
but let's read verse number one.
The Bible says, now pasher, the son of Emmer, the priest,
who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord,
heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.
Now this character, pasher, it's gonna be important
that we realize who this person is,
because he is the son of Emmer,
and Emmer is one of the descendants of Aaron.
So this guy is of the priesthood.
He's chief governor in the house of the Lord.
This is one of the guys that you would expect
to be on Jeremiah's team.
And when Jeremiah is preaching, you would expect that he would be
amenning Jeremiah and standing with Jeremiah because he's supposed to be on the Lord's side.
But notice he hears all the things that Jeremiah is preaching
and he has a negative reaction to that.
Let's remind ourselves what it was that Jeremiah actually was preaching.
Go back one chapter to Jeremiah 19.
Let's look at some of the things Jeremiah was preaching here in verse number three and say
Hear ye the word of the Lord o kings of Judah the inhabitants of Jerusalem
Thus say at the Lord of hosts the God of Israel behold I will bring evil upon this place the witch
Whosoever heareth his ears shall tingle so Jeremiah is bringing a negative message here
But notice it said that it was the word of the Lord
And so whether it's positive, negative, whether you have certain opinions about what's being preached in your flesh,
if something is coming from the Bible, it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative, it's true.
And so Jeremiah, he's bringing a really negative message.
But you know what? Those who are spiritual, those who are on the Lord's side, they would be on Jeremiah's side.
Notice what he keeps preaching. Verse 4.
Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods,
whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocence.
They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal,
which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind."
So, you know, Judah's getting punished extremely severely in this book.
God's sending the Babylonians to just take over and destroy their nation.
And sometimes people look at the Old Testament and say, you know, God's so harsh.
But here's the thing, they were literally sacrificing their children,
passing them unto the fire.
You know, you're begging for a big punishment from God
when you start sacrificing children.
And you know what our country has been doing?
For a long time, we've been brutally butchering and murdering babies in the womb.
And you know what, I would love God's mercy to be on our country,
but if God decides to judge us, if God decides us to have hard financial times
or violence in the streets, you know what, our country deserves it.
And you know what, I love America, but at the same time, if God chooses to put His hand against us,
I'm always going to stand with the Lord.
And I'm always going to say that His judgment is right.
And yeah, I would love mercy upon us.
And we got to stand in the gap and make up the hedge to try to keep that from happening.
But if God pours out His wrath on America, we deserve it and more.
Because we've been murdering and allowing babies to be killed in the womb.
What else is happening verse number six therefore behold the days come say at the Lord that this place shall no more be called
Tofet nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place
And I'll cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies by the hands of them that seek their lives and their
Carcasses will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven for the beasts of the earth?
What else is he preaching about he's saying hey God's so mad at you
God's so angry that he's going to allow violence to consume your streets.
He's going to allow the wicked, their sword to go forth and conquer and to defeat you.
You know, that's a negative message.
There's no inspiration.
There's no hope in this message.
He's just saying like, you guys are about to get destroyed.
Notice what else he says in verse number eight,
and I will make this city desolate and in hissing,
everyone that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss
because of all the plagues thereof.
And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons
and the flesh of their daughters.
And they shall eat everyone, the flesh is friend.
in the siege and straightness, wherewith their enemies and they that seek their
lives shall straighten them. You say, man, how bad can things get? Things can get
really bad. The wrath and judgment of God can get so bad that God's people can be
driven to such a state of despair that they are eating their own sons and
eating their own daughters and eating their friends.
We've never experienced anything remotely close to such a level of just chaos and depravity
where that thought or temptation would even enter into our mind.
I mean, you look at your beautiful children, you look at your son, you look at your daughter,
you could never fathom doing something like that, you look at your friend, you could never fathom that,
but yet God's judgment can drive a people to such a place of despair where that is the state of reality.
And you know, it's a shame that sometimes people have to get to this point before they start fearing God
and before they start obeying God.
You know, it'd be nice to just skip this part and just obey and fear the Lord and keep His commandments.
So Jeremiah, he's preaching a really negative message here. Go back to chapter 20.
He's preaching a negative message, but you know what?
Pashur is the son of Emmer.
He's on the Lord's side supposedly, notice his reaction, verse number two.
Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet
and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin,
which was by the house of the Lord.
You know, this is kind of one of the things that starts Jeremiah's descent into getting
blackpilled and wanting to quit the ministry, wanting to quit preaching the word of God.
Because here's Jeremiah, he's just trying to do what's right.
He's just trying to preach what God said.
He's not adding his own message.
He doesn't even necessarily like the message himself.
He's just being a faithful servant of God.
And what happens, other Christians, right, and I'm using that anachronistically, but
are now smiting him, attacking him, putting him in the stocks when all he's doing is preaching the
truth. And you know one of the things that can that can make you a little bit discouraged,
that can make you a little bit black-pilled, is when you're doing right, when you're preaching
the truth, when you're standing on the word of God, and then other Christians are hating on you.
Other supposed servants of God,
hey, they're the sons of Aaron, they're the priesthood,
the chief governor of the house of Judah,
these people should be on our side,
yet here we are preaching the truth and they hate us.
They want to smite us figuratively.
They want to put us in the stocks figuratively sometimes.
And man, someday it could even lead to those literal things.
And there's people today that are Christians and non-Christians that hate our message.
You know, what a shame when someone who claims to be a Christian despises the preaching of God's word.
That is a shame.
You know, it reminds me of when you go soul-winning and you run into that apartment manager who tells you,
hey guys, I'm a Christian, I go to church, I love the Bible, but you can't be here doing this.
You can't be here soul-winning.
And it's like, what's wrong with you?
You have a problem with us preaching the gospel trying to get people saved and you're going to tell us you're a Christian but we hate what you're doing.
And of course sometimes there's even people in church, sometimes there's other pastors that a church is standing on what's right.
They're preaching the Bible but yet they hate them.
Yet they go against them yet. They speak against them and that can be discouraging
Especially if you've never seen it before it's your first time going through that that could be kind of mind-blowing to you
How Christians will turn on Christians, but let me tell you what that happens
Absolutely go to 1st Corinthians 1 and keep your place there of course throughout the sermon
1st Corinthians chapter number one
And of course, one thing you have to realize about this story so far is that it's not like there's right on both sides.
Jeremiah is just clearly right.
Jeremiah is the one in the right.
He's the one preaching the word of the Lord.
Pasher is 100% wrong.
1 Corinthians 1 verse 10, now I beseech you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that y'all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you.
But that you'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment
So of course God's desire for us as a church is to have unity
Now, God does not want us to have unity with everyone at all costs because Christ actually came to bring division,
but that division should be from the world, from the wicked, from false prophets, false doctrine.
But within the local New Testament church, God wants us to speak the same things, to believe the same doctrines.
Verse 11,
Now this I say that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
So you had these carnal Christians where instead of just identifying with the truth, identifying with the word of God, what the Bible teaches, they wanted to attach themselves to some man.
and be like, well, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas,
trying to act like these men are so different or so radically different or something like that.
But the truth is, is that they're all preaching the same message,
they're all preaching the gospel, they're not baptizing in their own name,
they're baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And so it's a carnal person that wants to have these divisions.
But where does division come from though? Notice what the Bible says.
It says in verse number 14,
And divisions between brothers and sisters in Christ arise is because of carnality.
Because of, if you're focusing on the gospel, like Paul is, he's like, hey, God didn't even send me to baptize.
He actually just sent me to preach the gospel.
If your focus is on the gospel, if your focus is on exalting Jesus, exalting the Bible, exalting the right doctrine,
then you're not going to get into all these petty division, right?
You're going to see where the truth is, and you're going to follow the truth.
When there is division, you're going to follow the person who's standing on the Bible, right?
And you see Jeremiah, and Jeremiah is saying,
the saith the Lord.
Here's what the Bible says.
Here's the truth coming from God.
Then you got this angry, bitter guy, Pashur,
who's just upset and just doesn't like Jeremiah's message.
But does he have Bible to back him up?
Is he saying, no, wait, Jeremiah,
the Lord's actually just speaking to me.
Here's what God actually said.
Let me correct your false doctrine.
No, he just starts hitting him.
He just starts putting him in the stocks.
He's just this angry,
bitter, carnal person.
And you know, the reason why there's all these divisions
where some people are just like,
I'm of this pastor, no, I'm of this one, no,
I don't like this guy, I don't like,
it's because you're just not following the truth.
Because if you're following the truth,
you're gonna like the men of God who preach the truth.
And you're gonna not like the passers.
You're gonna stay away from the passers.
You're not gonna listen to the passers.
You're gonna listen to the men who are actually saying
what the Bible says.
Go to 1 Corinthians 4 while I read.
Proverbs 13, verse 10, the Bible says,
only by pride cometh contention.
But what the well-advised is wisdom.
See, here's the truth, Paul was not the carnal one.
The men of God that he's listing, they are not the carnal ones.
Who were the prideful people? It was the followers that were causing the division, causing the strife.
They were being prideful.
Why is there a contention between Jeremiah and Pastor?
It's because one of them is being prideful.
Here's a newsflash. It's not Jeremiah.
Jeremiah is not the one being prideful.
And what you'll see is, you'll see today, preachers accused of being prideful
because they preach the Word of God with authority.
They say, hey, here is what the Bible says and any other doctrine is wrong.
We're not arguing about it.
We're not saying, hey, there's some room for error.
It's like the Bible says salvation is by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
And you know what? The Calvinists are wrong.
The Catholics are wrong. The Mormons are wrong.
And people will say, oh, you're prideful.
How dare you act like you have the truth?
No, it's actually humility to submit yourself to what the Bible says.
God's ways are higher than our ways.
His thoughts are better than our thoughts.
And anything that the Bible says, we need to submit to it.
When there's conflict between that, one or more parties are being prideful every single time.
Look at 1 Corinthians 4 verse 1.
Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the stewards of the ministries of God."
He's saying, hey, we want to be accountable.
We want to be transparent as the servants of God.
Go ahead and account of us how we're doing as stewards.
Verse number two,
Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.
But with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you.
or of man's judgment.
Yea, I judge, not my own self.
Right, so Paul, he has a very sincere attitude.
He wants to be accountable as a minister.
He wants to be counted faithful.
First Timothy 1 says that Paul was counted faithful,
which is why God put him into the ministry.
But notice how he's staying accountable.
He doesn't really care what people say about him.
He doesn't really care about man's judgment,
the people that he's writing letters to that are upset at him,
he doesn't give a rip what they're saying.
You know, today it'd be like,
he doesn't care what the YouTube comments are saying.
He doesn't care what the bozos on X are saying.
He doesn't care what the X new IFB group is saying
or anything like that.
He's saying, hey, I don't even judge my own self.
What is that? What is he saying?
I'm not measuring myself by some standard that I'm implementing of my own just human logic,
my own personal opinion.
He's sitting here and judging himself according to the word of God.
And so at the end of the day, that's not his judgment.
That's God's judgment.
Keep reading verse number four.
For I know nothing by myself.
Yet am I not hereby justified, but he that judgeeth me is the Lord."
So notice, I know nothing by myself.
He didn't come up with the Bible.
He didn't come up with these doctrines.
Even the parts of the Bible he's writing, he's under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
These words are coming from God.
And so he's not subjecting himself to man's judgment or to his own judgment.
Go to if you would.
Back to Jeremiah chapter number 20 Jeremiah 20
But you know we need to realize as Christians before you get back blackpilled before you get upset
Just realize in advance that if you actually believe what the Bible says and you actually take a stand on the words of God
You will have not only the world hates you. You will have backslidden
Carnal Christians speak against you and let me tell you this happens all the time
all the time, and you know, I can't remember the exact wording of the verse I'm thinking of right now,
but it talks about how those who gossip, how like a bird will tell the matter and it comes back to you.
You know, I can't tell you how many times I've preached something and it comes back to me that some angry, bitter,
usually some lady is sitting there gossiping and crap talking about my sermons, and I'm just like, I don't care.
Because I don't preach to placate or to please backslidden
Carnal Christians!
I preach in hopes of making you stop being that way
and actually concede what the Bible says and change.
I actually preach what God wants me to preach
and I'm not trying to be judged of man or of my own self.
I'm trying to preach what the Bible actually says.
And, you know, this is why, like, on Wednesdays,
I don't even use notes in my sermons
because I'm supposed to just be preaching proverbs.
It's like, here's my notes. Here's the chapter.
You know, that'll help you preachers stick on what the Bible says.
It's just sticking to the words of God.
You know, this isn't some rule that when you came up by yourself,
you're just submitting yourself to the Bible.
Look at verse 3.
Jeremiah 20. It says, and it came to pass on the morrow that
Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks, then said
Jeremiah unto him, the Lord hath not called thy name Pashur,
but Magor Mesabib. So Pashur, I don't know if he's starting
to have some regret. If he's starting to see the light, if he's starting to realize, hey, I'm being an idiot.
This is my brother in Christ. I'm supposed to be on his side. Whatever
his attitude is, he releases Jeremiah from the stocks, and Jeremiah
Like, he's rightly pissed at this guy, and he's like,
look, your name isn't Pashur anymore,
and he gives him this name, which is Magor Masabib,
which means terror on every side, all right?
So Jeremiah's mad.
He's like, you know what, you're not Pashur anymore.
This guy becomes a proverb and a byword.
where Jeremiah just gives him this nickname saying,
you know what, you're actually terror on every side.
You know, I like that Jeremiah is willing to defend himself
and defend his ministry
because of the fact that he's preaching the words of God.
And it's not about him.
It's not about him as a person.
It's about the message that he's preaching.
And he's saying, you know what,
you're letting me out of the stocks,
but you know what, your name's not Pastor to me anymore.
Pastor is dead to me.
You are now fear on every side
because you're about to be real scared for what's coming for you.
Terror on every side. He doesn't give up. He doesn't give in. He gets pissed verse 4
For thus sayeth the Lord behold I will make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends
They shall fall by the sword of their enemies and thine eyes shall be holdens
And I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall carry them captive into Babylon
And he shall slay them with the sword. Hey, you know what? Christians should be scared of
turning on Jeremiah
Christians should be terrified to crap talk, rail, gossip, criticize men who are preaching the truth.
And he says, okay, you want to put me in the stocks?
You want to hit me?
You want to go against the message when I'm preaching the truth?
When I'm preaching the word of God?
Well, you know what?
Your name isn't Pasha anymore.
It's Magor Masabib.
You're going to be terror on every side because you're going to see the destruction of your friends.
And you know what? If you go against God, if you fight against the Word of God, if you
fight against the work of God, if you kick against the pricks, you should expect some
pain. You should expect your life to fail. You know, I would never understand how a pastor
a minister who obviously that person wants his church to succeed and thrive and he wants to reach people.
It's like you just nuke yourself when you sit here and turn on good people.
When you attack good and men of God, you're kicking against the pricks.
You're changing your name from Pashur to Maghur Masabib.
And there's just going to be terror on every side and you know what you're often going to see.
You're going to see your works destroyed.
You're going to see your friends' works destroyed.
And boy, I've seen that in real life.
I've seen pastors attack and criticize good men of God, who are right, who are preaching the truth,
and you see the works of their hands completely destroyed.
Guess what, my friend? God is real. God is active in our lives,
and our ministry is going to succeed by one person's will, God's will.
And if we piss him off, and if we turn against him, and if our hand is against the work of God,
then we will fail. We will fail.
But you know, if God be for us, who could be against us?
So this is why you got to get this mentality out of your head of just like,
oh, I heard people talking crap about me, this woman's mad at me,
this ex-new IV person doesn't like me, they called me a cold,
they're mad about the sign, they're mad about whatever.
It's just like you're the loser who's failing in life,
who's against God, who God is against,
and our church has won over 2,000 people to the Lord this year.
not by our own might or strength.
It's not the glory to us, it's the glory to God.
But you know what, if we want that type of a result,
if we want to do more works for God in the future,
then we better not turn against those who are righteous.
We better not attack men of God. We better not turn against them, you know, the kingdom of God
There's enough room for all of us. There's enough work to do for all of us
And you don't have to have this mentality that someone else's success is your failure
Someone else doing good is your failure. You know, that is such a carnal stupid attitude. Do not have that attitude. Let's keep reading
In verse number five, moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city
and all the labors thereof, and all the precious things thereof,
and all the treasures of the kings of Judah,
will I give unto the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them,
and take them and carry them to Babylon.
And thou, pasher, and all that dwell in thine house, shall go into captivity,
and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die.
and shall be buried there, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied, lies."
Man, Jeremiah is hardcore.
But you know what? This idiot pastor, his life didn't have to go this way.
This guy was of the lineage of Aaron. He's of the priesthood. He's chief governor of the house of the Lord
I mean what more does this guy need? Why is he turning against the truth? Why is he preaching lies?
You know that even save people even people who claim to be on God's side can preach lies
This is why it's so important that you read your Bible every single day
And it's just one of the things that I feel like I say
And just some people, they just never actually put it into practice.
You need to read the Bible every day.
Because men of God can get backslidden, they could get selfish, they could get prideful,
they could start doing their own agendas, and they could distance themselves from the truth,
distance themselves from men of God preaching the truth, and they could preach lies.
And that leads to destruction.
You know what? When people follow bad preaching, they have real negative consequences in their life.
Preaching is a very serious ordeal.
It's a very serious job because the things that are preached behind the pulpit are going
to affect people's life for good or for bad.
And you know, rather than being the best speaker in the world or worrying about all the clicks,
all you need to be worried about when you're preaching is what you're saying, true.
because if you're preaching the truth,
then positive is going to come from that.
If you're preaching lies, people's lives will be hurt.
But you know what? You also have a responsibility
not to follow lies.
Not to just because,
hey, this guy's one of the sons of Aaron.
Hey, this guy's in a position of authority.
So we're just going to follow Pashr.
No, no, no. Pashr's wrong. Jeremiah is right.
Go to Numbers chapter number 12.
Numbers chapter number 12.
Realize that God will punish those who reject the truth and attack men of God.
You see this happen over and over in the Bible.
Look at Numbers chapter 12, verse 1, the Bible says,
So Moses, he made a decision to marry this Ethiopian woman and Miriam and Aaron start talking crap about him.
Start criticizing him for that.
You know, I've heard different interpretations as to whether or not Moses was even right in this situation.
Some people say, hey, there's no big deal with who he married and so they shouldn't have been criticizing him.
Also, you know, in the Old Testament,
the Bible makes it very clear that you weren't supposed to marry the heathen
nations because their heart, they could turn away your heart from serving the
Lord. I'm not dogmatic about this. I don't care if you disagree.
It's totally fine.
I tend to think that it probably was not the best decision for Moses to have
married this Ethiopian woman.
But that does not mean that just because the man of God made a mistake that now
all of a sudden Miriam and Aaron can start just walking all over him,
usurping his authority just because he made a mistake.
And I actually think that my interpretation of this story
lends more to the powerful lesson of not rebelling against authority
and not crap talking the man of God even more
if he even is in the wrong in this situation.
Because notice how God feels about it. It says,
And they said,
So notice, people get disgruntled.
They find a mistake, even a legitimate mistake.
Something was done wrong, that person, you know,
all people are sinners.
No one's perfect, passes are not perfect.
And so people who get disgruntled,
maybe even they point out something that's true,
that they couldn't at pick,
but they just allow that bitterness
to start creeping into their heart.
And instead of just being gracious,
like you would want God to be gracious to you,
for all of your sins and shortcomings and faults,
people who are prideful, they now want to be like,
oh, you know, Moses isn't special.
Has God only spoken by Moses?
Hasn't he also spoken by us?
You know, we're just as good.
We're just as righteous as Moses.
But here's the truth.
Look at verse three.
Now, the man Moses was very meek above all the men
which were upon the face of the earth.
See, God knows the truth.
Men of God, they're often criticized for being super prideful and always trying to start strife.
But it's like when you actually know these men, you know that that's not true.
And Moses here is insinuating that he's lifting himself up, that God is only speaking by him and not by anyone else.
But the reality is that he was the meekest man on the earth.
And you know, I think of a guy like Pastor Anderson, I know Pastor Anderson, and there's
all these people that accuse him of being, you know, over the top and a cult leader and
prideful.
But Pastor Anderson is a very humble person.
He really is.
If you know him, he is actually a very humble person.
And you know what?
It's just funny today how you just see history repeat itself.
You see the Bible come to life where someone in reality is humble and they're dedicating
their whole life to the ministry to serve other people and what do they get in return?
That's the wickedness of man today.
And it's the same thing today.
Verse 4,
And the Lord spake suddenly into Moses and unto Aaron and unto Miriam.
Come out, E3, unto the tabernacle of the congregation.
And they three came out.
And the Lord came down in a pillar of a cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle,
and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forth.
And he said, Here now my words, if there be a prophet among you,
I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision,
and will speak unto him in a dream.
My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
Him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches.
In the similitude of the Lord shall he behold, wherefore, then, were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"
He's saying, look, Moses is such a great guy in my eyes that normally, when I talk to someone, it's in a dream, it's in dark things.
Think about, for example, Joseph. Joseph is a very righteous man, but he gets dreams from God.
where, you know, the skinny corn is taken over the fat corn and the skinny cows are eating the great cows.
He kind of gets this cryptic dark message from God.
And here's the thing, Joseph's great.
Joseph's an awesome man of God, but he's still getting visions from the Lord.
But Moses is so great that God is speaking with him mouth to mouth even apparently.
And he's just saying like, how are you so stupid that you are not afraid to speak against my best friend here, Moses?
You know, and that's the that's the attitude that we should have today that, hey, even if you can,
You know, put your finger on something that a pastor didn't say perfectly or did something wrong.
You know, we should be afraid to talk crap about and to speak against other men of God.
You know, even myself as a pastor, I don't just give myself free license just because I'm a pastor to go and rip other pastors to shreds.
That's not how I do business. And it's funny, I still address pastors that have turned on us as their name pastor.
I still give them that respect. I will not allow anyone to lie about a pastor to rail against a pastor.
You know, that is absolutely wicked to sit there and rail against someone.
There's a certain way that you have to treat someone who's in that position whether you like them or not.
Now, what about when they're actually really righteous and really awesome and really doing
great works for God?
How much more should you honor and respect that person and not sit here and just criticize
and nitpick them like they were doing here?
Verse nine in the anger of the Lord was kindled against them and he departed and the cloud departed from off the tabernacle and behold
Miriam was leprous
White as snow and Aaron looked upon Miriam and behold. She was leprous look people could sit here and make fun of us and say
Oh, we're in a cold
We're Kool-Aid drinkers because we want to stick up for our friends and honor other pastors
But at the end of the day, I'm just trying to get God not to be angry with you
That's what I'm trying to do because when Christians get into this trap of getting bitter
and running their mouth, you are turning God's anger against you.
You know, Pashur did not turn out well when he turned on Jeremiah.
And so I don't like seeing Christians destroyed and going down that road.
And so that's why I preach these things.
Go back to Jeremiah chapter number 20.
So Jeremiah, he rebukes Pashur.
Then Jeremiah starts praying to the Lord.
Look at verse number seven.
Oh Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I, and that's
prevailed. I am in derision daily. Everyone mocketh me. So here we really see Jeremiah
starting to come low. He's starting to get depressed. He's really starting to get black
You deceived me. Now is that true? No, it's not but that's how he's perceiving the situation
He's getting down to the dumps. He's saying you're stronger than I and it's like Jeremiah
Did you expect that to be anything different? Did you expect to be stronger than God? You know, he's like
What do you what are you saying here Jeremiah? It says I'm in derision daily everyone mocketh me
You know what, how it feels sometimes to be a preacher is that you're in derision daily and everyone mocks you.
But here's the thing that could help you from getting blackpilled is to have realistic expectations for serving God.
If you think that you're going to go out and be a soul winner and knock on thousands of
doors in your life and you're never going to get yelled at, you're never going to get
cussed at, you're never going to get chased out of the apartment complex or something
like that, you've just got unrealistic expectations.
And if you think everyone's going to love you and be your friend and thank you and praise
you for being a soul winner, and then all of a sudden you face persecution, you might
be like, God, you've deceived me.
I'm in derision daily. Everyone's mocking me. What's going on here?
Well, you had the wrong expectations, okay?
I think Jeremiah, he might not have fully understood and really thought about
the expectations that he was facing for his ministry.
Because Jeremiah's ministry was one of preaching and being hated and rejected
and persecuted and thrown in the dungeon and the mire and then Judah gets destroyed by Babylon the end.
Wow, that's not fun.
You know, I hope that we're not living in Jeremiah days
where we're just preaching the word of God
and there's just a lot of people against us and we just face persecution.
You know, it'd be nice to have the Josiah days.
That'd be great.
But here's the thing.
You got to go into life with the right expectations.
And if you have expectations of,
hey, people are going to hate me.
They're going to speak negatively of me.
They're going to lie about me.
They're going to publish untrue things about me, and then it happens, you could say,
that's all right, because I already counted the cost.
I already knew that was going to happen.
When you start getting serious serving God, and you come to a church like this,
and you start soul winning, and you know, you use your vacation time to go on a mission trip,
and your family hears, oh, you're going to the Bahamas!
And you're like, yeah, to preach the gospel every day.
And they're just like, huh, what's wrong with you?
Oh, are you guys in a cult?
You know, if you expect that beforehand, you can count the cost and then you can endure
it better than just thinking that your life is going to be perfect.
You know, this prosperity gospel that has been preached is a lie, folks.
Go to John, or I'm sorry, go to 2 Timothy chapter number three, 2 Timothy chapter number three.
God did not promise you a prosperity gospel.
that you'll be wealthy, that you will have all the desires that you could ever want,
that your life will be the American dream, and you will have a two-car garage,
and you'll have a hot tub, and you'll have the nice vacations,
and you'll have... God does not promise you that! Don't go into your life expecting that,
and then all of a sudden you're going to be disappointed when it doesn't happen.
God does not promise you that.
Look what the Bible says, 2 Timothy 3, verse 10.
But that was fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions,
which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra.
What persecutions I endured, but out of them all, the Lord delivered me.
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has to been assured of knowing of whom thou hast
Learned them. Here's what the Bible actually says is yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution
That is what you can actually expect if you want to live a godly life
You show me a church that never gets persecuted
Everyone loves them, the mayor loves them, the news media loves them.
They just have tons of money, tons of prosperity, nothing goes wrong for them.
That's a church that's not godly.
Okay, they may preach the gospel, they may preach John 3.16,
but you know what, they're leaving out Jeremiah chapter 20.
They're leaving out the hard preaching of God's Word.
They're leaving out the things that actually could potentially piss anyone off in our society today.
And you know what? If you're not godly, you're not going to have persecution.
Those who are godly, it's not you might receive persecution, it's you will receive persecution.
Now look, it's not that we're, you know, looking for persecution or that we're trying to get persecution.
Actually, as much as life in us, we're supposed to live peaceably with all men.
When we speak, we're for peace, there for war.
We're trying to have peace, we're trying to reach people to the gospel.
We're trying to get along with our neighbors and with our community,
but here's the thing, the word of God divides.
Jesus Christ divides, the truth of God's word divides.
And when you preach the truth, you're going to piss off the devil and his minions
and a lot of the unsaved and unfortunately even the passers of this world as well.
And so what you should expect is persecution.
You should expect evil men and seducers to wax worse and worse.
As we see the day of Christ approaching,
you should expect overall the world in general to get worse, not better.
Can there be exceptions? Can there be pockets of Goshen? I believe that.
Communities that want to follow the Word of God can be blessed, absolutely.
But you know what? In general, our world's getting more violent.
It's getting more evil.
We're seeing huge population of our country just as no problem with someone being murdered for their political views.
They think that's totally okay.
They think that's great.
Evil men and seducers are waxing worse and worse and worse.
That's what you should actually expect.
That's what you should look forward to.
Go to John 16.
John 16.
By the way, again, this is why you got to read your Bible so that you can know what to expect.
Not your own presuppositions of what you think your life is going to be like serving God.
but the reality from the words of God.
John 16-1.
Jesus said,
These things have I spoken unto you that ye should not be offended.
See, being offended, right, or stumbling in your walk for God, quitting on God, you could be offended if you expected there to be no persecution.
If you thought, okay Jesus, I'm signing up to serve you and I'm going to get health and money and everything's going to go great,
and then when that doesn't happen, you could be offended.
You could say, whoa Lord, I didn't know that that's what you wanted me to do.
He's saying, hey, I already told you.
I'm saying this so that you won't get offended.
They shall put you out of the synagogues.
Yay, the time cometh
that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doeth God's service.
You know what we could expect?
We could expect this world to get so wicked
that we could even be killed
by individuals who think that they're doing God's service.
That's what you should expect.
And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor me.
But these things have I told you that when the time come you may remember that I told
you of them.
And these things I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you.
So when we face persecution, opposition, hatred, lies, you know, ex-new IFB haters, stuff like that,
just say, hey, I expected this. I knew this was going to come.
The Bible says we're going to be hated of all men for his name's sake.
The Bible says that when we're hated of this world, we're supposed to rejoice, we're supposed to leap for joy
because we're counted worthy to suffer for his name.
Not everyone out there is suffering for the name of Jesus Christ.
Not everyone's going to die a martyr.
Not everyone's going to face persecution.
It's the godly who are doing that.
And you know what? You should expect that and count yourself
joyous and excited when it happens.
Go back to Jeremiah 20.
So I think that's one area where
Jeremiah's mindset is off here.
He's getting depressed.
He's saying, God, you deceived me.
Why? Because I think he had some unrealistic expectations
of what his ministry would be like.
Look at verse 8.
For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily.
You would think, hey, those who are preaching the Word of God, those who are standing on the truth,
things are going to go good for them because they're the good guys, right?
He's saying, actually, by preaching the truth and by preaching the Word of God,
it was actually made a reproach unto me daily.
He's saying, my life has just been hard every single day.
I'm just having problems and issues every single day.
People hate me.
This bozo is smiting me.
He's punching me.
He's putting me in the stocks.
He's like, let his name be Magor Mashabib or whatever the heck his name is, you know?
He's like, let his name be changed.
He's just saying like, man, this is hard. This sucks. This happens.
You know, the Apostle Paul had very similar emotions.
Keep your place there. Go to 1 Corinthians 4.
1 Corinthians 4.
There's a lot of similarities between the Apostle Paul's ministry and Jeremiah's ministry.
A lot of the same feelings that they go through.
1 Corinthians 4, verse 8.
Notice the Apostle Paul's little bit of frustration here, he's saying,
now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us,
and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.
He's saying, look, by the ministry that we're doing,
you guys are rich, you guys are full, you guys are reigning,
and he's saying, look, I'm happy for that, that's what I want.
I want to see God's people prospering,
because when God's people prosper, the minister prospers.
You know, the minister wants people to be spiritually enriched.
That's his life's work.
That's his goal.
He loves to see that.
He says in verse 9,
For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last
as it were appointed to death.
For we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men.
He's saying, look, you guys are fed, you guys are rich, you guys are reigning as kings.
But let me tell you what my life is like.
I'm made a spectacle to the world.
The apostles, they're made a spectacle.
People look at them and they laugh and they say, is this a joke?
Is this real?
I mean, I see preaching clips of really good preachers.
You see the comments saying like, is this satire?
Is this comedy?
It's like, no, this is the word of God.
But you know, if you preach the Word of God, you should expect to be a spectacle to this world.
Wasn't Jesus made a spectacle to this world on the cross?
Absolutely.
That's actually what we can expect.
To angels and to men, you know, we are fools for Christ's sake.
But ye are wise in Christ.
We are weak, but ye are strong.
Ye are honorable.
But we are despised. It's funny how that works.
The Apostle Paul, in reality, he's no fool. He's extremely wise.
He's an extreme hard worker. He's an extreme good example.
But yet, for the name of Christ, people look at Paul
and say, what a buffoon. What an idiot. What a clown.
What a moron. All these just hard speeches and hard sayings
that people will just throw at him when in reality
He's wise.
And all of his followers, they're adulated and congratulated, and they say, like, man,
this is a wise man, this is a pillar of our community, man, we really like this guy on
the job, who he's a Christian, he's a hard worker, and he's smart, oh man, but the pastor
of that guy is a freak.
I mean, the pastor of that guy is a moron, and a loser, and has no education or whatever.
He's saying, like, this is what Paul's life was like.
He says, you're honorable, we're despised.
Even unto this present hour, we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted
and have no certain dwelling place.
Right? So some people, you know, they're dedicating their whole life to their secular work.
Nothing wrong with that. That's great.
They build a great business. They make all sorts of money.
They're financially prosperous. Praise God. There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
But you know what? That wasn't the apostle Paul's life.
The apostle Paul's life was him working two jobs and not even taking money from his work as an apostle
so that he could just provide for things honest on the side of God and men and just to set a good example.
He's saying like, hey, I have power to do this, but I'm just not using this power.
And so he's not sitting here rich, living a lavish life, living in all the luxuries
that many of the people he's preaching and ministering to do enjoy, right?
So Paul's not experiencing that.
and labor, working with our own hands, being reviled, we bless.
Being persecuted, we suffer it.
Being defamed, we entreat.
We are made as the filth of the world
and are the off-scouring of all things under this day.
I write not these things to shame you,
but as my beloved sons, I warn you.
Right? So he's saying, like, hey, I'm not shaming you.
I'm not trying to make you guys feel bad because this is just how it is.
And this is just the reality of this line of work.
And he's saying, I'm not writing this to shame you,
but I am writing these things to warn you.
It's like, hey, if you want to go into the ministry,
if you want to be a pastor, if you want to be an evangelist,
if you want to be a deacon, you know, you should fully count the cost
and realize that, you know, if you really enjoy your free time,
If you really enjoy personal vacations, if you really enjoy, you know, not working two jobs or
whatever, if you really enjoy all these things, you know what, then you probably shouldn't go
into that line of work. It should be something that comes from the heart that, hey, you're realizing
what you're facing, you realize what you're going to have to sacrifice, then you do it of a joyful
heart. You do it willingly because you love God's people and you love the work of God,
but he's saying, I want to warn you, why? So that people don't have the wrong expectations.
where they think, oh, I thought if I was going to become a pastor,
I was going to be like one of these Calvinists
that just sits in a high tower reading books about soteriology all day or something
and thinking I was going to get a six-figure paycheck for that.
It's like, no, that's not what it's like.
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of stress.
You know, and it's a great job. I love it.
But it's like, I like that the Bible warns us, though, what it's really like,
so that we can actually know before going into something like that.
Go back to Jeremiah 20.
And so, hey, man, Jeremiah, bro, had a hard life.
And it's not because he wasn't righteous.
He was a great man of God.
He was the prophet at that time.
He was the righteous one.
He was speaking the words of God, saying the truth.
He was the one that had the guts to preach a negative message
when other people didn't want to hear it.
Yet, his life was that of getting beat up.
getting, you know, railed against, getting thrown in prison,
getting thrown in the dungeon, not having good food, not having good lodging, not
having vacations,
not enjoying the things of this life. His life was just
hard on hard on hard on hard, yet he was righteous.
Yet he was the good guy.
And, you know, for us, whether you're a pastor, whether you never want to be a pastor, whether
you just want to serve God as a godly Christian for the rest of your life, here's what you
can expect.
Yea, an all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Whether you want to be a pastor or not, and here's the thing.
The more you want to do good for God, the more righteous you want to be, the bigger vision
you have for your life, probably the more that God will try you and test you and purge
you in your life.
that you may have to face.
That's going to look different for all of us,
however that is, but you should expect those things.
Notice the point where Jeremiah got to
in his life in verse nine.
He says, then I said,
I will not make mention of him,
nor speak any more in his name.
You know, that's a sad thing to hear from a man of God,
from a good man of God, from a righteous man of God,
from the guy who's preaching the truth.
What a sad thing he gets to the point where he says like,
I'm done.
I quit, I give up.
And look, I think that I've been pastoring
for a very short amount of time,
but I think that any pastor who's been pastoring
for a long amount of time
has probably felt this at some point.
And I remember asking a pastor, I won't say who this is.
This was like when I first got saved, I asked a pastor,
I said, have you ever quit,
or have you ever thought about quitting?
And he said, are you asking like,
How many times today? How many times this week? How many times this month?
Because it's a hard job, right? And he's joking. This person loves
passers. He's a great pastor. But I just remember that always stuck in my head.
Like, okay, this is a real job. This is really hard.
These guys are, you know, hard workers. And I respect
pastors for the work that they do. But you know, even Jeremiah.
A good man, he gets the point where he says,
I am going to quit.
And here's the thing we got to realize is that the devil would love nothing more
than for you and I to quit serving God.
Because here's the thing, you can't lose your salvation.
There's no chance that we can go to hell once you've believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so what's the best, the next best thing for the devil to do
is to send some sort of temptation in your life
to get you to just blow up your life with sin or to get you to get
discouraged or to get you to be like battle weary,
oh I'm sick of the fight, I'm sick of the battle, I'm sick of people turning on me,
I'm sick of people backstabbing me, I'm sick of pouring out to people
And I'm sick of expecting one thing and getting another.
I'm not speaking in the name of the Lord anymore.
That is what the devil wants for me and for you.
And guess what?
It's for all of us because we all have a very important role to play in the Kingdom of God.
And you know what?
Man, woman, boy, and girl should be a soul winner for Jesus Christ.
Should be out reaching people with the gospel.
And you know what?
Every single soldier that gets taken out of the battle is a serious hit to the Kingdom of God.
It's a bad deal. There's people now who you could have reached.
There's more people who could have been reached that now are not going to be reached
because you got out of the fight and the devil would love nothing more than for us to do that.
Go to 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Corinthians chapter number 9.
1 Corinthians chapter number 9, verse 24.
Again, back to the Apostle Paul because there's just so many similarities between them.
Verse 24,
So Paul relates the Christian life to that of running a race.
And I like it when the Bible relates things to sports.
I love sports.
I love athletic activities.
And he's relating serving God to this race.
It says in verse 25,
But we an incorruptible so if someone's running a physical race some sort of marathon some sort of Olympic athlete
They're going to be temperate in all things. They are going to track how much they are sleeping
They're going to make sure they get the right amount of sleep
They're going to make sure that they're hitting the gym when they need to
They're going to make sure that they're running their running plan perfectly.
They're going to make sure that they're getting the right macros,
that they're getting the right food, that they're avoiding the wrong type of food,
that they're not out drinking alcohol and doing drugs.
They're going to be temperate in their life.
You see a very, very, very successful athlete.
You will see someone who is very disciplined.
a very temperate person.
Now, they do that for a corruptible crown.
There's people that are that disciplined
and that, you know, temperate
to receive the Olympic gold medal,
to receive the World Series trophy,
to receive the Super Bowl trophy,
to receive some sort of adulation from this world.
How much more should we make sure we're being temperate,
that we're being disciplined,
that we're walking circumspectly
in the race that we run
which is so much more important than any of those things?
How much more should we be making sure that we're doing what?
Let's keep reading. It says,
He does not want to be taken out of the race of the Christian life.
And how is he going to do that? He needs to bring under his body.
He needs to bring it under subjection
because there's a certain way that you have to live
if you're going to have longevity in the Christian life.
Not talking about salvation,
but talking about being a faithful servant of God for decades and decades and decades.
Let me tell you, people who faithfully serve God for decades,
they're not out committing fornication.
They're not blowing up their marriage with adultery.
They're not out being a bunch of drunks.
They're living disciplined lives.
They're waking up and reading their Bible.
They're praying to the Lord, they're going soul winning, they're doing these things so they don't get taken out of the race.
Of course, what would the devil love us to do? He wants to take us out of that race.
So what would he love to do? To send that temptation in your path.
to try to tempt you to get involved in major sin that's going to derail you or that's going to try to tempt you to
Get discouraged and get bitter at your pastor and get angry at your brother and sisters in Christ and get you to get out
Of church and into a do-nothing church or into no church at all. I mean the devil's gonna take his wins however he can
But it's like, hey, the Christian life is a race.
Sometimes when you're running, man, you feel great, right?
Maybe some people can't relate with what I'm saying.
But sometimes when you're running, you feel great,
you're enjoying it, and you feel like the same
as if you were just sitting on the couch.
You just feel great.
Other times, there's weeping and screaming and guttural noises and sometimes you literally puke.
I mean, I did that earlier this year. I was just running and I just vomited during my run and that wasn't fun.
But it's like, here's the thing, here's what you do in those situations.
When you have a goal and you say, hey, I'm running this amount today, period.
When it gets hard, here's what you do. You slow down, but you don't stop.
Hey crawl on your face if you have to but don't stop don't quit
And it's so just frustrating to me when I see Christians where it's like they're running this marathon
And you've seen them like they started getting sin out of their life and they're like all right
They're five miles into the race man. They got three to thrive. They're like another five miles into the race
Man, they became a soul winner. They got their first salvation. They started doing great things
They started working hard. They're reading the Bible. They're memorizing chapters
And it's like man, you're like 25 miles into this thing. You're right there and you see them just quit
You just see them give up and it's like dude
Don't give up if you have to crawl crawl
If you have to walk, walk.
Look, if you can't go soloing five times a week, that's okay.
But don't just stop soloing.
Look, I'm all for being three to thrive.
I've been three to thrive since I've been saved.
But look, if something happens in your life
where you can only make the Sunday morning service,
hey, then just keep making the Sunday morning service.
Don't just give up.
Don't have this mentality where it's like,
well, you know, if I can't be running a seven-minute mile,
then I can't be running at all.
No, just keep running your race.
Do not get to the point where Jeremiah's gotten to where he's just so frustrated, he's so
black-pilled that he says, you know what, I'm just done.
If you gotta walk, walk.
If you gotta crawl, crawl, but you know what, do not stop soul-winning, do not stop praying,
do not stop coming to church, and it's just weird how some people have this all-or-nothing
mentality where you look at them and just things are going great, they're making so
many changes, they're full steam ahead, and then they get a stomach cramp and they stop.
And it's like, not only do they stop, but they don't run again for three more months.
And it's like, bro, run at a pace you could just keep going.
I would rather someone, and, you know, people like to accuse us falsely that, you know,
if you're not three to thrive, you're not welcome at the new IFB,
and, you know, we don't want a fellowship with anyone who's not in the Special Forces,
that's a bunch of bull crap.
I want to reach people who are unsaved, and I want to get them saved,
and I want to teach them the milk of the word, and I want them to start crawling spiritually,
and I want them to start toddling spiritually.
And yeah, of course, my goal for every Christian is to be an elite Christian someday.
But look, I just want more Christians doing something for God.
And you know people who want to get better in life people who want to become a better Christian people who want to love God more
Those people are welcome at Anchor Baptist Church. It's just insane that I even have to say that
But sometimes there's just so many lies about our church
Coming from wicked evil people that I feel like sometimes even good people start to believe them
I'm just like shaking my head
You know people people that I love that I'm rooting for that I'm praying for and then I hear they're just like
Yeah, I don't know if I'd be welcome back. It's like what are you talking about?
It's like I'm praying for you all the time
Where are you getting this mentality? You're just listening to the devil whispering in your ear trying to get you to stop running the Christian race
That's what's happening. Don't get to that point
Go back to Jeremiah chapter 20
Jeremiah chapter number 20
Jeremiah 20 verse 9 says then I said I will not make mention of him nor speak anymore in his name
He gets to this dark point, but you know what I like about Jeremiah?
He did not stay there long, because look at the next words.
But, his word was in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was weary
with for bearing, and I could not stay.
You know, sometimes the only thing that will keep you going in life is the word of God.
Look, we need physical strength in our life to do stuff, right?
We need food to give us energy.
We need sleep to give us energy.
But here's the thing, the Word of God is the only thing sometimes that can give you
that spiritual energy that you need to keep going.
And when you feel low, when you feel discouraged, when you start feeling black-pilled,
that's when you just need to stop everything you're doing in your life,
and you just need to spend a ton of time in the Word of God.
Because Jeremiah's ready to quit, but he says,
but his word was in my heart as a burning fire.
And you know, I could tell you, this is what I do.
You know, the last month has just been sad and crazy and a lot of bad things have happened
and I have just poured myself into the Bible and it has helped me a lot.
And I'm sure those of you out there have done the same thing, can attest.
Absolutely. The Word of God recharges you in a way that nothing else can.
That an extra nap cannot do. That some extra food cannot do.
The Word of God gives you that spiritual nourishment, that fire in your bones
that drives you to keep going despite getting beaten.
despite being hated, despite being spoken against, Jeremiah is still going to preach the Word of God
because it's just a fire in his bones.
I'll read for you Psalm 119 verse 165.
Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.
This verse is often interpreted to talk about having in your feelings hurt,
and I think that's one interpretation of this verse.
But to offend in the Bible often means to cause to stumble.
to cause to trip, to cause to quit.
You know what this is really saying?
Is that great peace have they which love thy law,
for nothing shall offend them.
Meaning, look, if you love the Bible,
if the Bible's at the center of your life,
if you read the Bible every day,
there's nothing that'll cause you to quit serving God.
You know how to be steadfast? It's loving God's word.
You know how to be a good Christian? It's to read and love God's word.
How to be a good pastor is to read and love God's word.
How to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ is to read and to love God's word.
Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them.
It's not saying things are going to tick you off or hurt your feelings.
It's saying that whatever comes your way, nothing's going to make you quit.
That's what that is saying.
How do you look at a guy like the Apostle Paul who didn't quit?
It's because he loved God's word.
It's because he loved the word of God.
Nothing made him offend.
I'll read for you Joshua 1-8.
I don't know how many times I have to say it.
You have to read your Bible every single day.
That's what the Bible is telling.
That's what God is telling Joshua here is saying,
hey, this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth.
You must meditate therein day and night.
Then you'll make your way prosperous.
Then you'll have good success.
How is it that Christians go their whole life?
How is it that someone serves God for decades and decades
and makes it all the way to the end of their life,
faithfully serving God unto the bitter end?
I'll tell you what it is above anything else.
It's someone who reads their Bible faithfully.
You show me a Christian who has longevity in life and serves God for a long time and someone who quits
I guarantee you the difference between those people is one was reading their Bible and one was not
That is the biggest like I think if you could look at anything in a person to judge
Where is this person going to be in 10 years? Where is this person to be in 20 years?
It's are they reading their Bible now?
If you're not reading your Bible now
If you don't read the Bible every day if you've never started that daily discipline you are likely to quit at some point in your life
I will not see you in 10 years if you're not a reader of your Bible.
I'd like to, but you know, if I'm going to see you in 10 years,
if I'm going to see you in 20 years,
you've got to be reading your Bible every single day.
Look at verse 10 of Jeremiah 20.
He says,
saying per adventure he will be enticed and we shall prevail against him and we shall take our revenge on him.
Notice there's all these people watching Jeremiah that just want him to fail.
Even his familiars, his friends, right?
His friends are looking at him.
They can't wait for him to trip up.
They can't wait for him to fail.
And so, hey, he gets to the point.
He wants to quit, but he says, man, you know what?
The Word of God is burning in my bones right now.
And look at all these wicked people
that are just ready to gloat and cheer
in my failure, in my destruction.
You know what? We, as Christians,
we are ambassadors of Christ.
We bear the name of Jesus Christ.
You know, our reputation in some ways is Jesus' reputation.
And you know what the devil would love?
He would love to see God's people get weak and scared and quit.
And the world, the liberals, the wicked of this world,
they would love to see Christians cowering,
not standing boldly on the truth.
You know, and even just the carnal Christians that despise us because they're just backslidden and wicked,
they too would love to see our church fail.
They would love to see you stop serving God.
They would love to see all other servants of God quit because they're just envious.
You know, they want that glory for themselves.
Whatever the motivation is, just realize there's lots of people that want your demise,
that want your downfall.
And you know what? One of those people is not me.
I'm not your enemy.
And when I preach the word of God in a sermon, steps on your toes,
I'm doing that because I love you and I want you to stay on the right path
and I want you to serve God and I want you to be faithful unto the end.
But you know what?
The devil would love to put those seeds of doubt in your mind and be like,
oh, someone preached against me. They don't like me.
No, that means they do like you, actually.
You know who doesn't like you?
Is all the bozos that want to live worldly,
backslidden, carnal lives like them, joining them.
Go to, if you would.
Verse number 11, here's another thing you got to do.
Here's what you got to do when you get blackpilled, when you get into this position.
Verse 11,
But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one.
Therefore my persecutors shall stumble and they shall not prevail.
They shall be greatly ashamed for they shall not prosper.
Their everlasting confusion shall not be forgotten.
Here's what you got to do when you get back blackpilled.
You have to focus on the positive.
You cannot just allow your mind to be just soaking and soaking in all the negativity and evil of this world.
You will not be able to mentally withstand that.
And you know what, this is why social media is a weapon of mass distraction, by the way,
because the algorithms are just tailored design to you to keep you scrolling and to show you
the most shocking things that you never would have heard about otherwise.
And to show you some horrible image to make you mad, to make you hateful, to make you
angry about something.
And look, if you just spend all day on social media, you're going to be a depressed, mentally
And we have to realize like this is a modern problem.
We need to face this problem. Other generations did not have this problem.
And realize that it is not good for you mentally or spiritually
to spend your entire life scrolling on your phone.
And we have to figure out some ways to make some distance from our phones
to actually be with our family, to actually be with the Word of God.
I really, really hope that you do not only have the Bible on an app.
I'm for having the Bible on an app.
But I'm also for making sure that you have a Bible
so that you could put your phone away while you go read your Bible.
And not constantly have notification, notification.
Oh, look at this other murder you need to see.
Oh, here's this other shooting you need to see.
Oh, here's this other stabbing you need to see real quick.
It's like, man, there's so much distraction in this world.
There's so many things that are just trying to make us negative.
But I like Jeremiah here.
He just says, hey, the Lord is with me as a mighty, terrible one.
Yeah, things are bad, he's getting beat up, he's getting turned on, people want him to quit.
He himself wants to quit, but he's like, oh yeah, but the Lord is with me though.
And that's what we got to remember.
More importantly than any man standing with us, than any friend or familiar standing with
us, or family member standing with us, or liking us, or giving us an adaboi or something
like that, is just having God on our side.
Making sure that we're on God's side.
And of course, he also gets encouraged by the fact that these wicked people shall not prosper.
He says, they're everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.
You know, that's something that you can comfort yourself with too.
Hey, these people that are not on the Lord's side, they're going to see real soon whose side they're on.
Go to 2 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 4.
While you're turning there, Romans 8.31 says, what shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
We constantly have to remind ourselves with that truth, because in this world we're going to feel outnumbered,
we're going to feel outgunned, we're going to feel helpless sometimes.
But we have to remember, hey, if God is for us, who can be against us?
If we are in the will of God, that's the best place to be, no matter what happens.
2 Timothy 4, verse 14, Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works of whom be thou where also, for he hath greatly withstood our words.
So again, the apostle Paul and Jeremiah, they just went through so many of the same things.
He's saying, I've got all these evil people withstanding us, with their hard speeches, with their words.
And he's like, I'm not going to forget this. I'm not going to forget what they're doing.
Verse 16, at my first answer,
no man stood with me,
but all men forsook me.
So the apostle Paul knows what Jeremiah went through.
He's saying, like, man, I'm alone.
Everyone turned on me even though
the guy was the greatest Christian probably who's ever lived.
Did so much where he labored more abundantly than they all.
Yet everyone forsook him.
But notice what he says,
I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.
that by me the preaching might be fully known
and that the Gentiles might hear
and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion
and the Lord shall deliver me
from every evil work
and I will preserve me
unto his heavenly kingdom
to whom be glory forever and ever
Amen."
He's saying, hey, yeah, everyone turned away from me
no one stood with me
but at least the Lord stood with me.
You know sometimes that's all we have to solace ourselves is to say like man all these bozos are losing their mind and
People are just falling away from right doctrine and people aren't believing the truth
But it's like I see the words on my on the page right here that what I'm saying is the truth
And if I'm staying with the truth then the Lord is standing with me then I can know for sure. I'm on the right side
How do you know you're on the Lord's side?
When you're doing what the Bible says.
When you're preaching what the Bible preaches.
You know, serving God's not some sort of emotional experience.
Like the New Evangelical Churches make it out to be.
This fake Christianity today.
No, real Christianity is standing with what the Bible says.
And there's things today in our society
that the world does not like.
The world does not like preaching against fornication.
Being a whore before you're married.
You know, drinking alcohol.
How about Leviticus 2013?
And people are going to turn against us
and hate us and say we're worthy to be killed.
And people like Charlie Kirk should be killed.
But it's like at the end of the day the Lord's with us.
And who cares what this world says?
God's with us.
Go to Philippians chapter number four, Philippians chapter number four.
And so you got to remind yourself of those thoughts.
And look, I've been there.
I've had violent, evil, sodomites at my house threatening to kill me for years.
I've had the death threats.
I've had those moments where it just feels like,
all right, Lord, I'm trying to do what's right.
I'm trying to serve you.
You know, why is this happening?
I got to snap myself.
Oh yeah, the Bible said I should expect that.
Get back in the Bible.
Get that spirit refreshed by the Word of God.
Right?
And focus on the positive.
Look at Philippians 4 verse 8.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
This is the exact opposite of social media.
Social media is going to have you thinking on the exact opposite of all these things.
This is where the devil wants you mentally today,
is thinking about all the violence and hatred and destruction and evil and perverseness and just Satanism.
That's what the devil wants you thinking about today,
and we need to combat that by thinking about things that are positive.
You know, a good example is just everyone's been in the same mental space last few weeks, I think.
And one of the things I did is, man, I just turned off my phone, I got in my Bible,
I took my family out to a meal and just enjoyed some time with my kids
and with my wife and just thanking God for the gift of life,
thanking God that I have my spouse, my children, my friends,
my church, the King James Bible, a job, a vehicle that works, a house to live in, you know, life is good.
Focus on the positive.
If you sit here and you just live in black-pilled land,
you become an incel and you just, you know,
sit here and think about how no girl wants you
and, you know, finances are hard and, you know,
this world sucks, you know, you might become
someone who is dangerous to others or to yourself
or you might become someone who just quit serving God.
Make sure that you're focusing on the positive.
And look, I don't care who you are
or what you are going through,
you have something positive to think about.
I don't care if you're a quadriplegic with cancer.
If you're saved, you should be thankful for that.
I mean, I don't care if you're a war veteran
who has been, like, maimed, you know, in horrific ways.
If you're saved, you're going to heaven and getting a new body.
Hey, if you have eyes and you could read the King James Bible,
or if you have ears and you could hear the audio Bible,
you've got something to be thankful for.
And let's be honest, most of us are not war veterans
who are destroyed or quadriplegic, dying of cancer.
Our lives are just extremely blessed.
And we just have wonderful lives, great friends, tons of Bibles.
I have like 30 King James Bibles in my house.
Anyone else have just like a Bible for each room,
one for their car, one for their work office, one for soul winning,
one for preaching, one for just reading, one for taking notes.
I mean, man, we're blessed, right?
We've got good food.
We're living in America.
We're living in Oklahoma.
I'm living in Yukon even better. It just keeps getting better. You just keep dialing it in. You know what I mean?
Like our life is good folks, and we deserve way worse than what we get.
Any persecution we face, you know what? Just thank God that we're kind of worthy to face that.
And we need to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. We need to focus on the positive. Go back to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah.
Jeremiah chapter 20 verse 12 he says but oh Lord of hosts that triest notice that triest the righteous
and see us the reigns and the heart.
Let me see thy vengeance on them,
front of thee have I opened my cause."
Another thing we got to realize is that
God is going to try us in life.
God is going to purge us
like he talks about in John 15
so that we can bring forth more fruit.
So instead of having the attitude sometimes where it's like,
oh God, why have you deceived me?
God, why am I being made a reproach?
Why is everyone making fun of me?
Why is everyone lying about me?
Why am I going through all these hard things?
God's trying me. God's trying to make me a better person, a better Christian.
He's trying to make me come forth as gold. He's trying to make me, you know, be a more profitable
servant of God. And sometimes you just need to detach a little bit from your situation
and look at your life from that thousand foot view of saying like, hey, the situation's hard
right now. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but God can.
And I know that God wants what's best for me and I know that God wants me to be a productive servant of him more than I even want to.
And so I just got to trust him.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.
Lean not into thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.
Very famous verse, but man it's powerful when you actually do that.
When you actually trust in the Lord.
Look at verse number 13.
Jeremiah says,
Sing unto the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord.
for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evil doers.
One of the best things you could possibly do if you're feeling black-pilled,
if you're feeling down, is to sing unto the Lord.
That is a great tool that God's given us, you could stay there.
Ephesians 5,18 says,
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,
speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Hey, when you get sad, when you get depressed,
don't be an idiot that goes and drinks alcohol,
Right? Oh, you got the blues. Let's drain our sorrows in a bottle.
Don't be an idiot that goes and gets drunk because you're sad.
Why don't you start singing unto the Lord?
Why don't you start pouring out your heart to God?
Why don't you start praying?
Why don't you start singing to Him?
Why don't you show up to church and actually sing out the hymns?
You know, why don't you add some singing into your daily life?
You know, that's another thing I did the last few weeks.
Just crazy times.
I just was at home. I just got my guitar.
I started singing hymns to God and I felt better.
Anyone else ever done that before?
Yeah, it does work.
You know, God tells us that when we do that,
that we will be filled with the spirit of God.
your doubts and your trepidations and your desires to quit and your annoyance at
getting you know turned on or talked bad about you know goes away once you're
filled with the Spirit of God and you get re-centered in life and you say okay
I'm a servant of God I'm doing God's work something's hard right now but maybe
God's trying me God's trying to get me more wisdom he's trying to get me more
experience he's trying to make me go through something hard so maybe I could
help someone else go through something hard someday you know these are all
thoughts you have to realize could be part of your situation right now
Look at verse number 14
Here's here's what I love about this chapter before we read this verse is that the Bible is so real
The Bible does not try to make men of God look like sinless perfect saints who they never have a bad attitude
They never do anything wrong. Here's the Jeremiah is just a man just like me and you
Jeremiah had the same human experience that we had,
the same thoughts that we have,
the same temptations that we have.
And Jeremiah, he starts off,
he's preaching the word of God,
someone turns on him,
he gets pissed about it,
because guess what?
That's how we would feel too, right?
We'd get pissed about it.
He says, you know what, I'm changing your name,
you're now a proverb, you're a byword,
you're going to be called violence on every side,
fear on every side.
He's like, I'm sick of this bozo turning on me.
And then he's like, you know what?
I'm quitting.
Never mind, I'm not quitting.
right? He's like, you know, scratch that foolish thought. I'm not quitting because the word of God's
powerful is burning in my bones. And you know what? I'm going to focus on the positive because
God's with me. And I'm going to sing unto the Lord. And he's like on the right track. He's got the
right attitude. And here we go. Verse 14. Cursed be the day wherein I was born.
It's like, what happened?
What happened here?
Jeremiah is a human being.
It's what happened.
And you know what?
This is life.
This is real right here.
Where it's like, you know, you're having a bad attitude, but you go to church, you read
your Bible, you get filled with the Spirit, and you're on the right track, and then your
human flesh fails you again.
And you have this foolish thought again, curse it be the day wherein I was born.
Let not the day wherein my mother bear me be blessed,
cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father,
saying a man child is born unto thee, making him very glad.
And let that man be as the cities which the Lord
overthrew and repented not, and let
him hear the cry in the morning and the shouting at noontide,
because he slew me not from the womb.
Or that my mother might have been my grave
and her womb to always be great with me.
Wherefore came I forth out of the womb
to see labor and sorrow
that my days should be consumed with shame?
Wow.
I mean, that changed real fast.
Where it's just like,
hey, you know, God's with me.
I'm singing unto the Lord.
He's just like, why was I even ever born?
Curse would be the day I was born. Curse would be the person who brought tidings to my father saying,
hey, it's a boy, aren't you excited? He's like, I wish I would have just died in my mother's womb.
I wish I would have just never seen the light of day. This is a dark place, folks.
I mean, if I heard someone speaking like this, I would be very, very concerned. I'd be afraid
that this person's like on the verge of suicide or something. I'd be doing everything I can
to help that person because this is a dark, scary place to be. And I think this is the final lesson
From this story, from Jeremiah's experience here is that we need to serve God even when we don't feel like it.
There's going to be times where you do feel like life sucks, and that things seem hopeless.
And you don't understand why you're going through things that you're going through.
And you know what? You read your Bible, you go to church, you sing, you pray to God,
you feel better for a while, and then it's just back to misery, back to despair,
back to even despairing of life, which many men of God get there.
in their lives. And I know people who have been there in their lives.
It happens. It's normal. But what do you do when you get black-filled?
And you just, you've done all those things, you've done all the right things, and then
you're still discouraged.
You still feel like garbage. You still feel like giving up.
You just keep serving God anyways. That's what you do.
You say, I go soul-winning even when I'm sad, even when my life is falling apart.
Even when I've got personal problems. Yeah, that's what you do. You go to church
even when you and your personal life, when you're sorrowful. Yeah.
Hey, you get up and preach a sermon when even you've had a rough week. Yeah, you do you do
You love other people you minister to them you pray for them
Even though you've got things you need to be prayed for and you've got burns and you've got hard things in your life
Yep, that's Christianity
Jeremiah's life isn't perfect.
Jeremiah's life is harder than any of our lives has ever been,
but you know what?
He's still going to be that faithful servant of God
that goes out and preaches the truth,
whether people hate him,
whether people beat him,
whether people throw him in jail,
whether he's happy or whether he's wishing he was dead.
It's going to take death to stop him.
He could wish that he's dead,
but he's still going to serve God.
He could regret that he was ever born, but he's still going to serve God.
He cannot like where his ministry is at right now, but he's still going to preach the word of God.
Doesn't this again remind you of the Apostle Paul?
Where he's like, hey, I'm going, you know, I'm leaving you guys an emphasis and you know
I'm going to preach and I don't know what's gonna befall me there other than that
I know persecutions and afflictions await me, but he says hey, none of these things move me neither counting my life dear unto myself
But hey, I'm focused on the ministry. I'm focused on running my race. I'm focused on finishing my course
Right, so did the Apostle Paul always feel jazzed about serving God? Yeah, I'm sure he felt great after he was stoned
And he was stoned so bad that the whole town thought he was dead and he got up the next
day and went soul winning.
Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't fun when the Apostle Paul is getting turned on by his own countrymen
And he's got afflictions in the sea and perils in the wilderness and perils among false brethren and perils of the sword and
Perils of all these different things that he's facing
I'm sure every day was not a walk in the park for the Apostle Paul and you know it wasn't either for Jeremiah
But look at what the Apostle Paul wrote go to 1 Corinthians 15 1 Corinthians 15, you know when you're feeling this way
Here's what you don't do you don't quit
You don't throw in the towel.
You don't quit going to church.
You don't commit suicide.
Please never commit suicide.
Don't do it.
Look, this happens.
This is real life.
People do this stuff.
Do not ever commit suicide.
Here's what you do.
Look at 1 Corinthians 15 verse 58.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
You know what always abounding in the work of the Lord means?
It means that when you're happy, you abound in the work of the Lord.
It means that when you're sad, you serve God.
It means that when you're tired, you serve God.
When you're hungry, you serve God.
When people lie about you, you serve God.
When you go through persecutions and afflictions and heartache and hardships and tragedy and whatever life throws at you
You just abound in the work of the Lord anyways. That's what it means to be steadfast
What it means to be steadfast is that you're serving God and that no matter what life throws at you you keep serving God
You can whether that's a crawl whether that's a walk whether that's a light jog. You just keep running that Christian race
I'll read for you this final verse.
Proverbs 16-3, the Bible says,
Commit thy works unto the Lord,
and thy thoughts shall be established.
Very important verse.
Even if you're at a point in life,
and if you're not here today, praise God,
but you'll probably be here someday.
where you're black-pilled, where you're in despair, where you're in sorrow,
you got to remind yourself, hey, I need to commit my works unto the Lord
and my thoughts will be established. Don't quit serving God saying,
I'll get back on the horse once things get better in my life,
once the tragedies go away, once my ailments
stop afflicting me, once I'm stopped, you know, having such a crazy life, whatever it is in your life,
don't think, once I get there, then I'll start doing good works for God. No, no, you just commit your works to the Lord.
and your thoughts will be established.
Here's what I know.
I know that every Christian who serves God
will likely get to a point in their life
where they feel blackpilled.
But here's also what I know,
is that if you as a Christian
endure in doing good works for God
and endure in your Christianity
that your thought life will eventually return.
I've been there, I've seen it happen to me, I've seen it happen to other people.
You could go through the darkest things, but if you remain steadfast, if you keep doing
what's right, you know what?
Your mental health, your spiritual well-being, your right thoughts will eventually come back
to you.
You know what?
So I just want to leave you with this idea, hey, Jeremiah, this is a real guy right here.
Where he's he's pissed and he's angry that people are turning on him and you know what?
I feel pissed and angry and people turn on me
You feel pissed and angry when people crap talk you and turn on you it falsely cues you of things
You know what and he kind of gets upset and he kind of calls him a name
But he's saying like hey, you know, I might quit never mind. I love the word of God. I can't quit God's word is so powerful
It's so beautiful
He starts singing to God, he starts praying to God, he gets better.
And then he just says, like, man, I wish I was never born.
But you know what?
You read the rest of Jeremiah, and what do you do?
He finished his course.
He kept preaching despite being put in prison, despite being hated, despite being put in
the stocks or whatever.
You know, the guy is rich in heaven.
The guy had a hard life.
I do not envy his ministry.
I'm not praying, God, will you please give me the ministry of Jeremiah.
But here's what I know from the principles that what the Bible teaches if that is God's will for our lives
We can endure it. We can get to the other side remaining faithful to God when we commit our works unto him
That's praying Lord. Thank you so much for the word of God. Thank you for the example of the prophet Jeremiah
Lord, I pray that you would, if you find us worthy,
give us peace, give us prosperity, Lord,
give us a big church someday with many laborers
that want to reach many people for the gospel.
I pray that you would allow people to be very receptive
to not only the gospel, but also to every word of God.
But if not, and your will for us is just to have a hard life and a ministry where people are hard-hearted and we suffer persecution,
help us not to give up because of those things.
Help us to remain steadfast.
Help us to cling tight to the anchor of our soul.
We love you in Jesus' name, we pray.
Amen.
Our last hymn this morning will be number 106.
106 there, starting on the 1st.
Up high again.
are dismissed.