Alright, 2 Timothy chapter 4, 2 Timothy chapter 4, the part of the chapter I want to focus
on there is starting in verse 2, the Bible reads, "Preach the word, be instant in season,
out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time
will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall heap
to themselves, teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the
truth and shall be turned unto fables."
Let's pray real quick.
Dear God, thank you for this day and this opportunity to preach.
Lord, you know it's been a long week.
I pray that you'd just be with me.
Help fill me with boldness and with your spirit, Lord, and I pray that you just help me to
say something instead of finding your people today.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Alright, so this chapter, I absolutely love this chapter because to me, every time I read
this chapter, it totally characterizes the day in which we're living in.
You go to any church and these verses right here are going to characterize the vast majority
of churches that you walk into in this country.
Why?
Because most churches today are not doing the things listed in these verses.
They're not reproving.
They're not rebuking.
They're not exhorting.
They're not even usually preaching the Bible.
Usually it's a few stories, a few poems, a few news articles.
They're not preaching themselves the Bible.
The reason why is because they're men pleasers.
Because us as people, as a country, we want to heap to ourselves teachers having itching
ears.
And so the preachers have responded to that and they want to feed that desire for people
and they're just giving it to them.
They're not obeying the word of God, what God said.
They're just doing it.
Go ahead and turn to second Thessalonians chapter two real quick.
In case you didn't realize, in case you're new to this church, most churches in America
are not like the church you're sitting in right now.
And if you always grew up or since you've been saved, if you've always been in Verity
Baptist Church, whether that's Sacramento or here in Vancouver, then you really have
no clue how bad it is out there right now.
And you really have a misconception of what it's like.
Saint Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 1, the Bible reads, "Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye
be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter
as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling
away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."
So the Bible teaches us here that before the rapture, before the day of Christ happens,
two things need to happen.
Number one, there has to be a great falling away.
What's that?
It's a great apostasy.
It's when churches, when Christians stop preaching the truth.
They fall away from the truth and what do they do?
They're given unto fables.
They have teachers having, you know, they desire teachers having itching ears, right?
And there has to be a big, big falling away before the man of sin is revealed.
Then the man of sin is revealed and then of course then is the day of Christ.
So the Bible teaches that that must happen first.
I believe that we're living in the very beginning or maybe even farther into the beginning of
that great falling away.
And the reason why is because, you know, what Baptists used to preach and where it was just
uniform, all Baptists believed this, you know, all saved Christians believe certain things.
You know, now it's a very few number of people that are actually standing in the gap and
that are still preaching hard on these things.
You know, most Christians now, churches are softening everything they preach on.
You think about alcohol, even Baptists, we've always been against alcohol, even some Baptists
now are saying it's okay to drink in moderation, you know, as long as you don't get drunk.
You know, a lot of Baptists now, they're not, they're afraid to execute church discipline.
You know, they say they believe 1 Corinthians chapter 5, but then when it comes time to
kick someone out of church for one of the things listed on there, you know, they've
got a couple in church, it's an open fornication, they know about it.
It's the pastor's daughter even, you know, nothing happens.
That actually happened, you know, to a church that we know of recently.
You know, nothing's done about it.
Why?
Because churches are falling away.
Churches are falling away from preaching sound doctrine, you know, the Baptist stance on
the homos.
In the 1990s, every single church believed like what we do about them.
Every single church believed that they're vile, that God says that they've been given
over to a reprobate mind, that they're beyond hope of salvation, you know, the Bible says
that God's heart in their heart.
All Baptists used to believe that when it was popular in the 1990s, but as soon as the
culture started to change, Christians started to change with them, pastors started to change
with them.
You know, even abortion, something as simple as abortion, straight up murder.
How can you ever justify abortion?
You even have Christians, you know, disciples of Peter Ruckman that want to defend abortion
even in some cases, Baptists even wanting to defend abortion.
You know, it's sick.
You have Andrew Sluder who recently taught that it may be possible to wash off the mark
of the beast, you know.
It's absolutely idiotic and false doctrine is just running rampant right now.
It's running rampant.
And go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 24.
That's why I believe that right now we're at the very beginning of this falling away.
Matthew chapter 24, Matthew chapter 24, Brother Temmo brought this up to me yesterday and,
you know, it's a really good point.
Matthew chapter 24, look there at verse 14.
Here's another reason why I think we're at the beginning of this time.
Matthew 24 verse 14, the Bible reads, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come."
So, you know, before the end, you know, the gospel will be preached around the whole
world.
And although there's a great falling away happening right now, the remnant, the few
churches that are still standing in the gap, you see that they're doing more soul winning
than ever before.
And every single year you think, you know, I don't understand how we could do any more
every single year.
It blows my mind how much soul winning is being done.
You know, faithful word having over 10,000 salvations, just door to door soul winning.
You know, it's amazing what's happening right now.
People always want to say we're living in the Laodicean church age.
You know, we don't have to live in the Laodicean church age here.
Our friends don't have to live in the Laodicean church age.
If we just obey the Bible and do what God tells us to do, we can have the same results
that the book of Acts saw today in 2017.
And you know, the Bible says that the gospel of this kingdom shall be preached again throughout
all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come.
You know, there may be a falling away happening right now, but every single year we do more
and more for the Lord.
And you know, it's not because we're special, it's just because we actually obey the Bible.
We actually believe the word of God and we're going to harken to it.
You know, we got, this is a small church, this is a new church, we've only been around
for a little bit over a year, yet we have so many every single day of the week in this
church.
There's not a day of this week where somebody is not out preaching the gospel to the lost.
It's a sad thing because how many churches are in the Portland area, how many churches
are in the Vancouver area, how many lost souls are there that are dying every day, and there's
a handful of soul winners every day that's out doing the work.
Why?
That's a sad thing today.
But even though we're a small church, you see that we're doing soul winning seven days
a week, we have 100% soul winning participation in this church, 100% of people who attend
this church faithfully go soul winning.
It's not to praise ourselves or to say that we're anything great, like I said, it's just
because we're obeying the Bible.
Any church can have these type of effects on the community, you know, we have missions
trips going on, we're going to the Philippines in the month of April, mega soul winning
marathon happening on March 31st, you know, there's great things happening for God right
now and even though the great falling away is probably happening right now, you know,
we don't have to go along with them.
We do not have to go along with them and in case, in case you're wondering, you're not
sitting in a church that's like most churches today, you're in a special place today and
the inspiration for my sermon comes actually from our church invitation.
You know, brother Aaron asked me if I could preach yesterday.
I hadn't had anything.
I was a lot soulening.
I was kind of freaked out what the heck I'm going to preach on, but I looked down at this
and you know, our church invite says, we do not offer shallow entertainment, but we do
offer profound biblical preaching and I think that's a really cool invitation and so the
title of my sermon this morning is what Verity Baptist Church has to offer.
What Verity Baptist Church has to offer because, you know, we may not have shallow entertainment
to offer you, but this church does have a lot to offer you and, you know, this isn't
going to be like a very big rah rah sermon, but I just want to, you know, maybe introduce
those families who are a little more new to our church just to give them an idea to get
to better know Verity Baptist Church just to see what we're all about and even for those
who call Verity Baptist Church your home, just so you can be put in remembrance of some
things on why we believe the things that we believe.
So like I said, the title of my sermon is what Verity Baptist Church has to offer.
Go ahead and turn to Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4 gives
us an outline of what God expects a church to be like, what God wants to see in a church.
Let's start there in verse 11, verse 11 of Ephesians chapter 4, "And He gave some apostles
and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ till
we all come in unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, verse 14, that we henceforth
be no more children tossed to and fro carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight
of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive but speaking the truth
in love that may grow up into him all things which is the head, even Christ.
So we see here this passage, this portion of Ephesians chapter 4 gives a perfect outline
of what God wants to see in a church and looking down there at verse 11 the Bible says he
gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and God's given us all those
things here.
Pastor Jimenez is there for us, God has placed Pastor Jimenez there for us and it tells us
what they're there for but not only has he given us Pastor Jimenez, he's given us teachers,
that's brother Aaron, he may not be a pastor right now but brother Aaron knows the Bible,
brother Aaron teaches us the Bible and it says profound biblical preaching, I'm a guest
today so you may not get that today but any other time you come to church you'll get
profound biblical preaching from brother Aaron, that's just a fact.
But the Bible tells us what God gives us those people for, why does he give us those prophets
and pastors and evangelists and teachers, looking down there at verse 12 it says for
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ.
See God didn't give us these people just to make us feel good every Sunday, God didn't
give us these people just to tell us that hey you're already doing everything right,
you don't need to change anything at all, come as you are, leave as you came, but that's
how most churches are laid out today.
You know we may not offer shallow entertainment, but we do offer profound Biblical preaching
that's meant to change you, that's meant to affect a change in your life and to teach
you doctrine for the perfecting of the saints.
You see church is not supposed to be a seeker sensitive church.
Church is not to bring all sorts of loss and heathen in here and try to get them saved
here.
We don't come here, we obviously will preach them the gospel and we do it every time.
But the church, the New Testament churches are for the saints and they're for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, not for coming here drinking a Starbucks coffee
in the lobby and leaving.
That's one thing that makes our church a lot different.
You come to this church, don't expect to just have your feelings coddled every sermon.
Expect to hear what the Bible says, what the truth of God's word is.
That's what you should expect to hear.
Our verse text, our text verse, I'll just read it to you, 2 Timothy chapter 4, it tells
preachers to preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine.
That just comes down to whether the pastor of a church is going to obey the Bible or
not.
That's what makes us different.
Again, is our pastor, he sees that and just obeys the Bible, but so many pastors today
are just too scared to do that.
They're too scared to reprove, they're too scared to rebuke.
What are those things?
Reprove is just telling people that they're wrong.
Churches don't want to tell you that you're wrong anymore, and that's why they're falling
away from doctrine.
I don't buy this, that all of a sudden all of Christians just flip the switch, and now
they just believe nothing that the Bible says anymore.
I don't believe that that just happened.
I believe it's just fear.
It's just fear.
They don't want to reprove.
They don't want to rebuke.
All they want to do is exhort, and we need exhorting.
We need the positive, but positive only preaching will not help you get the sin out of your
life.
Positive preaching is great.
I want to know every good thing in this book, but there's a lot more negative in this Bible
than there is positive.
And you say, "Wow, that's a horrible thing to say."
No, read the Bible cover to cover, and you'll find out there's a lot more negative in this
book than positive.
Why?
Because we live in a sinful world.
There's sin in this world.
It will never be perfect, and you know, sin has serious consequences, and it ruins every
aspect of life.
That's why we need the good and the bad, so that we can just learn the bad from the Bible
and not have to learn it ourselves.
But pastors don't love their people because when they won't tell them the truth, when
they won't tell them what the Bible actually says, they're just going to let their people
find out for themselves what the Bible, you know, says about all sin, all matter of sin.
When they won't preach against alcohol because they're afraid of sending people out the door,
because they're afraid of losing the tithe money, they just hate their people because
they're just going to let their people's lives get destroyed by alcohol.
They're just going to let their people get drunk and commit fornication and adultery
and lose their health and all these things and get the judgment of God on their life
just because they're too afraid to preach the Bible, you know?
It's a really sad thing.
You know, God commands preachers to preach both.
And then look at verse 13 here, "Till we all come," here's another effect of biblical
preaching, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature and fullness of Christ."
You see, another reason why we need to be preaching the Bible is to come in the unity
of the faith.
We want to have the right kind of unity in this church.
We want to be one in hope and doctrine.
You know, the world wants to unify us through apathy.
Let's just all be apathetic about everything.
The world wants to unify us by just saying, "Hey, all religions are great."
The world just wants to unify us by saying, "Hey, you know, there's multiple ways to
heaven, but we need to make a clear stand on everything we believe.
We need to have a clear stance on salvation and on every doctrine we have.
Why?
So that we can all come in the unity of the faith.
Like I said, it's going to be, you know, simple things like that this morning, but
these are just things we need to be kept in remembrance of.
Verse 14, here's another effect, "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to
and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, whereby
they lie in wait to deceive."
You know, when you're not preaching the Bible, you're going to get deceived by all sorts
of false doctrine, especially today when we are having the Great Falling Away, when you're
not in your Bible, when you're not having someone preach you every word of God.
You will be deceived.
It's just that simple.
There's no way that you could get to this world without the guidance of God's Word.
Go ahead and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 14.
First Corinthians chapter 14.
First Corinthians 14 verse 7, the Bible reads, "And even things without life giving sound,
whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what
is piped or harped?
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle?
So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it
be known what is spoken?
For ye shall speak into the air."
So another principle we get from the Bible is that preaching should be very clear.
And I don't understand why this is so hard for churches today because you would think
when they have their statement of faith that they would just preach what they believe.
If you're a church, you believe something, right?
But they're so afraid to preach it.
You know, I'll give you an example.
I used to go to a church a few years ago.
I went there for three years and it was like this where people believed a lot of different
things in the pew and they would never really take a clear stance on doctrine.
And they literally had two statements of faith on their website.
You know, that's a big red flag for you when your church has two statements of faith.
Depending on where you click on the website, one said salvation is by faith alone, not
of works.
You don't need to repent of your sins.
The other one said you need to repent of your sins to be saved.
Wow.
That's a Baptist church in Idaho, ran over a thousand people, you know, a church where
Sam Gimp is the president of the Bible college.
And you know what?
If you think I'm lying, I've got the screenshots on my phone.
You know, that's what churches are doing today.
They're not making a clear stance even on salvation.
You can't even make a clear stance on salvation.
Look at this church.
You're not going to wonder what we believe about salvation.
It should be a hundred percent clear.
Listen.
It should be by faith alone, not of works, lest any man should boast.
You don't need to repent of your sins.
You don't need to feel sorry for your sin.
It doesn't matter if you never do anything for God.
If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved.
The Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
You won't have to wonder what we believe.
Do we have to call upon the name of the Lord?
Yes.
You must call upon the name of the Lord.
Not you should, not it's a good practice, not it's great to do out soul winning, to
end it in prayer.
No, you have to.
And if you believe and you don't call, then you probably didn't believe.
And if you don't call on the name of the Lord, you're not saved.
You are not saved.
The Bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
We need to be clear on that.
Why is that so hard for churches today?
You know if you love God, you love Jesus Christ that died on the cross for you and that gave
you that salvation and you can't even make a stand on salvation, that's a sad thing.
You know what?
People leave your church because of the stance on salvation, why do you care?
Why do churches care about something like that when it's so important as salvation?
It blows my mind today.
You know what?
Not only should preaching just be clear about salvation, you should just be clear in every
area of what you believe.
But today what makes our church different is because when you go to most Baptist churches
today, what you're going to hear is you're going to hear a lot of stories, you're going
to hear a poem from Spurgeon, you're going to hear a few Fox News articles, you're going
to hear some ranting about Republicans and Democrats and Donald Trump, but you know what
you're not going to hear?
More than about five Bible verses, the whole sermon.
You're not going to hear more than about five Bible verses.
Why?
Because people are falling away from the word of God today.
Because men just want their ears tickled, they're just heaping to themselves, teachers
having itching ears, they want to be told what they want to hear instead of wanting
the truth.
And if you're going to come to this church, you need to learn to love the truth.
Because you're going to hear it whether it hurts or not.
And you know what, it will end up hurting.
Hard preaching always will end up hurting.
You will eventually get your face ripped off by some area here.
But I want to show you a verse that's going to help you to handle hard preaching.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 3.
This is my favorite verse in the whole Bible.
Proverbs chapter 3.
Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5.
"Pay attention closely to this verse.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding."
Now, is that a command?
That's a command out of the word of God.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."
And the reason this is my favorite verse in the whole Bible is because it can apply to
every single area of your life.
When you hear hard preaching and it hurts you and you're wondering, "Man, is that right?
Is that really the truth?"
If you just trust in the Lord with all your heart and you don't lean on your own understanding,
it's a lot easier to overcome that pain that you're feeling when you're getting hurt.
When you're reading the Bible and you're like, "Man, I never knew that before.
I've always been taught something different," you know what?
Are you going to trust in your own heart?
Are you going to trust in yourself or are you going to trust in the Lord?
When you can just let go of your own opinions and your own thoughts and just let the Bible
be the God of your life, let the Bible be the boss in your life in all areas, then you're
going to be able to lean not on understanding.
You know what, acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He shall direct thy paths, but you
have to do those things first and it's going to help you when hard preaching comes your
way and you know you don't know how to react to it, but here's why most churches aren't
offering this.
Go to Proverbs chapter 28, a few pages over, Proverbs chapter 28, Proverbs chapter 28
verse 1, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion."
And the reason why churches are not preaching the full counsel of God anymore is the reason
why they're lacking boldness is because they're lacking righteousness.
You know, it's kind of hard to preach soul winning.
It's kind of hard to exhort your people, kind of hard to exhort your people to go soul winning
when you yourself are not soul winning.
You know, that same church I told you about that had the two doctoral statements, you
know, when I got saved, I started listening to Pastor Anderson and, you know, I was being
exhorted, go soul winning, go soul winning, go soul winning, go soul winning.
They didn't have a soul winning program.
And so I went and just asked the pastor, Hey, can you teach me how to go soul winning?
And he literally said that it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.
You know, it's kind of hard to preach soul winning.
It's kind of hard to preach the Bible when you yourself are not even soul winning.
You know, the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Why aren't these churches bold?
Because they're not righteous, because they're not even believing the Bible.
You know, it's hard to preach against TV when you're, when you're the pastor and you have
a television and you're watching cable, you're going home and you're watching all the talk
shows and the sports shows.
You're filling your mind with the things of this world.
It's going to be kind of hard.
It's going to be kind of hypocritical when you stand up behind the pulpit and say, Hey,
you need to meditate on the things of God and not on the things of the world.
You know what I'm saying?
It doesn't work that way.
I know it's kind of hard to preach against.
It's kind of hard to preach on modesty or it's kind of hard to preach what the Bible
says about cross-dressing.
When the pastor's wife is wearing pants, you know, when he can't even have his own house
in order, he can't even rule his house well, that's going to be kind of awkward to preach
about, don't you think?
That's why the churches are lacking boldness these days is because they're lacking righteousness.
And also, if you want to turn there, I'll just read it for you though.
Another reason why is because they're lacking love for Jesus.
Because in John 14 verse 15, the Bible says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."
So they're lacking boldness and they're lacking love for God.
You know, they love to talk about how much they love God, but when they don't keep Jesus's
commandments, when they don't preach every word of God, it shows me that they don't love
God.
That they love themselves.
They don't love their people, they love themselves.
You know, God commands us throughout the whole Bible to preach every word of God, the good
and the bad, and we just need to obey that as preachers.
Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 32, Deuteronomy chapter 32, looking at there at verse 30.
Okay.
"How should one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, except their rock
had sold them and the Lord had shut them up; for their rock is not as our rock, even our
enemies themselves being judges."
And what I just don't understand is that, you know, even churches that aren't preaching
hard that are saved, they know that our rock is not as their rock.
They know that our God will follow through on His promises.
You know, He told us that if we just preach the Word, you know, He commanded us to preach
the Word.
And you know what?
When we do that, we can chase a thousand, and two of us can chase ten thousand.
It doesn't matter how many people give up on the Word of God.
It doesn't matter how unpopular the Bible becomes.
You know, the Word of God has power, and you know, churches need to get back to just believing
that again.
And us at Verity Baptist Church, you know, we may not offer shallow entertainment, but
we believe the Word of God, and we're going to preach it.
We're going to preach the full counsel of God without apologizing for any of it, and
we're going to send ten thousand to flight, you know, because of our God.
Not because we're anything special, but because God is something special.
So number one, we don't offer shallow entertainment, but we do offer profound biblical preaching.
Go to Mark chapter 16, number two, we don't offer shallow entertainment, but we do offer
an aggressive, soul-winning program.
Mark chapter 16, Mark chapter 16 verse 15, verse 14, "Afterward he appeared unto the
eleven as they sat at meat and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart
because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."
Look, this is the first thing Jesus commanded his disciples to do.
This is the last thing he commanded us to do when he left.
This has to always be the most important focus of our church.
You get this area out of whack, everything will get out of whack.
You know, the preaching aside, if we ever lose our soul winning, we'll lose everything
at this church.
What do most churches offer you?
Let me read to you a list of ministries that was at that church where my pastor told me
that it was too cold to go soul winning.
Here's a list of the ministries that that church did have.
Bearing Precious Seed, which if anyone knows anything about that ministry, they are repent
of your sins.
Those people are not even saved.
Sure, they hand out King James Bibles and that's great, but the sending church of that
ministry preaches heresy on salvation.
But so many Baptists don't even know that and they're yoked up with Bearing Precious
Seed.
You know, OK, Bearing Precious Seed, Bible Institute, bookstore ministries, you know,
Brother Aaron preached about selling in church recently, you know that that's wicked as hell.
You know, bookstore ministries, bus ministries where they pick up kids, give them candy,
sing songs and go home, homeschool ministries, which, you know, not all these are bad, you
know, but when you don't have soul winning, it's like, what is going on?
Fair Booth ministry, jail ministry, master club ministry, newlywed ministry, music ministry,
nursing home ministry, outdoorsman ministry, outdoorsman ministry, I don't understand where
that was in the Bible, but OK, pastor's school, rescue mission, sign ministry, street
preaching ministry, women of faith ministry, but you don't know, you know what is not
there?
The one ministry that Jesus Christ commanded us to keep, to preach the gospel to every
creature.
How is it that you can have these 10 plus ministries, you can have a shooting club
at your church, an outdoors ministry, you know, you can have a newlywed's ministry,
but you don't even love the loss enough to have the one ministry Jesus Christ told you
to have?
It blows my mind and it's sick.
Turn to Revelation chapter 2, Revelation chapter 2, I don't know why it's so hard for churches
just to obey the one thing Jesus Christ told us to do before He left, just to preach the
Word of God to the lost and to get them saved.
Revelation chapter 2 verse 1, "Unto the angel of the church of Epheset right, these things
saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the
seven golden candlesticks.
I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are
evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found
them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast
not fainted.
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else
I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of this place, except
thou repent.
You know, Jesus Christ, he says he has somewhat against thee.
You know, churches that don't have soul winning, they don't have their first love, they don't
have their first works, Jesus Christ has something against you today.
Jesus Christ still, you know, Jesus Christ loves you, you're his child, but he has something
against your church.
He has something against you when you're not winning souls for the lost.
And look what it says there.
It says, "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works,
or else I will come unto thee quickly, I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy
candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."
You know, Jesus Christ, this is not an area where He wants to be super long-suffering.
This is not an area where He wants to be super patient with us.
He said, "Hey, repent, or I will come quickly and take away your candlestick."
You know, we ever get this out of our church, Jesus Christ is coming for us quickly.
You know, and I'm afraid of that.
You know, we need to be afraid of God.
Not only do we just need to love the lost and preach to them because we don't want them
to go to hell, we need to be afraid of God.
The Bible says He'll come for us quickly.
And these churches that are playing around with this, scaling back their soul winning,
getting rid of their soul winning, they don't have a lot of time before God takes their
candlestick away.
You know, not only are you just falling away preaching heresy up one side, down the other,
you're forgetting soul winning, God's coming quickly for you.
It's not good.
First works Jesus commanded His disciples to do was to start fishing for men.
Like I said, I know He said follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
So if you're following Christ, you're fishing for men.
that claim to be Christian, that claim to be following Christ, that aren't, that aren't soul-winning, they're not following Christ.
They don't love Christ because they're not keeping His commandments. They don't love their people because they're not teaching them to go out soul-winning.
They love themselves. And that's a great characteristic of the end times, isn't it?
One of the biggest characteristics is that men shall be lovers of their own selves, even Christians.
And that's what we see today. You know, even though there's more, more, more, more soul-winding being done every single year,
it's being done by fewer and fewer people. You know, and that's great for us, right?
Because our church is still doing it. But the thing is, I don't want my brothers in Christ to be destroyed like this.
You know, I don't want our church to be the only church in the greater Portland area to actually be out winning souls every night.
I'd love to see all these churches repent and just to start preaching the gospel and let's turn this world upside down for Christ.
Let's get people saved. I don't know, you know, it's not like I desire Jesus Christ to come unto them quickly,
but it is going to happen to them and he'll do the same thing to us if we ever forget our focus.
The number one most important thing that Verity Baptist Church could ever offer you is a aggressive, soul-winning program.
So here's what we do offer you. Go to Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5 verse 42.
"And daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ."
So at Verity Baptist Church we offer you an aggressive, soul-winning program that's going to go out to the lost and preach them the gospel,
not one that brings them in. It's an aggressive program where you're going to get real on-the-job training.
Just like a real job, Jesus said, "Occupy till I come." Our job is to win people to the Lord.
And if you're a new soul-winner, there's plenty of people in this church that can take you out and teach you how to become an effective soul-winner.
And I encourage every single person here, no matter how good of a soul-winner you may think you are,
you know, maybe people came from different backgrounds or you're just a new soul-winner.
You know, Pastor Jimenez is an amazing soul-winner, amen, and he made a great soul-winning seminar
that I believe every single person in this church should watch,
because it doesn't matter how good of a soul-winner you are, you can never not learn something new, you know?
So everyone here, we need to sharpen up our skills, soul-winning. Why?
Because we're the only ones standing in the gap, you know?
And it's like when you are the only chance for this person's eternity at the door,
you want to be doing a good job. You don't want to be using stupid methods.
And there are stupid methods out there that people are using.
Just things that are making them not effective soul-winners.
And that's why we have the soul-winning sermons every weekend.
We have a huge emphasis on soul-winning because it's what the Bible emphasizes.
It's what the Bible tells us to emphasize.
And right now, thank God that everyone here loves soul-winning.
Thank God we have 100% soul-winning participation.
But that doesn't happen by accident.
That happens because our leadership is pushing those things.
And we obviously all have, you know, stuff to learn.
None of us are perfect soul-winners in here.
So we need to always be constantly working on becoming better soul-winners.
And you know what this comes down to?
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
1 Corinthians chapter 13.
This is a beautiful chapter.
What this comes down to, really, you know, we may not offer shallow entertainment.
The one thing that we do offer that other churches are not offering comes down to one
word, and that's love.
1 Corinthians chapter 13 says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not charity, I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am
nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be
burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
You know what?
I think that's one of the scariest verses in the entire Bible, that you could literally
give your body to be burned, you could give everything you have, but when you don't have
charity, when you don't have love, you're nothing in the sight of God.
You know, you could have your outdoorsman ministry and your newlywed's ministry and
your homeschool ministry, but if you don't have a soul-winning ministry because you don't
love the lost and because you don't love God, you are nothing.
You as a church are nothing, straight from the word of God, God tells you himself, you
are nothing.
Go to James chapter 2, please.
James chapter 2.
You know, churches love to criticize us because we take a hard stance on the homos and because
we do say that there's some people in this world we hate because the Bible says there's
a time to love and a time to hate, you know, and at Verity Baptist Church we offer you
the love and the hate, so they say, "Oh, you know, those guys are so hateful, they don't
love people, yet they themselves won't even preach the gospel to the lost.
They're total hypocrites.
They're total and utter hypocrites."
James chapter 2, going to the faith without works chapter, you know, we're Baptist going
to James chapter 2, verse 16, verse 16, "If a brother or sister be naked in destitute
of daily food, and one of you say unto them, 'Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled,
not withstanding,' ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what
doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
"Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works.
Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."
You know what?
These churches are not showing their faith at all.
You know, this obviously is not talking about salvation, because the Bible says, "But to
him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is
counted for righteousness."
But listen, faith without works is dead.
And you know, these churches are dead.
They're letting their whole communities die.
They don't love the loss, and they're being hypocrites for it.
They're being total hypocrites for it.
You know, Ecclesiastes chapter three verse one, I'll read it for you.
Like they said, they love to criticize us because we, you know, we do hate some people.
But here's what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter three verse one, "To everything there
is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to love and a time to hate,
a time of war and a time of peace."
Okay, and you know what?
We hate sodomites.
We hate predators and child molesters.
So you know what, we're going to show you our faith by our works.
We're going to not allow them into this church, ever.
That's our works.
They're not allowed here, they're not allowed to be around our children, they're not ever
allowed here.
And we're going to show you our faith by our works for our love as well.
Because we love the lost, so we're actually going to go out and preach them the gospel.
So how about you just show me your faith by your works.
Stop talking about how much you love and, "Oh, those guys don't love, but we just love
our community so much.
And this church is just about hospitality, and we just want to be so welcoming."
And here, pay 25 cents for your water because we're so hospitable, but you know what?
You have no love.
You have no love at all.
And I'll just bring this up.
This is a side note.
You ever hear how people call us homophobes?
People call us homophobes.
They're saying, "Oh, all those people over there, they're just homophobes, and they just
hate everyone.
They think everybody's a reprobate."
I'm so sick of hearing this thrown at us because they don't even realize what that word means.
Fear means fear.
Okay, listen, we're not afraid of homos.
Do you know who's afraid of homosexuals?
Most Baptists that are out there, most churches that are afraid to preach against the homos,
they're the homophobes.
I'm not a homophobe.
You know what?
We're going to show you our faith by our works, by not letting these homos come in here while
you're so afraid of them that you let them destroy your churches.
You're going to let them come into your churches and rape your children, and you're just going
to roll over and let these faggots destroy our country and destroy our churches.
You know what?
You're the homophobe.
We're the ones that hate them.
We're going to show you our faith by our works.
We're the ones that love the lost.
We're going to show you our faith by our works.
You're a hypocrite.
You're a liar.
You need to repent.
2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power
and of love and of a sound mind."
Look, we should not be afraid of running every person out of our churches when we preach
the Bible.
If we're preaching the truth, we should not be afraid of turning people away from our
church because we have an effective, old-fashioned, aggressive, soul-winning program.
We should not be afraid of any consequences of doing what God commanded us to do.
And you know what?
I pray to God we never do.
I pray to God that Pastor Jimenez and Brother Aaron stand fast and that all the men and
families in this church, that they would stand fast and not be afraid because God has not
given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love.
Real love.
Love that hates.
You know, love that loves as well, of course.
And of a sound mind, the Bible says.
So people can criticize us all they want, but they can see our love by our actions.
They can actually see that we're real.
When we say I love you, we mean it.
And when we say I hate you, we mean that too.
So we don't offer shallow entertainment, but we do offer profound Biblical preaching.
We don't offer shallow entertainment here, but we do offer an aggressive soul winning
program.
Number three, we don't offer shallow entertainment here, but we do offer a safe place for your
children.
Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 31, Deuteronomy chapter 31, Deuteronomy chapter 31.
So real quickly here, I'll give you what most churches offer.
So we offer a safe place for your children.
Here's what most churches offer today.
Most churches will offer you a daycare at church.
Most churches will offer you a youth group at church.
Most churches will offer you the bus route and the kids church with all sorts of popcorn
and soda and candy as much as you can imagine.
You know, churches today will offer you a Baptist elementary school and a Baptist middle
school and a Baptist high school and a Baptist college, but you know what they're not offering?
They're not offering a safe place for your children, and they're not offering a place
where children can learn the word of God and grow up to be lovers and servers of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 11, you know, this church, we do offer a family integrated
church and what that means is that the children, the entire family is welcome to be together
in the service.
We never separate families for any reason.
Children will always be with their parents.
They're not going to be with some stranger in a youth class.
You know, we just talked about that church in Bellingham where the youth pastor was violently
raping kids there.
You know, you're an idiot if you don't think that stuff happens.
What do you think the Catholic church is?
That's what the entire Catholic church is.
It's just kids getting molested and raped by pedophiles.
You know what?
Us as Baptists should not be allowing that crap in here.
Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 11, "When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord,
thy God in the place where he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel
in their hearing, gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger,
that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord
your God, and observe to do all the words of this law, and that their children, which
have not known anything, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you
live in the land, whether you go over to Jordan to possess it."
You know, the Bible, God wanted all the people together.
God wanted the women.
God wanted the children.
Why?
That they may hear, that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and observe to do all
the words of this law.
And isn't that what you want for your children?
Don't you want your children to fear and love God?
You know, and all that these youth churches are doing is teaching people, teaching kids
an example of what bad church looks like.
Because when you grow up in a youth church and all you ever hear is the silly songs and
the one Bible verse, you're not hearing what hard preaching sounds like.
You're not learning what it's like to be well behaved, you know, sitting down and listening
to preaching like these young kids are doing right now.
That doesn't exist in other churches.
Why?
Because they're in a Baptist church where they're actually hearing big boy preaching,
where they're actually hearing real preaching.
You know, I imagine when Moses was in the wilderness, he was probably preaching pretty
hard and those kids needed it.
But you know, it says, it says here, where is it at?
Oh yeah, that their children, which have not known anything, may hear and learn to fear
the Lord your God.
You know, when a child is born, they don't know anything.
They're an empty slate and it's up to you how they are raised.
It's up to you what goes into that empty slate and you want to know why there's two-year-olds
in this church that can quote to you John 3 16.
Do you know why there's 12 year olds here that has read the Bible more through cover
to cover than most pastors in this country?
Do you want to know why there's 12 year olds in this church that can preach the gospel
effectively?
They're like little apostle Pauls.
It's because they grew up hearing the real preaching of God's word because they're not
singing you know somewhere in outer space God has prepared a place.
They're here learning the real hymns, learning the real word of God.
They're seeing what it's like to actually grow up and serve God.
They're learning to do what 99% of adult Christians are failing to do today.
You know, that is a huge benefit of being a family integrated church, not only does
it just keep you safe, you know what, you're going to raise kids that love God.
And Bible says in Proverbs chapter 22 verse 6, Proverbs chapter 22 verse 6, "Train up
a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
You know, God's telling us the point is to train the child up in the way he should go.
The point is not to keep a child in a perpetual state of childhood.
It's to train them up in the way they should go, okay?
You know, the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 11-10, "Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart and
put away evil from thy flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity."
The point is not to keep Christians, not to keep kids in a perpetual state of childhood,
both spiritually and, you know, emotionally.
We have the snowflake generation, right?
The point is to raise them up in the way he should go so that when they're old they will
not depart from it.
When they grow up hearing hard preaching and someday, you know, maybe they get backslid
and then they go to the Rock and Roll NIV church, they're going to be like, "What is
this?
This isn't real church."
You know, but when they grow up in the stupid youth classes where everything is watered
down and made just dumbed down for the kids, when they grow up that's all they're going
to know.
And don't be mistaken, kids can learn the Bible.
Kids can learn the Bible.
Like I said, there's two-year-olds that can quote John 3.16.
You know, there's young kids here that know the Bible stories and they can repeat to you
what they learn at church.
It's an amazing, beautiful thing and every church could have these benefits if they would
have a family-integrated church.
But because they're lovers of themselves and because they don't want to be bothered to
hear a few crying children during the service, they're willing to just throw kids' future
down the toilet.
They're just ready to ruin kids' lives and have them not grow up to be servants of God
so that they can be comfortable in the service, so that they don't have to hear a baby crying.
God forbid that they would have to hear that, right?
You know, that's why we have the mother baby rooms and the dad baby rooms, so that when
the baby gets too out of control, you can take them in there and discipline or feed
or whatever you have to do, but the baby's with their parents.
It's safe.
They'll grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
That's what we need to keep doing.
Turn to Joshua chapter 8, Joshua chapter 8, verse 34.
We'll get another instance of this, "And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings
and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation
of Israel, with the women and the little ones and the strangers that were conversing among
them."
People are always like, "Well, kids don't need to be hearing about adultery.
Kids don't need to be learning about the horrors of fornication.
Kids don't need to be learning about alcohol or the certain parts of the Bible that kids
shouldn't hear."
But you just saw there that he said he read all the words of the law, everything that's
written in the book of the law.
There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before the congregation
of Israel.
And we want children to grow up knowing all the words of the law.
We don't want anything to be hid back from them.
Why?
Because thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
And when kids grow up and they have the word of God in their hearts and they know what
sin really will do to them and they have that in their heart, they're going to be able to
shine it on their steps.
When life gets tough for them and when you're going through your teenage years, when you
have all the temptations and everything like that, that's going to be pounded into their
heads so hard when they're young that it's going to guide them through that time.
And that's what you want children to grow up and have, is to have a pure life and a
real love for God.
Jesus himself in Matthew 19 says, "But Jesus said, 'Suffer the little children and forbid
them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'"
Jesus himself commanded us to suffer the children to come into him.
And you know what?
Just like Baptists are disobeying God when it comes to preaching the full word of God,
just when it comes to how Baptists are disobeying God when he said, "Go out and preach the
gospel to every creature," Baptists today are disobeying the direct command of Jesus
Christ to suffer the children to come unto him.
They're not allowing them to hear what they need to hear.
These pastors are probably so puffed up thinking, "I have something from the Lord today that
my people need," and they're probably right.
That's why God gave us pastors, but why don't the kids need it?
Why don't the kids need the preaching of God's word?
It's just the adults that need it.
You're just going to let them go off and learn all the vanity and waste of youth?
It doesn't make any sense to me.
We may not offer a Verity Baptist Church, a fancy playground, and well, we do offer
cookies and ice cream.
I say we don't offer cookies.
We're Baptists.
We do offer that.
But you know what?
We also are going to offer a safe place for children and a place where they can actually
grow and actually learn the Bible and actually learn how to love God.
You know, just real quickly here, the Verity Baptist Church, we also offer a great place
for fellowship.
This is going to be a real quick point.
Go ahead and go to Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews chapter 10.
This is super important also in a Christian's life is fellowship.
Hebrews chapter 10 verse 24, "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and unto
good works."
You know the great thing about going to a church like this where we're like-minded,
we all believe the same thing, is that when you start to get a little backslidden or you
start to lose your zeal a little bit, you know people are here to consider you and they're
going to provoke you to love and to good works.
You know the Bible says, "Woe unto him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not
another to help him up."
You know as a church, when we're together and you fall, there's people to help you up.
As a church, when we're together and you lose your zeal a little bit, you get backslung
a little bit, there's here people to provoke you unto love and to good works.
Fellowship is not something that needs to be, you know, understated how important it
is.
You know when you're not in church, you're not getting those blessings of fellowship
and that's what's so awesome and that's why it's so important to be unified, you know,
around the right things.
Like I said in my first point, when you're unified by the preaching of God's word, when
we're all one in hope and doctrine, then we're able even more so to provoke each other to
love and to do good works because we all believe the same thing, right?
Proverbs chapter 20 verse 17, "Iron sharpeneth iron so a man sharpeneth the countenance of
his friend."
You know, even just when you get down, you know, when you get sad, we're here, we all
love each other.
You know, this is a church of real love.
Like I said, you know, our love is not dissimulated here.
Our love is real.
Our hate is real.
And I love every single person here.
I love my brothers and sisters in Christ.
And you know, we need to be sharpening each other.
Iron sharpeneth iron.
We need to help each other sharpen the countenance of our friends.
And that's exactly what fellowship is going to do.
So in conclusion here, go to Isaiah chapter 55, Isaiah chapter 55, Isaiah chapter 55,
verse 8.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts."
And our church is without a doubt, if you haven't learned by now, different than most
churches in this world and in this country.
You're sitting in a place that is a lot different.
Why?
Because unlike most churches, we don't offer shallow entertainment, but we offer you profound
biblical preaching.
Why?
Because unlike most churches, we don't offer you shallow entertainment, but we offer you
an aggressive soul winning program.
Why?
Because we offer you a safe place for your children.
Why?
Because we offer you a place where your children can grow and learn and love God.
Why?
Because we offer you a place where you can have real friends that really care about you
and that really want the best for you, that are really going to help you learn the Bible.
Our church is different not because we're special, not because we're anything.
It's just because we obey the Word of God.
The Bible says, "My thoughts are not as your thoughts," and that's why Proverbs 3.5 is
my favorite verse.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understandings.
In all thy way acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths."
If we just trust in God, if we just acknowledge Him as a church in all our ways, He's going
to direct our paths.
And He's going to direct our paths by the Word of God.
Every area of this, you saw that every area that our church does offer, there's a biblical
reason behind it.
You know, Pastor Jimenez didn't just put these things into place because he thought
it was cool.
You know, it's because he trusts God and he actually believes what the Bible says, and
we need to keep that going.
You know, when the cord is cut and Brother Aaron takes charge, I know he's going to do
the same thing, and we need to just be following that.
You know, I hope that this sermon helped maybe people who are new to our church to help get
them to better know our church and our philosophy and what we believe, and hopefully for those
of you that call this place home, you can at least have some things to put in remembrance,
and just that we would always remember, especially to keep soul winning, you know, our number
one focus.
You know, we don't want Jesus Christ to have something against us as a church.
We don't want Jesus Christ to come quickly, you know, and if we do keep these things,
we can still be used great by God, and us as, you know, the last day believers, we can
do greater works, you know, like Jesus said, greater works shall he do, and we can be used
in an amazing way for God.
We can stay fired up and keep the work of God, the number one focus of our lives, not
get carried about, you know, with the things of this world, but to just keep, you know,
the real love of God first in our lives.
So let's continue to just let our light shine also to other churches, that we can just be
a good example to them, because we don't hate them, you know, we want what's best for them,
and so I hope we can continue as individuals and as a church to be a good example to them
too.
So, with that, let's pray.
Dear Lord, thank you so much for this day.
Thank you so much for this church, God, and all that you do for us.
I thank you for Pastor Jimenez and Brother Aaron, the leadership we have at this church,
that, you know, they're bold and that they actually do love you, Lord, that we're willing
to follow your commandments and willing to trust in you and not in our own hearts and
that, you know, regardless of what we may think sometimes, God, I pray that you just
help us always to just let your Word be our final authority in all manners of faith and
in practice.
In Jesus' name, I pray.
Amen.