All right we're there in act 16 and you know uh one of the things that stands out is after a
while of going through you know some of the chapters you start getting a little repetitive and so
you start to find some of the nuances in in the uh
In the chapters you start to look for the the hit not hidden messages like obviously there's nothing in that
But the things that are not so blatantly obvious and of course here the in chapter 16
We the title of the sermon this afternoon is act 16 bound but not broken
Bound but not broken and we also see here that the prison can't stop the preaching, right?
And over the course of history, we have what's called
There's a famous book called the book of martyrs and I'm pretty sure there's a ton of other books
throughout church history
where we have
Detailed out the death and the martyrdom of many many of the Christian saints that have come before us and
The one thing that's not stopped
the word of God. You know I was I was listening earlier to just some preaching
and they were talking about just we know and I mean I assume we know this but
it's interesting that there's all these versions of the Bible right even today
Sister Karen pointed out that there's a box left at our doorstep
They left us a book a series of like commentaries and Gideon's Bibles and what's interesting is we're King James only
You know, I wish they would have maybe looked up our website and then they wouldn't have dropped that stuff off
But what's interesting is all these other versions keep changing
But the word of God King James is still the most prominent the most read the most famous
The most the bestseller on any bestseller list is the King James Bible for the English-speaking people
No other version of anything has sold quite like the King James Bible.
Why? Because God's Word will always, you know, abound.
And so let's go there. We're there in Acts 16, and we're just continuing.
If you're there in Acts 16, just before you go too deep, we see in Acts 15 at the end of 15, it says,
This is where they have the contention, right?
And Barnabas takes Mark with him,
and we go to verse 40 of Acts 15.
It says, and Paul chose Silas,
and departed, being recommended by the brethren
unto the grace of God,
and went through Syria and Selecia, confirming the churches.
And then we just basically move straight into chapter 60.
It says, then came he to Derby and Lystra,
and behold, a certain disciple was there,
named Timothyus, the son of a certain woman,
which was a Jewish and believed, but his father was a Greek.
And this is where we get an introduction of who.
Timothy is his who. Timothy, well, I mean, there's literally two letters
written to Timothy when Pastor Cobb ordained me.
He read from the book of Timothy, right? Timothy was a young...
Preacher a young pastor who was filled with the Holy Spirit who was filled with power and so much so that Paul actually spent time
Saying hey, let me give you some clear instruction on how to grow into a mature
Man of God not a mature Christian because he was already as a matter of fact
That's where we get one of the most famous verses where it says just let no man despise thy youth, right?
But when that talks about those verses, what are we talking about?
Don't despise someone's youth if they're using the word of God.
Because, you know, there's nothing youthful about you preaching the word of God correctly.
Because you're preaching God's eternal wisdom.
You know how I can sound wise at 45 years old?
Because there's people that are older than me, that are more wise than me, maybe in the
world.
And I might look young or sound young to them,
but when it comes to God's Word,
I can sound just as wise, if not wiser,
just by preaching God's Word.
That's why on Wednesdays, and even on Sundays in a form,
we go through the Bible.
Now Sundays we don't do it verse by verse,
but on Wednesdays we go verse by verse,
which is not a very common preaching method even today.
You know, in America, most preaching is topical preaching,
which I have nothing against.
And, honestly, going verse by verse, expository preaching like this, sometimes can be a little
bit redundant, a little bit over repetitive, but isn't that what God wants to do in our
lives?
I mean, there's a reason why he wrote the Bible the way he did.
If you really condense the Bible, at least in a moral viewpoint, the Bible could probably
Like the number of rules and commandments wouldn't be that long. It wouldn't be like the IRS
You know tax code the tax codes over 10,000 pages. I think last time I remember this is many years ago
I don't follow it as much, but they did like something and it's like this huge
You know document if it were to be all printed out the Bible is not like that
But what the one thing the Bible does do is it has a very specific set of rules
And then God just kind of repeats and hammers the point home
Because that's the the the challenges so like when you're going through the book of Acts at some point even today
We're gonna basically hammer the point home like I'm not gonna preach to you like no new thing in a son
What are they doing? They're preaching the word of God. They're under persecution. They're out there, you know confirming the churches
Converting believers to the Lord Jesus Christ stirring up trouble. The theme is the same
So you say, why would you even continue preaching on it if you've already covered it for 15 chapters?
Because that's what God wants us to do, right?
I mean, he's already, like, if you were reading it at home, you'd still get to chapter six.
Sorry, get to chapter 16 and be like, well, we're just here we go again.
Here we go into this next thing.
So the first point I have for you, we're there in X 16 and verse one.
And it's just you have to be ready to go where God says, not where you planned.
Right and I mean actually of all the points I'm going to give you today
This is probably one of the most important points of your entire life
When you can get to the point and I know nobody's there a hundred percent
But when you can get to the point in your life where the majority of the decisions that you make in your life are
Based on God's word. You're much better off
Now making decisions based on God's word
Sometimes feel counterproductive
Right the flesh gets in the way
Currently, there's a movement of preachers that have basically turned against preachers
like myself or others like us, not necessarily against me, because like I said, I'm the least
famous of all of them, but as a matter of fact, I shouldn't even use the word famous.
It would be more like infamous, I'm just kidding.
But you know, when you think about preachers that are preaching God's word, there's always
a group that's kind of going against the grain and giving you some Bible verse and then their
instead of just preaching the Word of God, right?
I mean, we don't lean on our own understanding and
it's a difficult thing to do, but if you follow God's commandments,
it actually gets easier over time and then it gets better.
Right, it's kind of like exercising at first. It's difficult
But I remember when I the first time I ever ran three miles. I mean, I didn't grow up running
I didn't do track and field that a mentor. I am not kidding. I am this is not a fake
This is a literal occurrence
He woke me up at five o'clock in the morning
I just moved to Houston like hey
We're gonna go running and I'm running and I mean I'm like not even a mile in and I'm huffin and puffin
I'm giving all the excuses and I'm like
I have asthma as a child and all that stuff.
He was old school, he didn't care.
And he was literally kicking me in the butt
to stay ahead of him for three miles.
And I mean, it was like the worst thing I'd ever experienced.
I mean, I ran three miles, it was 1.51 way,
right there in George Bush Park.
You know, right off of Derry Ashford,
there's a little running trail
and it has like a tiny uphill and then you come back.
1.51 way and 1.5 back.
It was the worst thing.
You know, about a year later,
I was running like eight, nine, 10 miles like it was nothing.
I'd wake up on a Saturday and I'd just go for a 10 mile run.
I have not run consistently since I ran the marathons,
but your body doesn't forget.
You know what I could do right now?
It would hurt, but it would never hurt like that first time.
If you said, hey, let's go for a three mile run,
I'd be like, yeah, let's do it.
Even if I'm out of shape, I just know now what my body is capable of doing because I do that
It's the same thing with God's word the first time you do it
It just feels like it's this like over-the-top
Really difficult thing that God's doing in your life. You're like Lord
I'm gonna listen to you, but this is just and then after a while you realize actually this is way better than than the alternative, right?
This is way better than anything that I've ever experienced and we're here
We see let's go to verse one. It says then came he to Derby and Lystra and behold a certain disciple was their name Timotheus
the son of a certain woman which was a Jewish and believed but his father was a Greek
which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Econium, him would
Paul have to go forward with him and took and circumcised them because of the Jews which were
of those quarters for they knew all that his father for they for they knew all that his father
was a Greek and as they went through the cities they delivered them the decrees for to keep
There were Danes of the Apostles and the Elders which were at Jerusalem and so the churches established in the faith and so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily.
Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatian were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia.
So the Holy Ghost is the one that's stopping them.
They want to go there, but the Holy Ghost is stopping them, right?
We see their inverse evidences and they will come to Missiah.
They say to go to Bethneah, they wanted to go to Bethneah, but the Spirit suffered them not.
And they, passing Misia, came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night.
There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying,
Come over in Macedonia and help us.
And after he had seen the vision immediately, we endeavored to go into Macedonia,
assuredly gathering the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
Now, a couple of things we see here, and turn over to James 4.
It's interesting.
Because we know Paul later on calls out Peter and even we've seen this here. He calls him out for what?
the circumcision
Now when he grabs ahold of Timothy, what does he have him do? He has them get circumcised
Now based on the way that Paul is
The only conclusion that we can draw from this the Bible doesn't give us this is and we can draw two conclusions, right?
We could say hey Paul also said we must be everything to everybody, right? You know to the to the Greek
I'm a Greek and all that stuff
But remember Paul also got on to Peter
For basically going along with the circumcision so just as a side point and this is not the main theme here
But I just think it's interesting that
From the looks of it. This would be a wrong thing to do right because he preached so hard about it
We don't need to be circumcised. We just need salvation by faith
We don't need works even if he's trying to look like the other people just to help help the the kid along, right?
But what's interesting is the next verse says and we're and so where the church is established in faith and increased the number daily I
Actually like the point I'm making because what it's got look as long as we're doing the work even when we mess up got still gonna bless that
God's still gonna bless the work not you necessarily and we know Paul also got into some trouble, right?
Paul wanted to preach to the churches to continue to Jews and God kept telling them no and even here it says hey
don't go to miss you and
they just continued and then
The Holy Spirit and then they wanted to go to Bithnia and the Spirit suffered them not like they literally had to be stopped
Right now the nice thing about Paul is as stubborn as he was and by the way
It's easy to pick on somebody when you're reading their story after the fact
But I love that we have those stories to also prove to us how stubborn we can be
Right who has who's ever seen their children grow up, right?
I mean children about the most stubborn don't do that and that's it. Don't do that
Don't stick your hand in the outlet. Don't and then there's no electricity in the house, right? It's like
We're all like that, but even then, as long as we correct, God's going to bless, right?
Which is kind of contrary to what's been preaching, the preaching I've been hearing out there where it's just like, well,
you know, you don't have to make corrections. You don't have to live in guilt. You don't have to do these things.
No, you do have to do these things. You have to make these corrections. Maybe
this is my opinion, but maybe
and I don't usually give my opinions, but based on this, maybe Paul learned a hard lesson here.
And that's why he then got onto Peter so tough right later on in first period gets on a Peter for the circumcision
Because he learned a lesson here that you know, it's not explicitly told now if he actually was right and
You know, he did it so that he could be the same thing that you know to the Greek be a Greek and all that stuff then maybe
You know, there's this we can take a lesson that we could do that, but I just don't see that there
Because he's so staunch earlier. He was staunch after he staunches right in the middle
He just have this like one little verse that says it does that and I think it's just to show us what the humanity of Paul
Right the fact that Paul also makes mistakes
But it didn't stop him from preaching the word
You know, that's the problem with society today is because people are sinners
They think they're not worthy to preach the word of God look
I can preach all the word of God to you because I'm still going to be a sinner. It doesn't matter
Because I'm not preaching to you what I think. I just give you my opinion. But outside of my opinion
Everything you're gonna get is from the Bible, right?
Everything that's in God's work can be preached by anybody that's saved because well, I mean even even the unsafe could preach it
They just wouldn't get any any traction with it. You could read the Bible
But because it's God's word God's word isn't wrong
That's why we need the King James Version. That's why we need one word, one God, because people want to mistake and confuse the whole issue.
And when I'm talking about one God, I'm not talking about a law or Buddha. I'm talking about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three persons in one.
Because we're the only people that believe that.
You know, we know that the Catholics don't believe that. You say, well, they believe in the Trinity. Yeah, but they also believe that the Pope is the vicar of Christ.
So they're just adding one to the whole, it's not a trinity, it's a, uh, it's a triatarian
or something like that.
They're literally interviewing people because I think the conclave starts in like a week.
And they were like, why do we need a pope?
And the guy's like, well, we need a pope because basically it's, you know, he's like, he's
Christ on earth.
He's like a representative of Christ.
I'm paraphrasing, but they all believe that stupid crap.
I'm just to my to my thing is like how do you just how do you decide that like you got a bunch of guys in a row
Sitting around drinking wine. I guess it's a drunk fest and then you know
I guess somebody just was more sober and decides this whole thing
Doesn't even make any sense, but you're there in jade. Let me read for you really quick Robert 16
The Bible says a man's heart devises his way, but the Lord directed his paths
You know the best years of my life have been the years where I committed
To the Lord the latter part of my life has been better than the first part and I thought life was great when I was young
but I also made a lot of mistakes and
Did a lot of stupid stuff that I've been I just that's why when I read of David saying Lord
You know, let me not remember the sins of my youth. I understand him now. I don't want to remember the sins of my youth
Like Lord, I just how dumb was I like just
Let's not talk about that because it just makes me sad Proverbs 3 verse 5 says trust in the Lord with all thine heart
All thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding and I love this and in all thy ways acknowledge him and
He shall direct thy path
I'm gonna bring a sermon called what you don't inspect don't expect but I'm still gonna tell you the story now
So I lost all this weight
It's my wife and I've just been in shock and awe
This is why you need to lean on God's understanding. I'm gonna give you a worldly example of how stupid we can be sometimes. I
Love raw unfiltered honey. I love it because it's healthy
It's the way God made it, right? It's it's it's natural sugars. I could make all the excuses
But I got haughty.
I got a little, you know, the Bible says,
let him to think if he stand, take heed.
Lest he fall, well I fell really hard this week.
So I've been trying to get down to like about 145 pounds.
That's my ideal weight for someone who's five foot five.
I just, I've always been thinner.
You know, every time I gain weight,
I just don't feel comfortable.
It has nothing to do with looks.
It's just personal, right?
I just, I feel like I'm much more active.
I feel better at 145.
So I lost all this weight because I got sick and I weighed myself as like 146 and I said,
you know what, honey, I'm a commit to keeping the weight down because I haven't been able to,
I've been fluctuating between 150 to 152 pounds for, for, for years. I just came and I'm like,
I eat well, I watch my calories. I technically, I was counting my calories in my head and I said,
you know what, I'm going to get a little bit smarter. I'm going to use an app. So I went on
And I'm like, hey chat GPT, I'm 1.48 this morning,
you know, the morning wait.
And I'm gonna keep all track of everything I eat
and blah, blah, blah, so whatever.
And so now I'm telling it, hey,
I just had this thing called bud water.
It's like a coffee substitute.
It has 20 calories, but I don't use the full serving.
So it turns out it's like 13 calories.
And then I said, and I do two spoonfuls of honey.
That's it.
Because you know, I'm so healthy and I'm so smart.
that honey is not that bad for you.
And then all of a sudden the thing spits back to me
and it's like, okay, you've consumed 300 calories
and I was like, chat GPT is dumb.
Like this thing is an idiot.
I came down, honey, do you believe this?
I'm trying to use chat GPT and it's telling me
I'm like consuming 300 calories, it's just honey.
I don't believe this.
So then I go online, I'm like, how many calories per gram?
And for every gram of sugar, of honey sugar,
it's about something like 3.1 calories.
While I weighed the spoon, you know, you can buy those,
we have those little...
food measuring scales where you can tear.
I don't know if you know what tear means at T-A-R-E,
but you weigh the spoon and then you subtract that weight
so you actually have the real weight.
So I put the spoon in there and I weighed it
and I took the weight off and then now I zeroed it out
and then I put the honey and it's 50 grams for every spoon
and with every one of those cups, I'd use 50,
I use 100 grams of honey.
Because I'm so healthy, I mean like literally I'm just like I've been and I've been doing this for years
Not like months years
It turns out that I because I do one cup of mud water
I do two cups of coffee and then if I still feel like it I'll do another cup of mud water
And for each one of those cups is 12 ounces. I add two
spoon fulls of sugar a
hundred grams
By the time I come to lunchtime I have consumed
1,000 calories of honey, which is more like it's over half of my caloric intake.
My caloric intake to maintain my weight is 2,000 calories.
If I want to lose weight, I have to be at a caloric deficit, which is 1,600.
Well, if I just do the honey, I'm like, I can only eat 600 calories for the rest of the day.
This is why you don't lean on your own understanding.
Because honestly, I didn't think it was that bad because I'm buying raw, unfiltered honey.
I'm going to the farmers market. I'm buying it directly from the guy.
Other than owning the bees myself, I couldn't buy it more pure.
That has nothing to do with the calories, right?
You know, the Bible says let deceive not ourselves and you say that that sounds like a dumb example
It's not because this isn't that how we lead but let our life. Oh, I read my Bible
So I should be able to make good decisions. No
How about when you're making a decision you go to the word of God and you take it in prayer and you say Lord
Really guide me in this thing. Let me inspect it
Well, because you know, I think because I'm drinking honey that I'm not adding a thousand calories to my diet every morning
No wonder I couldn't lose weight.
I mean, literally by the time I went to lunch, I'm like, that's when I would start counting
calories.
Well, if I eat by 600 calories, let's say I ate 2,000 calories after that, I'm at 3,000
calories for the day.
Like literally, I'm at a, I start at a negative 1,000.
Like I'm, I'm sorry, positive 1,000, not zero by the time I eat my first meal.
So today, you know what I did?
I reduced it to like half, you know, for the first time in years, I'm actually eating the
right caloric count.
But you know why?
Because I was leaning on my own understanding.
You know, my understanding of honey was that it's, sorry, that it's healthy, it's unfiltered,
it's not like high fructose syrup, it's not, you know, what is it, complicated sugars.
It's not all that, yeah, but you didn't take into account the calories, dumb bunny, right?
Like you just you just thought you knew better and you didn't do the due diligence
And you say what does that have to do with everything?
Well, you know if I would have just actually prayed and done my due diligence the Bible says in all thy ways acknowledge him
And shut and he shall direct thy path
I didn't inspect it. I didn't track it. I didn't even ask the Lord if if that was the right thing to do
I just decided
You know that I was going to do it
You say, that's a dumb example.
Look, it's the, God says, the parable of talents,
it's the little things that get you the big things.
You can't handle little things
like counting your calories on honey,
how you expect to handle the big stuff that comes to life.
Right?
I mean, I'm being dead serious.
If you think it's dumb,
then you need to go read your Bible.
Cause God wants you to be faithful over the little stuff
before you can be faithful over the big stuff.
And everything in our life requires that kind of diligence.
And at first it's a lot of work, but later it's better because you know the other thing I noticed now that I cut back the calories
I feel so much better. I wish I would have just you know, whatever
I'm not even but go there James 4 when they're verse 13 the Bible says go to now
Ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there and buy and sell and get gain
It's basically the same thought that I just gave you just on a bigger scale, right? People in business are like, hey
I'm gonna go buy this. I'm gonna do that. What is it? It's their wisdom
But what does verse 14 say?
Whereas you know not what shall be on the mark for what is your life.
It is even a vapor, the period for a little time and then vanish at the way for what you ought to say.
If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or do that.
And we know the rest, right?
God really, I mean, James is here,
he's saying that, hey, you need to lean on God's understanding,
not what you think you need to do for business.
You know, I'm not, for the sake of time,
we're not gonna go there.
Go back to Acts 16, but in Isaiah 55,
we know the verses, but it's so important, right?
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways, my ways, sayeth 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 actually, if you break it down, it's actually really simple, you know, we think we're so
smart and we're not.
Let's not remove God, but let's just not talk about God's best wisdom right now.
We're so dumb and we're so used to it, we take things for granted, right?
How does your sewage work?
I mean, let's just, in a regular city, how do you know that you're getting clean tap
Right, how do you know that the electric like when you click the flick the switch that all the electricity is going to turn on and you're
AC
There's all this stuff. That's way beyond our understanding way beyond our and that's man's wisdom
Imagine God's wisdom. He's the one that gave man the ability to do the things that make us comfortable today
And then there's God's wisdom beyond that
Right, that's why we need to trust God is
honestly
We don't even scratch the surface of what God knows
We don't even scratch the surface of what he's doing in our lives, right?
And sometimes the Spirit is saying stop and we listen like Paul did here and other times
the Spirit says stop and we're like, no, we're going to do whatever we want anyways.
And then we wonder why we have a society that we have today, right?
So we saw right now, and I told you, be ready to go where God says, not where you plan.
Let me tell you what.
Right.
As a matter of fact, even after I got ordained and I was serving as an associate pastor,
my initial plan, my wife will tell you was that eventually one day Pastor Cobb would
just be like, you know, I'm going to send you out somewhere else.
Like it wasn't like my goal actually wasn't to run Spring Crest
It was just to run like a separate church that I would start somewhere else and do all that and the Lord just would always
Sort all my plants like everything that I just planned. I literally was like by time on 40
I'm gonna start a church somewhere. I'm gonna have like a ribbon cutting and the whole you know kitten caboodle the whole nine yards
Now I kept that to myself because the reality is I've always tried
I say this with with caution. I've tried to let the Lord lead my life
Of course, I make mistakes, but the Lord led it to where I stand here today
You know and even then I never wanted to become a pastor
I guarantee you that for a fact or a missionary or any of the stuff and now I do all of it
Point number two is God prepares the heart
The people before the preacher arrives. Why do we go to the end by the way? Do you might turn it down?
Just like two notches on the AC. I mean if you guys are burning up. I'm burning up. Maybe I'm still, you know, whatever but
when
The reason we go preach in receptive places is because God's prepared those places for us
That's why we don't go down to Israel and preach to the Jews
It's actually gotten really bad lately. I don't know if you guys seen there's been like all these videos of
Like New York Jews and stuff like attacking Palestinians and kicking them out and like throwing stuff at them
I mean, it's always happened, but right now with all the tension. It's it's really bad. They hate God
They hate Jesus Christ
Why would I go there the most receptive places in Houston are all the Hispanic and
Black communities that have apartment complexes that are lower income. Let's go there all day long. They'll listen to us
I mean, there's time when we've gone so in and I'm we've got like eight nine ten fifteen people in just a couple hours
Now there's time we'll go so when we don't get anything but you know, so we just need to know that when God
God always prepares the heart before the preacher arrives.
And so we were there in verse 11, it says,
therefore losing from Troas,
we came with a straight course to Samoth Tracia
and the next day to Neapolis and from thence to Philippi,
which is chief city part of Macedonia.
And we just saying that, right?
The Macedonian call in a colony.
And we were in that city abiding certain days on the Sabbath.
We went out of the city by a riverside
where prayer was want to be made.
And we sat down and spake into the women
which restore a thither.
resorted thither, and a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyateria, Tyra,
which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, and she attended unto the things which
were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized in her household, she besotted us, saying,
if ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there, and she
They get her saved, but what was she doing before? She was worshiping God
Look, there's a lot of people that worship God that aren't saved, which is another great point about how salvation is what?
by faith alone
Right and let me I know there's groups out there that you know, I guess it's it's on the increase
But we call upon the name of the Lord. Just let me let me make that very clear
But go over to 1st Corinthians 3 go to 1st Corinthians 3 and I'll read for you John 644 the Bible says no man can come to
Me except the father which had set me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day
Look, we need to just go out. We need to pray that the Lord sends us and you know what?
The Lord is preparing even as we speak right now. He's preparing hearts for the harvest
That's a good title. It's a sermon right hearts for the harvest like
The Lord is preparing the souls for the salvation man. I'm on a roll. Let me see that himself
That's two in a row, but the Lord is preparing these people to get saved
And it happens more frequent than not.
You know, people say they knock on so many, for whatever reason, sometimes we get the
stigma that we're like one, two, three, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ or that we teach
easy believism.
But no, we're actually really thorough.
Right when I preach the gospel, it's not just hey, you're a sinner. You're going to hell
But hey when you get saved, it's eternal. Hey, you can never lose it
By the way, when you get saved, you just can't live like a bat out of hell
You actually you have to try to live a better life
If you don't want to get chastised by God in the other on the other side of that coin
You can do whatever you want, but just know that God's gonna chastise you, right?
But you don't need any of that to get saved. We preach a pure gospel message
but God says that who's doing the work? God. And as a matter of fact, here in 1st Corinthians 3,
go to verse 3 and it says, I and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal, even as unto babes and Christ. And I want to clear something up because I believe
God gives the increase even to the church, but I've used this to say, hey, God gives the increase
This is the those verses but what this is really talking about is
The fruits and the reason that's important is because it's kind of funny because it's hard to consolidate teaching that God increases
The church and then there's churches that are bigger than ours, and I'm not talking about new FB
I'm talking about like second Baptist clay about there's churches that are bigger than us, but you know what they're not as fruitful as us
This is literally about the fruits. God wants the increase in souls, not in
pews that are being filled. Now, if the pews are being filled with new souls, great.
But he doesn't want to, you know, most of these churches just want to fill the pews. They don't care of your sake.
They don't care if you're going to hell. As a matter of fact, they hate you so much, they'll entertain you all the way to hell.
That's what they'll do.
Right first Corinthians says and I could not speak unto you spiritual
But as unto carnal even as unto babes and Christ and why is that because they're babes and Christ?
It says I have fed you with milk and not with me for hitherto you were not able to bear it
Neither yet now are you able for a year yet carnal for whereas there is among you envying and
Strive and divisions. Are you not carnal and walk has been?
for us for what once a
I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos.
Are you not carnal?
Even today we have this.
Oh, you know, I like, uh, I stand with Pastor Anderson and I stand against Pastor Anderson
or I stand with Trump or against Trump or I stand with, you know, Ed Young or against
Ed Young.
I mean, just name the people.
Paul says who then is Paul and who is Apollos but ministers of whom you believe
Even as the Lord gave to every man and there was the verse 7 says I have planted and Apollos watered
But God gave the increase hey didn't matter who you're standing with what you need to remember is God's the one that's giving the increase
So then neither he is that planted anything neither he that water earth, but God to give it the increase the only reason
You're taking sides on any issue. It's because you think that that's where the accolades are and God says no the accolades are because I'm involved
Because you're out there doing the work. I'm providing the fruit
Not every tree bear fruit
It doesn't right. I love that when Jesus shows up and the fig tree didn't give him fruit and he's like let's just wither it away
Let's remove the light
You got church after church, you know, there's an increase right now and it now with the conclave
It's even worse. I wouldn't put it past the Catholics to have just off the curd Pope
Just to continue increasing the growth of the Catholic Church
Because there's like the young people are being called on to it and why because they're sick and tired of the entertainment
They're just sick and tired of it
Because they know it's it's hollow. It's fake. That's what they get in the world. You know people
go for years
Tonight clubs and drinking and then one day they wake up and they're like I just wasted my life away
Or even worse I got a text from one of our former brothers I baptized that guy
I won't give you his name just because some of you know him Pastor Cobble know what I'm talking about. He's a meth addict
He showed up here a couple of months ago, thinking he was dying.
He scared Pastor Cobb and Sister Linda half to death.
He sends me a text. He's like, hey, how are you doing?
I'm like, good. He's like, he's like, I have the number to an alcohol center.
I keep messing up. What do I do? I'm like, call the place and break the spell.
But it's hard because he just went down that path and went down that path and went down that path
because he wasn't in the spirit. He was a babe in Christ.
And we love him.
I mean, even though he said some pretty nasty things to me in the past, I still love him.
If he was here, I'd help him, but, you know, I know he's not going to show up because it's
really hard.
It has nothing to do with us because all of us are capable of going down the same path
that that guy went.
The only reason that we're even successful today as a church has nothing to do with the fact that maybe pastor shell
Yeah, he he sent people this way and you know in the beginning of January
We had over a hundred people in church has nothing to do with the fact that whether so-and-so
Calls me and is my friend or it's just the fact to do that God's spirit is over this place
You can replace those names with other people. They're still gonna do that the work of God
As a matter of fact, I keep saying it. I love it and I really want to keep that spirit
And if I ever don't call me out on it, but I was only sad that I missed Easter
But I wasn't sad that the church
Was you guys went out so any it didn't I don't need to be it has other do with me or with you
It has to do with the people just being willing to work, right?
You don't have to go there, I'll just go real quick.
Go back to Acts 16, but in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 3, the Bible says for as much as
you're manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with
ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables
of the heart, and such trust that we, through Christ, to God-word, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but as our sufficiency is of God.
Look, God prepares both the preacher and the lost person
2nd Corinthians 4-6 Bible says for God commended
For God who commended the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ
Look, God's already shining in our hearts. Why do most Christians don't go so many because they want to live in darkness
Right
They don't like the light
My wife and I were talking it's a whole totally separate subject
I won't go into it, but we were talking about how at least this part how the Sun
SUN in the Bible a
Lot of the times most of the time pictures who the Sun SON, right?
The Sun gives us the light. God is the light. Obviously Jesus is the everlasting light, right?
And
What do most people what does the world teach you?
Sun is bad
Isn't that what they've been telling us for years?
Sun's bad.
Sun gives you cancer. So God would create a Sun
to give us cancer and kill us. No, what gives you cancer is you put all these chemicals on your body and then you bake them in your
bloodstream with the Sun and then of course you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna have some issues.
Right the Sun is not bad. Have you ever met like somebody who's lever a lifer like those people that live in in like the beach
I mean they look like like Leatherman, but they're healthy. They like you can see all their muscles
They're perfectly tan. You're like, how old are you? I'm 120 years old. I'm like, and he's like swimming in
He's harpooning, right?
You ever, there's literally civilizations out there right now,
like in the Philippines and in Mexico,
where there's like these old guys that have been living there
in the beach for like 60, 70, 80 years.
They're still swimming to like the depths of the sea.
They can hold their breath for five minutes.
They're exposed to the sun.
You're like, do you have cancer?
They're like, no, what's cancer?
Nothing, right? So anyways, I'm just saying we need to not rely on our wisdom
Let's go to point number three
So we saw that we need to be ready to go where God says and now where you plan God prepares hearts before the preacher arrives
But the devil will attack your ministry with what religious spirits and this is in verse 16
The Bible says and it came to pass as we went to prayer a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination
Met us which brought her master much gained by the Suse and this is someone divination Suse is basically like
a fortune teller, right? She's trying to look into the future. And the main
difference is divination is more of like they're using some of the occult, some
of the techniques, like so if you go to like a sidekick, they're using those
kind of like advanced techniques of not just trying to draw the occult, but
they're also like ask you all these questions before. You know, you're already
going in there with a predisposition and they ask you all these questions about
you and then they kind of make deductions.
And then when that person says, oh, I see in your life a woman, yeah, you do see a woman and she was your grandmother.
No, my mother, that's right, your mother.
Like, you know, you ever seen that, like the Venetian people?
Yes, your mother.
And she passed away from a car accident.
No, it was a plane crash.
That's right.
It was a plane crash.
They're always fixing it.
How do you fall for that? They're always having to fix everything because it's you know,
people are susceptible to that. And here we see this lady, her name is,
well it gives us the name here in a second, but the damsel is going out there and it says,
the same fall with Paul and us and Christ saying, these men are servants of the most high,
which showed unto us the way of salvation and did, and this did she many days, but Paul being grieved
Turn and said to the spirit I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and he came out the same hour
When her master saw that the hope of her gains was gone
They caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace into the rulers and brought them to the magistrates saying these men being Jews
Do exceedingly trouble our city and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive neither to observe being Romans
When the multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates rend off their clothes and commanded them
Commended to beat them and when they laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into the prison
charging the jailer to keep
Them safely who having received such a charge thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks
So these guys get this lady safe. They remove a
Demon from her and what did people do they beat him up? Why because for filthy lucre sake
Right people are always gonna fight that. You know, if you read the history of prohibition
The preachers that were getting attacked were the ones preaching against what?
alcoholism the fight of their day was drunkenness it was ruining families it was ruining homes it was ruining children it was ruining
Finance and business and all that stuff and you know what alcoholism is doing today
It's ruining families and it's ruining homes and it's ruining businesses and churches. It's still just as bad as it was then
And hey, if we preach against it,
people are gonna fight against this.
Look, we preach against all the things
and people are gonna get mad.
People get mad at me all the time, just all the time.
Like, I just live in a constant, you know,
life where if somebody calls me
and they ask me a question,
I already know they're gonna get mad.
I've stopped saying, you're not gonna like my answer
because I already know you're not gonna like my answer.
Because if you're asking for my opinion,
you'll love my answer.
Cause I might even give you an opinion you might agree with.
But if you're asking for me as a pastor
to give you God's word,
well I'm just gonna give you God's word.
I had someone fight with me the other day
and they're like, you know, my husband,
he neglects me and he's the worst and blah, blah, blah,
this is that.
And I mean, I don't think that the God I serve would want.
you know, my husband to treat me the way he treats me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I said, no, you're right. God doesn't want your husband to treat you like that, but
that doesn't give you the right to be like disobedient to your husband. The Bible says,
you know, to be submissive to your husband, to submit to your husband. Oh, so I have to submit
to him anyways. Yeah. That's, oh, so he could do whatever he wants and I have to submit.
Yeah, I mean, obviously murder and all that stuff is out of the question, but there's penalties for that, right?
But within the confines of marriage, they could do whatever they want.
You say, pastor, that's horrible preachy. Hold on. I didn't tell you that that was a good thing.
I'm just saying if you married wrong,
if you didn't choose the right husband and you end up with a crappy husband, you still have to submit to him.
That's life.
It's the other way around too right all my wife doesn't make me meals and she doesn't serve me and she doesn't take care of me
And you should have thought about that before you got married
That's why I can't stand these idiots who are preaching from the book of Proverbs
Like it's conflict resolution when it's actually you know conflict
Warning right when the Bible says hey
You know, it's better to live in a, in a tight, like in a corner of a house top than with
a brawling woman.
That's not for when you're married.
That's the, that's the warning before you get married.
Hey, don't marry a woman like this.
Right?
Oh, but, but she, she's so, so pretty and she dresses and she calls attention.
Let me tell you something about those women.
They're a little bit on the Kintakura side a little bit on the bad side you want to marry someone like that
Just know what comes with that territory, right?
The woman who's always seeking attention is you know what always seeking attention
And you could give her all the attention in the world you want if she's like that
Even if she's not horish
Even if she's just see it's still bad to seek attention from other men once you're married. I
was like I went to a
To Firestone by the way, just stay there at x-16. I'm almost to the last point
But I was there a firestone this morning. We were getting
Harris County still makes you get some kind of a missions test for your inspection sticker and literally
This woman gets down and I mean, but she's wearing panties like I don't know what else to call it
And I was like this is disgusting like
And I thought to myself because she had like graying hair. She's an older woman
So it's probably a mom or some lady married woman. She she's obviously has a vehicle
I'm making a lot of assumptions. I'm actually giving her some credit, right? Like and I'm like, why would you dress like that?
to get attention
What the worst part is the guy, you know, everybody there that she's going to they're all men
They're not all like going to church trying to keep their eyes chased. They're all gonna talk to her probably. It's just a bad recipe I
Don't like anybody looking at my wife. Let me just tell you that I'm just telling you right now. I don't
That's why and there's times when she's like dressed up in a certain way and I'm like look
I don't think you should wear that
And I'm glad that she you know, I'm not saying she's a perfect wife, but in that respect she doesn't fight with me
She's like, you know what? Okay, if she doesn't do it
Because I don't want that, right? We you don't want that kind of thing in your life
I don't know where I was going with that. Let me look at my points
If somebody can remind me then we can do that and I'm sorry if I got on rabbit trials
I'm still recovering. Oh that the devil will attack your ministry
The devil will find ways to attack you in different ways, right?
And one of the ways is two ways number one obviously the temptations but number two is also just bad preaching just bad doctrine
Right, they're good. The devil's always gonna find a way you literally find a way poor lady's got a demon in her
He gets the demon out and they're like let's kick these guys
Behind and it wasn't like they just beat him up. They striped them. They beat him up pretty bad keep going there
In act 16, but let me just read for you real quick second Corinthians 11
It was 14 the boughs is and and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light
Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness,
whose end shall be according to their works.
Matthew 7.15 says, Beware of false prophets, which come to you, sheeps clothing, but inwardly
they are rebelling in wolves.
First Timothy 4.1 says, Now the spirits speaketh expressly, and in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith, given heed to the dosing spirits and doctrines of devils.
I heard a clip of a guy that said,
why would God put that verse in there?
You know, father's provoking out your children to wrath,
but rather in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
But then you would spank your 16 year old.
And I thought to myself, well,
that's the fear and admonition of the Lord.
The Bible says not to spare the rod and not to do that.
Obviously,
That's why I love the King James wrath is like I rate, you know blind fury blind rage
That doesn't mean to stop being angry at your children. It just means don't provoke them to where they hate you
You know how you provoke a child to hate you?
If you just constantly beating up on them, right?
I get what I mean by that and I not just spanking like, you know, you know who does this best
I'll give you a great example Hispanics
You know, my my parents didn't do it as bad, but they still did it
Passive aggressiveness is provoking your children to wrath right if you spank a child and you correct them
Move on you can do that in anger and still correct the child
And they won't hate you as a matter of fact nine times out of ten when I correct my children
Give it about five minutes later, and you know who they want to hang out with the most daddy
right they're like
playing with me and
But if I were to lose my temper beyond that then that's when they're provoked to wrath because then it feels unfair
Right, you know, I remember it didn't happen often,
but there was times where I would get spanked or something
and then like for a whole month,
it was just like a constant reminder
of the stupid thing that I had done.
I can't believe you did that.
I just can't believe that you were so dumb
that you did this and I'm like, okay, I get it.
You know, I messed up, I got it.
You already beat me up about it.
Yeah, but it's just so embarrassing that you did that.
I cannot believe that's provoking your children to wrath.
But raising them up in the fear and ammunition of the there's nothing more fearful than the Lord Jesus Christ
The Bible says he's gonna scourge and chastise you if you don't pay attention to him
So God's provoking me to wrath because he's whooping on me. No
As a matter of fact, God's never provoked me to wrath, but let's go to the final point
Think it's my final point, right? Please tell me. Yeah final point is praise God in the midst of your ministry
Right, so be ready to go where God says now where you planned God prepares hearts before the preacher arrives
The devil will attack your ministry with religious spirits, but also praise God in the midst of your prison
Hey, we need to have this attitude that nothing can phase us
You know another I guess I could have thrown that in there, but another set of verses is about actually
Commands is not to be offended.
Right.
Don't be so sensitive.
My son came to me and he's like, Hey, Daniela won't let me climb the stairs.
She was starting to fit.
So I got onto her for that.
And then he came in the same stands and he's like, Hey, Daniela pushed me.
And I said, don't come to me with, with that.
You're, you're seven years old and she's old.
How hard could she have pushed you?
Like don't be so easily offended that you're too. I said, how do you think mommy would feel if at the end of the day?
Daddy came and was like, honey
Our seven-year-old he punched me and it will I'm still heard about it
She'd be a little bit like I
My son my husband needs to grow some stones, right? Like you can't be easily offended in life
You just need to get it over yourself right here in verse 25 says and at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises
Onto God and the prison has heard of you know
They're not moping around saying oh woe is me how unfair the government threw me in here
We're being a press there's like we're just gonna sing songs and pray to the Lord
And suddenly there was a great earthquake so the foundations of the prison were shaken
and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bands were loosed and the keeper
of the prison, awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors, he drew out his sword
and would have killed himself, supposing the prisoners had been fled.
But Paul cried with a loud voice saying, do thyself no harm for we are here.
He had to stop him.
The guy was literally going to kill himself.
Then he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul
The guy got on his knees and asked him the most famous verses. We use this all the time. So when you write and brought them out and said
Sir, what must I do to be safe?
And they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be safe
Literally, this is the verse I use to close out my presentation because I'm like I've already told you that you're sinning
I've told you there's nothing you can do to go to hell and this is the only time I actually
I'm kind of a jerk if they're not paying attention and I'm like I need you to pay attention to this verse
because I'm going to ask you a question on it, and it never fails.
I'm like, what does the Bible say here? I said, and they said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
So what is the only thing, the one thing that you have to do to get saved?
Be a good person. I'll just do it again. I'm like, hold on a second. Let's go through this again.
Let me read this for you. Let's read this again. In Acts 31 it said, and they said,
believe on the Lord, and eventually they'll get it.
You know, because most people are just not paying attention.
Right?
It's simple believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved and
Then what does it say and they spake unto him the word of the Lord?
It's all that were in the house and he took him the same hour the night and washed the stripes
They hadn't even cleaned them up
He took them and washed the stripes and I love this and was baptized he and all his straight way
And when he had brought them into his house, he sent me for them and rejoice believing in God with all his house
So what did they do?
they got baptized right away.
Most people like to make a big think about it.
Now they have like baptism parties in the big churches.
Look, when you get saved, just get baptized right away.
I didn't do a lot of things right when I first got saved,
but you know what I did do right?
I got, the pastor was like, you know,
the next step to after salvation is believer's baptism.
And I said, well, what can I do it?
Like I was going to do it that day.
And he's like, well, we can baptize you Sunday.
I was like, let's go, let's get it over with.
I was like, nobody was there, my family was there,
my friends weren't there, I was the only one there.
Actually, my mentor was there, he took a picture,
but I mean, this is back before iPhone,
so how good could that picture have been on his phone, right?
But for the sake of time,
because I actually have one more point,
let's just go over it, let's just stay there on Acts 16.
God will vindicate His men in public,
and this is where I love Paul's attitude,
Paul's boldness.
And right here in verse 35 is this,
The sergeant saying, let those men go, and the keeper of the prisoner told this saying to Paul,
the magistrates have sent to let you go, now therefore depart and go in peace.
But Paul said unto them, hey, they've beaten us openly,
un-condemned, now it's time to, you know, don't confuse by meekness for weakness.
Paul's in the prison, he can't do anything about it at midnight, other than singing pray.
But he knows the law and he's like hey, you guys beat me unfairly and against the law
And he said and I'm a Roman being Romans and have cast us in a prison now
Do they thrust out thrust us out pri-privilege or privately would be the the modern day, right?
Nay, verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out and the sergeant told the words unto the magistrates
And they feared when they heard they were Romans and they came and besought them and brought them out and desired them to
depart out of the city
They feared them because of the power of the Lord and
They went out of the prison and entered into the house of Lydia and when they had seen the brethren
They comforted them and departed
And I'll just close with this the Bible says in Proverbs 28 1 says the wicked flee with no math pursueth
But the righteous are bold as a lion. The thing is we need to lean on God's understanding. There is a time to fight
But you got to know when the time is
Look, if you're in the middle, and it's happened where we're in the middle of a gospel presentation,
someone is trying to interrupt, that's not the time to fight.
Finish the job when the job's over, if you need to get into that battle, then get into
that battle, right?
Or if the time comes for civil disobedience, then do it, but we need to choose the right
battles.
Isaiah 54-17 says, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue
And I'll have you turn to this last place and we'll close in Luke 21 and verse 12 the Bible says
Luke 21 and verse 12
The Bible says but before all these they shall they shall lay their hands on you and
Persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and into the prisons being brought before kings and rulers for my namesake
Initial turn to you for a testimony
And I love what this says because I used to worry about this a lot.
See, other religions don't have the end times completely wrong.
but they just don't have the spirit of God.
So, Seventh-day Adventists, we believe,
Seventh-day Adventists believe in the post-tribulation
like we do, right?
After the tribulation, then, you know,
these things are going to happen.
The challenge is, their fear-mongering was beyond anything.
They actually believe that the Sunday worshipers
are the ones who are going to institute the mark of the beast.
and only those people that worship on Saturday,
like the Jews, or the Seventh-day of Venice,
are the ones that are gonna be persecuted.
And then it was just like constant fear,
like, oh, you're gonna be chased,
and you're gonna be killed,
and fear, and fear, and fear,
because there's never any talk of heaven,
or salvation, or anything like that.
But here the Bible says,
settle it, therefore, in your hearts,
not to meditate before what ye shall answer.
Hey, you don't have to worry about what you're gonna answer.
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gain say nor
Resist and I've had that happen. I won't go into because I've already told you the stories
But there's been times where I was deposed or brought up in a different place
I didn't know what I was gonna say and I just went to these verses and then when the time came the Lord just provided the right words
Right, so don't worry about it. It's not doom and gloom. God's gonna spare you if you look at the Bible
A lot of the teaching is like two-thirds negative, one-third positive, as far as the teachings, right, like cursings and blessings.
But if you look at the saints from Genesis all the way to Revelation, Revelation has the most martyrs.
Most of those guys lived out their life and died natural causes or old disease, you know, like at old age, like David made it to the end of his life.
Right Elijah was translated Elijah just made it to the end of his life
It looks like Paul made it to the end of his life, you know Peter and Paul and some of the Apostles sure they were
Killed, but they still led a life after that like you don't have martyred
Like the world would try to teach you that it's just all doom and gloom
Right and and we kind of you have the the United States has what this prepper mentality
Go off grid
build a bunker
You know literally I've seen people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. They dig underneath and they build this concrete
massive home and they save food for the next
30 40 50 years in case of an apocalypse
And when you get to heaven it's going to be like, what did you do all that for like what you waste all that time for?
Hey, I want to be in the battle
That was not my mentality when I was young, but now let's get in it
You know, I want to be in the middle. If I get taken out, I go down fighting, right? It's like the the famous
Speech I'll bring it later, but it was preached. It was set at the Sorbonne
I think it's Theodore Dorsival the man in the arena and it's a small excerpt and at the end of it
The whole thing is like I don't want to be the man
I want to be the man in the arena not the one the spectator
What did you say at the end? I don't want to be with I'd rather have lost than be with those cold and timid souls
That never did anything at all like that now neither new victory nor defeat
Look if I get defeated for Christ, I want to know it
Because at the end I got the victory, but I want to know the victories in Christ
And we've had great victories and we're gonna continue to have great victories
But these are the kind of things that we need to just reinforce in our life
Hey, don't think because you're eating healthy honey that you're not consuming a thousand calories a day
You know, just let me start that lesson because don't we all get a little haughty. Oh, I only eat organic food
And I only eat healthy. Yeah, but you're still consuming stuff, right? You can do too much of one thing
And you know, I'm just gonna tell myself. I mean like what an idiot. I mean, why didn't I think maybe there would be calories and honey, right?
just
Don't get so wise in your in your ways that you fall
The Bible is clear if you're if you think you stand you will fall
Let us never think it's spring crest that we're so good that we're not capable of falling
We're capable of falling and that's the only reason that we stand is that the reminder that we could fall at any moment
The minute we stop thinking like that, you better get ready for that fall.
And there will be no cushion.
So let's go ahead and close the door to prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for today.
Thank you for your blessing, Lord.
Thank you for Acts 16.
And just so many good reminders, so many, you know, preaching against.
Demon possessed people and just people that are calling the Macedonian call
Preaching in prison being beat up for the cause of Christ, but also standing boldly and and fighting back
against
The injustices of the world when the time comes but more importantly Lord, just thank you for driving the point home every chapter
It's just confirming in the churches confirming the souls
Preaching the gospel never stopping Paul gets knocked unconscious
left for dead after he's stoned. He gets stripes in the back. He gets thrown in prison. And yet at
every turn he just goes out and he preaches the word that we would just have the gumption in this
United States of America today. Lord, we're not getting attacked like that. And then we would get
up and say, how can I get better at soul winning? How can I do more soul winning? When can I find
time to go just knock one more door, talk to one more person, give the gospel to just two or three
more people today, help us to Lord be just conscious of that and to do the work that you've