All right, we're going to go ahead and get started this evening if y'all would turn
into your hymnals to song number 91.
Jesus. He speaks the true, being hard to cheer. I'll hear the voice of Jesus.
Sweetest note in Sarah's song. Sweetest name on mortal tongue.
Sweetest carol ever sung. Jesus, bless it, Jesus.
Jesus, bless it, Jesus.
All right.
Enrique, get a bulletin for Brother Milstead, please.
And then just give it to him.
You don't have to shake his hand or anything,
because you're under the weather.
But today is June 18th.
We're already saying happy birthday, but today is sister Linda's birthday 21 plus whatever she decides, right. We'll leave it at that. And we free our services right there on the left Sunday morning, 10 30 a.m. Sunday evening for 30 p.m. Wednesday service is 5 30 p.m. And then our soul winning time Sunday 2 p.m.
And then we have the memory chapter, Psalm 23 verse,
well, the song, the memory chapter, Psalm 23,
the verse for this week is Psalm 23 verse three,
he restored my soul, he leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for his namesake.
We are going to also send out a text
with all that information.
And then year to date, souls one is we're at 147.
So we did get one on Sunday.
And so we've updated that.
And then of course we had Father's Day.
but coming up on the 29th is 5th Sunday dinner and
We'll go ahead and send out some information on that, but what we'll probably end up doing is getting the main meal
then we'll just have all the sides and then we have brother if you have a chance
say hello to brother Milstead from Steadfast the reason I'm not only my
grateful that he's here visiting us from Steadfast but also we have some
events that we've been invited to so the men's retreat August 14th through the
16th if anybody wants to join just let us know and then the fire breathing back
this fellowship August 27th through the 31st
It's my understanding when I am invited but it's my understanding I'm preaching the Sunday Spanish
service so now I got to get my Spanish back my tongue working again and then on the back is our
prayer list and that will go out every Monday via text and email and if if anybody wants to
do we put it in that in that email if anybody wants to just respond to that maybe we need to do that
All right, let's just add that to that.
So Brother Moe's been helping me,
so a lot of communication is gonna go out
over the next couple of weeks
with all the different events and things that we're doing.
But if nothing else, turn your hymnals over to page 274.
274, and let's sing on our hymnals, page 274.
Take the name of Jesus with you, take it.
274.
Song number 274 take the name of Jesus with you
387
387 joy unspeakable
That's on 387
chapter number 23. We'll read there in the Bible starting in verse 1 where the Bible reads,
And Paul earnestly beholding the counsel said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience
before God until this day. And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to
smite him on the mouth. Then said Paul unto them, God shall smite thee thou whiteed wall for
For sit is thou to judge me after the law, and command is me to be smitten contrary to the law.
And they that stood by said, Revilis, thou God's high priest, then said Paul, I was not,
brethren, that he was the high priest, for it is written thou shalt not speak evil of
the ruler of thy people.
But when Paul perceived that the one part were seduces and the other Pharisees, he cried
out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, of the hope
And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the multitude was divided.
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both.
There arose a great cry and the scribes that were of the Pharisees part arose and strove saying we find no evil in this man
But if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him let us not fight against God
And when there arose a great ascension the chief captain fearing less Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them
Commanded the soldiers to go down and to take them by force from among them and to bring them into the castle
And the night following, the Lord stood by him and said,
Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified to me
in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together
and bound themselves under a curse,
saying that they would neither eat nor drink
till they had killed Paul.
And they were more than 40 which had made this conspiracy.
And they came to the chief priests and elders and said, we have bound ourselves under a
great curse that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.
Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down
unto you tomorrow, as though ye would inquire something more perfectly concerning him,
and we or ever he come near are ready to kill him."
And when Paul's sister's son heard of their saying, heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle and told Paul.
Then Paul called one of the centurions unto him and said, Bring this young man unto the chief captain, for he hath a certain thing to tell him.
So he took him and brought him to the chief captain and said, Paul, the prisoner, called me unto him and prayed me to bring this young man unto thee, who hath something to say unto thee.
Then the chief captain took him by the hand and went with them aside privately and asked him,
What is that thou hast to tell me?
And he said, the Jews have agreed to desire thee that thou wouldst bring down Paul tomorrow into the council
as though they would inquire somewhat of him more perfectly.
But do not thou yield unto them, for they lie and wait for him of them more than forty men
which have bound themselves with an oath that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed them.
and now they are ready looking for a promise from thee.
So the chief captain then let the young man depart
and charge them. See thou tell no man that thou
showed these things to me. And he called unto them two
centurions saying make ready two hundred soldiers to go to
Caesarea and horsemen three score and ten and spearmen
two hundred at the third hour of the night and provide them
beasts that they may set Paul on and bring them safe unto
And he wrote a letter after this manner.
Claudius Lysius unto the most excellent governor Felix cindeth greeting this man was taken of the Jews and
should have been killed of them then came I with an army and rescued him having understood that he was a Roman and
When I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him
I brought him forth into their counsel whom I perceived to be accused of questions of their law
But to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds and when it was told me
how that the Jews laid and wait for the man I sent straightway to thee,
and gave commandment to his accusers also, to say before thee
that they had against him farewell. And the soldiers, as it was, commanded them,
to Antipatris. On the morrow, they left the horsemen to go with them and returned to the
castle, who when they came to Caesarea and delivered the epistle to the governor, presented
Paul also before him. And when the governor had read the letter, he asked of what province
he was, and when he understood that he was of Cecilia, I will hear thee, and he, when
thy accusers are also come, and he commanded him to be kept in Herod's judgment hall.
Dear Father God, thank you for this day, thank you for this chapter in the Bible, and I pray that you be with Pastor Enrique as he preaches through your word, Lord, and I pray that you be with us, help us to receive understanding, help us to receive the message, Lord, and I pray that we all get home safely.
What's interesting is every for the last couple of weeks, this is about acts 19 just keeps getting worse for Paul
Doesn't it? I mean, it's good blessing, but man, he just keeps running into like another
Like angry mob and then a bigger angry mob and then the government has to step in and get him out of his way
And then people are mad now. They're gonna kill him. I mean
Can you imagine hating someone so much that you're like, I'm not going to eat or drink until this
person is dead. So it just gets more interesting. But we're there in Acts 23. Let's just get into
the message and the title of the sermon this afternoon is wisdom in the spiritual war. But
before it, actually, before we get into the message, let me just go real quick. And this is just,
this is not part of the message. This just came because of
of what happened this afternoon. So this afternoon I went to a funeral. Sister Sylvia, we already
talked about it. She lost her nephew. And in the funeral, you know, just like any
Funeral I there's some safe people. There's not some safe people
Everybody some children spoke actually was really sad at one point
I really did tear up a little bit as the young 12 year old daughter was speaking of her 40 year old father who just passed away
She couldn't even speak she wrote a letter and and all that and you know people are talking about God in heaven
But it's not anything very clear
As is expected by most people in the world. I'm not
Being judgmental, most people don't know how to give a clear gospel message. I mean, that's just a fact of life
but I just wanted to point that out because
one of the I guess one of the attacks that we get as Baptist is that we oppress women because we don't believe in women preachers and
That's not true. We believe women should preach just not in church or from behind the pulpit
But out there in the world, I mean the Bible says that everybody needs to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and in Romans 1
Verse 16 you know that you guys know this but the Bible says for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it to the Jew and also to the Greek
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith
And we touched on that last week a little bit, but I love that after everybody went up
So I think it was the children and then the dad spoke, you know
It's really hard for a father to lose their son and the one I think the brother the younger brother spoke
And then sister Sylvia went up to speak the aunt and she starts out by talking about John 3 16
And the fact that she wasn't going to miss her her nephew
I mean she was gonna miss him
But she had the peace or the hope that he was using to see him in heaven because she knew that he was safe by faith
I mean, she's basically going through the gospel. I thought well, that's good. You know, I thought that was
what she was going to say. And then she pulled out this little paper and she proceeded to
like quote like 15 verses with the gospel message. And she's like in the book of John and she's in
the book of Ephesians. And I'm just thinking to myself, honestly, just because we were at the
funeral, I was like, Hey man, you know, I'm just kind of, and it was great because, you know, when
it's a reflection of the fact that this is the kind of church that we want, right?
People who are bold to preach the gospel of Christ.
She was aware of the fact that to me it was a huge blessing and encouraged me to just keep
doing what we're doing because she was aware of the fact that nobody was really going to give a
clear gospel message. And it was so great what she did that when the guy that got up to preach
the closing message got up, I guess he was a preacher, he started out by saying, well, you know,
He was kind of like startled because he didn't know where to go from there
I mean she just basically laid out the gospel message and she just kind of laid it out to everybody's and he was kind of
Throwing off and then he proceeded to tell this story that had nothing to do with the funeral
That's a conversation for another day
But I just thought what a blessing to have a church that's willing to just proclaim the gospel of Christ
You know at this funeral there's like at least two three hundred people
And probably the majority of them are lost, right?
You know, you've got people who have been fed
and indoctrinated from TV and, you know,
somebody talked about how God steals, you know,
His children and takes them home and makes them stars.
You know, obviously the cliche stuff
and you had someone who just represented
the gospel properly.
And you say, well, how do you tie it to this?
Well, the fact that when you're looking at someone like Paul,
why is Paul being persecuted?
We're not going to go through that, but basically chapters 19, 20, 21, 22, and now 23, Paul
just keeps being moved from one.
to malt or accusation or almost near-death experience to another,
his only saving grace is that there's law and order by the Romans because the Jews
aren't even willing to follow law and order, much like what they're doing right now
in Israel. And I'm not going to tie it to that, that's a whole other sermon, but
I mean literally we're about to get dragged into World War III for no reason other than the hatred of
I mean, I know people don't like it like that, but it's the truth.
Why else would you be doing the things that you're doing other than the Jews think that they're
God's chosen people, but they don't respect Jesus Christ,
and they look at, you know, they refer to people like us as gollium, right?
Like, we are there, they're there to serve them.
You know, it's interesting, I saw some clip of a rabbi who said that all
He said all Gentiles he didn't say Goyim, but he's like all Gentiles should you know look at us
Not just Jesus and they should all be thankful to us because we're dying for their sins every day
He's like every Jew is dying for their sins every day. I mean, I wish I was making this stuff up
This is like a legit statement and what do we see here?
Who's the one who is the group that's persecuting Paul throughout all these chapters the Jews?
right? They don't like what? That he's preaching the truth of Jesus Christ, right?
But Paul's like, I don't care if I'm in a funeral, I don't care if I'm in, you know, a synagogue,
I don't care if I'm in Ephesians, and you know, we're praying, you know, people are mad because
I'm destroying their goddess or gods or whatever. He's like, I'm just gonna keep preaching the word
of God. And the first thing that we need to understand, the first point we have here, go to
I mean, we just need to understand that life's not fair.
I wish that people would understand that life's not fair.
You know, what's one of the most common complaints from children?
Well, that's not fair.
It's because he took my toy.
That's not fair.
You know what I tell my kids when someone does something to them?
I'm like, welcome to the world, son or daughter.
Life's not fair.
But, especially when you're a Christian, life is really not fair.
Not from the world's perspective, from God's perspective, he will neither leave us nor
forsake us, but the world doesn't care, right?
And we need to get a tough skin and know that God's going to come through for us.
Almost oblivious to the fact that they're constantly wanting to kill him
Not that he's dumb about it and we're gonna see that and that's why I don't know if I gave you the title of the sermon
But acts 23 is wisdom and spiritual war wisdom and spiritual war because we see Paul's wisdom
He does know the laws of the land. He knows how to maneuver through these weird. I
guess
dealings where people are trying to attack him, but he also understands that life's just not fair,
right? It says there in verse 1 of chapter 23, it says,
And Paul earnestly beholding the counsel said,
Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.
You know, that's not to say we don't back down. I mean,
that's not to say that we don't stand our ground, better said. Like, we're still going to preach.
that we're preaching the truth,
we're still gonna say what we need to say,
but we just need to understand that life's not fair, right?
Paul makes a plea here, or a statement saying,
hey, I have lived in all good conscious
before God until this day,
and the high priest Ananias commanded them
that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.
Man, he was so mad.
He said, he's almost like you talking his blasphemy.
But isn't that how people react
when we tell them that we're preaching the truth?
They were not lying. They were willing to stand on the truth of God. I mean people get mad
Right, if you if you were to meet a Catholic
I've had conversations with Catholics and I guess because they're talking about it
But I've literally been in rooms where I got a little uncomfortable
Right. I was with some of my friend my dad's friends. This is like
My wife, and I just got married so maybe like 14 years ago, and we went to Jalapa, Mexico
We were in their home and for some reason the lady in the house started talking about faith and religion and
I think the conversation got directed to me. I don't remember all the details
But basically I was like, you know, Mary was not a virgin after Jesus Christ
And the room got a little awkward and I think if we would have been in a bigger group
I would have been in a big trouble like she
Like that kind of ruined the trip for everybody afterwards because she was not happy about the fact that I had said that like they revere
Her so much like she would have probably
Punched me in the mouth if it wasn't for the fact that there was other people in the room, right?
I mean the high priest is so bad at Paul for just being honest
Then it says, and he stood by him, and commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth, then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou white at wall, for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law.
And then they stood by and said, Revile us thou, God's high priest.
Then said Paul, I wish not brethren that he was the high priest where it is written thou shall not speak evil of the ruler of thy people
And he's like basically not recognizing what that he who's the high priest to Paul Jesus Christ
He's saying like you're a false prophet
Now pay attention here because he's calling this guy out, but obviously he's gonna follow the rules of the land
There's there's a fine line between
civil obedience and civil disobedience, and I know I've touched this before, this is not the sermon,
but there will come a time, I believe, I don't know if it'll be in our time or our kid's time,
where civil disobedience will be necessary for Christianity.
But it doesn't come until they really just push what? What Paul's dealing with here?
Where they're denying the Lord Jesus Christ and they're trying to impede you from preaching the gospel.
The rest of it...
whether we like it or not, and turn to 1 Peter 2, I'm actually going to show you from those
verses that we need to follow the law, the rules of the land, until they try to impede us or become
a stumbling block for the cost of Christ. In 1 Peter 2, there in verse 18, the Bible says,
You know every four years there's a group that thinks that the guy who's at the at the White House is forward towards them
right, you know if you're a Republican and
Biden's in office that you think Biden's not your president and it's it's time for anarchy, right? We need another
Revolution and now that
Trump's in office. You got the left saying, you know, no king but or what is it?
No Kings day, whatever they did over the weekend
But the Bible says here that we need to be subject to all your masters with all fear
But it I like what it says not only to the good and gentle but also to what the forward
What did Job say to his wife? He says do we not just do we receive the good only and not the evil look?
Everything comes like from God and we receive everything life is not fair
I mean, it really, it is it, you know, verse 19 says,
for this is thank worthy,
if a man for conscious sake toward God endure grief,
suffering wrongfully, when you do well and suffer for it,
you take it patiently.
Hold on a second guys, I'm, it's been a long day,
but
If I don't do this, I will run over and then I'll have preached two sermons and you know
I know that some some preachers do that, but they can get away with it
I'm not that guy, you know, so if I don't have my timer then we'll go way over
But right here in verse 96 says for this is thank worthy of a man for conscious towards God and dirt grief
Suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently.
But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
For...
even here unto where ye called, because Christ also suffered for us,
leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found
in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, he threatened not,
but committed himself to him that judges righteously, who his own self bear our sins in his body,
on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we
By whose stripes you were healed for you were a sheep going astray but now return unto the shepherd and Bishop of your souls
I mean Jesus left us that example, right? I mean was it really fair for Jesus to die for the sins of the entire world?
No, but the glory comes in dealing with the fit unfairness properly
We could be like the children of Israel in Genesis and Exodus and the first five books
of the Bible where they're constantly murmuring and complaining, oh, God, you got us to the
Red Sea only to kill us at the Red Sea.
On Sundays, we're going through the overview of the Bible on Sunday evenings.
We just got through the Red Sea, God did this great miracle, and they're like, well, now
we don't have bread to eat, and we don't have meat to eat, and he gives a manna and
quail for 40 years, and then they get to Mariah, and they're like, hey, we don't even have
And isn't that the, I mean, we live in a society now that everything is a complaint, right?
Christians complain, the left complains, everybody complains, but those that are believed on the
Word of God, our duty is just to preach the gospel and just realize that some days are
going to be good, some days are going to be tough.
I mean, I wish it wasn't like that.
That's why we're looking forward to heaven, but maybe that's a reason we're looking forward
to heaven, but that's just the reality of life.
This morning, my kids were struggling and I heard on my little complainee about going
through math, because my wife's having to redo some of the math stuff, and I went up
to my kids and I said, look, y'all better get your stuff together, right?
First of all, you have it really good and number two from this point forward in your life
Things are just gonna get harder not easier and every year and every day that passes by it's just gonna get harder
and it's going to get worse. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. I'm not trying to be doom and
gloom. I'm just telling you the reality of life. Like every day I get up, I tell myself, I'm going
to just have this great, every day I make a plan to have this like perfect day. And you know what
never happens? I have this perfect day. Like I can count on my hand days that went exactly like I
thought they should go, you know, and then the rest of the days go like they went to day where I
woke up and every client called me and I was like on my way to the funeral and I almost crashed
I mean, it's just like it's like this constant barrage of never ending missiles, right? It's just like
You know interruption here and interruption there and you're trying to read your Bible and you're trying to have prayer time
We just got to make time for it. You know Paul never made an excuse Paul just went out and did the work
Right regardless of how fair everything was he just went out and did the work in Matthew 5 verse 10 and go back to act
23 but Matthew 5 verse 10 the Bible says blessed or they
which are persecuted for righteousness sake. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Look,
it's a blessing to understand that life is not fair. Just because you understand it doesn't mean
you have to have a negative attitude about it. As a matter of fact, it's a blessing. We're grateful.
If you're lost, life's not fair.
And if you're saved, life's not fair.
So you might as well do it while you're saved
because at least you're gonna get
the blessings from God, right?
In verse 11 it says,
blessed are ye when men shall revile you
and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for who's sake?
For God, my sake, right?
Who? Jesus Christ.
Exodus 22 verse 28 just really quick the Bible says thou shall not revile the gods and or curse the ruler of thy people
And the point here is that we need to obey leadership
I mean I could have gone up to Romans 13
There's plenty of scripture that tells us that we need to not only obey
You know we were talking about that right nobody wants to submit to authority
We need to obey the laws of the land. We need to obey the leadership the only time we do have clear scripture
when we can civilly disobey but most of the time you know what like 99% of the time that's not
going to happen. Now do we like it? No I mean honestly I hate paying taxes but we pay them right?
I mean even Jesus paid taxes and I know people like to argue that I'm not going to get off on
a tangent but the reality is the more you read your Bible the more we need to realize life's not fair.
But because of that we don't make an excuse to stop preaching the gospel to stop doing the work that we need to do to show up
You know every every every Wednesday every Sunday morning every Sunday evening
We don't make excuses for not reading our Bible or making time to pray
We just show up and do the work right and then God will bless us where he needs to bless us and when he needs to bless us
And how he wants to bless us because God will does whatever he wants because he's God
Just like I do whatever I want with my kids because I'm dead now. I'm not comparing myself to God
I'm just saying God's shown us a little bit of what authority looks like when he gives us authority, right?
Let's go to acts 23 the second point out for you today is that
so
Sometimes your strategy needs to be spirit-led and what I mean by that sometimes is really it should be spirit-led all the time
But unfortunately we're in the flesh
Like everything that we do in our life every decision should be based on the Word of God
It should be based on prayer in the Holy Spirit, but let's be honest. We don't do that all the time
But when it is
Then we have much more success. We're actually we have success, right?
If you go there to acts 23 and verse 6 the Bible says but when Paul perceived and in one part
We're Sadducees and the other Pharisees he cried out to the count out in the council men and brethren. I am a Pharisee
the son of a Pharisee, of the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am called in question, and when
he had said so, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the multitude
was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit,
but the Pharisees confess both. And there arose a great cry and the scribes that were of the
Pharisees part arose and strove saying, we find no evil in this man.
but if a spirit or an angel had spoken to him, let us not fight against God. And when there arose a
great dissension, the chief captain, fearing less, Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them,
commanded the soldiers to go down and to take him by force from among them and to bring him
into the castle. And go to Matthew 10. Go over Matthew 10 to it. I love this story. Paul basically
And who remembers that guy in high school?
The instigator.
Remember?
And eventually somebody got smart to the instigator
and they were like, bro, all you do is start fights,
but you're never in a fight.
Remember that guy?
The guy that was like, anytime somebody said something,
they were like, ooh, you're gonna let him talk to you
like that?
You're gonna let him say that to you. You're not gonna defend your but they were then the fight would break out
And then they were like nowhere to be found now Paul's obviously not running from the fire
But he he he read the room that's another good tactic that he used is you know
You got to read the room, you know
You don't want to preach to the wrong group and he realized that there was a bunch of Pharisees there
and what does he start by saying he's like hey, I'm a Pharisee and a son of a Pharisee and
I believe in the resurrection and what did he basically start?
He distracted them from basically putting all their attention on him.
Unfortunately, kind of backfired a little bit because at the end
that's to pull him away because I guess the way it reads it almost sounds like
they're pulling him. Like some people are like no he's
right and some people are wrong and they're like
that what does it say the chief captain says fearing less Paul should have been
pulled in pieces of them.
Commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force like Paul gets so smart it kind of almost backfires on them
They're fighting for Paul the Pharisees are like no Paul didn't do anything wrong
Bring them back to us and the Sadducees are like no he did bring them to us and they're
There's a tug of war for Paul. Not for the right reasons, but what Paul does is what distracts from
the main thing that they were trying to accomplish.
And the thing that's clear here that we need to learn as Christians is
look, the enemy has no purpose when they're attacking Christ.
And what I mean by that is their only purpose is to hate God. In other words,
they don't really have a plan for you other than death.
So, it's really easy to distract them if you apply the right tactic, like if you use the
word of God, if you're using, the Bible talks about what, being wise as serpent and gentle
as sheep.
The challenge with Christianity, and that's why it's so good to go to church and learn
your Bible, is the Bible says that we're dumb as sheep, right?
set a scripture, what I think about is the congregation as a whole, right?
We're always like kind of dumb together and I'm sorry if anybody gets offended, but that's the Bible.
But the Bible also gives us clear understanding that where do we get wisdom from?
Where do we get protection from the great shepherd, the good shepherd, right?
And so in order for us to be wise as serpents, we need to be grounded in the Word of God. Paul
He's like dumb as he's led to the slaughter in the sense that he's willing to give his life for Christ
But he's not dumb in the sense that he's just gonna do it without a fight, but it's a proper fight
Grounded in the Word of God, and I hope I'm making sense there because I'm I'm not trying to convolute the Bible
We have a balance in the Bible, right? God makes it clear that we are
Sometimes dumb as sheep, but that's why he gives us what shepherds and he gives us the Word of God
And obviously he's the ultimate the good shepherd that feeds us so that we're not dumb like sheep if that makes any sense
Right, and what is that? What do I like in it too? Well like a new Christian can get caught up in like false
Uh, doctrine, maybe they're saved, but they can get caught up in weird stuff.
I mean, I've met people, we know that there's Baptists that believe in the pre-trip rapture.
In my opinion, that's not only my opinion, biblically, that's dumb.
Right, they're kind of dumb like sheep and what ends up happening is that they follow all these things
There's people that are prosionists. I mean literally right now
Baptists all over America that are not hardcore
King James only Baptist are basically sounding what the battle cry they think that this thing that's going on in the Middle East is great
I literally saw some guy
Today some I wish I should have I was in a hurry. So it was a very short clip
As I was getting ready to go and it was some guy and he literally had a PowerPoint of
The Middle East and he was he had a PowerPoint of like the biblical Middle East and then the current Middle East and you know
In there shows like Russia and Turkey and Israel and all that stuff and I wish I was making this stuff up
He's like
I'm going to circle this. I'm going to make this up. It's not on the plan. You know, like he's
trying to sound really cool and he circles Israel. And he goes, you see that circle right there?
That's Israel. This is biblical from Ezekiel. And then he goes, you see up here, that's whatever.
And this is section in this section. And he goes, now go to the next slide. And he's like,
now this is modern day biblical map. And it's like Russian, all that stuff. But he goes,
now go back to the old map. And nobody reacts. And he's like, no, you guys need to get excited.
From a biblical map and I'm thinking to myself. What is this guy talking about?
He's like Israel because what the point he's trying to make is that the only thing that's not changed in the map is
Israel right that Israel is still where Israel is and I thought to myself what does that have to do with salvation?
You know, it's just part of the end times like the only way you get saved is through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior by faith alone like
The location of Israel is irrelevant irrelevant to my salvation, but this guy's kind of going back and forth
I'm not kidding. He said it like four times. He's like you'd never heard of anybody getting saved from a map
But today people are gonna get saved from a map
Because what's going on right now in Israel is biblical, and he's talking about what? World War III?
Anyways, I didn't I meant to digress, but I just thought to myself
People are sitting in that church believing this junk thinking that somehow because of the things that are happening in Israel right now
By people that hate Jesus Christ that they're now secure to go to heaven
And what's gonna happen is one day they're gonna die and they're gonna wake up in hell
it's all over for them. You know in the last week how many volcanoes have
erupted and all I can think about when I see a volcano eruption is that hell
has enlarged itself. It's making space for all the people that are going to hell.
I don't see a volcano something go I think to myself we're getting close.
And we need to get wise to the things of God and not the things of this world, right?
Go there in Matthew 10 the Bible says in verse 16 says behold I send you forth the sheep in the midst of wolves
Be ye therefore wisest serpents and harmless as doves
But beware of man for they will deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in their synagogues
And he shall be brought before the governor before governors and kings for my sake for testimony against them and the Gentiles
But when they deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be giving you in that same hour
What ye shall speak
For it is not ye that speak but the spirit of your father which speaketh in you and the brother should deliver up
the brother to death and the father the child and the children shall rise against their parents
and the cause them to be put to death, and ye shall be hated of all men for my namesake,
but he that endureeth to the end shall be saved, but when they persecute you in this city
flee ye into another city, into another, for verily I sent ye, ye shall not have gone
over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come again." And what's interesting here, and I know
I've preached this a lot, but we need to drive this point home, because that's what the book of Acts
is about, is when I read this, I see that we need to spend time where? In the Word of God.
Not worrying about what law is being passed and how we can overcome it when the time comes
The strategy will be led by the Holy Spirit. You know, Paul is what preaching the gospel
But also Paul was educated. I mean, let's just we know this because he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees
And so when the time came he used that worldly education to his advantage
But you know what he didn't do he didn't spend more time on it
It's like taxes, right? I pay my taxes for our business and I have a CPA
We I have a bookkeeper that does our taxes and she does a chart of accounts and figures out where to put stuff
So we get some tax deductions and then I pay a CPA every year
I don't know whatever hundreds of dollars she asked for and she finds out what the tax code does to get me the best I
guess
To to allow for the least amount of theft right from my money. I work hard for when somebody else takes it
But you know what I don't do I don't spend all my waking hour trying to figure out where she got it wrong
This same CPA
was the way that I that she became my CBS because I had referred her to one of my consultant clients that
This is from another thing and that consultant client was a doctor that he's used brilliant like it as far as the world
He was really smart and he would spend a lot of time
He'd call me at all hours like ten o'clock in the evening
Sometimes even midnight and he's like hey
So we filed the taxes and so and so did in file section this this that paragraph whatever of the text code. I'm like
I'm like, bro, I'm saying, bro, because I'm not going to give his name.
But I'm like, bro, I don't even know that section.
I was like, you know that the tax IRS code is over 10,000 pages.
He's like, I know, I was reading through some of that, and she didn't follow this, and she
didn't follow that.
I was like, well, then call her.
I don't know what you want me to tell, like, people just spend every waking hour being
over wise on these things.
But for us, we just need to know the base, like we need to know things, but we don't need
to be obsessed about it.
You know what we need to be obsessed about, the word of God.
Right Paul was obsessed with reaching the lost ball was absurd obsessed with preaching the gospel and because he knew of his stature
He had to have known just because how much people hated him
He was willing to stand before governors and councils and preach the word of God because he knew that that was gonna spread
And that was the main goal
And God gave him that wisdom like a serpent, but he was gentle like a dove go over back to acts 23
But in acts 24 verse 15 we see there says in and have hope toward God
Which they themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of I'm sorry
I don't know where I got up on 24 Proverbs 26 5
Answer a fool according to his folly last he be wise in his own conceit in the Bible
It gives us instruction both in Proverbs to answering a fool
Sometimes and to sometimes not answer the full right you got to find that balance
Sometimes you got to talk to someone and put them straight and other times you just got to ignore them
When to do that?
Well, if you I mean number one that comes with life and experience, but number two if you just read your Bible
God will give you those answers. I can't give you all the answers from up here because number one
I don't have them all and number two the only way to get those answers is clear in Matthew 10
He says take no thought what you're gonna say
He says I will provide those works when the time come you just focus on what on doing the work, right?
You know that you're sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves and don't worry about it because you need to just be wise as serpent
and harmless as doves. Let's go to point number three in Acts 23 verse 11. The Bible says,
And that in the night following the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou
is testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also of Rome. Now it'd be cool if we could
have visions like that today.
Right, I mean, let's just be honest. That's what you know
Some of the Bible is really cool because they talk to God, you know Samuel when he comes in you remember
He finally growing up and he keeps coming
To the and he's like did you call me and he's like no God called you right but God has a different purpose for us
But the right here Paul for standing for Christ and for being wise in the way in his dealings
When he's finally taken into the prison or to the holding cell
God comes to them in nine and says, be of good cheer, Paul.
For as thou hast testified of being Jerusalem,
so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
And the point here is that we just
need to realize that God's paying attention.
God's looking out for us, right?
Point number three is God's spoken.
and is speaking, so we stand tall and we keep going.
I know that's a long point, but God's spoken in Paul,
he spoke to him in a vision,
but he's still speaking to us today,
it's just called the King James Bible.
And what it's telling us is to stand tall or to stand fast,
or because we have a visitor from steadfast,
to be steadfast, right?
And what?
And keep going.
That's the reality. You know, the Bible says and let us not be weary in well-doing
You know and let us know. Yeah, let us not be worried. Well, unless we faint, right? God doesn't want us to faint
He says don't be weary and well-doing. Let me tell you how many times you get up in the morning. I don't know
I mean, I'm looking at some young people here
And you just don't want to go the next day.
I mean, there's just days where you just get up and you just want to call it quits.
But you just got to keep that in mind, right?
That's why we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
That's why we're in the Word every day.
Because God's already speaking to us constantly through His Word.
Now, He's not speaking to me in a vision.
If I ever come to you and said, hey, last night God spoke to me in a dream and I heard Him audibly.
I mean, you might as well just get up and go.
Go change the sign to Pentecostal Church of Spring Crest and send all the Pentecostals that are over there
They're over here and then just never talk to me again because that's weird
Right, but through the word of God, he's speaking to us
And what he's saying from the book of Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation is that we need to be steadfast
Then we need to continue in the work of the Lord that we need to stand tall and that we need to not back down because the reality is
the devil's not going away. I thought about it and you know I thought it was interesting
and just really quick you know turn over to Joshua while we're talking about it but we
haven't really seen a lot of LGBT, sodomite, baggity stuff this season right it's June and it's
just like not really anywhere and what we see on
On the news is that, you know, oh, the money's not there and the sponsors have pulled back and it's just there's a tide and I really believe that I think God's blessing that section.
But also what I really believe is the Jews are behind most of the stuff and right now they're distracted trying to start World War three.
They kind of put the queers to the side for a little bit. They say we need to pause you to do that. Look, the devil is not going away. He's changing his tactic.
It's not for us to rest on our laurels to create apathy and to create laziness and slothfulness
and just be like, oh well they're not doing it so this month I'm just not going to preach
about it.
No, it's actually, this is the time to preach harder on it.
This is the time to go harder against the enemy because the reality is the devil expects
us to take a break.
He leaves for a season thinking oh well that there they think I'm gone and then come back
You've noticed Jesus when he was tempted it says that the devil left for a season, but you know what Jesus never did
He never backed down
You know, Paul was constantly attacking you know what Paul never did you never backed out remember one of my favorite stories
We already covered it but in the book of Acts
He literally gets stoned and they leave him for dead and when he gets up he goes into the next city
Not not not to get help not to go to the ER, but to do what to preach the word of God
Right. He's not like, Hey, you know, I've got a concussion. Let me rest for a couple of days. Go to Joshua 1 and verse 8
We know these verses, but this is great. The Bible says this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth
But thou shall meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe
To do according to all that is written therein
For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and thou shalt have good success have not I commanded thee be strong and of good courage
Be not afraid neither thou be thou dismayed for the Lord God is with thee with or so ever thou go
But if you notice, how do we get like that by meditating on the word of God when?
Day and night and then it says and when we do this to do to he says that thou mayst observe
To do according to all that is written therein
The formula is not just that hey be strong and of good courage and follow this commandment
The only way we know to follow that commandment is because we've read the Bible and then we're willing to observe it
And then we're willing to apply it in our lives
I mean, you look at Paul's life and that's exactly what he's doing.
When he's going through here, he's just fighting the good fight.
In 2 Timothy 4, 17, the Bible says,
Now withstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might
be fully known and that all Gentiles might hear and I was delivered out of the mouth
of the lion.
Because you're in a room full of people, not only that, you're with your family.
Anytime that you're with family, it's just weird because they know you, right?
But she was willing to just preach it because she knows she's going to be delivered.
You know, I don't know what she deals with on a regular basis, but I guarantee you that
not everybody in her life is Christian and not everybody wants to hear that from her.
You know why?
Because I have Hispanic family and Hispanics are great at giving you lip service.
They love God.
They just don't love the things of God.
I mean that's why there's so many Catholics because they the idea of God is cool until it's not
that's that's like a like a Hispanic Catholic I like going to church I just don't like the
reality of heaven and hell so I'm just not going to listen to all of it as long as you pour some
holy water on me and I can eat this wafer and I can do this little cross thing I'm good that's
But the reality is we need to preach it all right and Isaiah 41 verse 10
The Bible says fear thou not for I am with thee be not dismayed for I am thy God
I will strengthen thee. Yeah, I will help thee. Yeah, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness
You know why we come to church because
It doesn't take but less than five minutes to destroy every plan you had for whatever you were thinking of doing this week
And every week is the same week, you know, it doesn't matter some some disasters are worse than others
But the devil is always sending a disaster
Sometimes it's worldly stuff like oh today, you know add clients call. It's not that big of a deal
You solve it you move on but at times you get a call somebody died
or something tragic happened and the Bible says,
hey, I need you to be reminded that in spite of all that,
you still show up and I'll give you this scripture
because you're not thinking of it.
You might not be in that part of the chapter that you're reading.
But you also need to read your Bible.
You can't just rely on the Wednesday service
and the Sunday service and the Sunday evening
and Sunday morning or like special events.
You need to take leadership and do that as well.
Go back to Acts 23 as we start to close this thing out.
But there in the fourth point out for you today is God uses unlikely people to thwart evil plans
And we see here that the Romans or the leader, you know, the basically the worldly law is what really protects Paul
from being killed
That's why we're for law and order because look who controls law and order God does
Right. I mean, yes, people have choice and there's people that are reprobate and there's people that are just lost and
It's not always fair. I already made that point
But at the end of it all God's always gonna deliver us
And I was making this point the last few times, but I'm now really starting to drive it home
One of the things that excites me about the Bible is that I grew up 7th in Venice
And so you know what I grew up? I grew up doom and gloom
You know seventh the Adventists are like preppers they prep they have like years worth of food
And they don't you know they have they because they eat soy meat
Which is disgusting you know and soy hot dogs and all that stuff
They think that they if they just stack up enough of those cans when the world ends
You know, they'll be fine because they'll be out in some remote
Cabin in the woods, you know, the Holocaust is happening and all the stuff's going on and they're just going to be eating their soy sandwiches
And they'll be fine. All right, but it's also like they're always driving this like fear mentality
Like it's everything's coming to an end and there's going to be a Sunday law and the mark of the beast and you're going to be beheaded
But when you read the Bible
Yeah, the saints are going through some rough times and even the book of Hebrews in chapter 11 the faith chapter it talks about that
But you know what? God delivers most of the saints.
From the hard evils of life now that doesn't mean they weren't close
It was a close call. Who's ever seen those videos where someone's about to cross the street, you know
And then they like just in the last second they miss a bus. I that's the way I see the Bible
God's gonna let us just get that close
But then he'll pull us back right at the end right if you look at lot the angels pulled them back right at the end
If you look at Paul the guards come and like they're gonna tear him apart and they pull them back right at the end
We've got to be willing to die for the Lord Jesus Christ
He's the one that's going to spare us, but we've got to be willing to go all the way.
All the way. And then just remember that most times God likely will use uncertain people that
you don't expect to remove that evil that's in your life. And I mean, I've had it happen in my
business where it looks like I'm going to get sued or I've been sued and there's no exit and I don't
know what's going on. I just, you know, the Lord's delivered me and it was not the way that I thought.
I remember one time, I say this, I need to verify this, but it was for a lot of money.
It was millions of dollars.
And I know I'm almost like 90% right.
I was sued for like half a billion dollars.
It was like several hundred million dollars.
And so I got this, I was in my early 30s.
I mean, I'm basically like fainted and I'm like, what am I going to do?
And then the lawyer that was representing me fired me because he got in a fight with
And I mean, I like at this point, I'm just like, I don't know what I'm gonna do and all this stuff hindsight's 2020
Actually, we would have won the case
But I didn't have the money nor the know-how nor the knowledge and they had big lawyers and I'll never forget it
They sent me a settlement and the settlement was just basically to stop talking smack about them because basically that's stolen money from all our investors, including my parents, and they had done it, you know, it was a scam, it was a fraud.
I was in the investment world and so what I did in my youth and in my exuberance is...
I got on Twitter, and for a month, I spent all my time, I mean, I didn't sleep, my wife
full attesta, we just got married, and I was staying up till three, four o'clock in the
morning, I was going on every financial website that I could find that referenced that company,
and I was literally putting comments about how they were evil, and then I was tweeting
and retweeting and tweeting and retweeting, I mean, just like, and so when I went to the
and the lawyer that was representing me at the time told me just be honest and I dealt with it
but then he when they finally like we're gonna settle or sue me or the court date he dropped me
and then it turns out long story short the guy that called me I'll never forget
because at that moment I knew but it was too late the guy that called me to for me to sign this
He didn't know that I was nervous. He was nervous. And now I know he needed me to sign that paperwork because we had him
We would have won the case. Obviously God didn't want that at that time, but I'm just thinking I'm getting sued for hundreds of millions of dollars
I don't know how much paid is like I just got married. I don't you know all this stuff
And so I settled this thing and you know what I settled for zero dollars
Like, they removed all the money that I was supposed to owe.
All they wanted was for me to go away, because I had literally caused basically mayhem in
their life.
But you know who delivered it?
God, and it was the most unlikely way, because there was no way on God's green earth that
I knew that how to maneuver those waters, like I didn't know anything about the law.
I didn't know how lawyers worked, I didn't know how getting sued worked. Now I do. It'd be a different story. But then I didn't know, right?
But the one thing was just got spared it. He removed that stress from my life. I was able to move on with my life and since then we've grown and come a long way.
The people that got taken for a ride, I was able to face them face to face and I just, you know, I owned up to it. I got you in this investment, you lost the money.
You know what? Even those people showed me grace. They understood it wasn't all my fault.
And so the Lord just, you know, he spares you in different ways.
I don't know how I got off on that story, but because it just there's no way I didn't see it coming.
You know, it's like at the Red Sea, you just don't know where it's going to come from.
So God uses unlikely people to thwart your evil plans.
Go to Acts 23 and there in verse 12, it says, and when it was day,
certain of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under a curse saying that they would
neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.
And there were more than 40 which had made this conspiracy, and they came to the chief priests and elders and said we have bound ourselves under great curse that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul.
Now, therefore, ye would the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you tomorrow, as though ye would inquire something more perfectly concerning him, and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him.
And when Paul's sister son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle and
told Paul. Then Paul called one of the centurions into him, and he said, bring this young man
into the chief captain, for he has certain things to tell him.
So he took him and brought him the chief captain and said Paul the prisoner called unto unto him and prayed me to
Bring this young man unto thee who had something to say unto thee then the chief captain took him by the hand and went
With him aside privately and asked him
What is the thou has to tell that the thou has to tell me and he said the Jews have agreed to desire
The that thou wouldest bring down Paul tomorrow into the council as though they would inquire somewhat of him more perfectly
but do not
Thou yield unto them, for there lie and wait for him, of them more than forty men which
have bound themselves with an oath, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have
killed him.
And now they're already looking for a promise from thee.
To the chief captain that let the young man depart and charged him, see thou tell no man
that thou has showed these things to me.
You know, this guy's not a Christian, he's just the soldier.
Most law abidings, you know, most law enforcement are there to enforce the law.
Like this guy's just enforcing the law.
Obviously, this guy's under his care and he's not going along with anything
without, you know, proving it in the court of law.
He's not just going to let his prisoner get killed.
He has no dog in the fight the spiritual fight. He's just like hey this guy's my prisoner
I have authorities to answer to there's no way that I'm just gonna show up to my boss and be like yeah
This guy Paul and this whole riot over here. He died under my watch, right?
He's basically just covering himself, but that's who God used to take care of Paul
I mean obviously he uses also his nephew, but the big thing that we see from Paul here in this entire story is what Paul's not giving up
Look remember earlier, and I think it was a let me see I have my notes here just in I think it was either in
Chapter 19 or 20 one of these that we've been dealing with remember
They're crying because Paul is going into Jerusalem and that guy had bound himself saying hey
Who's ever girdled? This is when he goes into Jerusalem. He's not only going to be a prisoner
But he's basically going on to death and what does Paul say? He's like I'm not only willing to go and be bound
But I'm willing to die
So Paul's not afraid to die, but Paul's not an idiot about his death idiot also, right?
He's like if I'm gonna die I die if the God if Lord
Demands it, but if I can avoid it, I'm gonna do so so when is when he hears it from his nephew
He's like hey, let's make sure that the authorities that are in charge know about this. I'm sure
If he would have been put to his death, he would have taken it, you know, how he needed to take it.
But we do not need to just give in to everything. What I mean by that is, look, we follow the laws,
but we also fight against them. I remember a couple years ago, I won't say who's here just because of that,
but I know for a fact that it's not just this church, but other churches have gone to city councils
and spoken against, you know, the evils of this world.
You know, you do that. You don't just stand down.
I remember serving in the city council and people get all up in arms about everything.
I mean, at least get up in arms about the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, people go to those city council meetings and they get their three minutes to complain about poop in the dog park.
But some men in God, I mean, some men, especially, you know, of our churches, they'll go out there and they'll proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're not going to back down if we die we die, but we need to tell the truth, right?
And we just know that if we do that guy will still use the world in such a way that he will deliver us in first Corinthians
One you don't have to turn there just stay in acts as we close this thing out
I'll have you turn
Somewhere here in a little bit, but nice it in first Corinthians 1 27 the Bible says but God hath chosen
The foolish things of this world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty
You know, we don't have
Big lawyers, we don't have a lot of money, and I'm not just talking about our church
Christianity as a whole even the biggest churches in the world pale in comparison to the wealth of the world
Even and I'm not by the way. I am not I'm just making I'm just putting things in perspective as big as Joel Holstein's false churches
It pales in comparison to like the wealth of Tesla
Does it make sense like even if he had the best lawyers, you know what?
Elon Musk's lawyers are way better like
Kamala Harris's husband works for like the largest law firm in the world
You know, even if I hired some rinky-dinky lawyer here, it would pale in comparison to that kind of lawyer
God has to do the work. There's no way that I have enough money to ever fight against a big battle like that
You know, the government's always got deeper pockets. That's why tax protesters what they always lose
Because they just don't have the money to just fight that stuff. We've got to fight with what God's
backing, because that's the only way we're going to get through anything.
You know, the Bible says in Psalm 33, verse 10, says the Lord bringeth the counsel
of the heathen to not. He maketh the devices of the people of non-effect.
That's why we need to memorize the Word of God. In Esther 6, actually you can,
if you want to turn there, you can, but I'm not going to, but I'm just going to read the first
two verses of Esther 6. But what's going on here? Mordecai's got an enemy, right?
And the king has a dream and the verse of the verse one says on that night
Could not the king sleep and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles
And they were read before the king and it was found written that Mordecai had told of big Thana and Toresh
Two of the king's chamberlains the keepers of the door who sought to lay hand on the king as Uheris now
I'm not going to go tell you the rest of the story, but we already know that by chapter six in the book of Esther
Mordecai knows of this plot to get rid of the Jews and I'm talking the spiritual Jews because in the Old Testament
That's who they are
And it doesn't look like there's any out, but then the king has a
Dream, I mean he's just restless and they read the book and he's reminded that Mordecai did him good
Remember that and then he calls Heyman and he's like hey Heyman. What should we do?
To this guy who did great things for the king. He's like well, you need to just roll out the red carpet
And he goes good call Mordecai and do that remember that
That's the way it is. We just need to trust holy on the Lord not just for our faith
To salvation, but for faith in life
Why is this important? You know
We'll close out here in acts 23. So go back to acts 23. I'm just gonna take but like five minutes here
We were talking about how a lot of the people right now that go to, like, new IFB churches,
or churches like ours, and the reason I say churches like ours, we are, I've already preached
that sermon, new IFB, but in doctrine, not in, like, there's no, I'm not a card-carrying member,
like the communists, you know, they carry a card. I'm just, new IFB on principle.
right? It's not like I have a membership card. Here's my Costco card, but the next card is not
the new IFB card. It's like, I don't scan it to go into churches or anything like that, right?
I'm like, yeah, before I go into like some of the church stuff, you know, nothing like that,
right? But what's the common thing that brings us together? Number one is the doctrines of the Bible.
But number two is a lot of the people that resonate with that is because they want to hear good
And there's no other explanation for a hard life other than the Word of God, right?
Buddhism doesn't do that, false religion doesn't do that, because anybody who's lived a hard life knows
that even if you fix some of the things in your life, it's still a hard life.
And the things that you fixed might still creep up and bring you back down.
If you've ever drank alcohol, you know what could creep up at any moment?
You're like, oh, that's not, you know, it's very real.
That's why it's called alcohol anonymous
and you're there for life, right?
Brother Bobby, who died in the early 90s,
was a charter member of alcoholic anonymous
here in Houston, Texas.
I mean, he was asked to speak in some of the biggest
alcoholic anonymous events in the world.
And the one thing he'll tell you is,
all it takes is the sniff of alcohol
and you're back at it again.
And so the reason he served at a church like this is because he heard the truth.
You want to hear heart preaching that's not sugar-coated that says, hey, you could go
back if you're not on this book.
You don't want to go to some church that says, oh, well, because you cleaned up your life,
that'll never happen again.
Because it's not true because what happened is then you fall and now you feel like a failure and that's why suicide occurs
That's why people cheat on their wives. That's why people give up on their kids
All kinds of things is because they're not being preached the hardest of hey when you read through the book of Paul
You're like hey, I relate to Paul. I mean through the book of I'm sorry not the book of Paul
The other day I said Paul wrote the 70% of Bible now I'm talking about the book of Paul
false heresy coming out. I'm just kidding, red alert. But no, when you read through the book of
Acts, and you see the life of Paul, you relate, because then you get to like Romans,
right? You get to the book of Romans, and you get to like Romans seven, and he says,
hey, the things that I want to do, I don't do. And the things that I don't want to do,
I do, and you're like, how does Paul go from being like the greatest apostle of the New Testament
Man, I like Paul because you know what that's how I feel like almost every other day
Sometimes I wake up, and I'm like I
Can't believe God even lets me preach
Right, that's the flesh in me
And I can't believe that I get to be behind the pulpit and say the things that I say because there's times when I'm preaching something
I'm thinking I don't even know if I'm really qualified for that because I'm just that center right sometimes you're preaching yourself
But it's because of God's grace that we do that, and he reminds us,
hey, it's a hard life, I'm not picking you to preach the gospel because you're so great.
I know that you're wretched.
I know that you have sin, but I just need you to believe and have faith.
And I need you to understand these things so you can go do great things for me.
And I'm like, well, then that makes perfect sense to me.
And the last point I have for you, and that's where we'll close out, is
we then know that God's providence provides protection.
It's not just protection from the attacks of the world, but also from our own selves
The greatest enemy we face is the one like pastor said when he preached a long time ago
The greatest enemy we face is the one that's staring you in the mirror, right?
Because I could be the greatest preacher in the world. I could have the most doctrine in the world
But if I'm if I let myself get ahold of myself, I'm done
He said that sounds weird. No, it's not because the only way that I can do things is in the spirit
But when I'm not in the spirit, I'm failing
And so are you any time that you just think that you've got it all figured out got to be quick to remind you
You don't got to figure out. Let me just let me just tell you if you think you've arrived
We're in trouble. Nobody's ever ever ever arrived, but let's go to acts 23. Let's just close this thing out and
Bible says there and he called on Tim two Centurions saying make ready 200 soldiers to go to Caesarea and
Horsemen three score and ten and spearmen 200 at the third hour of the night and provide them bees that they make set Paul on
bring him safe unto Felix the governor and he wrote a letter after this matter.
Claudius Lyces said unto the most excellent governor, Felix Senneth greeting.
This man was taken of the Jews and should have been killed of them.
Then came I with an army and rescued him. I mean understood that he was Roman.
There he is. Like he's like, I don't want to get in trouble.
And when I would have known the cause whereof they accused him,
I brought him forth into their council whom I perceive to be accused of questions about their
Laid to discharge worthy of death or of bonds man. This guy was more honorable than Pontius Pilate. He's like I
Don't see what's wrong and when it was told me how that the Jews laid wait for the man
I sent straight way the straight way to the and gave commandment to his accusers also to say before the
What they had against him farewell?
Then the soldiers as it was commanded them took Paul and brought him by night on to Antipatris on the morrow
They left the horsemen to go with him and return to the castle whom when they came to Caesarea and delivered the epistle to the governor
presented Paul also before him and when the governor had read the letter
He asked of what province he was and when he understood that he was of Cilicia. I will hear thee said
He when nine accusers are also come and he commanded him to be kept in Harris judgment halls and basically the next you know
Chapter 19 20 21 22 23 and now we're gonna go to 24. They're basically playing hot potato with Paul
But obviously it's for God's glory, right?
But they just keep moving up. But who are the people who are moving up? Not the Jews
And technically not even the saved Christians because they they they don't really have a say in the matter, right?
They're being persecuted. It's the world
Right Paul's willing to obey the laws and he keeps reminding me. Hey, I'm a governor. I mean, I'm sorry
I'm a citizen of this nation. You need I need to be tried by these laws
Go to Isaiah 54. Oh, don't go there. I've already read this but in Psalm 91 verse 11
The Bible says for he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways and in Proverbs 21
One of the Bible says the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water
He turneth it with so ever he will and so in conclusion like
It's always hard to kind of get one main main thing out of when you're preaching through like a chapter, right?
There's just so especially the book of Acts
I mean you start out one place and you end another like Paul starts out here and he's already being delivered over here
Right, but the biggest thing that I want to close with is that we need to have wisdom in this spiritual war
You know the Bible says to put on the whole armor of God and the biggest
Piece of armor that we can put on mentally is wisdom
And what do I mean by that is the wisdom of God, the wisdom of what he does in our world.
Right now, what should we be doing as a world, right?
It looks like we're on the verge.
This is about as close as in my lifetime we've been to World War III.
Let's just be honest.
The wisdom of the world would tell you that we should be sounding the war drums.
But the wisdom of Christ says, hey, we're for peace, but therefore war.
Now, we know that time will come, but I'm not a prophet like that.
I don't know when the time.
I'm not going to give you a date of Christ coming.
Right?
I just know it's coming.
But God says, hey, take no thought for tomorrow, for sufficient is the evil thereof today,
right?
Don't worry about all these things.
Fret not thyself.
He says, hey, don't even worry about what you're going to say if you get brought up before
the governors or if you get accused falsely.
What you do is you seek wisdom. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. You meditate on God's word
what day and night. Some of the hardest things to do, I'll be honest with you, is preach chapter by
chapter. Because when you're reading through the chapters, you kind of get a little repetitive.
But the more I think about it the reality is that's what we need
We need that repetition. Don't we like that constant reminder to do these things because we're not gonna do them
What do we do with our children? I mean, I sound like a broken record. Who's what parent has never said?
I sound like a broken record. They're not what we sound like. Don't do this Johnny
Don't do this and Ricky Lucy. Stop that then don't stick your finger in there
Don't eat that bug. Don't swallow that battery, right? It's constant. It's the same thing with God.
God's like, don't think those thoughts. Don't give up here. Don't do this, but where do we get that
from? The Word of God. And so, in closing, what we need, the lesson to learn from Paul, I mean,
this is cool stories. But to draw out a lesson is that Paul was always wise as a serpent, as gentle
as a dove, and we need that wisdom in the spiritual world. Let's close it in a word of prayer.
Thank you so much for today. Thank you for your blessings Lord. Thank you for
opportunity to just preach the word of God and Wednesday seemed to just be kind
of like a amalgamation of all these thoughts but really
The thing that we extract the most Lord is first of all, thank you for giving us the wisdom to know that we don't want to preach like the preachers of old where it's just one verse and then nothing else bunch of stories.
We want to preach the entire Council of God and even though sometimes it gets a little repetitive and it's hard to extract maybe deeper things.
Sometimes it's easier also, but we're going to preach it all.
No matter what and there's things that we know better than others
But we're not afraid to face those challenges as we go through each and every single word
Every single tittle every single jot Lord. That's number one
But number two we know that in regardless of how easy or hard the subject matter is
We're gonna draw out wisdom that will apply to our daily lives. We don't always see it
It's not always evident and it's not always clear
But we know you're faithful and you'll never leave us, nor forsake us.
Remind us of this hard truth.
Remind us that even in an unfair life, you are a just God.
You sent your Son to die for us, and so we know the hope that we have in us.
Thank you for this day, Lord.
Thank you for the visitors.
And help us to have just a wonderful rest of the week.
In Jesus' name we pray.