(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

In his might old past, If God before us, Is better o'er us, We'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is on, The rousey soldier's brave and true, Jehovah leans, And victory will assure, Go buckle on, The armor God has given you, And in his strength, Forever we'll endure. The fight is on, O Christian soldier, And face to face, It's tern array. With armor gleaming, And colors streaming, The right and wrong engage today. The fight is on, But he not weary, He's strong in his might old past. If God before us, Is better o'er us, We'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is leading on, To certain victory, The flow of promise spans the eastern sky. His glorious name, In ev'ry wind shall honor me, The horn will break, The God of peace is nigh. The fight is on, O Christian soldier, And face to face, It's tern array. With armor gleaming, And colors streaming, The right and wrong engage today. The fight is on, But he not weary, He's strong in his might old past. If God before us, Is better o'er us, We'll sing the victor's song at last. Good singing. Let's open with a word of prayer. Dear Father, thank you for this opportunity that we have to sing praises to you as a church. Thank you also for this day and for the service that we have. I pray that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit at this time as we sing, and I pray that you would also bless the preaching as well, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. For our next song, if you would flip the page to hymn number 410. Faith is the Victory. Hymn number 410. Hymn 410. We'll go ahead and start there right on the first. Encamped along the hills of light, Ye Christian soldiers rise, And press the battle ere the night, Shall veil the glowing skies. Against the flow in veils below, Let all our strength be hurled. Faith is the victory we know, That overcomes the world. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh glorious victory, That overcomes the world. Is better over us is love, Our sword the word of God. We tread the road, The saints above, With shouts of triumph drawn. By faith they lie, The whirlwinds breath, The dawn o'er ev'ry field. The faith by which they conquer death, Is still our shining shield. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh glorious victory, That overcomes the world. On ev'ry hand the foe we find, Drawn up in dread array, Let tense of ease be left behind, And onward to the frame. Salvation's helmet on each end, With truth all gird about. The earth shall tremble, Heed our strength, And echo with our shout. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh glorious victory, That overcomes the world. To live that overcomes the foe, By brave it shall we give, Before the angels he shall know, His name confessed in heaven. Then onward from the hills of land, Our hearts will love a flame, We'll vanquish all the hosts of night, In Jesus' hungry name. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh glorious victory, That overcomes the world. On the inside you'll see our service times listed, Sunday morning at 1030, Sunday evening at 430, and our Wednesday evening Bible study at 7. Below that our soul winning times are listed, and all those meet here at the church building except for Tuesdays. So make sure to get in touch with brother Eric if you'd like to go to that time. Below that is the nursing home ministry coming up for the next two weeks. Also below that is our year to date statistics, and praise the Lord our final number for March was 104 salvations. So really thankful for that and excited for the rest of the year for soul winning. On the right we do have our upcoming events. On April 13th, that's not this upcoming Sunday, but the one after that is our men's preaching night. That's for the evening service, and immediately after that we will have a potluck. So if you'd like to bring something to share for that that'd be appreciated. April 19th is the Easter soul winning marathon. There is a sign up sheet in the back. If you're going to make it to that, please let me know so I could order the right amount of food for that. But basically we're going to have food, coffee and donuts at 9 a.m., soul winning at 10, and then we'll meet back for lunch at noon and go out for a second round of soul winning at 2 o'clock for that soul winning marathon. The next day is Easter. We're going to have barbecue catered for lunch that day, and our evening service we're going to be taking for the Lord's Supper. I'm going to send out some communication to our ushers and musicians for some more details coming up about that, so you should expect that pretty soon. May 16th through the 18th is the King James Conference in Vancouver, Washington, with Pastor Aaron Thompson leading that. May 31st is the Durant, Oklahoma soul winning marathon, teaming up with Steadfast. On June 28th, that Saturday, we have the Tinker Air Show Fellowship Day, followed by the next day, Brother Ben Naim from Steadfast Baptist Church will be preaching both services for us, so looking forward to seeing my friend Ben again and having him preach for us. It's going to be a great weekend for sure. Below that is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship, and I kind of got an idea of how many people are going to that. Sounds like a lot of people are, so really excited. I'm going to be going as well, so that's August 27th through the 31st. And lastly on there is the Bahamas Missions Trip, that is October 6th through the 11th. On the back, you will see we do have a QR code there for those interested in giving, and our prayer list, updated prayer list for the week. Please do keep all of these requests in prayer, and as always, if you have any, please email me. I'd be glad to add that for you. And at this time, we're going to go ahead and go to The Lord in Prayer as a Church. Lord, we thank you for this evening's service. We thank you for the great month of March that we had, for the salvations. I just pray that you would continue to give us more laborers, to preach the Gospel, and you would just help keep our hearts lit with love, and just appreciation for our salvation, and the desire to go out and preach the Gospel to those who are lost. We also pray for the needs of our church members, Lord, and for those that are friends of ours, the Hausburg family. We pray for Myles' health, and that you'd also bless Rhea in her decisions regarding his healthcare, and just her life, Lord. We do pray also for Ms. Shawn Furr, for her granddaughter Hadley. We just pray that your will would be done in that situation, and that she'd be able to be homeschooled, and that you would just bless the family life there. We also pray for Brother Alex for his work situation, that you bless him in his career. We also want to pray for Ms. Remi, that her travels would go well, that she'd have a good time over there, that she'd get to see her loved ones, that she'd be safe, and we pray that you'd bring her back safely to us, Lord, that she'd bless her visa process, if it be your will. We also pray for Ms. Whitney Reed, for her brother Cole's salvation, that she would soften his heart, and the same thing for Brother Zach's loved ones, his mother and brother. I pray that they would get many opportunities to hear the gospel. And Lord, we also just want to pray for all of our friend churches out there, Lord, both in the United States and abroad, that you would just bless the pastors of those congregations, and the works that's going on there. I pray that you would just give us a free course to continue to preach the gospel, and to preach the word of God, and that you would just bless us for the remainder of this year. We love you, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, at this time we'll go to our third song. All right, for our third song, if you would at this time take your white handout, and turn to Holy, Holy, Holy. That's Holy, Holy, Holy, and the white handouts. Holy, Holy, Holy. We'll go ahead and start there right on the first. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, early in the morning our song shall rise to thee. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, Holy, Holy, all those things adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee, which words adore death evermore shall be. Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful breath thy glory may not see, only thou art holy, there is thine beside thee, perfect and power in love and purity. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, all thy works shall praise thine in earth and sky and sea. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Good singing this evening. As the offering plates are being passed around, turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter number two. Proverbs chapter number two. Proverbs chapter number two. Good evening Proverbs 2 the Bible reads my son if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline thy ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart unto understanding. Yea, if thou Christ after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seek her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous. He's a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment, and equity, yea, every good path. When wisdom enterth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee. To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things, who leaveth the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked, whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths, to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words, which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life, that thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it. Let's bow our heads for a prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for this day, our church, and our pastor of the altitude of the Holy Spirit, help us to work in your report, and she's going to pray. Amen. Amen. All right, we are in Proverbs, path number two this evening. It says, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. Now the reason I'm starting with this verse is because verses one through five are kind of explaining to you how to get to a destination, and that destination that God wants you to get to is in verse five, understanding the fear of the Lord, and finding the knowledge of God. So if you like to break up the chapters, number one this evening, the fear and knowledge of God, the fear and knowledge of God. How do we get there? Because like I said, verse five is kind of a destination. Verses one through four is kind of the roadmap of how you get to that place in your life. Verse number one, the Bible says, my son, if thou wilt, receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee. So one of the things you have to do if you want to get to the place where you understand a lot about God and about the Bible, and that you fear God, most obvious thing, you have to receive his words. See, it is impossible to know who God is, or to fear God, or to have a relationship with God without the words of God. And today we live in a time where everyone wants to get into this real spiritual emotionalism religion, where they want to talk to you at the door out soul-winding about how they have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and how we just need to feel his presence and love God. But how does that actually happen? It comes from receiving the words of God. You must have the Word of God. And here's the thing, we know in John chapter 1, the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Word of God. So if you want to have a relationship with Jesus, you have to have a relationship with the Bible. Now some people will call this idolatry, which is absolutely insane, because idolatry is worshiping a stone, an image, that's not God. But the Bible says that Jesus is the Word of God, and that the Word of God is God. So worshiping the Bible is not idolatry, it's worshiping God. And worship, it just really means to lower yourself, to bow down before, or to humble yourself beneath. And isn't that what we do to the Word of God? Don't we say like, it's in charge of us, it makes the decisions, it rules what we do, what we think, what we feel, and we submit ourselves to that? Yeah, I worship the Bible. We worship the Bible because it's the words of Jesus Christ. Go to Acts chapter number 11. You want to fear God, you want to have the knowledge of God, it starts with reading the Bible. And someone that does not read the Bible, let me tell you something, they don't fear God. And they don't know who God is. You really want to know God? You have to know the Bible. Acts chapter 17 verse 11. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. So when it comes to receiving the Bible, because that's what Proverbs 2 verse 1 is talking about, receiving God's words, there's a couple ways that that could happen. One is obviously through preaching. You know, God has ordained preaching of the Word of God, and when we show up to church or a setting where we're hearing preaching, we should be ready to receive the Word of God. You should not show up to church with a bad attitude or a disgruntled heart, or even, you know, people that listen online that go to the old IFB. You ought to show up to your old IFB church wanting to hear the preaching of God's Word, wanting to hear the sermon, wanting to hear the verses read. And, you know, I went to an old IFB church for three years, and I was countless times blessed by something that the pastor said out of the Word of God, even though I disagreed with a lot of things that were going on at that church. You should always be coming to church ready to hear. Now, on top of that, when it comes to receiving God's Word, you should also be searching the Scriptures daily whether those things are so. So there is a responsibility that, not me, you have to believe the truth. That is, you show up, and you are ready to receive the Word of God, but you are responsible for what you believe, and you must believe correctly, so what you have to do is search the Scriptures yourself. And see, even though I believe we have a great church here, you never want to take that for granted. You never want to have a complacent attitude where you just believe everything you hear. You know, that's a recipe for disaster in a lot of places. And, you know, some people, they could get lucky if they're in a new IFB church. If you just believe everything you hear, you're gonna believe right on 99% of things because we're preaching the truth here. I'm preaching the Word of God. I'm preaching the truth, but you don't want to, like, train yourself to have that habit of just believing everything that you hear because I can say things that are wrong. Other pastors can say things that are wrong, and you know who's gonna be held responsible? Of course, I'm gonna be held responsible for what I preach, but for what you believe, you're gonna be held responsible. And so you must read the Bible and believe what it says over anything else. If I say something that's wrong, you believe what the Bible says. And see, this is how you know that we're not a cult. We're not like the Catholic Church where we're trying to keep the Bible away from the parishioners. I'm saying, read it every day. Fact-check everything that I preach with it. That's gonna be safe for you. Go to 1 Thessalonians, chapter number 2. 1 Thessalonians, chapter number 2, verse 13, says, For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you notice, received the Word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that belief. You know, it's important not to just get desensitized to the fact that this is the words of God we're talking about right here. This is not just like a good book. Hey, you know, check out this book. I reviewed it on Goodreads. It's just pretty good. No, like, this is the words of God. And, you know, you should have the utmost reverence and fear and respect for everything that this book says, and not just get desensitized to the fact that, hey, you know, we read this every day. Hopefully, you're reading it every day. Hey, we're hearing it preached three times a week. It's the Word of God. Every time it's opened, every time it's read, every time you read it at home, you should be revering and in awe of the words of God and taking it very seriously. That's part of receiving the words of God. And when you actually have that much of a receptive heart, you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna end up fearing God and knowing God, knowing who He is. Go to Colossians, chapter number three. So, we saw that in Proverbs 2, verse 1, we're supposed to receive His words, and it said to hide my commandments with thee. Now, how do you hide God's commandments with you? I think one way you do that is by memorizing the Bible. There's reading the Word of God, but another important thing is to memorize the Word of God. Colossians, chapter 3, verse 16, the Bible says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So, letting the words of Christ dwell in you, it says, richly in all wisdom. What I've noticed is that when I have memorized a passage or memorized a chapter in God's Word, it unlocks that chapter for me more than anything else. Like, I could listen to five sermons on a certain passage of Scripture, but if I memorize it, I will understand that passage because, you know, we're reading the Word of God, you're just reading a verse, and then go to the next, go to the next, but when you memorize, you have to repeat this verse like 50 times, and we're just thick as human beings, you know, we just need to hear things over and over, and sometimes I'm just memorizing a verse, and on that 50th time, I'm like, whoa, I have not thought of that before, but I've read it so many times, but there's just something about getting it into your heart that helps you to learn it, and what does that do? It helps you fear God and know God by having the words of Christ in your heart, and then also talks about psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You know, the thing that I love about our hymn book and singing the Psalms themselves is that a lot of times what we're doing is just singing Scripture, and that's just getting, you know, deep into our heart, and those things are staying with us, especially children that grow up in church, you know, I feel like they know the songs better than adults do. Children really get it, it gets put into their heart, and they don't forget it when they grow up. Go to, if you would, Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Now, just like with reading the Bible, people love to make excuses. Oh, I'm not a visual learner, I'm not a person who learns by reading, I'm an auditory person, or I'm a person that learns by doing, and it's just like, God gave you a book, you just need to read it regardless, and you know what? Some people are going to be better naturally at memorizing the Bible than others, I'll grant you that, but just because it doesn't come naturally to you, or it's a little difficult for you, does not mean you just shouldn't do it. Like, what if I told you that you should actually do some things that are difficult in your life, and not just write off anything that's hard, like, well, that's not for me, because that's kind of hard for me. It's like, all the more you should be doing it then. You know, no one in here should get this idea, well, that's not for me. No, you should learn to memorize the Scripture, and for you men, a good time to do this is driving to work. You know, if you have a commute to work, there and back is usually like a good 20 to 60 to 70 minutes, depending on how far you drive, every single day of your life that you could be doing something productive with. You know, sometimes just listening to the Bible during that drive could be good. Memorizing the Bible, I mean, listening to an audiobook, just something rather than just sitting there or turning on the radio or something dumb like that, you know, you can make use of that time. Psalm 119 verse 11 says, Thy word have I hid in mine heart. Notice that I might not sin against thee. Sounds like memorizing the Bible actually gets you to fear God, to where you're hiding the Word of God in your heart, and as a result, you're not sinning more, right? So you can lower the amount of you sin by memorizing Scripture. It says, Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes. I will not forget thy word. Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Verse, go down to verse 104, verse 104. Notice what it says here. Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. You know, when someone loves lies and says that they love everyone and they love all religions, I'm just like, this person doesn't know the Bible. This person clearly is not receiving the Word of God. They're clearly not laying it up in their heart, because according to Scripture, the precepts of God's words give us understanding. And what does that understanding do? It causes us to hate every false way. See, if you know the Bible and what it teaches about salvation, you're gonna hate the Catholic Church. When you realize that God says that a pastor has to be married, and there's a religion that says you have to not be married, and it's just like you're gonna hate that religion. When it's just constantly against what God's words teach, that's gonna make you angry. And you know what? You should have a righteous hatred in your heart for the things that blaspheme God, for the things that God hates. How about for things that are sending people to hell? No, you should not love everyone. No, we should not love every religion. Oh, coexist. No, I hate Islam. I hate Catholicism. I hate Mormonism. I hate atheism. Why? Because I love God's words, that's why. Because I actually know God and fear God, and anyone who teaches this love all mentality doesn't. They don't fear God. They don't love God because it doesn't match up with the Bible. By the way, you ever want to know who's on God's side? Just who's preaching what the Bible actually says? Who's actually on the side of what Scripture says? Not, I mean, well, everyone knows you should love everyone, right? No, actually, that's not what the Bible says. No, actually, you should be with what the Scripture teaches. Go to John chapter number 7, John chapter number 7, or I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Proverbs 2. Go to Proverbs 2. We'll go to John 7 right after that. Hopefully, you're keeping your place in Proverbs 2 throughout the sermon. But let's read the next verse here in Proverbs chapter 2, verse 2. It says, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and, notice this word, apply thine heart to understanding. See, you will get a certain amount of knowledge from just receiving the Bible. You'll get a certain amount of knowledge just from reading it, just from showing up to church and hearing the Word of God being preached, fellowshipping with godly Christians that are going to teach you the Bible. But you know what? There comes a certain amount of fearing God and knowing God that comes from doing the Bible, that comes from actually performing the things that you're reading, not just keeping it all up here as a head knowledge, but using the Word of God and realizing, hey, I know from experience what the Bible says in this area. Go to John chapter number 7, John chapter number 7, and we'll see this principle here. John chapter 7, verse 15, it says, and the Jews marveled, saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned. So Jesus is preaching, and they're kind of shocked at his intelligence and wisdom because Jesus didn't have some sort of high pedigree formal education. They're like, this guy hasn't learned, you know, he didn't go to college or whatever our modern equivalent would be. But verse 16 says, Jesus answered them and said, my doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. So he's saying, these words that I'm preaching, they're not just coming out of my own heart. I'm not just making these up. I'm receiving these from the Father. Verse 17, if any man, notice, will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. Notice, people who do God's will know the doctrine, and what I've noticed is that people who just show up to church every once in a while, read the Bible every once in a while, or maybe they just listen to online preaching, they have a lot of doctrine still screwed up. You know what helps correct a lot of doctrinal issues is by actually doing the Word of God. The people that I know that know the most Bible, you know what's funny, they're all soul winners. Every single one of them. I can't think of a single person where I can think like, man, this guy knows tons of Bible, but doesn't preach the gospel. When you do God's will, you'll know the doctrine. But there's kind of frauds to this. Because you got the Calvinists, the reformed types, and they love to put on a front of being super smart. Like that's their thing. They want to be seen as so academic and so put together, and they love to use fancy words, but yet they preach so much false doctrine. And they're not as smart as they make it out to be, and is there any coincidence that Calvinists almost never go soul winning? Calvinists are never almost doing the Word of God, therefore they're messed up on doctrine. You want to get your doctrine settled? Yes, receive it. Yes, go to church. Yes, memorize the Bible. But beyond that, actually apply the things that you hear. The more that you apply, when you learn a truth, when you hear a sermon, when you read a Bible verse, the more that you just have this attitude that says, God, no matter what it is, if it's from your Word, I'm gonna implement it in my life, you're gonna be a person that starts to understand the Bible very quickly. And that's what differentiates people who know the Bible really well and who don't. Go back to Proverbs 2. Proverbs chapter number 2. Proverbs 2, look at verse number 3, it says, Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding. You know, picture this of someone just crying out and just yelling about how they want to know the truth. They want knowledge. They are truly hungry in their heart for the things of God. Those are the people that God's gonna give a lot of knowledge. Why? Because they're sincere. Like, this to me proves sincerity. And if you want a bunch of knowledge, you know what you should do? You should ask God for it. If you want a bunch of wisdom, you should cry out to God and ask Him to give you that, and He will give you that. You could stay there. James 1 5 says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and abraighteth not, and it shall be given him. That's a promise. That if you ask, God's gonna give you wisdom. He's gonna give it to you liberally, and He's not gonna abrade you. He's not gonna correct you or chide you for asking. Because I can kind of relate to this as a father. Sometimes your kids want to play the 50 question game. And you know, what I should do, what I should do is always just be there and just be like, I'll give liberally. You want to ask me where trees come from or how do we get, you know, how does someone get to heaven or anything like that? Like, I will tell you. But sometimes, just in our flesh, I'll be honest with you, it can get kind of annoying. Any other parents could back me up on that. It gets annoying every once in a while, right? But God in heaven, He's not like that. He's just better than all of us. It doesn't matter how many times you ask Him, He's just ready to give you the knowledge and ready to give you the wisdom. Isn't that great? That's a great promise. He's not gonna get tired of you asking. And here's the truth, you will never stop learning the Bible. You know, a good prayer to pray before you read the Bible, Lord, open mine eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of Thy law. He's never gonna get tired of you asking that question. He's not gonna be like, you've learned enough Bible, you're good to go. He's like, I'll show you more. This is deeper than you could ever handle and deeper than I could ever handle. Keep asking Him. Verse number four, notice what it says, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Notice it's comparing like, hey, if you actually sought knowledge and wisdom as much as you would search for money, you'd actually learn how to fear God. You would actually have the knowledge of God. And I mean, think about if this was actually applied. In true reality, imagine if this was applied. Today in America, how many people dedicate their entire life to getting rich? Their entire being, from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, is how they can make more money, seek more money, get more things, have a better luxurious life. Like, this is the American dream, right? It's so that you can just live comfortably and get a bunch of money and be happy from all your material goods. What if God's people actually sought wisdom and sought knowledge as much as people search for money? I mean, this world would be turned upside down for the gospel of Jesus Christ. But, you know, it actually takes someone who's not gonna just live according to their carnal desires and put their will as the forefront in their life. That's someone who's actually gonna lower themselves to what God wants for them and for what the Bible says, who's willing to do that. You could stay there. I'll read Matthew 13 44. Jesus said, again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found he hideth and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field. So, Jesus is saying, like, hey, if someone has a field and there's treasure hid in that, someone's gonna be willing to sell everything they have just to buy that field to get those gains monetarily, to get that treasure. And you think about times in history like the gold rush in California, people were literally willing to sell everything they had and to travel across the country, through the wilderness, through perils, just at the hope, just at the chance of striking it rich in California and being a part of the gold rush of 1800s. People do that for money. But you know what? We should be willing to do anything to learn the truth. You should be willing to do anything. You should be crying out to God, asking Him for it. You should be truly desiring in your heart the truth of God's Word, no matter the cost. You know, a lot of people have done this. A lot of people have literally moved across the country to go to what they believe in their heart is the best church that will preach them the Word of God, that will send them out soul-winning, that will give them the truth uncensored. And you know, I can relate with that because I did that when I was living in Idaho with my parents. I moved to Sure Foundation Baptist Church. You know, I was tired of the old IFB, but instead of being like these losers that complain about it and like backstab their pastor or talk crap about their pastor, I was just like, I'm just gonna go behind a pastor that I could support a hundred percent. And I went to Sure Foundation and I grew a ton because I was hearing the truth. But you know what? I also just wanted the truth. And you know, we need some more people in this country to stop caring so much about their bank account and care more about the truth. Because I don't know if you've noticed, our entire country has kind of been sacrificed at the altar of making money, and it just seems like so many people in America have stopped caring about the truth and about preserving hard preaching and about preserving Baptist churches, and instead they've just dedicated their life to money. Instead of thinking like, how do I train my kids to be soul winners? How do we train the next generation to preach the Word of God? It's just like, how do I train the next generation to go get a finance degree? And look, I'm not against you if you have a finance degree, but I'm just saying like, these are the aspirations of Americans today for their kids. Make a bunch of money. I just want my kids to make a bunch of money. You know what? Praise God if your kids make a bunch of money, but I'll tell you what, I'd rather my kids be blue-collar, kind of scraping by, but free to thrive, but soul winners, but love God, but read the Bible, but have time for the things of God, than just to be rich. Now if they make a bunch of money and they serve God too, praise the Lord. But you know what? Americans need to stop loving money, because the love of money is the root of all evil. You need to love God, and it should not even be close. Your love for money or things or prestige or having the best career you could possibly have, it should not even be close to your love for the things of God and for the Word of God. Go back to Proverbs 2, number two this evening, the source of wisdom, the source of wisdom. Verse 6, for the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. The Bible says that God is the one who gives wisdom. And so the Bible, the Word of God, is the ultimate source of truth, the ultimate source of wisdom. And when you're thinking that you want to learn about something about life, about how to raise your kids, about how to run a business, about how to do anything according just to life here, where do you get that wisdom? First, the Word of God. Now look, there's nothing wrong with reading other books. I read other books every single day in my life, okay? There's nothing wrong with reading other books. There's nothing wrong with going to school, of course. I'm pro-education, all those things, but this should always be the number one source. And to me it's kind of weird how like Christians will spend all this time like reading these self-help books, reading leadership books, reading psychology books, listening to podcasts, where they're just giving you all this life wisdom, but yet they won't read the Word of God. When the Bible says that out of His mouth comes wisdom, where should you go first for information? The Bible. That is the only source in this world that is 100% reliable. That's why it should be your go-to because everything you read in it is going to come to pass. Look at verse 7. He says, He layeth up sound wisdom, notice, for the righteous. He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. See, I've noticed that there's a connection with people who are wise being righteous, and I've noticed a connection between people who are stupid and foolish and being wicked people. There is a connection here because God lays up sound wisdom for who? For the righteous. People who know the Bible. People who have a lot of wisdom. You know what? They're a righteous person. And the dumbest people on this earth, you know who they are? Atheists. And they're not righteous. They're wicked people. I'll show you that. Go to Psalm 14. Psalm 14. See, when someone is stupid and foolish, you need to realize this, that that is a red flag about that person's character. Not necessarily just their mental capacity, barring the exception they have some sort of deformity or mental handicap. But when someone has all their faculties and they're foolish and they're stupid, that says something about who they are as a person. And it should be a red flag to you. Like, I had a red flag a few years ago where this guy at church who ended up being a total bozo, ended up turning against Pastor Shelley, going online on this railing campaign, I marked this guy from this moment of my life when he called me and said that he doesn't believe space is real. And I'm just like, this is a bad person. Like, I'm gonna watch out for this person. This person is an idiot. I just realized, like, okay, I'm gonna be away from this person. I'm gonna keep my distance. Because the reason why someone is that stupid is because they're a bad person. Look at Psalm 14, verse 1. The who? Fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. And notice how the Bible describes these atheists. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none that doeth good. See, it's not a coincidence that the fool is listed here. Why is he foolish? Because he says he doesn't believe there's a God, right? He doesn't think there's a God. And then the Bible describes who he's like as a person. That he's corrupt. That he's done abominable works. Now, here's the thing. We all are born into this world foolish. Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child, the Bible says. It's totally understandable when kids say and believe all sorts of wild and stupid things. But, you know, as you grow, you should be doing what? Receiving the Word of God, hiding God's Word in your heart, reading it, going, hearing, preaching, all these things. And you should start to mature. And when someone is an adult and they believe all these things, it shows a lack of character and maturity on their part. And especially, because I'll say this, okay, we all probably believe something that's dumb. But if you're confronted with facts, if you're confronted with evidence, if you're confronted with the Word of God, and you still don't change your mind, that's because you have wickedness in your heart. That's because there's a problem with you as a person. And it's not like when you're ignored, when you're seeing facts, it's not like you get to just stand here and say, Well, I just still have my opinion, though. No, no, no, your opinion is wrong. And Christians, unfortunately, have developed a reputation for themselves of being people who deny science, deny facts, deny reality, and believe a bunch of stupid things. And unfortunately, there are a bunch of Christians just hell bent on keeping this stereotype alive. And it pisses me off. Because you know what, it's it's not that, oh, this person's not saved. But it's that they have a serious amount of immaturity in their heart. And they have a serious character problem in their heart. And when you are presented with facts and truth, you need to change. You need to swallow your pride and realize you could be wrong about things. I could be wrong about things. And when the facts are presented, just believe them. Regardless of whatever your preconceived notions were, believe the truth, and especially the Bible. Boy, I wish that some people in the old IFB had this mentality. It's like, you know, you want to know why a preacher in old IFB won't acknowledge that the Bible says that the rapture happens after the tribulation? It's because he has a heart problem. It's not because he can't understand English and read the words that are on the page. It's that he has some sort of heart problem. Maybe he doesn't want to lose his friends over standing up for the Word of God, doesn't want to lose his donors, doesn't want to lose his Bible college, doesn't want to lose all the prestige, and so they just refuse. But you know what? That's wickedness that needs to be repented of. When you get truth, you need to believe it immediately. Go to, if you would, Colossians chapter number two, Colossians chapter number two. But we read there how atheists are obviously not good people, folks. It's not like, well, they don't believe in God, but they're a pretty good person. No, no, no, they're corrupt. No, they've done abominable works. This is why it's so foolish and silly to go to these people for the big questions of life. This is why it's so just asinine to read these books about deep philosophical questions of life and try to get wisdom from people like Frederick Nietzsche, which is like one of the worst authors in history. His book, Thus Spake that Zarathustra, is probably the worst book I've ever read. It's terrible. But see, I wasn't going to that book thinking, oh, I'm gonna get some good stuff. I was just interested in the history of it. I knew beforehand it was gonna be trash. But notice what it says in Colossians chapter two, verse six. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Notice this warning in verse eight. Beware lest any man spoil you through, notice, philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. What is philosophy? It's just like a belief system. It's just like a way of looking at the world, a way of understanding the world and viewing things in the world. And there's philosophies out there that are, notice, after the tradition of men. So it's not gonna match up with the Bible. It's not gonna match up with the truth. It's after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. I've kind of noticed in the last couple years that there's kind of a comeback in the interest of philosophy. Has anyone else kind of noticed that? Like, I've especially noticed amongst military and police, that community, there's kind of like this resurgence in the interest in something called stoicism, right? Stoicism is kind of making a comeback. What are some other ones? Postmodernism. That's making a, that's made a huge comeback for a long time. Just go down to the university, right? A lot of the universities embrace this postmodernism where they want to deconstruct everything. Where they just take every belief that was handed down to us, every tradition, every way of doing things, and postmodernists are ready to just destroy it all. They don't want to build anything. They're saying, oh traditional marriage, get rid of it. Child-rearing techniques, get rid of it. Church, God, the Bible, like they just want to destroy all of it. And people are so into these philosophy books. People are so into listening to the little psychologists and philosopher podcast, all these things. But you know what the Bible said is that out of the mouth of the Lord is where we get wisdom. You want to learn the meaning of life? You want to learn how to raise kids? You want to learn how to go to church? What a real church looks like? How a church supposed to run? All of these things are in the Bible. And hey, how about the book of Proverbs? That's a good place to start. A book that's designed to give you wisdom. Now, I bring this up because I saw that this ex-New IFB hater, this person who used to be in a New IFB church, who now just, you know, hates it and says it's a cult, and is saying that Pastor Shelley is a cult leader. This person posted a video, and it's from this divorced atheist feminist man hating witch that's making a video talking about like narcissists and spiritual abusers and all these things. And on this video there's a thumbnail that literally had a pentagram. Anyone else see this? There was literally a satanic pentagram in the thumbnail, and here you have this Christian that's going to this weird philosopher to try to attack Christians, attack Pastor Shelley, attack steadfast Baptist Church. It's like, what are you doing? Are you insane? Like, do you ever just look around and look at the battle lines and look who you're standing with? Like, the atheist. Oh, but she's a good person. She's trying to expose abuse. No, she's corrupt. No, she's done abominable works. No, she doesn't love God. She doesn't love the truth, because if she was crying after knowledge, if she was crying after wisdom, she'd be giving you the book of Proverbs. She'd be giving you the New Testament. She wouldn't be giving you this damned satanic thumbnail talking about how pastors are narcissistic abuse enablers. You know what? These people who overuse these buzzwords are a bunch of idiots. They're a bunch of idiots. People who always say, narcissist, narcissistic, flying monkeys, gas lighters, soaring monkeys, monkeys at flight. I don't care what you call it. You're an idiot, because if you actually had wisdom, you'd have something to say from the Bible, but you don't. You have to go to an atheist. You have to go to a feminist to attack a pastor whoa unto you. How have you gotten so weak? How have you gotten so backslidden? I used to know this person. This person used to preach behind the pulpit at Steadfast Baptist Church. You idiot. You coward. You backstabber. What is wrong with these people? I'll tell you what it is. There's something wrong with them. Why does someone love lies? Why does someone love stupidity? Because of their character issue. And I've seen all I need to see of who's on the right side. One person has the Bible. One person has the Word of God. One person saying go to church. One person saying obey your pastor. And one person saying, hey look at this feminist whore who's been with multiple dudes. Let's go to wisdom for him. You're an idiot. And anyone who thinks that that's normal should just leave this church because I don't want to be around a bunch of idiots. You're mad. I'm mad about lies. You should be mad about lies, because when you love God's precepts, you hate every false way. Every false way. Proverbs chapter 2. Look at verse 8. It says, he keepeth the paths of judgment and preserve it the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity. Yay. Notice every good path. Now that word good can be interpreted a lot of ways if you just use the world's philosophy. I mean if you're just going to the world to define good, you're going to get a billion different answers of what good is. But see this is why you have to go to the Bible as your primary source. Why it has to be the first thing that you turn to is because God is going to show you what the good path is. And you don't get to define what's good. I don't get to define what's good. We don't get to say like, well you know, I think it's totally good for people to cohabitate before marriage and to get to know each other and to connect on a deeper level before marriage. Doesn't matter if you think that's good because the Bible will show you what the good path is. The Bible says the good path is flea fornication. The Bible says that the good path was that it's better to marry than to burn. But people, they just love to just worship their opinion. And people accuse us of worshiping the Bible. Yep. Amen. But you know what you worship? You worship your own mind. You worship your own human intellect. You worship your feminist, God-hating, weird atheist podcaster talking about narcissists. That's who you worship. But you know what? We should worship the Word of God because it's gonna show us the good path. Go to Isaiah chapter number five. Isaiah chapter number five. Because today people will say, well what's good? Well just whatever the general consensus is. That's what people say. That's good. But you know those of us who have read the Bible, you know that very often the general consensus of what's good does not match what this Bible says. And so what do you do when you actually are given that discrepancy? Well those who fear God, those who cry after knowledge and wisdom are always gonna pick what the Bible says. Isaiah 5 verse 20. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise, notice this, such an important phrase, in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. That's where a lot of people are getting their wisdom and knowledge today. It's just whatever their, the lusts of their heart want, whatever their eyes think are good, whatever's nice in their sight, that's what they're gonna call good. But the Bible says, woe unto those who call good evil and evil good. So you know what? Those who would look at me or Anchor Baptist Church or Pastor Shelley, the former pastor of this church, or steadfast, the church that planted this church, people who look at us and say we're evil, you know what the Bible says? Woe unto them. Woe unto them. And I'm telling you, the amount of people in the last several months that I've seen just blatantly lie about men of God, about pastors, about godly churches that are getting thousands of people saved, that are sending evangelists, that are sending out pastors and starting churches, the way I've seen people just flippantly lie about them just makes me realize what a wicked piece of trash they are. And the Bible says, woe unto them. And I'm telling you right now, I am praying often that God will judge these liars, that God will punish them, that God will make it manifest to everyone who is good and who is wicked. And you should be afraid of that. I mean, God forbid that I would have a pastor or godly Christians praying for God to punish me. But you know what? You deserve it. You need to be punished by God because maybe it's gonna be the only thing that'll wake you up and make you repent. Where you could be like, oh wow, an epiphany, when I'm standing with sodomites and god haters and witches and atheists against godly soul-winning Christians, maybe I'm on the wrong side. Maybe your friends, quote unquote, aren't really your friends. Because all these people that hate on the new IFB, they all like get together, they don't love each other. They lie about each other. They talk crap about each other. They're not good friends to each other. And so like their lives are just being destroyed. And they're having all these problems in their lives. I've seen a lot of lives destroyed lately. And you know what? You should be afraid if you're one of these people. You should be afraid to lie against the man of God. You should be afraid to attack a church. You should be afraid to be on these people's sides because bad things are gonna come unto them. That's what woe means. Woe unto them. Woe unto them that call good evil and evil good. Go to Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter number four. Can someone give me another water please? Jeremiah 4. Notice what it says in verse 22. For my people is foolish. They have not known me. They are saudish children and they have none understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. So notice again we see this comparison with those who are righteous, those who serve God, they have knowledge. They know to do good. Those that are wicked, what are they? They're wise to do evil. Go back to Proverbs chapter 2. Proverbs chapter number two. Number three this evening let's talk about the protection of wisdom. Verse 10 it says when wisdom enter it into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul discretion shall preserve thee. Understanding shall keep thee. So notice when when you actually do cry out for wisdom and knowledge and you want it and it enters into your heart and notice how it's it's pleasant unto your soul you're truly receptive you truly fear God you truly want to know the truth notice what the truth does for you it preserves you it says understanding shall keep thee and one of the things that especially people who are new believers or people just like starting in their faith one thing that I just want them all to understand is that following the words of God are going to protect you in your life because we get this brainwashing from the world that the Bible is there to constrict you and to make you have a boring life and God doesn't want you to have any fun but that could not be farther from the truth God loves us God has come to give us life and life more abundantly he wants us to thrive in life and so all of God's commandments are there for our benefit there's nothing in the Bible that God's like well I just kind of want to stick it to them on this you know alcohol is so great and so wonderful but I'm just gonna forbid it for Christians just because no no alcohol will ruin your life alcohol will make you lose all your teeth in a bar fight alcohol will make you go get some other guys what some guys wife pregnant how'd you like that alcohol will make you get killed by the police alcohol make you get in a drunk driving accident like there's all these terrible things that happen to people when they drink alcohol and God is actually trying to protect you but those who are immature they just see the rule just like a child just like a child that's just stubborn and rebellious he just sees the rule and gets mad at the rule but not realizing that the parents have that rule because the parents love him or her and want to protect that child the same thing with God he gives us wisdom and all these things to preserve us to keep us and the Bible gives us an example a couple examples of some things that he's gonna keep us safe from verse 12 to deliver the notice from the way of the evil man from the man that speaketh throw word things so we're kind of introduced to this anonymous villain in the book of Proverbs that you're gonna see a lot that is the evil man and the Bible saying that knowledge wisdom are gonna keep you safe from this evil man and it kind of gives you one of the warning indicators of what an evil person is like it's someone that is throw word someone who is froward is an indication that they are an evil person now I looked up froward because that's not a word we usually use today but it just means willfully contrary not easily managed whenever I read the word froward in my Bible I always think of this contrarian this person's contrarian meaning that if I say a you're gonna say B if your mom says do this you're not gonna do it right if someone has an opinion you're gonna have the exact opposite if the pastor has an interpretation the Bible you're always gonna have an opposite interpretation right this is someone that's froward someone who is willfully contrarian this is a bad attribute in someone when they're just always against things that are good now every person has blind spots I'm sure every person is gonna have a wrong opinion on interpretation from from time to time but I've noticed over the years how some people they're just like always on the wrong side of every battle and I'm just like are you a froward person like I'm kind of scared of you you're always on the wrong side you've always got a weird doctrine you're always upset at the pastor even though a sermon came right out of the Word of God you're all you know wives you're always upset at your husband all men are terrible right it's just like this is a contrarian person this is a froward person and it shows that they're evil it shows that they are harmful now go to 2nd Timothy chapter number one 2nd Timothy chapter number one and while you're turning there I'll read Galatians 5 19 now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness idolatry witchcraft hatred and then this word variance variance someone who's just different for the sake of being different not that they have a sincerely held opinion that they came to through hours of diligent study of the Word of God and they just happen to disagree on this one thing but they're usually in lockstep with others no no they're just always different they've always got their own interpretation they're always variant from other godly Christians like here's this big group of godly Christians they all believe the same doctrine on calling upon the name of the Lord right but then there'll be that one guy where he's different from everyone else and it's like you're evil because again having good doctrine what does it come from from doing the Word of God you know what's funny soul winners don't get confused about calling upon the name of the Lord people who are soul winners and especially people who are good soul winners they never get confused on this doctrine it's like duh of course whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved it's not a hard verse right but then there's that contrarian guy who oh everyone's an abuse abuser everyone's a enabler all the pastors are narcissists and just so happens that they also believe that you don't have to call upon the name of Lord yeah it's almost like God gave us a book to tell us about all the warning signs of someone who's wicked oh thank you God for Proverbs thank the Lord for this book because you know what the Bible discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart where you could say action what's this coming from oh yeah it's coming from this person being a piece of trash a wicked person a variant person a froward person look at 2nd Timothy 1 13 hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus see we shouldn't be trying to sit here at anchor Baptist Church and think like how different can we be from steadfast how different can we be from faithful word or from Verity or for other new IP churches I'm trying to think like how can I hold fast the form of sound words as much as humanly possible how can I stick exactly to what the Bible says to the best of my ability I'm not getting up here thinking like what new doctrine can I preach oh what really exotic new sermon you know what I'm never gonna preach anything new I'm just telling you right now I am never gonna preach anything new it's always gonna be the old King James Bible if you're looking for a new doctrine go join a cult because that's what cults will offer you right Joseph Smith he will offer you new doctrine oh yeah I've got another Testament of Jesus Christ you know you got that cult in Waco in the 90s hey what's his name David crash he's got new doctrine for you really just wonderful doctrine God told me for you to give me your wife and daughter just wonderful great new doctrine see new doctrine is bad doctrine old doctrine that comes from the Bible the timeless eternal doctrine that's what's good the old path the right way the sound words of God I'm trying to hold fast those things I'm not trying to see how different I can be now look us pastors we have our differences we have different personalities we have different preferences we have different maybe order of service or little things like that but you know what my pastor friends I'm in like lockstep with them on like 99% of issues and I'm not just thinking like how different can I be because I'm a pastor and I've got to make a name for us I don't care because I love the Bible let this make a name for itself the Word of God go back to Proverbs chapter number two Proverbs chapter two but again you see people they always have something different watch out it's a red flag verse number 13 notice what it says who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness see to be forward you inherently have to be wicked because there's the right way there's the good path there's the truth there's the right doctrine and if you're gonna be variant you know that means you're gonna be on the side of lies you're gonna be on the side of the wicked you're gonna be on the wrong path that's why it's just it's automatic if you're a froward person you're for sure gonna be on a wicked harmful path because it's not the paths of uprightness you're leaving the paths of a bright shit uprightness look at verse 14 and says this is crazy who rejoice to do evil and delight in the frowardness of the wicked I mean this is a crazy person right here this is insane someone who does evil and instead of feeling just extremely ashamed like normal people feel when they sin they rejoice they get pleasure out of it and they delight in the frowardness of the wicked they love when they could infect someone else and make them a hater with them they love it when there's a godly Christian serving in church on the right path and they could drag them down into the gutter with them they love that they actually take pleasure in that these are terrible people terrible people verse 15 whose ways are crooked and they froward in their paths it says that their ways are crooked think about if you go out into the wilderness if you've ever been to a national park or just anything like that they usually have a trail and what is that trail designed to do it's designed to keep you safe right it's saying like hey there's dangers out here there are snakes there's scorpions there's cliffs there's sinking sand whatever the the perils that are out there this trail is telling you hey if you follow this trail you're gonna get to your destination and you're gonna be safe right that's God's words that's the path of uprightness but the wicked what do they do they want to make their own path right they want to go off of the path that's already been created that's already been run by thousands of other people that's already been proven and tried they want to create their own path and you know what often happens they get hurt they get hurt as a result harm comes upon them they get stuck and lost in the woods they get frostbite they get bit by that snake they get attacked by that bear whatever and look in just the carnal example sometimes it's fun to go off in the wilderness okay I'm not against you to do that but the spiritual example is true here like God has given us the path and the path is the only place that their safety when you go off that path you're gonna start feeling a lot of harm you're gonna start feeling a lot of issues it's like you see this people stop going to church they turn on the pastor they become haters they go off the path of what the Bible says and then next thing you know it's like up divorced and it's just like why'd you go off the path you know that path was there to protect you that path wasn't there to harm you it's not like the Word of God the sermons preached against adultery and divorce and remarriage and leaving your spouse it's not to hurt you sure it may hurt some people's feelings but really it's there to help you it's there to keep you on the safe path and that's anything in the Word of God it's there to keep you safe look at verse 16 then it tells you something else that wisdom will keep you safe from this is a big one to deliver thee from the strange woman even from the stranger with flattereth which flattereth with her words man this is a serious danger for people who do not pay close attention to wisdom and knowledge and stay on the right path this is a serious danger today and it's it's interesting because in the book of Proverbs it just seems like especially the first portion of it we're gonna be talking about the strange woman like every chapter and it's because there's a lot of strange women in this world she's on every street corner the Bible says and it's obviously a serious danger for men because God's constantly warning you it's like you're on the trail and like every five yards there's a sign that says like hey there's a cliff just to your left stay on the path stay on the path there's a cliff there's a cliff and it's funny you know what the Bible says a whore is a deep ditch it's a deep deep ditch and people who are walking on the right path and they get off and they go to that whore they fall in that ditch and oftentimes when you're in that ditch you can't get out you are you can't escape you're harmed and what's interesting is that the Bible doesn't constantly talk about the strange man have you noticed that it's the Bible's constantly not like ladies be careful watch out for the strange man watch out for those dudes it's like always telling men like be careful of this wicked woman what does strange mean this just means is not your wife that's what it means okay just a foreign woman a strange woman who you don't know just some random chick and she's saying notice flattering words which flattereth with her words that is a red flag folks listen men if some random woman that you don't know or really any woman that's not your wife does this starts flattering you don't fall for it don't sit here and think in your prideful egotistical mind like yeah I really am that cool yeah I am that awesome no this woman's evil she's trying to hurt you she's trying to harm you she's that deep ditch on the side of the trail and you might think you're such a daredevil that you could handle it but you know what many strong men have been slain by her many strong men Proverbs 31 give not thy strength unto women right it doesn't say like oh only the weak no no no even strong men sometimes fall for that that's why Proverbs is just constantly warning you about the strange woman you got to be careful and look praise the Lord I don't think that this exists in this church so I'm not saying this as as a condemnation of anyone here but it is a warning for the future don't even think that just because you're in church that the strange woman wouldn't hunt there too because the Bible says that the adulterous hunts for the precious life and again I don't think we have this right now but I'm telling you even in churches there can be women that are promiscuous there can be women that want to show off their bodies there can be women making inappropriate comments to men and flirting with them and coming on to them and you have to realize if you actually love wisdom if you actually love knowledge you have to make a note like okay I need to be careful I need to separate I need to not be super close I need to do everything I can to keep myself safe because that's actually what a wise person with real humility would say not just like oh no big deal it would never happen to me then why is the Bible constantly warning you about it if it could never happen to you no you need to realize like hey that's a real danger that's a real danger that we have to be careful and not even get anywhere close verse number 6 17 I found this interesting talking about the strange woman it says which forsaketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the covenant of her God you know this this lady this strange woman she's a strange woman now she's a whore now she's flat flattering men now but it says that she forsook the guide of her youth so it's like she had someone in her youth telling her do the right thing go down the right path you know follow the words of God do what the preacher says do what your parents say she had that guide of her youth but she forsook it you know it makes me think about how you can't force your children to turn out good you know that you can't just snap your fingers and just order your children be godly when you grow up like wouldn't that be nice if it was that easy but this person had a guide in their youth and she forsook the guide of her youth man all we could do is just in those really young years do everything we can discipline pray for them a ton give them guidance give them wisdom give them an environment where they're gonna hear hard preaching but at the end of the day serving God as a choice doing what's right is a choice and you know what I could only make the choice at the end of the day to truly love God and his words for myself you know what I'm responsible for warning for preaching parents you're responsible for guiding that young lady and telling her what's right and giving her the good path to walk down but if adults if children just grow up and just decide to go off the path and just jump off the cliff how is that your fault your job is to warn that's your responsibility but look even when she has the guide she can still forsake and forget at the covenant of her God so it sounds like she was getting the Bible too sounds like she was getting God's Word but yet you know what people who grow up in church can still grow up to be adulterous whores and men who grow up in church can still grow up to be drug addicts and alcoholics and adulterers why because we have free will that's why and so you need to take heed to yourself to the decisions that you can control to loving God with your heart and into giving all the right instruction to your children but you cannot force like a robot for your kids to love God it is not possible look at verse 18 for her house inclineth unto death and her paths unto the dead man men need to memorize that verse right there because elsewhere the Bible will talk about how the strange woman will seem pleasant to you you know that it'll look like something to be desired but like every time you see the strange woman you just need to think like death destruction the end of my marriage the end of my life like you just need to thinking like death danger and and stop being so foolish and thinking like oh she looks good oh she's cute like oh strange woman dressed like a whore flattering me that's death run away from that you know don't play stupid games with death don't sit here and get a gun and put one bullet in the cylinder and spin it and play Russian roulette that's like playing around with the whore because notice what it says verse 19 none that go unto her return again neither take they hold of the paths of life many people who go down the road of adultery and fornication never recover many people who go down this road never serve God to their fullest potential many people whether whether that's just from their own shame or whether that's just from nuking their life and all the complications of multiple parents and children and alimony and all STDs right all these issues that come whatever the reason many people they just never recover from it it ruins their life for forever so don't be an idiot that thinks oh man I got to find out for myself I got to see if it's true myself don't be an idiot be warned from the Bible see the strange woman and say death stay away from death you know young men that want to get married praise the Lord I want you guys to get married but beware of the whore don't marry the whore don't marry the promiscuous woman don't marry the woman that you just met five minutes ago and it's flattering you beware of that woman she will ruin your life for forever number four let's talk about the paths of the righteous verse 20 says that thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous so earlier we saw that word good and we learned that we don't get to just define good right God defines what good is and the Bible here is talking about the way of good men you know what that means you could actually identify someone who's a good man and in fact you're supposed to identify them so that you could see the path that they're going in life and follow them I'll show you that Psalm 37 Psalm 37 you know we're gonna read in Psalm 37 this word mark and usually we talk about that in a negative context how someone's causing division in the church and the pastor is supposed to get up and mark them say beware of this person they're wicked they're turning people away don't be friends with them right that's one sense of marking someone but look at verse 37 of Psalm 37 mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace but the transgressors shall be destroyed together and the end of the wicked shall be cut off so the Bible actually instructs us to identify a good man identify the perfect man and of course that doesn't mean sinless it just means that complete he's living a complete Christian life he doesn't have this huge glaring issue he's living a godly life you're supposed to mark identify that man and realize hey this guy's going a good direction because notice how it said at the at the end of that verse what was the exact wording in verse 37 notice the end for the end of that man is peace why are you supposed to mark a good man because you're supposed to realize that if he's following the Bible you know what his end is gonna be peace and you don't always just look at the immediate circumstances of their life because the Bible teaches that those who are godly will suffer persecution right so you can't like look at a pastor or something be like oh they're they've got you know all these protests and all these problems so he must not be godly no you have to look at where's the doctrine is the doctrine matching the Word of God is he following God's Word then you can assume this is a good man and you know what you should follow that good man because the end of a good man is peace yeah there's gonna be storms in life there's storms for the wicked and for the righteous but here's the thing the end of the righteous is peace the end of the godly is peace but the end of the wicked is destruction have you noticed that the end of the wicked is their life being completely destroyed not just being chastised but being like really chastised or if they're unsaved you know getting a wrath of God on their life go to Hebrews 13 Hebrews chapter 13 you know a lot of people who are prideful and arrogant hate this point of actually following a man people think they're so godly they're so smart that they would never follow a man but really what that is is that's pride and let me help you understand what what pride actually is pride is anytime you disagree with what the Bible says that's always pride every single time if the Bible says to do something but you think oh my idea is better that's pride and sometimes people will like accuse pastors of being prideful because of let's read this verse verse number 7 of Hebrews 13 remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the Word of God whose faith follow considering the what end of their conversation those that have the rule over the house of God is talking about pastors they've spoken the Word of God the Bible says that you should follow those people now here's what people say that's prideful for you to say actually if I'm agreeing with God that's not pride that's humility what's prideful is if I had a different idea than Hebrews 13 7 do you understand that because some people will accuse pastors they'll be like look at how confident he is and what he's saying and how he's standing on doctrine that's prideful no that's humility is to say the Bible is right for sure you understand how that's humility because you're putting your human intellect down your opinions down and you're putting this up high whatever it says whether it seems to benefit the pastor doesn't matter what does God say he says to follow right so you should like Proverbs 2 says like Psalm 37 says find a good man identify mark a good man and follow him and look hope you can follow me at this church if you can't go follow a pastor you can I want people to be happy in their church and content in their church and secure in the leadership of their church and if you don't feel that way or if someone online doesn't feel that way you should move to a church that you feel that way about because God's command is for you to mark the perfect man to identify and follow that is wisdom and righteousness according to the Bible go back to Proverbs chapter number two Proverbs chapter number two almost done this evening notice verse 21 for the upright shall dwell in the land and the perfect remain in it right so on the surface you could just look at this and say a godly and wise person is gonna have a lot of blessings in their life they're gonna have a lot of peace I also think about kind of a farther application the millennial reign of Christ when Jesus is ruling and reigning in this earth those who are saved are gonna dwell in the land and the perfect shall remain in it and it's gonna it's gonna kind of juxtapose that with the wicked in this last verse number five the punishment of the wicked verse 22 says but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it you know at the end of this chapter God kind of gives you a sneak peek into the end of two types of people the godly the upright those who actually fear God cry out for knowledge want to know the truth want to love God what's the end for those people security peace blessing you know those are great things that we desire then the froward person the strange woman those who don't cry out for knowledge or care about the truth those who are stupid and wicked what's the end for them being cut off from the earth for and transgressors shall be rooted out of it and again you could kind of have a near and far application here the wicked even those who are saved wicked Christians backslidden Christians that don't care about the truth they want to call evil good and good evil you know what is coming their way pain and misery and destruction and ruining their life and you know what I've seen a lot of that lately and I'm not happy about that I would rather that they just love wisdom I'd rather them just stand on the right side and not have to have God come after them but I also think about the the far application of this again is that millennial reign of Jesus Christ where when he starts that reign he's destroyed the wicked it's God's people living in God's land and the wicked are cut off let's end in Psalm 37 again Psalm chapter number 37 with that in mind think of the millennial reign of Christ in verse 9 of Psalm 37 it says for evildoers shall be cut off but those that wait upon the Lord they shall inherit the earth for yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou diligently consider his place and it shall not be but the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace you know a lot of this is just true and it may kind of sound weird but it's true a lot of your future and a lot of your destiny actually lies in your own hands it really does because you know what you get to control you get to control if you ask God for wisdom you get to control if you actually read the Bible you get to control if you come to church ready to receive it searching daily in the scriptures whether those things are so you get to control if you're gonna actually apply the Word of God and do the Word of God and you know what God is predetermined that the results of doing right are gonna be blessings so in a large way you get to decide what your future looks like and if you want to decide to be foolish ignore the warnings ignore the Word of God go play around with the strange woman go hang out with the evil froward man you've just chosen destruction for your life you've chosen for God to punish you you've chosen for pain and misery to come upon you that's your decision and you know while our eternity it's sealed for those of us that are saved that decisions already been made when you believe on Jesus Christ you know the millennial reign is coming someday and you're standing in that rain is not yet sealed and you know what you get to do right now you get to decide your future you get to decide how good of a time that's gonna be for you how do you get to decide that by actually seeking for wisdom by actually calling out to God asking him to give you wisdom and knowledge and when God gives it to you you get to choose to apply it you get to choose to not stand with the wicked not stand with the froward not play around with the whore or the strange woman you get to choose to fear God and if you make that choice I promise you the millennial rain will be great for you but those Christians that despise it don't take it seriously lie about men of God stand with the wicked get involved in sin yeah they're still saved but they're not gonna be ruling and reigning in the same way that godly Christians are going to they're not gonna have as high of a status in heaven and in the millennial reign when Jesus comes to judge why because they already made their decision so you know what this sermon you ought to really internalize this on yourself and really think about like am I crying out for wisdom am I waking up in the morning and actually wanting the words of God am I showing up to church because I was dragged here or am I ready to hear the Word of God your future is going to be impacted by every decision that you make you know we ought to be sober with our lives sober with the warnings from God's Word take those things to heart and actually apply them in our lives let's have a word of prayer Lord we thank you for Proverbs chapter 2 and the warnings and wisdom in your word I pray that everybody in here would be moved to want to make the decision to love the truth to ask for the truth to seek the truth to live the truth to stand behind men and women who are living the truth to not stand with the wicked to search for you and your words to get wisdom and we love you very much Jesus name we pray amen all right at this time if you would take your hymnals and turn to him number 191 we'll sing one last song to conclude the service hymn number 191 and 191 in my heart there rings a melody we'll go ahead and start there right on the first in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody of love I love the Christ who died on Calvary for he washed my sins away he put within my heart my heart there is a melody there is a melody with heaven's harmony in my heart there is a melody there is a melody I will be my endless feeling glory with the angels I will see will be a song with glorious harmony with the course of heaven bring in my heart there is a melody there is a melody with heaven's harmony in my heart there is a melody there is a melody