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If you are needy, seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shea tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree. I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together, that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. Produce your cause, saith the LORD. Bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen. Let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them, or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. Ye do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold ye are of nothing, and your work of naught, and abomination is he that chooseth you. I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come from the rising of the sun, shall he call upon my name, and he shall come upon princes, as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. Who hath declared from the beginning that we may know, and before time that we may say, He is righteous? Yea, there is none that showeth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words. The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them, and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings. For I beheld, and there was no man even among them, and there was no counsellor that when I asked of them could answer a word. Behold, they are all vanity, their works are nothing, their molten images are wind and confusion. Brother Brian, would you pray for us? Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this gathering that we have here today, Lord. Obviously, it's different than where we all were last week. I pray that you would just fill up our creature, Brother Ben, with your Holy Spirit, Lord, and I pray that you would help us to remember that it is the Lord Jesus Christ that we serve. I pray that we know that it's the work that he has set forth for us to do. That's what's important, and we always need to remember that. We know that all things were created by you, we know that by you all things consist, Lord, and I just pray that this day is a blessing, Lord, and that we are honoring you, and it's in Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Amen. Well, I want to start off by saying just thank you to every one of you that are here. When I look at the men, women, and children that are in this room today, you know, there's one word that comes to my mind, and it's perseverance. You know, after everything, after this crazy week, sleepless nights, not knowing what's going to happen, we have no clue whether or not we're even going to have a church one day, and then the next day, we're meeting. Thank you to Brother Theo for providing this opportunity to meet, and an amazing, really an amazing time, you know, and I have a smile. I woke up this morning with a smile on my face. This reminds me of Tribulation Baptist Church. This is what we're going to be doing when we've got the UN peacekeepers outside trying to arrest us for preaching the Word of God. We're going to go to the caves. We're going to go to the houses. We're going to go to wherever we need to go to meet for church and do what God commanded us to do, which is not to forsake the assembly. Now you're going to hear from many preachers. For those of you who might not be the president of my fan club, you know, you can breathe a sigh of relief, okay? There's going to be many. We're going to be rotating preachers. We're going to make this thing work. We're going to persevere. Now the title of my sermon this morning is Fear Thou Not. Fear Thou Not. And the reason why I wanted to preach this is because of the fact that, you know, when there is a time of uncertainty, when there is a time when we just don't know what the end might be from the beginning, there's a tendency for human beings to be afraid, to fear, and to, you know, have sleepless nights, to be stressed out. I want to exhort you. I want to encourage you this morning to have no fear, to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to trust that God will lead us through anything. It doesn't matter what pastor steps down or what leader fails us. We have each other. We have the Lord. We have His word, and nothing can stop us from serving God. You know, we've been through a hard week. There's no doubt about that. The temptation is there to be afraid. What's going to happen? Will we lose fellowship? Will we lose our church? Now you're there in Isaiah chapter 41. Go to verse number 8. Look at verse number 8 there in Isaiah chapter 41. The Bible says, But thou, Israel, art my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend. Now raise your hand if you believe you're spiritual Israel this morning. All right, amen. It says in verse number 9, Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. Yes, we believe in replacement theology, but in the Old Testament, there was a chosen nation in the Old Testament, a physical nation, thank you, a physical nation of Israel, and that's who God is speaking to in this passage. Look at verse number 10. Now this is important. Please focus on the first three words of this verse. Fear thou not. I'm going to repeat it. Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. And this is what God is saying to Israel. He's saying Israel will be protected from its enemies. Israel will be blessed by God. The thing is, though, there's a condition, there's a conditional statement. You see that all throughout the Bible. If we love Jesus Christ, if we love God, if we remain in His will, then all things will work together for good. Like I said earlier, we are spiritual Israel. In the New Testament, as New Testament Bible-believing Christians, we make up the spiritual nation of Israel, and just as sure as God promised the physical nation that He's going to protect them, just as sure as God promised the physical nation that He will strengthen them, and He exhorted them not to be dismayed, and He said He will uphold them with the right hand of His righteousness. You better look at that and say that applies to us as well here today. Now, point number one I want to make is do not be afraid of uncertainty. Do not be afraid of uncertainty. There are times where you just don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. When things are planned out, when you know what's going to happen, when you know, alright, tomorrow, I know what the routine is, I'm going to wake up, I'm going to go to work, that's part of the reason why people are so stressed out when they lose their job. That's part of the reason why people are so stressed out if they're laid off or they're fired because they don't know what's going to happen the next day, and as a human being, that helps you to remain calm, to know what's going to happen and to have a plan. And over the last week, there were moments where we didn't know what was going to happen and I was afraid we would never see each other again, but praise the Lord, look where we are. Now go to Acts chapter 20. While you go there, I'm going to read a very famous verse. You're going to Acts chapter 20. And the Bible says in Romans chapter 8, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them that are the called according to His purpose. We're not going to get into trying to debunk Calvinism today or anything like that. We'll leave that one to some of the other pastors. But the Bible says here that all things work together for good to them that love God. Now if you love God, you will follow His commandments, that's what the Bible says. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And if you are in the will of God, if you are following God's commandments, if you are doing what He commands you to do, and you're trying everything within your power, if every fiber of your being is dedicated to following what the Bible says, all things will work together for good to you. Don't be afraid. Don't ever think to yourself, I don't know what's going to happen the next day. Are we going to have a church? You better believe we're going to have a church. And let me make this promise to you. I believe the church we're going to have is going to be better than any church you've ever been a part of in your entire life. The Bible says in Acts chapter 20, look at verse number 22. It says in verse 22, and now behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Now notice in verse 22, it says in the latter part of the verse, not knowing the things that shall befall me there. This is Paul, and Paul is uncertain about what he's going to endure when he travels to Jerusalem to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has no idea what is going to happen to him there. There is uncertainty in his life. But what did he do? Did Paul cower? Did Paul eschew his God-given responsibility to preach the gospel? No. He went. He did what was right. And we have an obligation to preach the gospel at Steadfast Baptist Church. I don't care whether we have a church building or not, our responsibility doesn't change to live by what this says, to preach hard against sin, and to go out there and get people saved and praise the Lord. That's exactly what we're going to do between services like we always do. It doesn't matter what storms are forming around our church or what drama is going on or who let us down, what leadership let us down. We're going to preach the gospel like we always do because that is what has been given to us. That is the responsibility that has been placed on our shoulders by the creator of the universe. And we ought to take that seriously. We have fought to keep this church alive, not because we have an ego, not because we just want to exalt ourselves. We have fought to keep this church alive. The very core of the reason is because we care about those souls out there. It's because we care and we love the lost. And we know that if this church dies, Satan wins. We know that if this church dies, souls are going to go to hell. And there's nothing that we can do about it if we're not congregating every week and we're not knocking doors and we're not preaching the gospel, then the devil wins. And let me tell you something right now. I'm not going to sit on my hands and let Satan get his way. We have been placed here for a reason. We have a church here for a reason. And that reason is to grow in the Lord, to become amazing Christians, to live the Christian life, but also to go and knock doors and preach the gospel and there ought to be nothing that stops us from doing that. In Job 38, the Bible says, you don't have to turn there, gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee and answer thou me. Later on, God, speaking to Job, he goes on to basically explain that he is all powerful, that he's the one that created the universe, that he's the one that has all the knowledge in the world. But he says, gird up thy loins like a man. We have to be ready. We have to gird up our loins like a man. We have to be prepared for whatever the devil throws at us. In Psalm 23, it says, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. And I want you to understand something. I don't care what it is that you're going through in your life. If you're sitting there and you're thinking, what am I going to do? That is the moment where you need to get on your knees and you need to pray to God. And you need to explain to the Lord that you don't think there's a way out. You need to be speaking to God. You need to have a prayer life and you need to rely on him to get you out of whatever situation that you're going through. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 31. Now I'm going to read from Deuteronomy 3 while you're going to Deuteronomy 31. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 3, the Lord your God, he shall fight for you. And you know, there's something that Pastor Jonathan Shelley said to me over the phone that, you know, I might not ever forget. He said, you know, if you're in the will of God, if you're doing the right thing for the Lord, everything will work out. He later said, I'm not going to forget about you guys. He later said, we're not going to, we're not going to let steadfast Jacksonville fade away. Pastor Shelley is going to keep this thing going. He is our pastor and the Bible commands us to submit to our pastor. The Bible commands us to follow our pastor and pastor Jonathan Shelley wants what's best for this church. Pastor Jonathan Shelley is a qualified leader for this church and he told me that what's going to happen here in Jacksonville, folks, it's going to be better than anything we've ever experienced before. He basically said, fear thou not. I know we're going through a hard time right now, but he said, listen, you're going to get through it. Yeah. Now you're in Deuteronomy 31. Look what it says in verse one. It says, and Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. And he said unto them, I am 120 years old this day. I can no more go out and come in. Also the Lord has said unto me, thou shalt not go over this Jordan. Now before we continue in the passage, I want to explain why Moses couldn't inherit the promised land. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 32, you don't have to turn there because he trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Merida Kadesh in the wilderness of Zen, because ye sanctified me, not in the midst of the children of Israel yet thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not go thither onto the land which I have given the children of Israel. In my mind, Moses is one of the most humble men in the Bible. He saw the promised land, but God said, because you messed up because of the fact that you forsook me, because of the fact that you didn't do what I command you to do, he didn't get a chance to inherit the promised land. But he didn't have an issue with it. And that's why he's a man of God that we should look up to. Now you're in Deuteronomy 31, look what it says in verse three. The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee and he will destroy these nations from before thee and thou shalt possess them. And Joshua, he shall go over before thee as the Lord hath said, and the Lord shall do unto them as he did unto Sion and Og, kings of the Amorites and unto the land of them whom he destroyed. And the Lord shall give them up before your face that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you. So God promises that he's going to destroy the wicked nations from before the Israelites. That's what he's saying here. Look at verse six. Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. And I'm here to tell you that those words apply today. God's word is never dissolved. It's never deleted. I don't care how many fake Bibles are produced. This King James Bible has been preserved from this day and forever. And what that says there, that God will not forsake us, applies in 2019. God will not forsake you. God will not leave you. As a result, we have to be strong. We have to be of a good courage. We need to be strong leaders in this church. We cannot be afraid of what's going to happen. We have to be strong and lead our families, the women and children. It broke my heart to see the looks on their faces over the last week, not knowing what was going to happen to this church and the look of dread at the thought of possibly losing this church. And we as men have to lead them. We have to lead this congregation. We have to be strong and of a good courage. It says in Proverbs 28, the wicked flee when no man pursue it, but the righteous are bold as a lion. One of the attributes of masculinity is being bold, not being a coward. You don't cower. Okay. You don't, you don't, you don't run away when things get tough. You are bold. You look into the face of your adversary and you say, I'm not afraid of you. The only being I fear is God. You know, it took boldness to do what we've done this morning. It took courage. Now you're in Deuteronomy 31, look at verse number seven, it says, and Moses called unto Joshua and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, be strong and of a good courage for thou must go with his, with this people unto the land, which the Lord had sworn unto their fathers to give them. And the Lord shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that does go before thee. He will be with thee. He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee, fear not, neither be dismayed. So God is saying he will accompany the Israelites on their journey. He will not leave them. We are on a journey in the Christian life. God's not going to leave us through our journey either. Never forget that. And you know what? We're still here. Yeah. Think about it. We're still here. Nothing can stop us. You want to know why? Because the Bible says, and the Lord, he it is that go, that does go before thee. He will be with thee. He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee, fear not, like I just read, neither be dismayed. Go to Ezra chapter six, as I make my second point, Ezra chapter six, the Bible is talking about there in Ezra, rebuilding Solomon's temple. Now the story with that is the nation of Israel decided to rebel against God. And so God judged them by sending, uh, nations, wicked nations to occupy them. The kingdom of the Southern kingdom of Judah was invaded by Babylon and the temple, Solomon's temple was destroyed. God's house was destroyed. The second point I want to make is do not be afraid of our adversaries. We're talking about having no fear. The title of the sermon is fear thou not, and we should not fear our adversaries. The Bible says in Ezra one, look at verse, or I should say, uh, you're, you're in Ezra chapter six. I'm going to read from Ezra chapter one. It says now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom. And he put it also in writing saying, thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has charged me to build him in house at, or which is in Judah. Cyrus is stirred up by the Lord here to make a proclamation, to rebuild Solomon's temple, to build a house for God in Jerusalem and God similarly, I believe has stirred up a righteous remnant in Jacksonville to rebuild the house of God and that house of God in Jacksonville is known as none other than steadfast Baptist church. Look at Ezra chapter six, verse 14. Look at verse 14. The Bible says, and the elders of the Jews build it and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zachariah, the son of Edo, and they build it and finished it according to the commandment of the God of Israel and according to the commandment of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, king of Persia. And this house was finished. On the third day of the month of Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king and the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy and offered at the dedication of this house of God and a hundred bullocks, 200 rams, 400 lambs and for a sin offering for all Israel. Hey, if you're one of these PETA animal loving freaks, you know, this might trigger you. Twelve of, where was I at here, for a sin offering for all Israel. Twelve he goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel and they set the priests and their divisions and the Levites and their courses for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem as it is written in the book of Moses. Now I want you to notice the Bible says they kept the dedication with joy. The house of the Lord is finished here. That's what's going on in this passage. The animal sacrifices began, the work, all the work that they put in to rebuild Solomon's temple has come to an end. You know, and we have a job that's similar to that in the sense that, you know, the house of the Lord, what happened in Judah is that was totally destroyed by the Babylonian empire. Our church is facing a similar calamity in the sense that we need to rebuild now from the ground up just as sure as they did. They had nothing left. We have to rebuild just like Ezra did, just like the men of God did. But I want to warn you about something, that there are going to be people, the world who I believe, the world, the reprobates of this world, the false prophets, because we are going to be in the will of God and what we do, I think there's a possibility we could be attacked harsher than we've ever been attacked before. Go to Nehemiah chapter four. When men of God do work for God, the devil always, usually at the very least, orchestrates a counter attack. And we see that in Nehemiah chapter four. The Bible says, while you're turning to Nehemiah four, it says in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus himself says, and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The power of man, obviously, this is the most obvious statement I'm going to make this morning, but the power of man cannot compare to the power of God and therefore we should not fear men because man cannot destroy both soul and body in hell. Hebrews chapter 10 says, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You know what's more scary than anything that man can do to us? The chastening of the Lord, God's judgment on our lives. I think we've seen, I think we've noticed that if you fall into sin, if you're living a sinful life, if you forsaken the Lord and you just want to walk in the old man and you just want to walk in the flesh and you want to forsake everything that the Bible says and you want to be a hypocrite, God will judge your life, God will ruin your life, God will make it so that you'll never want to even show your face to the world again. So don't ever think to yourself, hey, I'm afraid of man, I'm afraid of what's going to happen in the world, I'm afraid I might have lost my job, I'm afraid I'm not sure what's going to happen to this church. You ought to be afraid only of God and understand that if you forsake his word and you choose to walk in the old man rather than the new man for the rest of your Christian life, you're going to regret that for the rest of your life and God will make you sorry even if you don't admit that you're sorry. Go to, you're in Nehemiah 4, look at verse number 1. The Bible says, but it came to pass that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth and took great indignation and mocked the Jews. So Sanballat was an enemy of the Jews and his goal was to disrupt God's work. And there are going to be people, whether it's the sodomites, whether it's the reprobates, whether it's the God haters, I'm not going to make any predictions on who it's going to be. But when we do the work of God, there are going to be people who want to disrupt it. There might be protesters outside of our new church building whenever we get it, there might be people who try and discourage us, there might be people who say that pastors, you know, that Pastor Shelley shouldn't even be the pastor, I mean there's so many things that can be done that would discourage us from this rebuilt church, the church that we're trying to restore. And we can't let that happen, we cannot be discouraged. Look what it says in verse number 2. It says, and he spake before his brethren in the army of Samaria and said, what do these feeble Jews, will they fortify themselves, will they sacrifice, will they make an end in a day, will they receive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? So he's mocking them, right? I mean, that's what's going to happen with us. The world mocks us. You know, I bet you the world would mock this congregation. Why are you in a house? What's wrong with you people? What are you doing, what are you doing a church and a house for? Why wouldn't you just, okay, you know what, something happened with your church, why wouldn't you just go home or go to the fun center, you know, that's what the world would tell us to do. Hey, you know what, forget this, this movement you guys are in, it's crazy, you guys hate the homos. I mean, what's up with that? Why are you so hit? You preach hard against sin, you're not politically correct. Just forget about this, obviously, you know, it wasn't meant to be, go to the fog machine fun center with the purple lights and the fagged little pulpit. You know what, this pulpit's more manly than the pulpit they use here, okay? And this isn't even a pulpit, this is a shelf. Look at verse number seven. Look at verse number seven. It says, but it came to pass that when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashtodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, right? I mean, that makes sense. Of course they're going to be angry. Look what it says in verse eight. And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it. Nevertheless, we made our prayer unto our God and set a watch against them day and night because of them. Now, let me ask you a question, a yes or no question. Did they run away? Did they cower? What did they do? They set a watch against them. They anticipated a counterattack and they set a watch and they were prepared and they protected the work. See, it's not about, this isn't carnal, it's not about that they just really badly wanted a temple. It's that they had work to do. And to me, it's not about a building. Let's say we meet in some basement somewhere and it's not even very nice. It's about the work. That's what it was about for these people. It was about the work. I want to do the work of God. Where am I at? Look at, am I in verse 10? Look at what it says in verse 10. And Judah said, the strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed and there is much rubbish so that we are not able to build the wall. And our adversaries said, they shall not know, neither see till we come in the midst among them and slay them, listen to this carefully, and cause the work to cease. Wouldn't the devil love it if our work ceased here instead of at the church? That's right, brother Brian. He wants us to stop. He'd love it. He'd love it if we didn't go out there and knock doors and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. He would love it if the preaching stopped. Preaching out of the word of God is edifying. Preaching out of the word of God is what helps you to walk in the spirit. If you have a baby, look, there's some cute babies right here. If those babies are not fed with milk, if they're not fed, they're not going to grow. And as Christians, obviously some of us are on different levels than others, but you know what, wherever you are in your Christian life, there's no way you can grow if you're not hearing preaching out of the word of God, and especially if you're not hearing hard preaching against sin and getting your face ripped off. I like it when that happens because how am I supposed to change anything in my life if nobody is telling me that what I'm doing is wrong? We just live in such a snowflake society today where you can't say anything without offending anyone, and that's why people are against hard preaching. Look at verse 12. And it came to pass that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places, once ye shall return unto us, they will be upon you. Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows. And I looked up, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them, remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. Men, you fought for your houses, you fought for your wives. The reason why you were so concerned about our predicament is because you want to make sure your children, and your wife, and your family can continue to hear preaching so that they can grow. You care about them more than yourselves, I guarantee it, even if you don't know it. The Bible says fight for your brethren. That's an attribute of a godly Christian. That's an attribute of a Christian who is walking in the new man. We are commanded to love each other as brethren. We are spiritual brethren. I may not be related to you in the flesh, but you know what? We all came from Adam anyway, so I guess I kind of, but my point is, and there's a scientific, they put out an article claiming now that Adam, that we all came from one ancestor or something like that. But you know, I don't need science to prove the Bible anyway, so who cares about that? But my point is, folks, we have to love each other, we are brethren, we have to stick together. The Bible commands us to love the brethren. And this is what I love so much about our movement. You know, we take Leviticus 20, 13 seriously, right? Obviously, we take Leviticus chapter 20, the whole chapter, seriously. We take every book in the Bible, every verse, every word of the King James Bible, we take it seriously. But you know what else we take seriously? Just as sure as, you know, Romans 1, yeah, we love Romans 1, we also love the scriptures that say that we have to love each other. We also, just as sure as we take seriously that the Bible says there are those who God has given up, that God gave them over to a reprobate mind, and even as they did not like to retain God and their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. We love that! But you know what else we take just as seriously as that verse? Love each other. Love the brethren. All the scriptures that command us to do that. And that's why I love this movement. We don't pick and choose what we like out of the Bible. We like the whole thing. And anybody that would say, oh, you guys are just only hate, well, they've never hung out with any one of us. Okay? And it's like, oh, you hate Jews, you know, that's because we believe in replacement theology. Oh, you guys, you don't like Jews, you know. Well, you know what, the first time I walked in and I met you guys, you know, you probably thought I was some rabbi or something, I had a beard and everything. And you know what? I've never felt more loved than among this congregation, okay? We have to be committed to fight for each other, to fight for the brethren. That's how we walk in the new man. Look at verse 15, it says, and it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us and God had brought their counsel to naught, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work. They continued the work, even though there was a chance that the devil was going to send a counterattack, it didn't discourage them from continuing to build the temple, did it? No, they continued to do the work, even though they knew there were adversaries who were trying to stop them. The world wants you to give up. The world wants you to be one of them. The world wants you to forsake, to just get discouraged and go back to watching the Hollywood movies made by pedophiles, okay? And listen, Hollywood movies are made by pedophiles and if you ever think of backsliding and going to the movie theater and saying, forget about church, there's too much drama, then understand you're funding pedophiles that hate God and that abuse the most innocent lives that we can think of children, okay? So my point is this, the world wants you to go back to what the world does, Netflix, movies, all that garbage, the world wants you to forsake church, the world wants you to forsake soul winning, the world wants you to give up, don't do what it wants you to do, do what God wants you to do. And here's the thing, when the enemy sees that you are prepared for battle, I mean look at what the Bible says here in verse 15, I'm going to repeat it, and it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us and God had brought their counsel to naught, that we returned all of us to the wall, everyone unto his work, what I'm trying to show you here is that they returned to do God's work whether there was a threat or not and if you continue to do God's work, even if there are adversaries who want to discourage you and stop you from doing it, those adversaries will go away because God's enemies are cowards. Go to Joshua 8, point number 3, point number 3, and you'll have to excuse me if I take a glance at the camera, I'm just looking at the time, the third point I want to make is do not be afraid of fighting battles, do not be afraid of fighting battles, and you know I just want to make this point folks, the Christian life is going to have ups and downs, now if we were going to the fog machine, purple lights, God loves you every day, everything is sunshine and rainbows and daffodils and you know, there's never anything wrong, Joel Osteen style church, you know, there aren't going to be ups and downs for you, because why would the devil attack somebody who's not even accomplishing anything, right? So the devil is going to attack, think about this, he is cunning, I refuse to use the word smart to describe Satan, he is cunning however, and he will attack a group of people who are actually accomplishing something for God, that's the very reason why we're going to be persecuted in the end times, because it is only Christians who have the Holy Spirit of promise who can get other Christians saved, how do you mitigate that? You kill them. So don't be afraid of the battles that we have to go through as brethren, whether it's a battle that emanates from within this congregation, whether it's a battle that emanates from outside, whether it's the enemies of God protesting, the enemies of God writing, you know Pastor Jonathan Shelley already has an article written about him right now, anti, I don't know what the headline is, but I'll just give you a paraphrase of it, it's like anti-homo, anti-homo pastor takes over Fort Worth Church, they're already attacking the guy, he hasn't even taken over the thing yet, right? And so the persecution is going to come, but we can't be afraid to fight the battle, look at verse number 1 in Joshua chapter 8, it says, and the Lord said unto Joshua, fear not, neither be dismayed, take all the people of war with thee and arise and go up to Ai and see Ai had given into thy hand the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land and thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king, only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall ye take for a prayer unto yourselves, lay thee an ambush for the city behind it. Look at verse number 3, so Joshua arose and all the people of war to go up against Ai and Joshua chose out 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them away by night. Now it says that these 30,000 men, they weren't ordinary men, does it say just 30,000 men? No it doesn't, it doesn't say 30,000 men without adding anything to that, it says 30,000 men of valor, are you a man of valor this morning? Could you honestly look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm a man of valor? If God, imagine if God were to describe you brother Owen or you brother Brian or you brother Dustin or you brother Marcel, would he say honestly that you are a man of valor? Or would he say about you that you're someone who will give up? Will he say that you're someone who will leave? Will he say that you're someone who will forsake the Christian life? And listen, I'm not talking about, you know, if you want to move to another church, I'm not saying that, that doesn't count as giving up, when I use that word give up, I'm talking about giving up from living for God, I'm talking about going back into the world, I'm talking about are you a person who will be discouraged to the point that you say forget the Bible reading, forget the soul winning, I'm just going to turn on Oprah Winfrey and hang out and watch that all day, okay? Are you that kind of person, okay? You need to, you know, I believe, I truly believe this deep down in my heart that the men I'm looking at are men of valor, the fact you showed up this morning proves to me that you're men of valor and I believe that God would write about you just like what he wrote about these 30,000 men who've been chosen to go to war, that you are men of valor. Now of course Joshua was gathering the people to fight a physical war, right? In the Old Testament there are tons of physical battles, I love reading about them, the atheists think that I'm crazy because, you know, I was attacked a few months ago for this, oh you know, the Old Testament, God wiped out he the nation, well, amen to that! They're reprobate, they hate the Lord, they committed abominations, they deserve to be wiped off the face of the planet, I have no issue with that, and the Old Testament is full of story after story of God gathering people, using men of God rather to gather people to battle, in this instance it's Joshua gathering, the Bible says, 30,000 mighty men of valor to go fight a physical war, in the Old Testament that's a common theme, it happens all the time, I love reading about it, the kings, the chronicles, and so on. Is our battle a physical battle though? In the New Testament? No, our battle's a spiritual battle, and the Bible says in 2 Corinthians, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, this is the weapon of our warfare, this is the word of God, this is what we use to protect ourselves, to protect our family, and when we go out soul winning, this is what we use to do battle! Ephesians chapter 6, you all like this verse, I'm sure you've heard it many times before, you don't have to go there, but it says in verse 12, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Now Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor, and I believe we have mighty men of valor in this building, Joshua chose those men for a physical battle, and I believe God has ordained this church and these men of valor who are looking into my eyes this morning to fight a spiritual battle. You're in Joshua 8, look at verse 21, And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again and slew the men of Ai, and the other issued out of the city against them. So they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side, and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape. Notice that it says they smote them, none of them remained or escaped, the Bible says. Why? Because they had courage, and they faced their enemies head on the enemies of God. Now understand this, the Bible says that we are to love our enemies, but it also says that there's a different group of enemies who we should hate. The enemies of God, the reprobates, do not I hate them, O Lord, who hate thee, that hate thee. Look at verse, or I should say, go to Acts chapter 5, we're going to go there, and I'm going to make my final point this morning, as you turn to Acts chapter 5, I want to compel you this morning, and that's the purpose of the sermon, I want to give you encouragement, I want to fill you, I want to make sure that you walk out of this building filled with the Holy Spirit, and more encouraged, and ready to fight, and ready to do God's work than you've been in a long time. We've had sleepless nights, I get that, but now is the time to move on, now is the time to rebuild, now is the time to do the work that's been ordained for us, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 that God has ordained work for us to do, that we should do it, we should do what God commanded us to do, go out and win souls and accomplish the mission of this church, and we can't do it if we keep dwelling on the past. Let's move forward, point number 4 is don't be afraid of persecution, and I already touched on this, but I think this church could receive potentially, moving forward, the heaviest persecution we might have ever seen. Now the worst we got is some homo looking queer with a bow tie came in one time after there was some controversy about a sermon that was preached, didn't make it into the building, eventually got kicked out, and that really wasn't even anything. But I think it's possible, and I could be wrong, but I think it's possible that the persecution will be heavier than it's ever been before, and the reason why I believe that is because we have purged the cancer from our church. I think we can all agree with that. And so now the body of Christ, this local body of Christ, has been purged of the cancer, and so now we are ready to do the will of God. But what happens when you do the will of God? What did we read about? Tribulation. Tribulation, amen. The devil sends a counter attack. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3, yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus. Now I want to stop there before I finish quoting the verse. It doesn't say yea and some that will live godly. It doesn't say yea and a small portion that will live godly. It says yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. It doesn't get any more certain than that. Just as sure as you read verses about when Jesus said believe on, Acts chapter 16 verse 31, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, when we show that to people out soul winning, to assure them that it's by faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ, just as sure as we look at that verse with certainty and believe what it's saying, we ought to believe this verse here in 2 Timothy chapter 3 as well. It says that if we live godly, all that live godly, they will, shall, suffer persecution. Are you ready for it? Are you ready for the persecution? I'm honestly asking that. And you know, I told Alicia this, I'll never forget it. When we first came to this church, I turned to her and I said listen sweetheart, this is not fun and games. We are going into the front lines of God's ministry, okay, and I said you have to be ready. I might lose my job, okay, which I already have. I don't know if it was because of this or not. I honestly don't. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I don't know. But I've already lost my, and this is not a pity party for me. All I'm saying is that we, I said to Alicia, we might lose everything if we go into this movement and we do what God says and we stand by every word, especially now we're in 2019. This is the riskiest time ever to be a Bible believing Christian in my opinion. And I told her you have to be ready. This isn't fun and games. We're not coming here to play church. We're not coming here to play Christian. We're not coming here to put on a character. And there are people who have infiltrated this movement and infiltrated our church who played a character. I said we're not doing that. We're all in and you have to be ready. There are going to be times where we are attacked as human beings and she said I'm ready. I want to do it. I stand by you, Ben. Look at Acts chapter, look at Acts chapter five. Look at verse number 17. Look at, look at the verse number 17. The Bible says, then the high priest rose up and all they that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees and were filled with indignation and laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them forth and said, go stand and speak in the temple to the people, all the words of this life. Now I like end times, so I'm going to make an end times application here. I like studying the end times, end times five of prophecy. I think there's going to come a day in the end times, Jesus warned us about it in the Olivet Discourse, Matthew chapter 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, that we'll be taken to the synagogues, right? And we're going to be faced, we're going to be looking into the eyes of the enemies of God, the agents of the new world order, and the Holy Spirit will give us the words to speak. What we see here going on in this chapter is a similar situation where the, you know, where the apostles are faced, you know, looking into the eyes of the council and they, you know, have to make a choice. Are they going to walk in the spirit and utter the words that the Holy Spirit has put on their heart or are they going to cower and run away and say, this ain't worth it. Look at, skip down, skip down to verse number 26. We're going to skip some verses here just for sake of time. Verse number 26, it says, then went the captain with the officers and brought them. Now the them that it's talking about there is the apostles. I want to make that clear so no one's confused. Look what it says, without violence, for they feared the people lest they should have been stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council and the high priest asked them saying, did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. All right, now look at verse number 29. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, you all love this one. We ought to obey God rather than men. Verse 30, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things. And so is also the Holy Ghost whom God has given to them that obey him. Now just to be clear, obey him, it doesn't mean you have to do the commandments to be saved. You are obeying the gospel and if you obey the gospel, you are believing on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved and placing 100% of your faith on him. Verse 33, when they heard that they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them. So it wasn't they were cut to the heart and then asked them to go out and have coffee. It wasn't that they were cut to the heart and said, you know, they, they, they wanted to slay them. They didn't want to be friends. They didn't want to even negotiate. I mean, this isn't a situation where the council looked on the apostles and said, okay, maybe we'll have a moderated debate or something like that. No, they wanted us to kill them right then and there. Wicked. Absolutely. And the reason why is because the doctrine of the apostles, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which we all believe it's so offensive to people and it was so offensive to the councils that they wanted to take the lives of the men who were preaching it. And in 2019, what we preach, it's going to get us persecution. It's going to get us hate from the world. You want to know why? Because we believe the truth. I don't care whether people believe that that's prideful to say or not. This is infallible. This has no error. And all we're doing is believing this. That's not prideful. That's the antithesis of pride, right? Jesus warned of tribulation just as sure as the apostles preaching the gospel were put in front of the council and the council threatened their lives. We might be in that same situation one day, especially in the end times. And Jesus said, you don't have to turn there. In John 16, these things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace in the world ye shall have tribulation, excuse me, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world in me. He says in me, you might have peace. I have peace when I'm around you. I have peace when I'm fellowshipping with my friend, brother Dustin and on all the rest of you. I don't want you to feel that left out. I have peace when I'm among the men and women of God, but in the world it's tribulation in the world. It's man, you're a nut job. You really believe the Bible? Literally. You believe God created the world, you know, in six days and on the seventh day he rested. You believe you were, you're telling me you reject evolution. You're telling me that you believe that homosexual should be put to death. You believe that? In the world it's tribulation, but here it's peace. That's what Jesus said. Go to Jeremiah 38. We're almost done this morning. Jeremiah chapter 38, I'm talking about fear thou not. That's what the Bible said in Isaiah 41 where we started. Do not be afraid of anything. Do not be afraid of what's to come in the future, uncertainty. Do not be afraid of those who want to hinder the work of God. Do not be afraid of the reprobates of this world, those who want to persecute this church and don't be afraid of being persecuted yourself. You decided you want to be a part of this church and in my opinion, you basically signed a contract that says I'm ready to face anything. Look at verse two in Jeremiah 38. It says, thus saith the Lord, he that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine and by the pestilence. But he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live for he shall have his life for a prey and shall live. Thus saith the Lord, this city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon's army which shall take it. Therefore the princess said unto the king, we beseech thee, let this man be put to death. For thus he weakened at the hands of the men of war that remain in this city and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them. For this man seeketh not the welfare of this people but the hurt. Then Zedekiah the king said, behold, he is in your hand for the king is not he that can do anything against you. Then took they Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Melchiah, the son of Hamalek that was in the court of the prison and they let down Jeremiah with cords and in the dungeon there was no water but mire. So Jeremiah sunk in the mire. Now have you noticed there's a pattern in the Bible, especially the Old Testament that when the man of God, when the preacher, in this case the preacher is Jeremiah, and there's a pattern that we notice that when the man of God says something inconvenient, what happens to him? He gets thrown in prison, he gets persecuted, he gets attacked verbally or even physically. When you preach the truth, you're going to get a backlash. Be ready for it. That's all I'm saying. Be ready for it. The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 16 that Asa, you don't have to turn there, Asa was wroth with Hanani the seer, a preacher. And why? Because Hanani had bad news for him. It says in verse 9 there, and you're still in Jeremiah 38, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro, this is Hanani speaking, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him, herein thou hast done foolishly, therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Then Asa was wroth with the seer and put him in a prison house, for he was in a rage with him because of this thing, and Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. What happened to Jeremiah when he said, this land is wicked, it's going to be judged, Babylon's coming. Prison. Sunk in the mire. What happened to Asa? Prison. Alright, I've checked that, I'm sorry, Hanani the seer, my bad, Hanani the seer, right? Asa was wroth with the seer, Hanani was persecuted for preaching the truth, Jeremiah was persecuted for hard preaching, he was saying that God was going to judge Judah for its sins. One of the attributes of this church and this movement is we are not afraid to preach against the wickedness of this nation, Babylon, we are not afraid of preaching against the sin of the world, we are not afraid of preaching against popular culture, we are not afraid of preaching against the reprobates, the government, the reprobates that run this world, the wicked leaders that run this nation, we're not afraid of that. And as a result, people aren't going to like it. And instead of having an issue with, you know, they attack the person is what I'm trying to say. In reality, they're attacking the person, but you know what's going on is that they just hate what you're saying. If they hate what you're saying, they're going to hate you. Revelation 13, it says, and it was given unto them to make war with the saints and to overcome them and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. If you think it's going to get any easier between now and the time that the Antichrist sits in the temple of God and proclaims himself to be God, if you think it's going to get any easier between now and the abomination of desolation, the tribulation period, the great tribulation, and eventually the rapture, you've got another thing coming. As horrible and as hard as this week has been, it is the tip of the iceberg compared to what God will lead us through if we trust him. It is the tip of the iceberg compared to the tribulation that is to come if we stay in the fight, but the reward will be worth every ounce of work that you put in to fight for this and to fight for this church. Now, before we get to the end times, obviously, we just have to remain steadfast. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, suffering through whatever the devil throws at us, the persecution, suffering through people turning on us, the leadership turning on us, the brethren turning on us, it's not going to be in vain, folks. That's what I want you to understand. If there's anything you take from the sermon, I just want it to be that. Everything we've gone through and everything we will go through in the future will not be in vain. Amen. Amen. The Bible says in Hebrews 13, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. You know what? People change, Jesus doesn't change. People change, people go rogue, people go into sin, people go into heresy, people are false brethren. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. God doesn't change. So in conclusion, I talked about in this sermon, fear thou not. Do not be afraid of what's to come. Do not be afraid of the immediate future or the long term future. We are together. We can do it. God is with us. We can fight through it. I said, do not be afraid of uncertainty. Do not be afraid of our adversary. Do not be afraid of fighting battles. If you're involved in the Christian life, the battles will come. We read some examples of that. Those men of God didn't back down. I don't want us to back down either. Do not be afraid of persecution. When you preach hard, happened to Jeremiah, happened to Hanani the seer, you get persecuted for it. You might lose everything. Do not be afraid of persecution. If we relinquish fear, we will be even more successful as a church than we've ever been. And I just want to thank you very much for sticking, for sticking with us. I love each and every one of you really. You're closer to me than my, my flesh and let's pray Lord heavenly father. We just thank you so much for this church. And I pray that you bless Pastor Jonathan Shelley. I pray that you help him to take on this unbelievable task that he has in front of him. To eradicate the remnants of a disease that infected Steadfast Baptist Church. Fill him with your Holy Spirit. Help him Lord to, to fix this. Help him to, to lead us to a, a greater future, Father God, and help us all to get behind him and for him to do amazing things, not just in Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, but also here in Jacksonville. Thank you for sending us Pastor Shelley and Pastor Anderson. And Lord, I just pray that we grow as a, as a body and that we continue in the Christian life and that we never, ever backslide and give up and go back into the world when the battles come. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Alright in closing, let's go to our last song. Song number 259.