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We're here in Song of Solomon, Chapter 5. Go back to Song of Solomon, Chapter 1. And let me just say, the name of the sermon is How to Bring Visitors to Church. How to Bring Visitors to Church. And on Sundays we've been going through kind of a really hard series on the Catholic Church, on the first service. Five part series we just finished, but you need a proper balance on things. And there are other sermons where you call out the sins and the false prophets and things such as that. We need sermons like How to Bring Visitors to Church because we want to be a growing church. Let me also say this though about the Song of Solomon because the Song of Solomon gets a really bad reputation. Look, my Bible says every word of God is pure. Every word of God. Every single word in the Song of Solomon is pure. It's the Word of God. And look, there are religions that teach the Song of Solomon is not part of the Word of God. They say, well, it's indecent for people. It's not part of the Word of God. But I believe all of the books of the Bible are perfect. They're God's Word. And I believe the Song of Solomon teaches us a lot of information. I've actually preached a lot of sermons from the Song of Solomon and none of them had anything to do with being married. And neither does this sermon either because even in books like this there's a lot of great symbolism on things that we can learn. So what I want you to understand in the sermon series or in this sermon is that there's three different groups of people we're going to see in this sermon. We're going to see the wife. This is Solomon's wife in the Song of Solomon. Solomon's wife represents a soul winner. Represents one of us that's preaching the Gospel. Solomon's wife represents a soul winner. Solomon represents Meredith Baptist Church, Manila, or the church that you go to. So basically there's this woman who loves her husband and the woman is basically the soul winner. That's us. And then her husband, Solomon, is basically the church. And then you're going to see the daughters of Jerusalem. Those are the people we're preaching the Gospel to and wanting to come to church. And I'll mention that later on as we look at Song of Solomon 5. I'll go through that. But let's go to Song of Solomon chapter 1. And the first point that we have is simply this, that you should always speak highly of your church and your everyday normal conversations. If you want to bring people to church, you should always speak well of your church. You have to understand that when you're trying to bring people to church, yes we go soul winning and try to bring those people, but quite honestly you're more likely to bring friends and family and co-workers to church. If you criticize this church though, are people going to want to come visit? No they're not. Because what's so great about it is you're already telling me all the problems with it. Song of Solomon chapter 1 verses 13 and 14. And notice her high opinion about her husband or the church as we're talking about. In verse number 13, a bundle of mirrors my well beloved unto me. He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of campire in the vineyards of En-Gedi. Now make no mistake in Song of Solomon, they are married. They are married and she mentions, she compares her husband to a bundle of myrrh. Remember when Jesus was born, they presented a few gifts to him and one of those was myrrh. You say why? It's a very costly and expensive thing. So basically they're giving a costly and expensive gift to Jesus when he's born. And so when she's comparing her husband to a bundle of myrrh, what she's saying is he's basically very valuable. That's what she's saying. And throughout the Song of Solomon you see a lot of examples and people are confused. Like for example, Solomon compares his wife to a company of horses and Pharaoh's chariots. Look, he's not saying his wife is literally a horse. He's using symbolism to talk about how great his wife is. Look, advice for you guys that want to be married, don't compare your wife to a horse. But basically he's talking about how great she is and she here is talking about how great he is. She compares him to myrrh. Now turn to Song of Solomon chapter 2. And in Song of Solomon chapter 2 verse number 3 the Bible reads, As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste. And so here she compares her husband to an apple tree among the trees of the wood. What is she saying? She's saying my husband is the best that there is. Basically of all the trees of the wood, of all the ten thousand trees, he is the best. Why does she say an apple tree? Because an apple tree actually produces something that tastes good. It actually produces apples. And she's saying all these other trees are basically worthless. I look at my husband as being the best of the best. Now here's the truth though. I'm not talking about marriage in this sermon. But good advice is that when you're married you should never criticize your spouse ever to anybody. That is a huge mistake. When people are mad at their wife or mad at their husband, they get on Facebook. And they'll post on Facebook, like, look at what my wife did. Can you believe that? They want to get sympathy. And it's like, why are you trashing your wife online? Why are you trashing your husband online? What are you doing? Look, everyone that's married gets in fights with their spouse. Everyone who's married in this room is going to admit, yes, there's times that I get frustrated, times I lack patience, time I'm mad. The worst thing you could ever do is complain about your spouse to other people. In the Song of Solomon, she compares her husband to an apple tree among the trees of the wood. She never criticized her husband ever. Not one time. When you're married, you should never criticize your spouse to other people, including family. You don't tell your mom or your dad, I can't believe what my wife or husband did. That is a foolish thing to do. And you're going to regret it one day. And you do that to your wife, she's going to do that to you, and it's just going to get worse and worse and worse and worse. And then you hate each other. You should never speak negatively. And look, there's a lot of people that are probably going to get married the next couple of years, people that are dating people. And you have to understand, you will have fights sometimes. You will be upset sometimes, but you should never criticize them publicly. And so here in Song of Solomon chapter 2, she compares her husband to the best tree that there is, the apple tree among the trees of the wood. Notice what it says in verses 8 and 9. The voice of my beloved. Behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a rower, a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our wall. He looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice. And notice how she's excited to see her husband. She's excited when she sees him coming. Look, this is the attitude we need to have about the church that we go to. You should be excited about the church that you're going to. And here's the truth. If you're not excited and you don't want to be here, go to a church where you will be excited. If you're not excited, if you can't speak well of the church, you need to go somewhere else. And that is the way I feel. And the truth is, a lot of people go to churches that they don't like. And they're upset about the pastor because he doesn't teach them anything. It's like, man, I come to church every single week and I learn nothing. Here's why you don't learn anything. One of two reasons. One, your pastor doesn't know anything about the Bible. Or two, he's too afraid to say anything to offend someone. He won't just tell it like it is. Now look, you might not think this church is perfect and no church is, but no one is going to come to this church and say they don't learn the word of God. You would never say that because I actually preach the Bible and show you what the Bible says. You don't hit that at other churches because they're afraid. And look, if you're not excited about the church that you go to, you need to find a church who are excited. And honestly, the way you ought to feel about the church you go to, you ought to feel excited and tell people, hey man, I love my church. I love the soul winning, the preaching, the fellowship. You should be inviting people that you know, co-workers, friends and family on a regular basis because you're excited about the church that you're in. Turn to Psalm and Psalm in chapter 3. See the Bible talks about church and it says it's the pillar and ground of truth. And the sad reality is that you go to most churches and you don't learn anything. You don't learn the Katotohana. You don't learn the truth. You learn nothing. The pastor teaches you nothing. He doesn't know the Bible and he's not willing to preach the truth. Look, you learn nothing and guess what? People get frustrated at their churches. If the church you used to go to actually taught you the word of God and motivated you, you'd still be going there. Many of you left churches because you honestly did not have a church that would actually just teach you what the Bible says. Church is the pillar and ground of truth and look, I believe you ought to be excited about going to this church. I don't consider this church perfect. I don't think I'm the greatest preacher in the world. But this is a church where you get motivated to go so many. You get motivated to live for God. You get motivated to make changes in your life. And not only that, in this area you're going to find the best friends in the world in this church. Why? Because people that love the Lord are going to end up being your close friends. Look, when you love the Lord, aren't the people closest to you other people that love the Lord? That's the way it works. And look, I love all my family and you know what? Some of my family, they are Christians, they're believers. But you know, I have family that aren't believers. And it's hard to be close to people, even if they're your family, if they just don't believe the same things as you. Because quite honestly, the God I serve is the number one thing in my life. And if somebody serves a different God and believes different things, they don't understand soul winning. They don't understand three times a week you're coming to church. It's like, now why does your pastor always yell at you? It's like, he should be talking about the love of God. He should be talking about how great your life is now. Why is he always yelling and complaining? He's so mean. He's always yelling. He hates this. He hates that. And look, they criticize what we do. They don't understand what we're doing. See, the Bible says when you're saved, you hate every false way. Every false way. What did I say this morning? We go back to the origin of the Catholic Church in our country. Look, both sides are false religions. Lapu-Lapu and Magellan. I hate both sides. I'm against what the Catholic Church did. They shouldn't have come in here and just forced people to convert. But both sides are false religions. I'm not going to look at either one as my heroes because they're both false. We hate every false way in this church. When it comes to Bible versions, I hate the false Bible versions. I hate the changes they made to the pure Word of God that we've talked about over these last couple months. The Word of God came in the English language. I hate the false ways. And you know what? You ought to hate the false ways. And so yeah, when you go to a church, your pastor ought to be preaching against a lot of things. Because if you haven't noticed, when you walk outside, it's a pretty strange world we live in. I mean, what in the world? The way people are dressed, the way people act. I mean, just people getting drunk all the time. Look, they don't believe the same things as we do. They don't care about the same things. And you know what? You ought to have a man of God that's willing to stand up and preach hard against sin. And the truth is, if that's not what you're looking for in a church, then you're at the wrong place. Because that is what our church is about. We love so many. We love the fellowship. We also preach hard against sin. We teach all things in this book, the parts that are popular and the parts that aren't popular. Because plenty of this Word of God is just not popular in 2019. See, it's still popular here in this country to say, yeah, Jesus is the way to heaven. It's not popular to preach against the LGBT. It's not popular to preach about clothing standards and the roles between men and women. But we're going to preach what's popular and what's not popular. That is what our church is about. Psalm 3, verse 11. Now, let me say this, that you ought to really care about your church, but your church ought to really care about you as well. Now, quite honestly, I do my best, my wife and I do our best to let people know we care about them. And quite honestly, you know, it's hard sometimes to thank everybody for everything they do because people do a lot of stuff. They volunteer. They put in a lot of time. And as much as we try to thank everybody, sometimes you kind of forget. And quite honestly, people sometimes can get upset about it. You have to remember that you are serving God and you're not trying to please man. You're trying to please God. I want to do my best to thank everyone for everything they do. And honestly, I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Our church has grown quite a bit since we started, and it wouldn't have come just from myself and my wife doing the work. A lot of people are bringing people to church, volunteering, putting in time. I appreciate all of that. And in Psalm to Solomon, chapter 3, verse 11, we notice this. Notice what it says. Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him, in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart. Now, notice how it says that Solomon in the day of his espousals. Remember, Solomon represents the church, or very Baptist church, Manila, or whatever church you go to. And it talks about the gladness in his heart, okay? When is this gladness taking place? The day of his espousals. You say, what does that mean? Think of the word spouse. It's the day that he gets married and he's glad. Isn't it true that when you get married, you're going to be happy on that day? I hope. I hope. I hope everyone, the day they got married, they're like, oh, I'm so glad. I'm happy. You're smiling. You're taking the pictures and everything like that. I hope. And she knows about her husband. Hey, you know what? My husband, he was really glad when he married to me. Look, there's people that preach in the Psalm of Solomon and they say that they weren't married. It's like espousals, okay? It's clear they're married in the Psalm of Solomon and in the day of the gladness of his heart. So he is very happy to be married to his wife, okay? And so realize the church does care about you. Whether me, my wife, or just the church members in general, we care about everybody in this church. And look, I understand your life sometimes, you go through trials. Every single person is going to go through trials and persecutions. Yea, all that will of God and Christ Jesus shall suffer persecutions. And one thing people do is they tend to blame the church when things go wrong in their life. You're struggling financially, it's the church's fault. You're struggling with your marriage, it's the church's fault. You're struggling at work, you're fighting with someone. You start to blame the church. Because everybody has this mentality, okay? You get kicked around at work, you come home and yell at your wife. Your wife yells at your son, the son kicks the dog, the dog attacks the cat. That's the way it works. It just gets passed on, everybody just gets mad, they just pass it on to the next person. Realize it's not the church's fault if you have problems in your life. Especially because I always preach that you will have problems because all that will of God and Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. We're not one of those mega churches that's just going to talk about, if you're right with God you're going to have lots of money and be happy and everything's going to be great. Quite honestly, sometimes it's the opposite. You start living for God and your family rejects you. You start living for God and your friends reject you. You start living for God and they say, it's such a hateful church and you should be going somewhere else. People criticize you when you make decisions for God. That's the way it works. But you know what, we've gone through this series on the Catholic church and they used to kill people for rejecting the Catholic church. You're not getting your head chopped off in 2019 in the Philippines for serving God. We're not in a Muslim country where they'll kill you for converting. You're able to come to church and so what if something makes fun of you? That's nothing. That's a very light persecution compared to being sauna sunders the Bible talks about some people from the past. There's no persecution in today's world. Turn to Psalm 1. So we see that she always speaks well about her husband which represents the church. The woman represents the soul winner. Always speaks well about her husband which represents the church. And I want you to realize that she does not change her opinion when she gets frustrated. It's easy to say that you're always going to speak well with your spouse when things are going well. Look, when you're happy and you're having a great time, of course you're in a good mood. But what about when you get stressed out? What about when you have problems? Then how are you going to react? Well notice she never says anything negative about her husband. Notice what it says in Psalm 1 verse 5. I am black but come thee, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I am black because the sun hath looked upon me. My mother's children were angry with me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept. Now she says that she's black. She's not saying that she's from Africa. When she's saying she's black, what she's saying is, in the next verse, the sun hath looked upon her. What happens when you're out in the sun? Your skin gets darker. I'll be honest with you, I am actually a very pale person naturally. Now you don't notice that because I'm so unlocked. And the sun looks upon me and it makes me look a little bit darker than I actually normally am. Because when you're out in the sun, you get a sun tan. Or a sunburn or a sun tan. And so when you're out in the sun, it's going to darken your skin. When she says, I am black, notice in verse 6, because the sun hath looked upon me, what she's saying is that she's outside working quite a bit. And notice she says, my mother's children were angry with me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept. She's using a lot of symbolism here because she's saying she's literally working in vineyards, but she's not keeping her own vineyard, which is her body. She's not taking care of her own body. Mine own vineyard have I not kept. Basically she's working on everybody else's things, but not having time for herself. And in life when you're always busy helping other people and working on stuff and you never have any time to relax, it's very easy to lose your patience. It's very easy to get upset. It would be very easy for her to be mad at her husband at this time because things aren't going well. Look, some days life is going pretty well. It's nice and you just work, you come home, you have some free time, you relax, you read the Bible. There's other days where things don't go well. And if there's one problem, there's like 20 problems. And everything's going wrong and you're stressed out, you're upset, you start raising your voice, you're mad. That's how people react. But notice in this story, which is the best story of a love between a husband and a wife, she does not criticize her husband. What is she saying for a second? Tell me, O thou whom I still loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon. For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? And she's basically saying to her husband, you know, where are you? Because I want to spend time with you. It's noontime. It's basically lunchtime. She's been working hard and she wants to know where her husband is. She wants to spend time with him. Now when you're married, as a husband, you need to take a break sometimes and spend time with your family. Spend time with your wife. Spend time with your kids. Life is busy, but when you come home from work, if you're married, you must spend time with your family. And if you do not do that, you're going to raise kids that are going to resent you. Okay? That's the reality. That's what the Bible teaches. You must find time. Now, that's not an easy thing to do because we live a busy life. It's very easy to come home and just watch YouTube. It's like, oh man, a new documentary came out. I got to watch it. It's like, well, you know, you need to make sure you spend time with your family first. That's right. Because when you're married, that is who God's given you. And honestly, you will live to regret it if you always come home and listen to sermons and never have time for your family. What's going to happen is your family is going to resent the God that you serve, even if they're saved, because they see you always neglecting them to hear a sermon. Right. And look, the online preaching is great. Many people have been reached from it. But the reality is that if all you do once you get married is still listen to sermons, your family is going to start to resent the God that you love, even if you're saved, because that's actually dragging you away from spending time with them. Look, when we're married, we're commanded to have our homes in order, and it starts with spending time with your family. Okay? That is what the Bible teaches. Now, turn to Solomon and Solomon in chapter 3. And so in Solomon 1, she's getting kind of frustrated. She's out in the sun. She's really tired. She's exhausted. And she wants to see her husband. She never criticizes him. She doesn't blame him. She's not mad at him. She just wants to spend time with him. Solomon 3, verse 1. By night on my bed, I saw him whom I so loved with. I saw him, but I found him not. I will rise now and go about the city and the streets, and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom I so loved with. I saw him, but I found him not. So we saw in chapter 1 that when she gets frustrated, she still speaks well of her husband. It should be the same way with you in church. You get frustrated with life, things are not going well, that you're still speaking well about the church that you go to, that you're still happy to be here and still trying to invite people, and not just criticize all the time. Aren't the sins of the tongue like the easiest thing to do? Yeah. It's so hard to control your tongue. I mean, James 3, that's what the whole chapter's about, because we just say things without thinking about them. We don't even think what kind of fire we're starting. We need to be careful with the things we say, what we do. That's true. And so in Psalm and Psalm in chapter 1 and also in 3, we see that life frustrations, they don't change her opinions about her spouse. Now, I want to give you some symbolism here in verse number 2, something that you can see here. Notice how she's seeking her husband in the broadways. That's where she's looking for her husband, in the broadways. Now, if you read through the story, we don't have time for a second time. I won't go into it. She seeks him in the broadways. She cannot find him. What ends up happening? The watchmen of the city come to her, and then all of a sudden she's able to find her husband. The symbolism is basically you can seek the Lord in the broadway that's going to send you to hell, but until a watchman or a soul winner comes to you, you're not going to find the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the symbolism that you see in Psalm and Psalm in chapter 3. That's why it says the broadways, because throughout the Bible there's a lot of symbolism, and the broadway leadeth to destruction, and the vast majority of people are going to die and go to hell one day. That is what the Bible teaches. And so she seeks for her husband in the broadways. She can't find him. Isn't it true that there's a lot of religions out there? People seek for the Lord by so many methods, so many different Christian churches here in this country, and very few of them are preaching the right gospel. Most of them are saying, well, you must live a good life to go to heaven. You must get baptized to go to heaven. You must repent of your sins to go to heaven. You must go to church to go to heaven. You must keep the seven sacraments to go to heaven. It's like, man, the Bible says going to heaven is as easy as eating a slice of bread. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. How hard is it to eat a slice of bread? That's pretty easy. It compares it to the living water. How hard is it to drink water? I mean, isn't it pretty easy to drink water? I mean, let me demonstrate for you right now. It's pretty easy to drink water. It compares it to opening a door. Jesus said, I am the door. It's pretty easy to open a door. Is it easy to live a good life and always be a good person? No. Do you spend every morning in an hour in prayer? Every single day you're just anxious to read the Bible? You're always going soul-winding and telling, and always being in a good mood? No. It's hard to live a good life. And people are seeking him to Broadway's. And they're trying all these methods. They're going to all these different churches. The truth is, a watchman must come to you first. You're going to get saved. The soul-winner must come and present the gospel, and then people can get saved. Here, though, going back to our original topic here, though. She's seeking for a husband, and she misses him. He's not there at night. You say, why isn't he there at night? Well, the reason why he's probably not there at night is he's probably working a lot of hours. And the truth is, there's a lot of people in this room that, you know what, you work a lot of hours. And there's some nights that you're working through the night at your jobs. And that's what you have to do. You're working hard, and you're not always there. And, you know what, you're not always there. Even though you love your family, you're not able to be there because you're working. That's what's taking place in Song of Solomon, chapter 3. But she misses her husband. Obviously, she wants her husband to be there as she's going to sleep at night. And she goes out seeking for him because she can't wait for him to come home. That's what we see. So, at this point, she's kind of frustrated, but she doesn't criticize her husband. She never criticized her husband. Turn back to Song of Solomon, chapter 5. And so, the first point is simply that you should always speak well about your church. Whether life is going well, whether you're frustrated, whether things are good or bad, you should always speak well in the church that you go to. If you have any complaints, the best things you can do are either to talk to God about it, or to talk to me about it. I'm okay with that, talking to me privately about it. What I'm not okay with is if you just criticize this church to other people at church. It's like, just come to me if you've got a complaint. We can talk about it. But don't criticize the church to other people. I don't claim the church is perfect. I'm sure I can do some things differently. But you know what? The truth is that nobody's perfect. I never claimed to be perfect. I never claimed this church was perfect. What I do claim is this is a church where you can learn the Word of God. And so, not only should we always speak well of our church, on our normal conversations, but also we should always speak well of our church on special occasions. Now, what I mean by the difference here is that when I'm talking about speaking well about your church on normal occasions, I'm talking about at your work. I'm talking about to your unsaved family members. That's just in your normal conversation, you speak well of church and talk about how great it is. You say, why? Because some of the best people you can bring to church are your coworkers, are your friends, are your family. Now, here's the thing. You're going to be around them quite a bit. And they might not come to church the first couple of weeks that you're praising church, but then over time, they might be like, hey, I want to check that church out, because you're always saying how great that church is. You have to understand that if your unsaved brother who goes to, he's a tongue-talking Pentecostal, and he's criticizing his church to you, and you do the same and criticize this church to him, he's never going to want to visit this church. So you're only saying, hey, there's all these problems. And he's going to assume, man, there might be some big problems if I go there. And so, look, you shouldn't criticize church. It's foolish if you're actually trying to bring people to church, but not only on normal conversations, but when we go soul-winning, we want to get people saved, but we also want them to leave their church and come here. Now, if they're going to a great church, then great. But last I checked, there's not a lot of great churches. Last I checked, the vast majority of people I talk to, when I go soul-winning, say he must live a good life. What do you have to do? Be good. Be a good person, do good things, and that's going to get you to heaven. That's what I always hear. Every single week, you hear that. Every single week, if you go soul-winning, you know that's the case. Most people don't even have a church where they're hearing the right gospel. Much less are they being fed the Word of God. And so when people ask this question, sometimes people go soul-winning, and they'll say, hey, we're from Verity Baptist Church, and we're not trying to take you away from church. We're not trying to do that. We just wanted to ask you this question. No, I am trying to take people away from church. Now, I don't tell them I'm trying to take them away, but I'll be honest with you. I don't tell people, hey, I'm not trying to. If somebody tells you they're Catholic, don't tell them you don't want to take them away from their church. It's like, you want them to stay in the Catholic church? I mean, if that's what you're saying, you're basically lying, unless you really want them to stay in the Catholic church. Look, I don't tell people, hey, you go to that church down the road, that really rich church down the road, hey, that's perfectly fine. I don't want to try to take you from that church. It's like, of course I want to take you from that church. Of course I want you to leave that church and go to our church. If people go to a bad church, yeah, I hope they not only get saved, but I hope they come to church because I want this church to grow. Look, most people go to church. If we don't want anyone to come to our church, just stay in their old church, then this church would never grow. Because most people already go to a church here in the Philippines, but the sad thing is most of them have a bad church. Now, in Psalm and Psalm 5, this is another time where she misses her husband. And in verse 8, the Bible reads, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, they can tell him that I am sick of love. Now, when she says she's sick of love, she's not saying she doesn't want to be married to her husband. Because the rest of the chapter, she's talking about how great he is. What she's basically saying is that it's emotionally so much to handle. Because honestly, marriage is difficult. You're happy some days, you're upset other days. You're going to have days where you're upset. And you know what, the truth is, you're around each other all the time. And so you have to learn how to deal with those things. It's different than before you're married. And so yeah, sometimes people, especially the wives, get very emotional sometimes. The Bible says men are the stronger vessel. Women are the weaker vessel. As husbands, we need to realize that. We must learn to control our emotions. The Bible says that we need to play the man time and time. What does it mean to play the man? It means, even if you're on the inside, really upset and emotional, on the outside, you put on a strong exterior and you play the man. If you're afraid, you don't act afraid. If you're really upset, you don't yell at your wife, you need to deal with that on the inside. Play the man on the outside. Control your emotions. That's what the Bible teaches. Here, she says she's sick and beloved. She's basically very emotional. So what does it say in verse number 9? What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved more than another beloved that thou dost so charge us? And they're telling her, well, what's so special about your husband? You know, you're saying that she loved your husband, but what's so great about him? Now, this is the perfect moment for her to criticize her husband, isn't it? People are literally telling her, hey, your husband's not that great. What's so special about him? Now, I wonder how many people would just say, yeah, you're right. Let me tell you all the problems I got with my husband. But she is in this exact situation, and what does she say, starting at verse 10? My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand, or the best among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk and fit, he said. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers. His lips, like lilies, drop in sweet-smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with a barrel. His belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet and gay, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved and this is my friend, the daughters of Jerusalem. So she praises not only how he looks, but she calls him her friend, everything about him. All she has to say is positive. This is the book in the Bible that is the best for learning about how to be a good husband or wife. And quite honestly, what we see is that you never criticize your spouse publicly. It's a very foolish thing to do that you will regret. But she is praising him. Now, I want you to understand that oftentimes people misunderstand things in the Bible because they come to an end of a chapter and they kind of stop reading and they assume verse one in the next chapter is a completely different thought. Oftentimes that's not the case. Sometimes when you're reading the Bible, when you go to the next chapter, the thought is being continued. And quite honestly, people don't really understand the significance because they stop at verse 16 and they kind of assume, hey, we're on to a new thought. But quite honestly, the next verse is really a great verse on bringing visitors to church. Notice what it says in Psalm 6, verse 1. She has spoken highly of her husband, which represents the church, and notice the reaction of the daughters of Jerusalem. Chapter 6, verse 1. So basically earlier they're saying, hey, what's so special about your husband? What's so great about him compared to anybody else? She praises her husband. What do you see in the first verse of chapter 6? They're like, where did he go? We want to see him ourselves to see if he really is exactly like you said. So basically she's praising her husband and others are saying, man, I want to see this with my own eyes to see if it's the real thing. And here's what you have to understand. When you speak well about church, some people have the reaction, hey, you know, whither has he turned aside that we may seek him with me? I want to visit Mary Baptist Church Manila sometime and see if it really is exactly like you said. See if it is where I can learn the word of God, be motivated to live for God, the people are friendly, the fellowship is great. The reason why this takes place is because she's praising her husband and their reaction is that they want to see him with their own eyes. You say, Brother Stuckey, you know, I try to get people to come to church, but I never bring anyone. My question is, how excited are you about this church? When you talk to people, how excited are you about the church? Because if you're like, hey, you know, if you ever want to come to church, we'd love to have you, it don't sound that exciting. I mean, you have to be really excited if you want to bring people to church because what you're trying to convince people to do is leave another church and come to this church. If it doesn't sound that appealing to them, they're not going to do it. You have to actually be excited about it. And she is excited about her husband and people actually want to see it. And you say, Brother Stuckey, I want to bring people to church. You need to get excited about the church. And when the conversation comes up about Mary Baptist Church Manila, you should be praising the church and talking about how great it is. You should be excited. They ask you a question, hey, are the sermons too long? No, they're perfect. They're only four hours long. No, I mean, the sermons are great. I love them. They're perfect. I mean, if they say anything, you should just say, hey, no, it's great. You should check it out one time and see what you think. It's exciting. You learn the word of God. You're motivated. You have a great time. You should speak well of church. The result is you will bring more people to church. Now, look, most people won't visit church. We know that. Whether it's friends and family or whether it's coworkers or whether it's just preaching the gospel to people that we get saved, most people will not come to church anyway. But look, if you get somebody saved and then afterwards, you know, they ask you about the church, like, hey, you know, where is the church? And it's like, oh, yeah, it's just over there. Anyways, it's great to talk to you and, you know, whatever, have a nice day. Are they going to want to visit church? No, because you don't really sound that excited about the church. I mean, after they get saved, you ought to find out if they want to come to church. And if you're not excited about this church and don't say anything great about it, they're not going to visit. They'll never visit unless you're actually excited about it. That's the reality of it. Now, look, I understand most people don't come to church, but notice what it says in Psalm 6, verse 2. Notice what she says, My beloved has gone down into his garden to the beds of spices to feed in the gardens and to gather wells. Basically, it's kind of like, you know, she's praising her husband and she's praising the church. They're like, you know, hey, where is that church? It's like, well, it's not talking a lot. It's right above the bird box bistro. It's right above the laundry shop. It's malapi na blue outpost, blue arch. Right? She's basically talking about, you know, how great her husband is. She says, here he is. And honestly, when we go sowing, that's what it's like. We ought to be excited and it's going to cause some people to be interested and we'll tell them, hey, our church is located right here. Okay? And you ought to try to make them feel comfortable and at home. Now, the truth is most of them still aren't going to come to church, but quite honestly, we do see visitors from so many at this church. Now, you have to understand something about me because honestly I'm different than a lot of people in this room because I did not grow up an independent fundamental Baptist. I grew up a Protestant. I grew up in a United Methodist church. I did not grow up an independent fundamental Baptist. You say, Brother Stocky, did you just hear all the online preaching to become an independent fundamental Baptist? No, I became an independent fundamental Baptist because a soul winner preached the gospel to me and took me to church. Right. That's how I became an independent fundamental Baptist. I became a soul winner because of the fact my friends who got me saved convinced me and motivated me to go out and preach the gospel to people. I became King James only because my friends who led me to the Lord gave me sermons to listen to on the topic. Look, I was King James only, independent, fundamental, soul winning, fire breathing Baptist. You know, before this movement or faithful word ever existed, I was already an independent fundamental Baptist. You say, why? Because I grew up that way. I did not grow up that way. Because I got saved and the person who led me to the Lord brought me to church and I made changes in my life. Now, this is something that's important for us to understand because many of you are independent fundamental Baptists because of online preaching. But look, I do not believe that in 2019 that it's impossible to reach new people and bring them to church. I don't believe that. Right. I don't believe we have to rely on online preaching that people listen to, that people hear documentaries and they come to church. And praise the Lord when it happens. We have people that visit our church, they hear online preaching, but I do not believe as a church in the Philippines that we have to rely on sermons being preached in another country to bring people to church. I don't think we have to rely on online documentaries and just hope that somebody here in the Philippines watches it. I believe we can bring new people to church that are not independent fundamental Baptists, that are not soldiers and sometimes aren't even saved. I believe we can bring them to church and teach them the word of God and as a result of being in this church and they hear the preaching, they realize, man, this is the truth and they want to follow the truth. Right. I became an independent fundamental Baptist before this movement ever existed. And the reason why I like this movement so much was because I heard a preacher that was really motivated when he preached and it really motivated me and he talked about soul winning and he preached hard against sin. There are people in this community and some of them are not even saved right now. People that we could get saved and bring to church and the preaching of God's word could change their hearts. Right. If we honestly believe that we have to rely on the online preaching in order to get people to come to our church, it's kind of insulting to me because what you're basically saying is that when I preach sermons, it's kind of pointless. I don't know if you notice this, but what I do not do is preach really short sermons and just tell you, hey, just check out the YouTube sermons from other pastors. I don't do that. And quite honestly, when it comes to being a missionary, that's the standard from missionaries. That's what they are taught basically to do at Bible college. Basically in other countries, you can't just preach the word of God. You're supposed to preach really short generic sermons about salvation for a 50-part series. That's what they tell them. They don't want you to preach the whole word of God. I don't believe that because if you notice, I preach and use a lot of verses. I teach what the Bible says. I learn new things as I'm studying and I preach what the Bible says because I believe the people in this room are worthy of hearing the truth and learning the word of God. I don't think you need to walk out of this place and go check out a sermon on the Verity Baptist channel. Now praise the Lord if you do because you can learn great things from the word of God from other great men of God. I think it's great if you get a chance to listen to online preaching. But look, I'm not going to rely on that as a means for people to grow and I don't believe we should rely on the online ministry as a means to grow our church numeric. Now at the end of the day, the Bible does say the Lord builds the church. Our church the last three weeks has grown quite a bit, hasn't it? We've had good services, good attendance this three straight weeks, over 50, which is great. That's awesome. Praise the Lord. And honestly, when the church started, it was kind of a slow, steady growth and I believe it's still going to stay slow and steady because I'm not going to turn into Joe Lozano. I preach these positive only sermons that everybody likes. I'm going to preach things and sometimes I'll hit on that certain thing that just hits the toe and then people hit the door, right? Because they get offended or whatever. Yeah, it is what it is. But I'm going to preach the truth. What I want you to understand is the Lord builds the church and as we do the work, He might think it's better to have a slow, steady growth. Quite honestly, you know, it's new to me running a church. I don't mind the fact that we're not running 200 people. I don't know if we ever will. I mean, it would be great if we did. But you know what? Honestly, we trust in the Lord to build the church, but that does not mean that we don't have a responsibility to try to break through the church. Right, right. Look, the Lord is the Savior, but if we don't go out saving the souls, no one's getting saved. Right, right. And quite honestly, you know, if we just rely on God to just bring people to church and we don't try to invite friends, we don't invite any of our coworkers, we don't invite any of our family, we don't really try to invite the people we get saved, we lead somebody to the Lord and then five minutes later, we don't know their name and you know, we can't, we don't know anything about them. We don't even remember where their house is. It's like, you know, how much do you really care about that person? It's great that you got them saved, but you ought to care enough about that person that you want them to come to church and change their lives. And so, at this time, I'm going to have Brother Timothy's going to hand out something to everybody in this room. I want to use this as an example. And because I tried to preach to you motivation on bringing people to church, but what I want to do is give you actual practical steps on how to bring visitors to church as we go sober, okay? Try to give everyone one, or at least so everybody can see them. And so we have these follow-up cards. We'll go through a few things with you. And so first off, practical steps to bringing people to church. I'll only take maybe five or ten minutes. And honestly, this would be a good time to take notes. If you're not really sure of how to bring visitors to church, like a real systematic approach, I would highly recommend that you write down if there's new things you're learning. Because I don't know about you, but as we know so many a lot, we want to actually bring people to church from time to time. And so you should, you know, have a plan with how to do that. So when it comes to bringing people to church or bringing visitors, there's kind of two categories. One category is family, coworkers, and friends, okay? When it comes to bringing them to church, and by the way, these are the best people to become established members. Because when people are new at church, they don't know anybody. But if it's family and coworkers, they already know somebody, so they'll feel more comfortable at church. These are honestly a lot of times the people that end up sticking in church and doing something for God. Now, when it comes to bringing them to church, as I said, you should always be talking about how much you like this church, if you want to bring your family and coworkers and friends. But I want you to understand you also must be patient with them. Look, if you invite your brother to church and he says no, don't just give up. Actually invite him again. Every time there's a special occasion, invite them, okay? Don't give up on your family and your coworkers and friends after one try. If you give up after one try, then you know what, you're going to have a lot less people here. There's some people that you have to invite them over and over and over. You invite them to church and then all of a sudden they say they're coming and on Sunday they don't come. Invite them again. Don't just give up after one try, invite them again. People do the same thing with trying to get their family saved. They give the Gospel to a family member one time and it's like, oh, they're never being saved, they're a rep for me. You gave them the Gospel one time. It's like, why don't you just try to give them the Gospel or talk to them about the Bible or something every time you see them, every time you have a family function. Don't give up because the seed planting can slowly grow. You can get family members saved through the years because at first they just think it's a phase with you. They think, well, yeah, you say you've got this new salvation thing. You'll be Catholic here in a couple of months. That's what they think. Don't give up after one try. Honestly, when it comes to family, friends, and coworkers, you should keep trying because this is what happens to people. People oftentimes come to church when they're in trouble or they're in transition. You talk to your coworker and invite him to church and he's not interested, but you always talk well about the church. When he's going through marriage problems six months from now, guess what? He's going to want church to try to help fix his problems. Do you understand? People come to church when they're going through trouble in their life or they're through a new transition, a different time period. You might be inviting them now to come to church and they're saying no, but as they go through different phases in their life, somebody is having their first child, they might say, wow, I need to get serious about religion because I don't know how to be a father. I don't know how to be a mother. And so honestly, when it comes to inviting family members, coworkers, and friends, they might not come immediately, but in a different time in their life, they might come. But what they will not do is come to church six months from now if you criticize the church or after they don't visit. They will never come. So you should always be speaking well. So the family, coworkers, and friends basically don't give up on them after one try. But what about at the door? We go soul winning, we preach the gospel, somebody gets saved. How do we try to bring them to church? Well, I want you to understand that most people that get saved will not visit church. That's the reality. When people are new at soul winning, oftentimes people will tell them they're going to come to church, and oftentimes they're like, man, I'm going to have five visitors tomorrow. I've got this family and this family and this family, and then none of them will come. That's kind of the standard of how it works because people oftentimes give us their word, and then they don't end up coming. And when people are doing soul winning and they're excited, I want them to be excited. In the back of my mind, I'm like, man, I hope they end up coming because through the years you see that you invite people, and they're coming for sure. Nothing's going to stand in the way, and then all of a sudden they wake up and say, oh, it's me and Pacquiao fight today. It's like, I've got to be able to get back by 12. I don't want to miss the fight. And that's the reality. So when you get somebody saved, this is what you should do. On this card, there's a few different things. When you get somebody saved, there's a spot that says prayer request. You say, what's the purpose of this? When you get somebody saved, you should ask them, hey, is there anything that I can pray for you about? Now, there's a couple reasons why. One, because of the fact they need to know that you actually care about them, and that shows that you do care about them. Now, let me say this, that if you get a prayer request, you need to actually pray for them. Don't just say vain, fake words. You should actually pray for them. So you basically say, hey, is there anything that I can pray for you about? And then what you do is you ask them, and then you write down whatever they say, but you ask them, hey, would you like to come to church on Sunday? Now, here's the thing. If they tell you, well, you know, I don't know, I'm really busy on Sundays, they will not come to church. Your goal afterwards is to find out if they're a good candidate to come to church. A lot of people that get saved are never going to come to church. They're just not interested. So after you get them saved, you want to try to find out if they're interested in church. How do you do that? Well, you say, hey, would you like to come to church on Sunday? And if they say, well, you know, I don't know, they're not going to come. If they tell you, yeah, you know, I'd like to come to church, I'm looking for a new church, what that's telling you is they're a good candidate to actually come to church. It's kind of like when we preach the gospel. You have to kind of perceive what people are actually thinking. Because you go through the gospel, and sometimes they agree with you, but they don't. They say they agree with you, but they don't. You're going through the gospel, and you ask them, hey, what do you have to do to be saved? And you've told them 20 times it's believe alone, and they tell you, hey, just believe. But you can tell based on the way they're responding they really don't believe that. They're just kind of saying that. So you get somebody saved, you invite them to church, ask them if they want to come to church. If they say they want to come to church, that is someone that is worth following up on. And so basically we have various information here. And you at the top, we're going to write down your name, soul winner's name. You're going to have one copy for yourself at home, and you're going to have one copy you give to the church. That way we can follow along with the people, at least in our village. I can't promise you we're going to follow up on someone who gets saved in Quezon City or Moon Loop. It's like I'm probably not going to go down and visit someone in Moon Loop and invite them to church. But people that get saved in our village, this is where our church is located. It's worth it to me to try to follow up and try to bring in the church. So basically if it's a good contact, not if it's a bad contact. So if you give me like 20 of these, and then when I go there on the door, they say, hey, I already told them. I'm a Catholic. I was born a Catholic. I'll die a Catholic. I don't want to have anything to do with your church. It tells me, okay, your cards I could just kind of forget about. That's why you have the soul winner's name so I know who's actually giving me good contacts. So only give me cards if they're actually good contacts because there's only so much time. I don't want to just spin my wheels trying to talk to people that aren't interested. Or if other people from our church visit, we don't want to waste our time with people that aren't interested. So if they seem like they're really interested in church, basically you're going to fill this out, and you're going to write down the day they got saved, and then if they're obviously not baptized, if they just got saved, but also previous religious beliefs, you're going to keep one copy. And the copy that you keep, you're going to pray for this person every day, at least for a little while. Because if you get somebody saved, then you know you ought to care about them some. And so you ought to try to pray for that person and think about them because God allowed you to win them to the Lord, especially if they give you a prayer request. Now I'm not saying that if you have a card from like four months ago and they've never come to church and they have no interest, I'm not saying you have to just for the rest of your life, every single person you get saved, pray for every day. But the people that you recently got saved, you ought to be thinking about them and trying to pray for them. And so then basically there's a couple different ways to follow. One could be that if you get their phone number, you can always send them a text message. And invite them to church on Saturday afternoon, just send them a text and say, hey, just wanted to remind you about church on Sunday. I know you were interested. Would you like to come to church tomorrow morning? Because if we do not give people a reminder, they're probably not going to end up coming. When people are new at something, they're going to feel kind of uncomfortable when they don't know anybody. We want to try to make them feel as comfortable as possible. And so they feel like it's worth visiting church. And so basically you can always send them a text message. But also I'm willing to visit people that live in this village that you get saved. If they're a good contact, if they're not a good contact, then it's just not worth the time. Honestly, when it comes to follow-up, though, it's not as bad as you think. Because if you send them a text message or you call them, this is what you can say. You can say, hey, brother, you know John, I just wanted to invite you to church. How is your wife doing? You asked me to pray for her because she's been feeling kind of sick recently. You can bring up the fact what they asked for prayer for. And honestly, that's an easy way where you don't have to feel awkward. You don't have to feel that awkward. You can just say something like, hey, you know what? I've been thinking about you, hoping you're able to come to church. We'd love to have you come tomorrow. Let me know if you have any questions. It doesn't have to be a 20-minute conversation. You're not trying to re-get them saved. You're just trying to give them extra motivation to visit one time. And honestly, when it comes to following up, it does work. Because honestly, I followed up on people when I was at Verity, and when I put in an effort to bring people to church, you'll notice that some of them come. But you say, Brother Stuckey, very few people end up coming. Well, when we go soul winning, very few people end up getting saved. You knock on 30 doors, you've got two salvations. That's not very much. Two out of 30, but when you add it up with everyone at the church, it's a lot. Look, if we have 10 people during the week that get saved that we follow up on, and only 10% visit. Only 10%. That's pretty small, isn't it? Only 10%. Then how many people visit church? One. And honestly, that might not seem like a lot, but when you're doing that every single week, and every week you're getting a new visitor and some of them end up sticking around, honestly, it starts to add up over time. So when it comes to follow up, honestly, it's going to make your soul winning a little bit more exciting. Because when you're actually seeing the results of your effort, it encourages you. You know that what we're doing actually makes a difference and actually works. I encourage you to try to follow up on the people that are going to come first. Now, whenever you try something new, it's difficult at first. You're probably going to stumble through the first couple conversations. Who can remember the first time they preached the gospel or something? Do you guys remember that? I remember when I first started preaching the gospel, you're like, fumbling. You're like, you're all nervous and everything like that. Look, when you first start following up on people, yeah, you know what, if it's new to you, it's going to make you a little bit nervous making that phone call or sending that text message. It's not really that big of a deal. Once you go soul winning after a little while, you realize, hey, that's not that scary, is it? It's not that big of a deal. We're just inviting them to church and explaining the gospel if they want to listen. When it comes to following up on people, it's really not that scary. Honestly, we have a few things and we're working on others that are good ways to follow up as well. When they first get saved, you could hand them something on church attendance and you could either go through it with them or just leave it with them. There's various reasons of why they should come to church. You could always go back later on or I could and just say, hey, we gave you this thing on church attendance. We'd love to have you come. Did you have any questions about it? It's not that intimidating. Just say, hey, did you have any questions about that brochure? I gave you more of a brochure on baptism. Hey, we gave you the brochure on baptism. I was wondering if you had any questions about that. The reason why we do this is to help. I believe it's going to help us get more people baptized and bring people to church. Honestly, it's really the effort. One thing I've noticed through the years is that when you put in a lot of effort, God is going to bless that effort. As a church, even if we follow up on a lot of people and none of them come, God is going to bless that effort by building a church because he sees a church that actually is getting people saved and actually cares about the people they're getting saved and they want the church to grow. Honestly, we do need to put in the effort because we count the number of people saved at our church and that's great. The truth is in Acts 2, when it says 3,000, it was not 3,000 people saved. It was 3,000 people that got saved and baptized. We don't know how many people got saved. They made a marathon a couple of years ago. We didn't come close to breaking the record because they probably got a lot more than 3,000 people saved. That's how many people they got to come to church and to get baptized and join the church. But it's going to come if we put in that effort. Let's go to the word prayer.