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Thank you for this day and thank you for your word. Please bless this message. Please bless the preacher. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I always forget to do that. We're in Proverbs chapter 21. I want to bring your attention to the last verse there where the Bible says in Proverbs 21 verse 31, The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. Now when you look up throughout the Bible when it talks about using horses for your safety, basically you'd see God's people would rely on the world for their safety. Instead of relying on God, instead of understanding that safety is of the Lord, instead of making sure they were living godly lives, they would multiply horses onto themselves and they thought that would bring them safety. We have to realize that our safety is in the hands of God. God is all powerful and it is more important to be godly and holy and right with God than having all the military in the world, all the horses in the world. That's a vain way to get your safety. And so we see that in the Bible. And so understanding that safety is of the Lord, we need to understand the importance of living a holy life. Now I will say this that we're going to look at four points this morning. And within these points God does give us principles on how we can be safe. So I'm not just saying that we should just be foolish, but we do need to realize that more important than anything is being holy and godly and right with God. Turn to the book of Nahum chapter 1, and that's right in the middle of your Minor Prophets. You've got Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum. And the book of Nahum is about the judgment upon Nineveh. When we think of Nineveh, immediately we might think of Jonah because Jonah was told to go and preach on to Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. This was one of the great empires that has ever existed. Assyria was really the second big empire that existed. The first one was Egypt, and after that the next big empire that came was Assyria. That was before Babylon. And in the book of Jonah, Jonah goes and preaches on to Nineveh after rebelling against God. And the people actually turn back to God. They turn from their wickedness. The Bible says the word came on to the king, and he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh. And basically the people turned from their wickedness, and God spared that city, and God spared Assyria for a time being. But it was only a couple books later you get to the book of Nahum, and God's pronouncing the judgment that does come on Nineveh. And Nineveh was destroyed by God. And I want you to look at verse number 3. The first point we're looking at here is that when it comes to safety as of the Lord, that is true with our life. Safety as of the Lord. This applies to our life. And that's the immediate context from Proverbs 21, that God can protect us from dying. God can protect us from harm. Notice what it says in verse number 3. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked. What God is doing here in Nahum is he's explaining how powerful he is. He's explaining he has all power, and what he's going to use is examples through nature. He's going to talk about natural disasters. He's going to talk about tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes. And when we see earthquakes and volcanoes, we see that God is pretty powerful. Because when an earthquake comes, if you're there, you're done if God doesn't spare you. You have no hope unless God is merciful to you. And it says the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet. So when he says he hath his way in the whirlwind, you think of typhoons, you think of tornadoes, you think of hurricanes. Verse number 4. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and dryeth up all the rivers. Bashan languisheth in Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at him. You think of an earthquake. The mountains quake at him. And the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world and all that dwell therein. When it says the hills melt, I think of a volcano. This past couple weeks, there's been volcanoes going on in Hawaii, and you could actually go and watch a live feed of it on YouTube. And I actually did tune into it for a little while. And it was pretty amazing when you see a volcano and how it's just exploding upon the earth. And we realized that God is in control of these things. He has the power to completely stop it or to allow it to happen. It says the hills melt. But notice what it says then. The earth is burned at his presence. You see, God is omnipresent. So if anything's going to be burned, it's going to be at his presence or in his presence. People have this idea that people that go to hell, they're away from the presence of God. Well, not according to the Bible. Because whenever you see it's always in his presence or at the presence, because God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. And honestly, unbelievers, they want to be away from the presence of God. They don't want to be in God's presence for all eternity. But the Bible says they're going to be burned at his presence, in other places in his presence. So it says burned at his presence, yea, the world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. Truly, God is all-powerful, and he can destroy you like that if he chooses to. And what he uses is natural disasters to help us understand how powerful he actually is. But notice what it says in verse number 7. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. I want you to look at that phrase, he knoweth them that trust in him. Think about what it says in John 10. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them. See, if you're a believer, God knows you, the Bible says. And it says he knoweth them that trust in him. It reminds me of Ephesians 1 where it says, In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. When we go sowing and we tell people that to believe on Jesus is to put your trust in him. You're no longer trusting your works, or what you do, or baptism, or repenting of sin, or any changes you make, but you're just trusting what Jesus did 2,000 years ago. And so when he says he knoweth them that trust in him, he's saying he knows people that are saved. And what God is saying is, I can spare the saved people through a natural disaster. I'm sure that there were saved people in Nineveh. I'm sure of that. I'm positive. There are saved people right now that live in Afghanistan and Iraq, in countries that have rejected God, there are saved people in those countries. And God says he knoweth them that trust in him. You think about when Rahab was spared and nobody else around her was. The people in her house were spared because God knows the ones that trusted him. Now here's the thing. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card with God, though, just because you're saved. Because he says in verse 2, the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. Here's the thing, though. If you link up with the world, you might just get destroyed with the world. See, you become the enemy of God by being a friend of the world. You might just go down with the world. So just because you're saved doesn't mean that God can't pronounce judgment upon you in this life. Obviously, once you're saved, you're saved forever. But if you link up with the world, you might just get destroyed with the world. Now let me say this as I'm preaching, because I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I'm not saying that if there's some tragic accident that happens to someone, that we should just say, well, that person wasn't right with God. Isn't that what Job's friends did? I had a good friend of mine in college who went soul winning every single week, multiple times, and he died when he was 20 years old from a tragic accident. I don't think that he was not right with God. I don't know the reasons why God allows certain things to take place. I know with him that certain people got saved right after that that would have never gotten saved. So maybe it was a way they answered his prayer requests. I'm really not sure. So I'm not saying that if something happens to someone, there's a tragic accident that we should just assume, well, they weren't right with God. That's why God took them out. Let's not be like Job's friends, but let us realize that God does have the ability to protect us through anything. That's what the Bible says. Notice what it says in verse 8, though. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies. So he talks about an overrunning flood. Once again, we're talking about a natural disaster. Now, a flood is a very deadly natural disaster. More people die from floods than volcanoes. More people die from floods, I believe, than just about any natural disaster. And there's a few reasons why. Oftentimes when a flood takes place, there's a tsunami in the water. A lot of people usually live by the water, and they end up getting wiped out with that flood. But one attribute of a flood is that once it takes place, it happens very quickly. I've watched a lot of documentaries with my wife on various natural disasters, and when you see a tsunami takes place, it's amazing when you see the video footage because it just immediately wipes out everything in its path like that. If you live there, unless God is being merciful to you, you're going to be taken out. You're going to die. But I want you to understand that even though he's talking about natural disasters in verses 3 through 6 in verse 8, Nineveh was not destroyed by a natural disaster. They were destroyed not by a literal flood. They were destroyed by an army. You'll notice that in the Bible, sometimes an army is referred to as a flood. And I think there's a few reasons why. One reason why is because when you have a flood, there's water everywhere. And when you have an invading army that's taking over and destroying everybody, there's a sea of people. There's people literally everywhere. But think about the attribute of a flood. A flood takes place, and it happens really quickly. It destroys everything. Well, here's the thing. I believe Nineveh was destroyed very quickly. I think that's the reason why it says an overrunning flood because he's talking about natural disasters, but he's also talking about Nineveh. And there was an army that came in and destroyed everybody. I think also in verse number 10, it gives us an indication it happened very quickly because it says, At the end of that verse, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry. And when you think of something burning up, if it's fully dry, it's going to burn a lot quicker. So I think what he's trying to tell us is they got destroyed really quickly. Because it doesn't matter how powerful your country is. And you know, the people in the White House and our politicians ought to listen to this. Because it doesn't matter how powerful our country is. God can take us out like that. Overnight he can destroy America. We can be weak overnight. You say it would never happen to America. Well, I'm pretty sure Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Rome, Greece, I mean, how many powers do you want to mention got destroyed overnight and they were done? Immediately. It didn't take long for Babylon to be destroyed and Persia to take over. It happened quickly. And God shows his power when he has things like that take place. And so I think that indicates to us that Nineveh was destroyed very quickly with an overrunning flood, an army that took place. But realize this, when we're talking about safety and he knoweth them that trust in him, whether it's a natural disaster or whether or not it's somebody trying to kill you or harm you, God has the ability to protect you. You know, if an army came in here and wiped out everybody, God could still protect you. And so I want you to, let me just read you Matthew 10, 28. It says, 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 person we ought to fear is we ought to fear God. See, God has not given us the spirit of fear. And see, that's why I have a problem with all these conspiracy theorists that all they talk about, all they do is put you in a state of fear. And they might be saying a lot of true statements, but it makes you scared to do anything. God didn't give us the spirit of fear. So I don't believe that it's coming from God when they make you afraid to do anything. You're afraid to fly because, oh no, you might end up dying and this and that. Look, we have to go about our daily lives. I'm not just going to be in some sort of bunker and just come out once every six months and be some sort of hermit. No, God expects us to be in the world and preach the gospel and get people saved. And when you have an Orlando protest and you have 500 to 1,000 protesters after that, it's in the hands of God to protect you. You know, we see that in the Bible with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were protected. And honestly, nothing happened when that protest happened. Everybody was safe. Literally nothing happened. Why? Because God's hand of mercy was upon us. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were preaching what the Bible says, and it offended wicked people that hate God. It offended people linking up with the world. And guess what? Everybody was protected. Why? Because God's a God of safety. Safety is with the Lord. And he looked down and said, you know what? I'm going to spare Verity Baptist Church. I'm not going to let anything happen to them. But the reason why I decided to preach this sermon was because I've had a lot of people tell me that, you know, you shouldn't move to the Philippines. It's a very dangerous place. A lot of people have told me that. They say Manila is such a dangerous place. You shouldn't move there. Now, my immediate reaction was, well, safety is of the Lord. I believe God wants me to go to Manila. I've had a desire to move to the Philippines for about four years, since September of 2014, when I visited, when I saw how receptive it was, and I believe that's where God wanted me to be. At the time, I didn't realize that there were so many people there looking for a great church. But now, even more clear than ever, I believe God's directed me in that path to go to the Philippines. And my answer has always been this, that safety is of the Lord. I don't care how dangerous it is. I believe God's going to protect me, because I'm not doing something foolish. I'm not doing it for vacation. I'm doing it because I think it's God's will. But I was kind of curious, well, just how dangerous is Manila? And so I went on Google, and I typed in the 100 most dangerous cities in the world, or something like that, the 50 most dangerous. And I had a list pop up of 100 prominent cities, like Paris and London, Manila, New York City. And it listed Manila as the sixth most dangerous city. And I was like, that's pretty high. That sounds pretty dangerous. Not at the very top of the list, but that's pretty high. But here's the thing, though. I was looking at how do they determine how dangerous it is. And it was a very subjective list. They said a lot of poor people live there, so it's probably dangerous. You might starve to death. I'm not really worried about starving to death, because I believe God's going to provide my food. That's not a very good reason, if you're a soul winner and a godly Christian, of why you shouldn't move somewhere because it's so dangerous. And it was just a very subjective list. It wasn't actual numbers. It was really just somebody's opinion. You know, you can look at the happiest countries in the world. They take polls of this, and it's always the Scandinavian countries that are at the top of the list. Now, Scandinavia is cold. Who wants to live in a cold place? I was like, I don't really think that people are that happy. I hate cold weather, personally. You might like it. I hate cold weather. I grew up in West Virginia. I always hated cold weather. I was like, I don't know how happy they can be if it's that cold. But they say it's really a happy country because they're rich. All those countries. Denmark, Sweden, or that part of the world. Because they have a lot of money. Does that make you happy, according to the Bible? No, it doesn't. Because they have a great health care system. Because they have a... You know, it's all this governmental stuff that we don't believe in and we don't agree with. And so it's a very subjective list. But, you know, Scandinavian countries, real hard numbers are this, that those countries are the highest in taking the most anti-depressant pills. You can look it up for yourself. Now, here's the thing. I'm a logical sort of guy. If there's countries that are taking tons of anti-depressant medication, I just think they're not that happy. Because isn't the point of that medication because you're depressed and you don't want to be depressed? And these countries are so happy that they have to load themselves with tons of anti-depressants to be in a better mood. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So just because someone makes a list doesn't mean it's really accurate. So I decided I need to look up homicide rates. The 50 cities with the biggest homicide rates. And I actually have that list right here. And so knowing Manila's a really dangerous place, I knew this would be at the top, near the top of the list, right? And so you go through this list and it doesn't even appear in the top 50. Now, there's a lot of cities you'd expect. You know, the Central American countries, a lot of, you know, a lot of cities in Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico. There's a lot of cities you'd expect. But, you know, Manila, no city in Manila appears in the top 50 of the highest homicide rates. Those are actual numbers. Now, Manila's a very packed area. So there might be a lot of people that end up dying. You hear about it every day. But that's because there's so many people that live there. It's a huge city, 13 million people in Metro Manila. So I'm sure just about every day you do hear about someone who got killed. It doesn't mean that you have a high chance of getting killed though. These are actual numbers. But what's interesting is a lot of people from the U.S. have told me how dangerous Manila is. And yet the U.S. has plenty of cities in this top 50. There's none in the Philippines. You say, why are you saying this? Because a lot of people here want to visit the Philippines one day. And I don't want someone to give you a stupid idea that you're going to get off the plane and someone's going to kill you. God's going to protect you, especially when you're doing it to go soul winning and live for the Lord. But there's plenty of cities here from the U.S. Number 13, St. Louis, is the 13th deadliest city in the world in terms of highest homicide rates. Now the news in America won't tell you that. They make it sound like all these other places are so dangerous. But St. Louis is number 13. Number 21, Baltimore. Now I've been to Baltimore plenty of times in my life because I used to work in Maryland. I believe when my wife came into the country she flew into Baltimore. And I've been to Baltimore for jobs plenty of time. For my work it was a couple of hours away. Baltimore is number 21 on this list. Also on this list we have New Orleans, number 41. Detroit, number 42. So there's four cities. I saw another list of the top 50 and it had six cities from America in the top 50. But no cities from the Philippines appear in the top 50. These are actual numbers. In fact when you look at it you're about five to six times as likely to get killed in St. Louis than you are in Manila. That's a huge, huge difference for people saying that it's so dangerous. But here's the thing. Honestly I've been to Baltimore plenty of times and I did not feel in danger for my life. You know why? Because I wasn't out at a club at 3 o'clock in the morning. I wasn't getting drunk and driving through the night. I wasn't doing drugs. And here's the thing. The truth is most people get killed because they're doing stupid stuff. That's the truth. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions. I'm sure you can pull up some story. But the vast majority of the time people get killed because they're doing stupid things. And honestly, most of these cities are on this list because of drugs. That's the reason why it's in Central America, why so many people are getting killed. It's over drugs. It's over things like that. But honestly when you go soul winning, I'm sure you guys have seen it as well. You go to a door where you know they're doing some bad things in there. And they usually respect you when you're holding a Bible. They usually back down. They say, thank you, we're not interested. I've never had a situation where people that were doing drugs at the door, doing some really shady stuff, ended up putting me in fear of my life. I've never had that. It's usually the religious people that get really mad at you. It's not the people that do drugs. You don't have to worry about the people doing drugs. They're going to do you no harm. And so honestly, it's just not dangerous. I don't think it's dangerous in St. Louis to start a church because as long as your services aren't at 2 in the morning, you're probably going to be fine. As long as you're not taking wine during the service like the Catholics, you're probably going to be fine. So I don't believe that's dangerous. Now let me say this, though. I'm not saying that there aren't dangerous places to live as a soul winner, but the problem with this list is this is not the 50 most dangerous cities for a soul winner to live. This is not the 50 most dangerous cities for a godly person to live. You see, there are some cities and areas and countries that would be pretty dangerous. If you were in a Muslim country trying to be a soul winner, it would probably be pretty dangerous. If you were in a Hindu country or a Buddhist or Vatican City or Israel, it's probably going to be pretty dangerous. In fact, in the Bible, Paul wanted to go and preach at Jerusalem, and Agabus, who was a great man of God, grabbed him by the belt and tells him not to do it. He says the Jews are going to bind the person that wears this belt at Jerusalem. And Paul was wrong in that situation. Now God still protected Paul, but you look and they wanted to kill him. Why? Because that was not the safest place to preach the gospel. They were not the most open to the gospel. It wasn't the Jews. The Gentiles were far more open to the gospel. And so there are areas of the world that would be very dangerous to live as a godly Christian or to start a church or be a soul winner. But honestly, in the Philippines, that's not one of those areas. In fact, I looked at the 30 most dangerous cities in the U.S. for homicide rate. The 30 most dangerous. And the city in the Philippines with the highest homicide rate is Cebu City. And that homicide rate is lower than any of those 30 cities in the U.S. It's lower than any of those 30 ones. So this idea that the Philippines is so dangerous, I'm not saying it's the safest place in the world. But honestly, when you're a soul winner, you realize safety is of the Lord. I'm not going to make my decisions based on life, based on, oh, I'm worried that I might end up getting killed. You know, if I'm living a godly life, I believe God is going to protect me. And if he chooses to martyr someone for the glory of God, that's up to God. Turn to 1 Timothy 4. One thing that's interesting to me, and I'm not talking about anybody who's in this room right now, is that people have told me the Philippines is really dangerous. It's not a good place to go. And I remember telling one person who told me this, I said, you do realize I've been to the Philippines before. And they're like, oh, you've been to the Philippines? I was like, yeah. I said, you do realize my wife is from the Philippines? She grew up there? They're like, really? I didn't know that. They're like, well, maybe you ought to know a little bit more about me and the Philippines before you just assume stuff. Look at actual numbers, because it's really not that dangerous. And so the first area we looked at this morning is with our life. Safety is of the Lord. It's in God's hands, whether it's a natural disaster, whether it's someone trying to harm you. Safety is of the Lord. While you're in 1 Timothy 4, let me just read to you 3 John 1, 1 and 2, where it says, Be elder unto the well-beloved guys whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper, and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. The second thing I want to look at this morning is with our health. Safety is of the Lord, with our health. Now, the Bible does talk about foods we should eat. It talks about eating healthy, and we should get a good night's sleep when we can. We should try to exercise when we can. But people forsake living a godly life. And there's people that make their religion just all about food and exercise and everything like that. People that are saved that do that. And honestly, I'd much rather be the godly person and trusting God to protect my health than just being obsessed with that and never going soul-winning, never reading my Bible. I believe that if you're living a godly life, God is more likely to protect your health. Why? Because safety is of the Lord. With our health, safety is of the Lord. Now, the Bible has given us principles on how to be healthy. It tells us foods to eat. I mean, the Bible tells us that eggs are a good thing for you. Whole milk is a good thing for you. Meats are good things for you. This idea that all fat is bad for you is completely bogus, and the world's starting to learn that. But if we would trust in God for what we eat, we would realize that. Fish is good for you. We see that in the Bible. Fruits and veggies are good. But honey is good for you, according to the Bible. It's mentioned positively. In fact, bread is very good for you. Because the Bible says, bread strengtheneth the heart. That's what the Bible says. And so eating bread is healthy. So the Bible shows us we should have a balanced diet. Now, I understand that a lot of the food we eat is processed, it's changed. I understand that. But if you can get food in its natural form, we should have a good balance of everything. Fruits, veggies, meat, dairy, these are all things that are mentioned as good. We know the things that are bad for us. Junk food is bad for us. A bag of potato chips is not as good as an actual potato. Cakes and sugars and stuff like that, we already know the things that will destroy our bodies. We have enough trouble just following that. I know I do. I like a lot of unhealthy food. But honestly, if we want to be healthy, we just ate the things that God mentions as a positive thing, and drank a lot more water, a lot less soda, we'd be doing pretty well. But even still, even if you have a problem with the foods you eat or not being in the greatest shape, I believe that if you're godly, God is more likely to protect you. It says in 1 Timothy 4.8, For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. So the Bible is contrasting bodily exercise and godliness. And so godliness is profitable unto all things. It has promise of both this life and the life to come. Whereas bodily exercise only really profits this life. It doesn't get you rewards in heaven. It's a good thing to do, it's a great hobby to have compared to other hobbies, but it only profits this life. You don't get rewards in heaven because of how much you can bench press. You don't get rewards in heaven because of how fast you could run a mile, or how many times you chose to eat bananas versus a piece of cake or something like that. You don't get rewards in heaven for something like that. So bodily exercise profits this life, but the Bible says godliness is profitable unto all things. What that means is godliness is profitable to your health. It's profitable unto all things. It profits your health, living a godly life. Now, there's a few ways we can understand this. When people get right with God, they tend to get rid of the drugs, they tend to get rid of the cigarettes, they tend to get rid of the alcohol. All those things are destructive to your body. Sin is always destructive to your body. And when you start living a godly life, you're going to get rid of a lot of the sin that you have in your life that's bad for your body. It harms your body. But I don't think it's just getting rid of your sin as well. Turn to Song of Solomon, chapter 1. You think of the story of Daniel. And Daniel said that he didn't want to defile himself for the portion of the king's meat. And he ended up just eating pulse for a time period. Now, I don't believe that's a healthy diet in and of itself. Just eating vegetables, I don't think that's good for you. You're supposed to have meat. Meat's a good thing in the Bible. They ate fish all the time. They ate a portion of just about everything. But he didn't want to sin. It was probably sacrificed unto idols and he didn't want to take part in that. And so God supernaturally made him healthier because of the fact he was trying to do what was godly. Even if it wasn't necessarily healthy to his body of itself, he was doing it because he wanted to be godly. And God supernaturally made them in better shape than everybody else because they were living a godly life. And so God, if you live a godly life, can supernaturally make you in better shape. He's going to protect your health if you're living godly. Here's the thing. There's not that many soul winners out there. There's not that many godly people out there. He wants you around if you're living for him. He needs people in Sacramento to preach the gospel and get people saved. And honestly, if our church doesn't do it, I'm not expecting the Methodist church down the road to do it. I'm not expecting the Protestants or the Catholics. Certainly the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons aren't preaching the right gospel. But I'm not expecting the average Baptist church to get it done anymore in today's world. It is a different world today. And safeties of the Lord. God wants you around. He wants you to have health. He wants you to be in good shape. And if you're living a godly life, God can protect you. In Song of Solomon chapter 1, look at verse number 5. This woman speaking, she says, I am black, but come, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as a tents of Kedah or as a curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me. So when she says she's black, it defines it as the fact that the sun's been upon her a lot. And it explains why she's been in the sun a lot. 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. So she's outside working, and the sun's upon her. But you have to understand, the Song of Solomon is a very poetic book. When she's saying, mine own vineyard have I not kept, she's not talking about a literal vineyard. She's saying she's in the sun a lot. She hasn't been able to take care of her vineyard. She's talking about her body. She's talking about herself. The sun's looked upon her. She hasn't been able to take care of herself, because she's working so hard, she doesn't have an ability to make sure that she's eating properly, getting the right amount of sleep. She's worried about all these other vineyards, and not having time to care for her own vineyard. Turn to Proverbs chapter 31. Doesn't that just describe to you the job or the role of a stay-at-home mom? You're spending all your time working on other people's vineyards, but you don't have time to take care of your own vineyard. You're spending all your time to try to help your kids, help them grow up and be godly. It's work to make your kids end up being godly. It doesn't happen by accident. You're spending time to be a great wife and love your husband like the Bible commands you to do. And you do not have time. You're working on all these other vineyards, but your own vineyard you don't even have time for. But the good news is this, that when you're doing those things, those are things God wants you to do. You're living a godly life. I believe that is more profitable to you than just forsaking the duties God gave you and just spending your time on your own vineyard. Why? Because God commanded you to do those things. And if you're in God's will, safety is of the Lord. Not just with our life, but with our health as well. Godliness is profitable unto all things. That is what the Bible says. Proverbs 31, look at verse number 15. It says, She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. Her candle goeth not out by night. This is a woman, a godly woman, who is not sleeping a whole lot. She's working and working and working because she cares more about other people than herself. That's what we see here in Proverbs 31. Verse number 27. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up in color blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her. You better believe that when you're spending all your time caring about someone else, they're going to care about you more. Of course, your husband's probably going to praise you when you're spending all your time focused on caring about him and your kids. Your kids probably will really love you when you spend your time devoted to them. Your husband's going to really love you and praise you and say, Man, I have such a great wife. Why? Because you're spending all your time focused on them. That's what God wants you to do. That's what the Bible says. And you might say, Well, if I do this, I don't have any time for sleep. I cook a meal, and I don't even get to eat it by the time I get around to my food. It's cold. It's not good anymore. I just need a chance to relax. But when you're living a godly life, safety is of the Lord. God will help your health. And that should be good news to all of us. Because honestly, when you're living a godly life, sometimes you have to forsake things that you like to do. In my growing up and what I've always loved to do, I like to work out. I like to play sports. And if there was all the time in the world, I would work out for a couple hours every single day. I enjoy it. But honestly, trying to live a godly life, sometimes you don't get a chance to work out. Sometimes you've got to make a decision. Am I going to go for a jog, or am I going to read the Bible? Reading the Bible should always be the choice. And if you choose the things of God, I believe God will protect your health. That's what we see. The Bible says godliness is profitable unto all. It's far more important to God that you're reading the Bible, that you're spending time in prayer, that you're living a godly life than it is that you're spending time just focused on yourself and working out and getting proper night of sleep. Obviously, try to do those things if you can. But if you have to make a choice, you have to choose godliness. And I believe it will be better for your health. You say, that doesn't make sense. But you know what? I believe that's what the Bible teaches. We see that with Daniel. We see that with the pulse. How they were in better shape than everybody else. Turn to Proverbs chapter 6. And so we're going to see this applies to women, but it also applies to men as well. But it certainly applies to kids. Doesn't the Bible say that if you honor your parents, you're respectful to them, that God will give you a long life? Doesn't it say that? You say, well, that doesn't make logical sense. We know sometimes the world's logic comes in contrast with the Bible. And the Bible is always right. You see, I don't see how being respectful to my parents is going to lengthen my life, because God is the one whose safety is of the Lord, the Bible says. God sees what happens, and he makes the decision. And if God chooses to, he can take us out like that. Even as a believer, if you as a believer start living a wicked life, you might end up just being taken out by God. But if you live a godly life, I believe God's going to protect you. I don't know if you've ever been like me before, but I remember I was on an airplane once, and it was at a time in my life where I was really living zealously. Obviously, we have times where we backside. We're not reading the Bible as much. But at that time, I really remember I was reading the Bible a lot. I was going soul winning. I was just focused on the Lord. And I remember there was a lot of turbulence. But I remember there were people around that were a little bit afraid, and I was just thinking, I just don't think God would let me die right now. Maybe a couple weeks ago, I might be afraid. But God doesn't give you the spirit of fear, so when you're living a godly life, that fear is not coming from God. When you're living a godly life, God wants you around, because you're serving him, you're going soul winning, you're getting people saved. Safeties of the Lord, that's what the Bible says. So we see this is true with women, it's true with children, but also with men. Look at Proverbs chapter 6. It says, Those are some verses that people in today's world need to read. Because you've got a bunch of guys that don't want to work. They're lazy, they can't find a way to get a job, they don't want to work hard. And it's like, we live the life of luxury in America, where it's like, I want to do the bare minimum and get by. But God expects you to work hard. And it says in verse number 5, You say, why is it in verse 6, when he's talking to a son, it says, consider her ways. Well, the reason why it says, consider her ways, is because that female ants are the ones that are the workers, not the male ants. It's the female ants that work. And he's explaining to his son about why you need to work hard. And so he says, consider her ways, because it's the female ants, not the male ants that work. You can look that up if you don't believe me. Check it out. That is what the truth is. Now, I kind of get this feeling that the world didn't know that when this was written. I kind of get the feeling that this book is a scientific book. And it's ahead of science. It's ahead of everything the world has to offer. This book was written by God, and you see things like that, and you know it was written by God. It says, So you see we're talking about a female ant. And this describes a lot of men in the United States, in today's world. They just sit around and do nothing. They don't want to work. And they might spend a lot of time on their venue. They might go to the gym all the time and do everything that would physically make them healthy. But when you're not doing what God commands you, I don't believe you're going to be healthy. The Bible says safety is of the Lord. And there are people that are in great shape that die at young ages. And when there's somebody who's just disobeying everything the Bible says, I don't believe God's hand of protection is on that person. The Bible says safety is of the Lord. And when you're doing what God wants you to do, when you're working hard, I believe God's going to protect you. He's going to help your health. You know, as men, sometimes we have to work hard. We have to work a lot of hours. We might not have that much free time. But if we're doing what God commands us to do, we're working hard to provide for our families, we're spending time with our spouses and our kids, and loving our kids and showing them that we care about them, I believe God will help your health. I believe He's going to protect you. You know, I watched a documentary with my wife really recently, and it was in this remote area of the Philippines. And there were these three boys that were helping provide for their families. And the boys were about the ages of around 7, 8, and 10, something like that. They were really young. One of the boys was born completely blind. He couldn't see anything at all. It's not that he just had bad vision. He could not see anything. Completely blind. And these boys were working full-time jobs providing for their families. And you say, what did they do? They sold bananas and potatoes. So they would have to go every day and gather the bananas and potatoes. And the area they were going to was a long distance away. So instead of walking the whole way around, which would take too long, they rode a raft over through the water to get there. Now, when I say through the water, I'm saying they were hanging on, and the water was, like, flying over them. It was not that safe. There was actually a female reporter that was there just reporting on it, and she looked scared to death, and I would have been too. Because your life is literally in jeopardy every single day. If you fall off, you could easily die. And so there's these three boys, and like I said, one of them was completely blind. So they picked all these bananas and potatoes. Well, there wasn't room for all those boys to be on the raft on the way back. And so instead of them all being on that raft, you know, when you go to a store, you get a pack of bananas. There are, like, eight bananas or something like that. But bananas actually can come in a huge amount. Not just a small little pack, but a huge amount. So basically, two of those boys had a pile of bananas that was their raft on the way back. This blind boy is riding a pile of bananas, this eight-year-old boy, back across the water. I mean, if you haven't seen it, it's just amazing. Seeing it, I would have trouble even believing it, but we watched it the other day, and this kid is completely blind, dangerous waters, and he still was able to work full-time. And yet in today's world, you have people in America that's like, oh, my back hurts, I can't work, I'm on disability. They have every excuse in the world. It's like, you know, if there's an eight-year-old boy that's completely blind that puts his life in jeopardy every day, and honestly, you don't make that much money selling bananas, but he did that to provide for his family. And you know what? I believe God will protect that kid from danger, because he's doing what he should be doing. But you know, if he can find a way to work, why do we have people in today's world that don't want to work? And you can just step outside, and you see this welfare system. See what it produces. The people out here are a bunch of morons. They're idiots. I mean, literally every morning we're out there, and we're just looking at them, and you're like, what is going through these guys' heads? I mean, they literally have no sense whatsoever. Turn to the book of Malachi chapter 3. You say, why do you have to preach so hard about working hard? Because in today's world, if you don't hear a preach from the pulpit, you're probably going to be lazy. I know when I was in college, I was lazy. You know why I'm not as lazy anymore, and I'm still trying to work harder? It's because preaching like this, the preaching of God's word is what makes changes in your life. And honestly, I was just a lazy kid in college, and I read the Bible, and that's just about it. I went soul winning. But I just kind of figured, well, everything else, no big deal. And then all of a sudden you realize when you hear the preaching of God's word, man, I need to work hard in all areas. Instead of being a lazy person, and the world and the public schools, they're producing a bunch of lazy people in today's world. Not people that want to work hard, but everything should just be handed to them. So with our life and with our health, safety is of the Lord. Not only that, though, but with our finances as well, safety is of the Lord. Now let me just say this before I get into this, that we should prepare ourselves financially. The Bible talks about that, and honestly, when you're younger, if you're able to save up money, teens and kids that work with their parents, save up money. Don't just spend it all. Don't just think, well, I made 500 bucks this week. I'm just going to spend it. That's foolish. Save up that money, because one day you're going to want to get married. One day you're going to want to have a family. One day you're going to want to provide for your family and be able to spend maybe a vacation with your family sometime. And if you spend all your money now on stupid stuff, you won't have it later on. And see, the world will waste all their money, but if you're smart, the money that you make, you should save up if you have the ability. And honestly, I wish I had known this a little bit better when I was younger, but I'm glad I saved up some money, because honestly, when you get older, life gets expensive. You want to buy a house? It's expensive. You want to get married and have kids? It's expensive. The fiancé visa? It's expensive. Stuff is expensive, and I'm glad I saved up some money, because honestly, otherwise I would have had to make some choices, because I wouldn't have been able to afford everything. We ought to save up money. We ought to work hard. That's what the Bible says. Don't be foolish with your money. Don't just spend everything you get. Save up money. But I want to show you Malachi chapter 3. Notice what it says in verse 8. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there should not be room enough to receive it. God says that they have robbed him. He expects us to give our tithes to church. The Bible teaches we're supposed to give 10%. And one way he says he's going to help you financially is he's going to open the windows of heaven, pour you out a blessing. He says, Test me. Prove me. And so one way that we see safeties of the Lord with our finances is the fact that God can give you unexpected money. You're giving your tithe to God. You're doing what you're supposed to do. God can give you unexpected money. Somebody might just say, Hey, you know, it's your birthday. I just want to give you $100. You know, it's your anniversary. I just want to give you some money. You know, God can give you unexpected money. Promotion cometh from the Lord, the Bible says. You might just get a promotion at work if you're actually using your money for the Lord and living a godly life. God might just say, You know what? I can trust that person with money. And since I can trust them with money, and I can't trust a lot of other believers, I'm going to bless that person financially. I believe that. That's what we see in the Bible. You can get unexpected money from the Lord. But not only that, notice verse number 11. He says, And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. He says, Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field. You say, What does that mean? Let's say, for example, you had a grapevine. Not all of those grapes are going to become fully ripe. A lot of them are going to fall off the vine. And what God says here is, Your vine's not going to cast her fruit before the time in the field, before it gets ripe, before it's ready to be picked. Your fruit's going to last. Now, most of us here aren't farmers. Most of us were probably not growing fruits and vegetables. But the same principle applies. He says, You're expecting this fruit to end up becoming full-fledged that you can pick it. Well, here's the thing. When you go and get a new tire for your car, they tell you there's going to be a certain amount of miles that that tire's going to last. Now, here's the thing. God can make it last as long as he wants to. You get new things, your car can last longer than expected to. They may say it's going to last 150,000 miles. God can make it last 200,000, 250,000, 300,000, little expenses. He can make your tires last. But he can also give you flat tire after flat tire after flat tire. So when it comes to our finances, safety is of the Lord. And honestly, if you're not giving God your 10%, God's going to probably find a way to get that 10%. He's going to find a way to take that money away from you. We're supposed to be giving 10% to God. That's what the Bible teaches. And your vine's not going to cast your fruit before the time in the field if God can trust you with your finances. He's going to make everything that you have last. We see that with the children of Israel when they were in the wilderness. It says in Deuteronomy 8, 4, Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell these 40 years. See, God made their clothes and their shoes to last, where they didn't have to keep getting a new pair of shoes every single week. They actually lasted for those 40 years. If you work at an office job, your dress shirts go bad very quickly. And the reason why is because generally you have your elbows on the table the whole time, and it starts to wear a hole in it. When I worked at my old job, I was at a desk all day long. And then you would always hate it because every once in a while you'd move your elbow and all of a sudden this big hole came, because you're slowly wearing a hole in it. And you'd replace those dress shirts every six months. It was very frustrating that they would go bad. But see, God has the ability to make that dress shirt last. If he can trust you with your finances and you're living a godly life, that's what we see in the Bible. And he says that their raiment waxed not old upon thee. And he says, neither did thy foot swell these 40 years. In another place it says, thy shoe is not waxing old upon thy foot. And I don't know if this is the case, but I think the reason why it says your foot's not going to swell is because when you walk a long distance it's going to expand your foot, it's going to swell, and it's going to make the shoe go bad quicker as well. I think that's the reason why one place it mentions your foot's not going to swell, and another reason your shoe's not going to go bad. I'm not sure about that, but that's what I would probably say. Now turn to Nahum chapter 2. But God can save you money. He can give you unexpected money, and he can also save you money. But we're also going to see that God can take away opportunities to get money as well. It says in Nahum chapter 2 verse 13, He says, I will cut off thy prey from the earth. God can take away your opportunities to provide for yourself. See, God doesn't want his people to be extremely poor and not to have anything. He wants us to work hard. He doesn't want us to be rich. But it's not like he wants you to be the poorest person in the world. And God doesn't want to take away your opportunities to get money. But here's the thing, if you're not doing what God wants you to do, you're not giving your 10% to God, you're not going soul winning, you never read the Bible, you don't try to apply anything you hear in church, just because you're a believer does not mean God's going to pour out a blessing. He expects something from you if he's going to pour out a blessing. He expects you to live a godly life. He expects you to be good with your finances. And if you are, God can pour you out a blessing. But otherwise, he's probably not going to. Turn to Ruth chapter 2. And that's where the Bible says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added on to you. God says, seek him first. You say, well, I got an opportunity this Sunday to miss church, and it's a big job opportunity. I can make so much money I can give more to tithe. No, God told you to go to church. You don't skip church to work. And once you go down that road, you're going to start skipping church a lot. You start making an excuse one time, it's going to be a second time, it's going to be a third time, and pretty soon your boss is going to know, well, they say they love church, but not really. I can get them to work any Sunday I want. We ought to put God first, and God will add those things. Honestly, a lot of us, maybe we've made mistakes in the past, maybe we don't have a lot of money, but we need to realize that safety is of the Lord. And living a godly life, God can bless you financially and help you. This is not a prosperity gospel. I'm not saying you're going to be rich. I'm not saying you're going to walk out of here with, I don't know, some bright orange suit or something, and these purple alligator shoes or something like that. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is God can provide your needs. God knows the needs you have, and He wants to provide them. God loves us. But the last area I want to look at is with ministry. This idea of safety is of the Lord. We looked at life, we looked at health, we looked at finances. Well, how does this apply to ministry? We try to apply the principles we see in the Bible when it comes to ministry. Whether it's our church services, whether it's out soul winning, we try to apply the safety is of the Lord. The Bible has given us principles on what we should do to have safety. Obviously, one of the big things that we do at Verity Baptist Church is we go soul winning. We believe in soul winning. We have three times a week. We believe in soul winning. We're going to be soul winning until forever. As long as this church exists, there will be soul winning at this church. One thing we do with soul winning is we have ladies on one side of the street and men on the other side. Now, there's many reasons for this, but one of the big reasons is for safety purposes. I know as a husband, I like that. I don't want my wife just on some random street where I don't know where she is, where something can happen. I believe that's a good idea to do. Now, I know a lot of churches don't necessarily do that. Some churches might send women off by themselves for soul winning. We don't do that. On Thursdays, because we have soul winning on Thursday afternoon, and most men are working on Thursday afternoon, so we have a lot more ladies than men. When we have a lot more ladies than men, we end up all using the same map. The reason why is because if there's a limited amount of men, we want to make sure those men are close to the ladies for protection purposes. It might slow you down a few doors, but safety is a smart thing. I believe we see this principle in Ruth chapter 2 with Boaz. Notice verse number 4. It says, And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee. Now, Boaz is the head honcho, but Boaz is a humble boss. He's a humble person, and he greets the reapers. Honestly, when you have a boss that acts like that, where he doesn't put himself on another level, you're going to want to work hard for that boss. Boaz knows these reapers. He believes he can trust these reapers. He knows them pretty well because he took the time to get to know them. Notice verse 5. Then said Boaz unto a servant that was set over the reapers. Whose damsel is this? Boaz has a trusted servant that is set over the reapers that has oversight on everything that's taking place out there. Drop down to verse number 8. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Here's thou not my daughter? Go not to glean in another field. Neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. And so there were maidens going out into the field as well, and he tells Ruth to stay close to the maidens. Now notice verse number 9. Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? And when thou art athirst, go into the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn. And so he tells her to go out with the maidens, but you also see that the young men are there as well. Why? For safety purposes. He trusted the young men. He knew them. And obviously a lady would have to be more concerned of some bad person coming in and trying to defile them or something. So he had the maidens stay close to the young men. Drop down to verse number 21. And Ruth the Moabitess said, he said unto me also, thou shalt keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvest. Now earlier he said to keep fast by the maidens, but when she retells us to Naomi, she says I'm supposed to keep fast by the young men. Why? Because the maidens and the young men stayed close together. That's what we see. He thought it was a lot smarter than just having some random woman where there's nobody giving oversight, where something can happen. And that's smart. For safety purposes, that's what he did. And in verse 22, and Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they may not be in any other field. So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest and dwelt with her mother-in-law. So we see that she keeps fast by the maidens, but also the young men because they were kept close together. At Verity Baptist Church, we keep the men close to the women when it comes to soul winning. And I understand some churches do things differently, but that is always what we're going to do at Verity Baptist Church. And I don't know if there being a problem with this at all, but I'm just saying this that you might be a guy and say, well, you know, I'm just going to leave them here and just finish the street. That's not how we do things at Verity Baptist Church. We keep the men close to the women for safety purposes. We don't just send men on their own map. We keep the women and men close to each other for protection for the ladies. It's one thing for a guy to go out and go soul winning on his own map. It's another thing for a lady too. We want to keep the men close to the ladies. And so when it comes to our soul winning, we believe that God's given us principles on being safe. We're doing things the way that we see them in the Bible. And that's why when we run our ministry, we have this idea, safety is of the Lord. In Matthew chapter 10, he said, be therefore wise as serpents in the chapter when he sends them out soul winning. He says to be wise as serpents. When it comes to soul winning, we ought to use some wisdom. And it makes sense. You know, you don't want to have random ladies out there where something can happen to them. That's wise. That's smart. When we had the Philippines Soul Winning Marathon, we applied this principle. You can ask the other guys that were there, but we had all of Verity Baptist Church contained in one area. We didn't want to have some of our group somewhere here, some of our group there. Why? Because we don't want someone getting lost in Manila. Okay? And like I said, Manila's not the most dangerous place, but if you're wandering around and you're lost, it's probably a little bit dangerous. It's probably not the best situation. So we kept all of our group in one area and had oversight. We had captains over those groups. Why? Because we don't want teens to be lost in Manila. We want to keep everybody close to each other. So we keep these principles that safety is of the Lord. Turn to Matthew 19. So when it comes to our ministry, we have this idea that safety is of the Lord, and we apply this with soul winning. And we realize that when we go soul winning, I've never had anything happen to me soul winning. It's very rare somebody gets mad. I mean, if you're respectful and nice at the door, very rarely does somebody get really mad at you. It happens very, very rarely, but I've never had anybody cause me any harm out soul winning. It has never happened to me. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible for it to happen, but I've never even heard of someone getting in a fight, a literal fight, out soul winning. I mean, if you have a good attitude, you're probably not going to get in a fistfight out soul winning. Very rarely does anything happen out soul winning as long as you're just going soul winning, you're respectful to that person. We realize that when we go out soul winning, safety is of the Lord. So we apply the principles God gave us, and then we trust in God to protect us as we're out soul winning. The other area I want to look at is not just with soul winning, but with children's ministries. We need to apply this idea that safety is of the Lord. On the first point when I talked about our life, safety is of the Lord, I only really talked about getting killed because I wanted to leave the part about harm happening to kids or to people for this last part when we talk about ministry. But notice Matthew 19 verses 13 and 14. Then were there brought unto them little children that he should put his hands on them and pray, and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus says, Suffer the little children, allow them to come, let them come. He doesn't say, well, these children need to be over here while we're teaching the word of God. He wants the kids to hear the word of God. Obviously, we want kids to hear the word of God, just like adults. Everybody needs to hear the word of God. In the Bible, you see that everybody heard the word of God. It wasn't just adults, but the kids, everybody needed to hear the same preaching. Why? Because if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for you, it's good enough for anybody. This word of God is not going to change. It's the same message to me as it is to you. It's determined based on what we decide to do with the message. But the preaching is not different for somebody else. It's the same for all of us. God expects all of us to read the Bible. He expects all of us to go to church. He expects all of us to get the sin out of our life. It applies to all of us, so the kids need to hear this message as well. But the way we run our church is a little bit different than most IFP churches. Most IFP churches, they have children's ministries. Basically, they have a church bus that will go around and pick up various kids for church. I've worked on a few bus ministries at IFP churches. I've been an independent fundamental Baptist nearly half my life. Pretty much ever since I got saved, I was an IFP. I've worked on a few bus ministries, and these kids that come on the buses, generally their parents do not love them, they don't care about them, and they're basically wanting a time-out from their kids. They're shoving them on a bus so they don't have to spend time with them. So what's the result? Well, most of these kids, they're kind of upset. They're kind of angry. Why? Well, their parents don't really love them. That's what you see. And honestly, in West Virginia, there were a lot of weird situations with these children at their houses, with people just having kids with lots of different people. For these kids, you felt bad for them, and we need to get those parents in church. But the worldly wisdom would say, we need to bring these children to church because nobody wants to take care of them. Here's the problem with this. When you bring kids that are not the most respectful kids and haven't been taught the things of God and aren't disciplined in church, you can't let them stay in the main service with all the adults. You know why? Because these kids right now would be yelling really loud. And here's the thing. I can't take those kids and go spank them in the father-baby room. Because if I do that, guess what? I'm going to get arrested. And so these kids that are rowdy, you can't discipline them at all. There's nothing you can do. You can tell them, no, Johnny, don't do that, but it's not going to change anything. They still have their choice, and they're probably not going to listen because they probably don't listen to their parents. They probably don't listen to anybody. And so what you do is you have Junior Church, which is another church service where basically you have all these kids with generally one or two adults looking over all of them. And you've got to really trust that adult to take care of all those kids. And like I said, I worked at bus routes. I used to preach every Sunday for Junior Church for a year. I was a person who preached, and there would be one helper. So there's two of us watching all of those kids. Now at our church, we have cameras, so we know what's happening. We do this for safety purposes. But at most of those places, they don't have cameras in that Junior Church room. And you wonder why all these kids are getting molested in churches. It's because there's no oversight whatsoever. And you're trusting one or two people to look after all these kids. What happens if that kid ends up being a bad person? Of course. What if that adult ends up being a bad person? What are you going to do? You're going to have the same thing that happens in a lot of IFP churches. It's just like the Catholics, the Jehovah's Witnesses. It happens in the IFP churches as well. Why? Because they're not putting themselves in a smart position. You say, well, can't we rely on God for safeties of the Lord? No, because God told you to keep the kids in the main service. When you're not doing what God says, of course something might happen. There was this guy I knew in college, and I worked with him. He was kind of a different guy. He had been in a car accident when he was younger, and his mom died in a car accident. He had had a lot of brain trauma. And a lot of people at work made fun of him, so I felt bad for him. So I told him, hey, let me take you out to lunch sometime. And I gave him the Gospel, and he was thinking about it. And the next day, he ended up telling me that he ended up getting saved. He didn't get saved immediately, but he told me he got saved. And I was real excited. I was like, hey, praise the Lord. And he would come to church off and on for a couple of years, but there was just something off about him. And it just became more off as time went on. He was just a little bit different. He got baptized and everything like that. And then one day he told me, he said that he had to save money in college for a time period he ruined with a homosexual. And he said, that's not my thing. I'm not into that. That's my buddy, but that's his thing. But this guy at the same time said he was listening to a lot of the sermons online that I was telling him to listen to. And that just doesn't add up. Listening to Pastor Anderson and Pastor Menes scream about the Sodomites in your room with the Sodomites, it just doesn't add up. And so I had known something was a little bit off for him for a little while, but I was still kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt. I had known him for a while, and I was a little bit naive on this topic. But then all of a sudden, he told me just about a week later, he said, man, I really want to get involved in church. He's like, I really want to work with the children's ministries. And so I called the pastor that night, and I told him the situation. I said, hey, I'm not trying to spread rumors or whatever, but I said, I don't think we should trust this guy. And the pastor thanked me. And he said, we will not let him work on children's ministries. And the pastor was a good guy. He was a Hyles Anderson graduate. He was a good man of God. But what I'm trying to illustrate to you is bad people, they want to work with kids. Why do you think at public schools you have all these situations that take place? Because bad people want to have access to kids. They want to get into day cares and public schools. And when you have kids away from adults, you say, well, it's a Christian school. The same thing takes place. You see this in the news all the time. And how many times do you need to see it before people apply it? Turn to Philippians chapter 3. We're getting to the point in today's world where, I mean, you're taking quite a leap of faith that nothing's going to happen to your kids in the public school or the Christian schools when you hear all these news stories, all these shootings, all these pedophile cases, all of this stuff. And you know what? God told you to raise your kids. You're the one who's supposed to be around your kids. And if you are, nothing's going to happen. But you shove them into a public school, something might end up happening. You shove them into a Christian school, something might end up happening. And you say, well, I think we can rely on God for our safety. We have these children's ministries because we're really trying to reach people. Well, look at Philippians chapter 3. Let's see if that's the case. So we're talking about safety here, right? These are the words of Paul, but obviously this is coming from God. We understand safety is of the Lord. So let's see what Paul is saying about safety. Notice what it says in verse 2. Beware of dogs. He's telling a church, beware of dogs. What's a dog referring to? Is it referring to a chihuahua down the street? No. It's referring to a sodomite. He says, beware of dogs. You know, at a different church that I went to in West Virginia, the piano player was a flaming sodomite. It wasn't a gray area issue. And I even talked to the pastor about it. I said, I don't feel comfortable the way he's acting towards these kids and he wants to get involved in all these kids' ministries. And he said, well, we don't have proof that he's done anything. He said, a homosexual is someone who's actually acted upon it. He said, we don't know that he's acted upon it. And yet there's people that had visited the church, and the first thing they always asked is, is that piano player a sodomite? Because from a hundred feet away, it was obvious. It wasn't a gray area issue. It's like, he's a flaming faggot. It's obvious. There's no doubt about it whatsoever. And God said to beware of dogs. We're supposed to beware of sodomites. It was obvious that he was a sodomite. And I remember that... And honestly, let me just say this as I'm preaching, because I understand this might be new to some of you. In your free time, read Genesis 19 and Judges 19. Read Genesis 19 and Judges 19. You read that and think that I'm being extreme, because it's very clear when you read those chapters, when the Bible talks about sodomites, read Genesis 19 and Judges 19. And when you read that, you're going to see, wow, it's going to open up your eyes to something that you haven't seen, because you're watching the TV too much. And you're listening to the movies and the music, and it's brainwashing you, and you do not realize you're brainwashed. But if you would actually see what the Bible says in Genesis 19 and Judges 19, it's going to be obvious to you. And so we had this camp once a year for these kids. And I drove about an hour and a half to church, but the camp that they went to was only about 15 minutes from work. So after work each day, I would drive to the camp, and I preached a couple days there, and I was helping out with the camp with these kids. Well, these kids are away from their parents. Now, at our church, when we have PE class or Spanish class or teen activities, we encourage all the parents to be there. And if you're smart, you're going to be there. Why? Because we don't want kids off by themselves where something can happen. We want to make sure the parents are there. It's not a babysitting service where you just drop off your kid and you just assume nothing's going to happen bad. No, we want the parents to be there for safety purposes. But at this camp, it wasn't like that. They dropped off their kids, and this guy was working there. And I remember that this one time we were coming back to the camp, and he was taking one of the kids, and he was just kind of going off to the woods with this little kid, away from everybody else. Because I had my eye on him the whole time. I wasn't trying to make it obvious because, honestly, this was a new church that we had started going to, and I wasn't trying to come. An evil worker, an evildoer, and a worker of iniquity, these are one and the same. This is talking about someone who's not just some random person but actually a religious person. Think about it in Matthew 7 where it says, we've done many wonderful works in thy name, workers of iniquity, evildoers, evil workers. These are people that are very religious people that are bad people. Now, we know that with the Catholic Church. We know that with the priests. Everybody knows they're a bunch of pedophiles. It's obvious. It's in the news all the time. And you see it in other churches as well, but you see it in some IFB churches as well. This stuff happens where you have evil workers, evildoers, and then these Baptists, they act the same as the Catholics. They cover it up. Now, that might happen in other churches in California. It ain't happening here because here's the thing. We can preach and preach and preach, but you might still be too trusting with someone at church and leave your kid over there overnight to sleep there, and something might happen. But we find out something happens. It ain't getting covered up. We're going to expose it to the police, and we're going to pray that God strikes that person down dead, and the police doesn't screw up the case. We're not covering anything up here like a lot of IFB churches in California seem to think it's no big deal. It's just a little pedophilia. It's like, are you joking? I mean, it's just like the Catholics. You're no different from the Catholics if you do the exact same thing. This should be obvious, but people ought to be able to trust when their kids are at church. They ought to be able to trust the man of God to actually proclaim what the Bible says and stand up for the truth and not back down, not try to pass over the situation, but that's not what you see in these IFB churches in today's world. But here at Verity Baptist Church, we do everything we can to have safety, to prevent situations like this. But if something ever happened because you're too trusting with someone else at church, we're not hiding it under the rug. We're going to expose it. Everybody's going to know about it. Turn to Psalms chapter 33, and here's the thing. When we understand safeties of the Lord and we apply what's actually in this book to all areas, I believe God's going to keep us safe. When it comes to our life, I believe God's going to keep you safe if you're living a godly life. With your health, I believe that if you're trying to live a godly life, God can protect your health. Now, we understand Paul had a thorn in the flesh. He was right with God. I'm not saying that if you get some sort of injury or ailment, I'm not saying that means you weren't right with God. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that God can protect your health, and God can also help you with your finances and also protect in our ministries if we do things the way God says. But if you want to just disobey what the Bible says and say, wow, I know God says this, but I'm just going to do it my own way in safeties of the Lord, well, that's not really what God said. God gives you principles on safety. You need to apply those to what the Bible says. Turn to Psalms 33. This will be the last place we look. Notice what it says in verse 16. ...neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy, to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waited for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. So we see a horse is a vain thing for safety. The Bible says the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him. See, if you're living a godly life, you fear our Lord God above. You try to live a godly life, you read the Bible, you go soul-winning, you try to apply what the Bible says to your life, I believe God's going to protect you because the Bible says safety is of the Lord. We need to rely not on man's philosophy or what the world says for our safety. We need to rely on what the Bible says and realize godliness is far more important. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today in your house, and I ask you to help us all, including myself, to apply this to our lives, to really try to strive to live a godly and holy life. And we know that we can trust in you for our safety when we're applying what the Bible actually says, God, but help us all...