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

I wasn't sure if it would play, but it did. Yes, it did. That was intentional. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I wasn't sure. Yeah. It was pretty awesome. Yeah, it was. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's right. forward Baptist Church. It's good to see everyone here on this Wednesday night. Let's all take our seats please and take your song books and we'll begin with number two hundred and ninety-four tonight. Number two hundred and ninety-four stepping in the light. Number two hundred and ninety-four. Once you find your place, we'll sing it on that first verse. Trying to walk in the steps of the savior. Number two, nine four. The steps of the savior. Trying to follow our savior. Shaving our lives by his blessed example. Happy, how happy our songs have been. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Stepping in the light. Stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Letting pass the light. Dressing up those things and then who's leaving when we are tempted to turn from away. Just take the arm that is strong to defend us. Happy, how happy our praises each day. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Stepping in the light. Stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Letting pass the light. Walking the footsteps so gentle for marriage. The steps of faith, always mercy and love. Looking to him for the grace bringing love is. Happy, how happy our journey has been. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Stepping in the light. Stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Letting pass the light. Trying to walk in the steps of the savior. From words to love for the fall of our God. When we shall see that the king is worthy. Happy, how happy our praise at a sign. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Stepping in the light. Stepping in the light. How beautiful to walk in the steps of the savior. Letting pass the light. Amen. Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I pray that you'll fill us all with the spirit and help us to sing out boldly and please bless the preaching that's to follow us in Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Number 258 is next. Christ receiveth sinful men number 258. Christ receiveth sinful men. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. He he goes on to say Thursday, July 1st. Let him know I'm assuming just so that you can prepare for what kind of a crowd to know how much you easy to buy for after the service and that's a Tucson thing and so that's coming up on July first and that's about it for announcements let's go ahead and count up the soul winning for the past few days so going back to Monday anything to report from Monday. All right. Can you turn your, try turning yours all the way off although I think it might be mine because when I bump it it seems to me that seems to need power years down. That's not good. Thank you. Anything else from Monday? What about Tuesday? Okay, got it. Anything else from Tuesday? What about today? I'm pretty sure the van had zero today. So what, anything outside of the van today? Anyone? Anyone? All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning, and it's thou art the man. So keep it, keep it powered off on that end. Okay, so you're going to use the handheld. All right, cool. So now's your chance because you're ready to come lead us in another song. Come on up and use the handheld. All right, what's our next song? All right, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah. It's going to be on the insert. So it must be that piece that's the back. You know, we just need to change the channel. I'll do it afterward. Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah, Build ground through His barren land. I am He who thou art mighty, hold me with my powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more, feed me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain, as the new leaves stream to flow, and the fire and how we build, lead me on my journey through. Strongly liver, strongly liver, be thou still my strength and shield. Be thou still my strength and shield, when I tread the bird of Jordan, with my anxious fist asire. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, be thou my strength and shield. When we say, God came inside, songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee. I will ever give to Thee. All right, your hymnals now, number 447 is next. Here am I, number 447. Sing this Sunday night. You should be familiar by now. Sing the parts if you know them. 447. We shall pray, Lord of our lives, sing our song into Thy field. You are we, first light and place we, by the fields our ways shall yield. Here am I, here am I, stand before the Lord our Father, spring on me our Holy Spirit. Here am I, here am I, stand before you as our precious soul to gain. Holy Father send us there and from the altar take us home. We shall testify our precious souls. Here am I, here am I, stand before the Lord our Father, spring on me our Holy Spirit. Here am I, here am I, stand before you as our precious soul to gain. God form us, away our harvest, build our life, lift up your eyes, burn the light, eternal gather, wish the wages for such price. Here am I, here am I, stand before the Lord our Father, spring on me our Holy Spirit. Here am I, here am I, stand before you as our precious soul to gain. Walk as embers from the burning souls for whom the Savior died. Old and steady cries of mercy to the doomed and lost outside. Here am I, here am I, stand before the Lord our Father, here am I, here am I, stand before you as our precious soul to gain. Alright, this time we'll pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter starting in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Hester as he reads. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, King and verse number 1. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, the Bible reads, A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death and the day of one's birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools, for as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool, this also is vanity. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad, and a gift destroyeth the heart. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these, for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense, but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider, God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him. All things have I seen in the days of my vanity. There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise, why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish, why shouldest thou die before thy time? It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this, yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand, for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all. Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city, for there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee, for oftentimes thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others. All this have I proved by wisdom, I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out? I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands. Whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one to find out the account, which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not. One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. Dear God, thank you for letting us gather here today. Please bless your people, and please help us to learn from your word today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Ecclesiastes chapter 7, the Bible reads in verse number 1, A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death, and the day of one's birth. So when the Bible talks about a good name here, obviously it's not referring to your name as in, you know, my name is Stephen, or, you know, your name is Alex. That's not what it means here. Name here means something along the lines of your reputation, who you are, and if you think about it, that's kind of obvious, and you're probably wondering, like, Pastor Anderson, why are you telling us something that's so obvious to us anyway? But, you know, you've got all these millions of people out there who deny the Trinity because they're confused about this verse where it says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and they think because name is singular that they all have the same name. You know, like Tyler Baker, well, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that name is Jesus. Wrong. They don't all have the same name. The Father's name is not Jesus, the Holy Ghost's name is not Jesus, the Son's name is Jesus, okay? And when the Bible says in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, what that actually means is, you know, basically on behalf of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or by the authority of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So representing, and your name represents who you are. And so when the Bible says a good name is better to be chosen than precious ointment, it's saying that having a good reputation is better than those things. Now keep your finger here and flip over to Ecclesiastes chapter 10, and you'll see a similar verse here where the Bible kind of defines itself here. Because remember in chapter 7 it said a good name is better than precious ointment. In chapter 10 it says dead flies cause the ointment, remember we just talked about ointment, right? Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking saver, so does the little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor. So the ointment is the reputation in chapter 10 verse 1, and in chapter 7 verse 1 the ointment is the name because your name is your reputation. Okay. Now obviously when you serve the Lord people are going to talk bad about you or lie about you and the Bible says that if people attack you and persecute you and punish you because of your faults then that's a bad thing, but if it's for the name of Christ, happy are you? So obviously if your reputation is ruined because you're known as the radical Christian at your job or, you know, you're known as the Bible thumper at school, you know, that's okay to have that kind of bad reputation. But what you don't want to have is a bad reputation because you're a thief or because you're lazy or because you're a whore or a whoremonger, right? That's the kind of bad reputation. So we should seek to have a good reputation among God's people and have a good name. It's better than precious ointment and the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. Now think about precious ointment, you know, I would think of today as perfume, you know, an expensive perfume or maybe expensive lotions that girls would put on and the thing about it is that the Bible says it's more important, your character, your reputation, who you are, than just having expensive fragrances to put on because your character stinks, right? And so the physical smell is not as important. It says a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one's birth. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting for that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. And then just to finish the thought, it says the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. So what the Bible's explained to us here is that foolish people constantly just want to have a good time all the time. You know, just constant laughter, constant partying. They constantly want to be in the house of mirth and they never want to deal with any serious or somber subjects. They don't ever want to go to the house of mourning. They want to forget that death even exists. They want to forget about bad things in this world. They just want to only focus on fun and partying and having a good time. And this is where a lot of people are at today in 2021 America where it's just all about having fun and partying. But you know, the Bible says that we should think about death. You know, I preached a sermon a few months ago called Remember That You Will Die. And the Bible says the wise will lay it to his heart that eventually our funeral will come. You know, eventually you will, God willing, be attending my funeral. You know, every single person is going there. You know, unless Christ returns in our lifetime we will all die someday. And so it's better to spend some time sorrowing and sad and thinking about these things than to just go through life only laughing and having a good time and forgetting about the serious issues that we're faced with in life. You know, the Bible says that Jesus Christ was a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief. You know, there are three different occasions where the Bible records Jesus as crying, as Jesus weeping. And I'm sure he wept many other times. And so we don't want to go through life thinking that we have to be happy and joyful and laughing and partying all the time. You know, sometimes we might need to go through some hard things in life and some somber times and that's okay. You know, I remember we had a lady in our church when the church just started, like the first month. And a little bit earlier, this woman's only child had died. She had a toddler and it stumbled into the pool and drowned. And I mean, obviously that's a horrible thing for anyone to have to go through, especially if it's your only child. And to drown in the pool. And it happens almost every summer in Phoenix to someone. And she was so depressed by that but that's normal. I mean, wouldn't you expect her to be pretty sorrowful and depressed that this had just happened? I don't remember how long ago it had happened but it seems like it had only happened like a month before now that I think about it. And I remember that the doctors were trying to prescribe her antidepressants and this had happened like less than a month ago. Your child died? I mean, why would you take a pill to stop you from being depressed about your child that just died less than a month ago? Now, I mean, obviously I don't think people should be, you know, I don't really know much about it but antidepressants are probably just a bad idea anyway for anybody. I'm not an expert on these things. But come on, that's just ridiculous to sit there and want to prescribe that to somebody whose child just died when they're going through a normal grieving process. So we shouldn't have this attitude like, oh, we just need a pill to fix everything. You know, I'm not in the perfect mood right now. I'm just not feeling great right now. Let me just take a pill to feel better so I can just be happy every day. Or, you know, oh, I'm so depressed that I lost a loved one. It's like, well, yeah, you lost a loved one but you go through a process of grieving and then you move on eventually. You heal and you get over it and you live your life. But, you know, it's okay to mourn. It's okay to weep. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to go through times where things are gloomy. Now, if you're like this all the time, something's wrong. Because, you know, the Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength and we should be rejoicing. But we need balance in our lives. You know, not all mirth, not all laughter, and not all sorrowing. But if you would flip over to James chapter 4 real quick. I just want to show you this in the New Testament. You know, because the Bible says something similar in the New Testament even more clearly in the book of James. The Bible says in verse number 8, draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. We're in James 4-9. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up. So isn't the Bible telling us that there's a place and a time when we should quit laughing, quit rejoicing, and actually be sad and mourn when there's a reason to be sad and mourn? And again, this goes back to what we learned back in Ecclesiastes chapter 3. You don't have to turn there, but it says in chapter 3 verse 4 of Ecclesiastes, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. So there's a time for both. And the wise man understands the importance of going to the house of mourning and not just living in the house of mirth and partying all the time. Now look what it says in verse number 5. It says it's better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. There are a lot of foolish people out there that are just going to always tell you what you want to hear or entertain you or make you feel good and sing you happy songs. But it's better, the Bible says, to hear the rebuke of the wise. And you know, I think when I hear the word rebuke of the wise, I just think of preaching. Because what does God tell the preacher to do? Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. And so when I think of the rebuke of the wise, it's better to listen to the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. You know, that means that you're better off listening to the word of God and listening to the word of God being preached than just listening to worldly music, for example. You know, and I remember when I was younger and I used to listen to a lot of preaching on my headphones on my Walkman with cassettes of preaching, believe it or not. And you know, the struggle was real back then. You didn't just download a bunch of preaching. We didn't make preaching cassettes. And it took longer to make the cassettes than to listen to the cassettes. But I used to make all these preaching tapes and listen to them. And I remember I used to quote this verse to myself sometimes just to motivate myself instead of listening to music to want to listen to the preaching. I'd say, well, you know what? I'd rather listen to the rebuke of the wise than to listen to the song of fools. You know, I would quote that verse myself and it would make me want to listen to preaching. It says, first, the crackling of thorns under a pot. So is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. And you know, some idiotic people are just smiling and just everything's a joke. Have you ever known people that just can't get serious ever? And it's irritating. You know, and you know, maybe I'm guilty of joking around too much because I do joke around quite a bit. But there's a time when we need to get serious and put aside the laughing and the joke and the games and realize heaven and hell are real. Everybody's going to die someday. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ died for us and we're bought with a price and we owe him everything and we need to take the Christian life seriously. And so, you know, we need to spend some time listening to the rebuke of the wise, being in the house of mourning. And you know, I love what it says in verse three when it says, by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. You know, that tells me that part of the reason why God allows bad things to happen in my life is because of the fact that bad things that make me sad probably in the long run are going to end up making me a better person. Then if everything just went my way all the time, everything I touch is turned into gold and everywhere I turn I'm just winning, winning, right? And you know what's funny, that hashtag winning, you know, my understanding is that that started from Charlie Sheen, who's probably one of the biggest idiots on this planet. Like if you had to think of somebody just being the most stupid, foolish, idiotic person, it's got to be Charlie Sheen, the actor who's just so full of drugs and he's such a whoremonger and he's just such a blasphemous fool. Total idiot. But he'll make you laugh on that show that he's on, whatever show he's on. He was on a show where they're just like drinking all the time. They're drinking for breakfast and whatever, just, you know, booze constantly. And the thing is, you know, yeah, that's a complete idiot and so he's just winning. I mean, he's just so great and he's got all of his money and his wealth and his fame, but he's going to split hell wide open. And if you want to know why Charlie Sheen's such a rotten person, it's probably because he just grew up a spoiled brat. He grew up rich and then he's pampered in Hollywood. And so I'll tell you right now, if I would have been blessed with good looks and athletic ability and, you know, exceptional intelligence and if I would have been the most popular kid in school, I guarantee you that I would not be up here preaching right now. I'd probably be the biggest arrogant jerk that you could imagine. Think about that. I mean, I would probably be a super rotten person because I'm not intrinsically good. You know, the Bible said about the Apostle Paul, he said, in my flesh dwell with no good thing. And, you know, those of us that know the Lord and know the word of God, we know our sinful condition. You know, we know that we have that sinful nature in our flesh. And so it's the afflictions that we go through in our life that make us a better person because I guarantee you just knowing myself, if I would have grown up and just been the coolest guy and just succeeded at everything and super popular, super athletic, super great looking, you know, I probably would have become a big jerk and been prideful and not, you know, but here's the thing. Let's say you go through life and let's say, you know, something's wrong with you physically so that you're not good looking. You know, that actually makes you understand what other people are going through and understand what it's like to not have everything just handed to you on a silver platter and, you know, understand maybe how other people feel and, you know, you're probably going to be less likely to make fun of someone's appearance when your appearance has been made fun of and you've kind of been there. And, you know, the same thing like if you, let's say you go through financial problems, you know, then you're not going to have this prideful attitude that says, oh, everybody who has financial problems is just because they're lazy or just because they're an idiot. You kind of realize, well, no, I mean, you know, people get into financial problems. And so it gives you empathy for what other people are going through and it just makes you a nicer person, a more humble person when you're not just constantly lifted up and exalted and everybody's favorite person and whatever. You know, when I was growing up, I was, until I was in junior high, I was the shortest kid in the class. The, not one of the shortest, I was the shortest kid in the class. You know, and then when I hit junior high, boom, I was normal height. But man, you know, it's not, you know, going through elementary school being the shortest kid, the struggle is real. And, you know, and then, so then when I was a teenager, then I get into junior high and it's like, yes, I'm normal height. I'm average white guy height. This is great. Then, then all of a sudden I just had just extreme acne. It's like, man, I can't catch a break, can I? As soon as I get the right height, now my face is covered in acne. And you know, so as a teenager, I was really self-conscious about that because I just had so much acne on my face. I had it bad. Really bad. And so, you know, and at the time I hated it. You know, I would have loved to just snap my fingers and for my acne to be gone. You know, I would have paid any price to fix that as a teenager. But, but do you think now that I'm 39 years old, do you think that I care that as a teenager I had acne? No. In fact, looking back, I'm glad that I had acne because it probably made me a better person. It probably made me a more humble person. It probably helped me to treat other people better because I wasn't just Mr. Cool, Mr. Good Looking, Mr. Perfect, you know, and I wasn't very athletic either. I'll have you know. Okay. So, you know, the point is we all have things and I'm sure you could testify all the things about yourself that aren't perfect or maybe sad things that you've gone through, bad things that you've gone through, and all of us, while we're going through those things, we wish that we weren't. But you know what? Those things made us who we are today and they actually make us a better person and that's why I love how David said in the Book of Psalms, it's good for me that I've been afflicted. That I might keep thy word. So David said the bad things that happened to me, the afflictions, the trials, the tribulations, the troubles, I'm actually glad they happened because now I'm keeping God's word. And you know, I wonder if everything would have been handed to me on a silver platter if I would have grown up rich and smart and good looking and athletic, you know, you probably wouldn't even have time for the things of God because you're just enjoying all of the fun, you know, with the sports team and all the girls and all the parties, you know, and you could easily get caught up in those things. And so the point is that whatever God has put in our lives, whatever thorn in the flesh that we have, it's there for a reason and we should just be at peace with it and accept it and even maybe even be thankful for it. Because you know, the Apostle Paul said that he was given a thorn in his flesh so that he would not be exalted above measure. I mean, think about the Apostle Paul. I mean, he wrote like half the New Testament as far as number of books. And he said because of that abundance of revelations that he received, he was given a thorn in his flesh so that he would not be exalted above measure. And three times he besought the Lord that that thorn in the flesh would be removed from him. But God told him, he said, my grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. And he said, you know what, all glory in that thorn in the flesh, all glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And so don't get, you know, and obviously teenagers probably have a hard time accepting what I'm saying right now, but it's true if you're a teenager and you're short or you're underweight, overweight, you know, maybe you're not great looking, maybe you're not athletic, you're struggling in school, whatever it is, you know what, allow those struggles to make you a better person. Don't get bitter and upset. Oh, it's not fair. Some people are just handed everything. Okay, here's a little exercise. When you get in your 30s, go back and look up all the people that were super cool in high school and see where they're at now and see if they're serving the Lord right now. And you know what, the answer is that probably the cool kids, the cool group, you know, most of them probably aren't serving the Lord right now. And so who would you rather be? You know, I'd rather be a little bit of an outsider, maybe not as cool, not as good looking, you know, and be serving the Lord. So I hope that encourages some of you today, all right, that are, you know, that don't have everything, you know, perfect in your life. But guess what, that's pretty much everybody because, like I said, it's always going to be something. If it's not your height, then the acne comes, you know, and then you know, it's just, it's always going to be something. So the Bible says, you know, by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. So sometimes going through bad things and being sad about it actually makes us a better person. Suffering makes us a better person. That's why God allows suffering. And a lot of people are like, why would God allow so much suffering in the world? I mean, there's already so much sin in the world. If there were less suffering, can you imagine how rotten people would be then? I mean, why did Sodom and Gomorrah get so evil? Because the Bible said it was idleness, abundance of idleness, fullness of bread. So basically they had abundance. They're rich, they're comfortable, they can relax, and then what'd they do? They just got into abominations, they just kept getting worse and weirder and whatever. And so, uh, you know, our country may have to go through a hard time in order to get our country to turn back to the Lord. And so, you know, if there were some huge economic crash tomorrow or some huge, you know, pandemic or something, you know, like a real one this time, you know what I mean? But like if something serious happened, if something really bad happened, you know, I wouldn't just be like, oh, I can't believe God's doing this. Where are you, God? You know, if it happened, I would be sitting there thinking like, you know what? Maybe this is going to make our country better. Maybe this is what we need right now to humble us. And remember when James said, let your laughter return to mourning and your joy to heaviness, what was the next phrase? Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Because it's the sadness and sorrow that keeps us humble. Because if everything goes our way, we'll get too prideful and then we'll be a big jerk and we don't want that. So that's verses one through six. He changes gears here in verse seven. Surely oppression make the wise man mad and a gift destroyeth the heart. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. That's harkening back to verse one about the day of death being better than the day of birth. Verse nine. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry for anger excuse me, anger rested in the bosom of fools. Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these, for thou didst not inquire wisely concerning this. So in verse nine it says, be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Now there is a time for anger. You know the Bible tells in Ephesians 4, be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. And so there's a legitimate time and place for anger, but let's face it, nine times out of ten when we get angry it's not legitimate. You know the vast majority of the time that we get angry it's because we're losing our temper, we're getting angry about something stupid, it's not a righteous anger. But we know that there is righteous anger because Jesus got angry. You know in the book of Mark it talks about how Jesus looked on them in the synagogue with anger because he wanted to heal this guy on the Sabbath day they didn't want him to do the healing and they were totally missing the point of the Sabbath and abusing God's law to just be hard-hearted and cruel and Jesus got angry about that. He looked around on everybody with anger the Bible says. And the Bible says God's angry with the wicked every day. And so there's a righteous anger where we get legitimately angry. But the vast majority of the time it's not legitimate. You know if somebody cuts us off in traffic and we get angry but I don't want you to miss the truth of this verse. It's a really interesting verse because it says, be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry. We all know what that means. Don't get angry quickly. Don't have a short fuse. But then the second part of the verse says for anger rested in the bosom of fools. Now typically when I've preached this in the past I kind of preach these two halves of the verse separately. Because you kind of preach on being slow to anger on one hand. You know don't just have a short fuse and blow your top. But then it's like you preach this other part anger rests in the bosom of fools which means don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Don't stay angry. Don't live angry. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. You know whatever's making you mad by the time the sun goes down resolve that. Put away anger. The Bible says to put off anger. And you need to be able to just let things go and go to bed every night peacefully and not just angry from day to day because anger resteth in the bosom of fools. So you know I've typically quoted these verses. Excuse me. I've typically quoted verse 9 in halves. Like I'll be preaching one truth and I'm quoting 9a and then I'm preaching another truth and I'm preaching 9b. But I don't think I've typically put these together before. But they actually do go together because the for there is a conjunction. For means because. So he says be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry because. Right? For anger rested in the bosom of fools. And if you put these two things together what this basically shows you is that when someone blows their top and loses their temper really fast it's because they're already mad. You see what I mean? Like they already have anger resting in their bosom which is what makes them so hasty to be angry. You know if you think about it if I knock on somebody's door out soul winning and I haven't even said anything I haven't even said who I am. I haven't even done anything to make them mad. And we've all been there. You knock a door and the person just opens the door and just starts yelling at you. And I've had people just start screaming and cussing me out. I didn't even say hi. I didn't even say that I'm from church. Who's ever had somebody just open the door already screaming. Already mad. You just had somebody scream at you in Spanish already mad before you got there. And so he didn't know what they were saying so he was just smiling and nodding. And they were like you're a blankety blank blank. And he's like sí señor. But anyway. But the thing is it's not like that person was just like. And then you knock on the door and they're just like. That person was already mad. And I'm telling you there are people who just live angry. They're just angry all the time. They're angry on Monday. Angry on Tuesday. They just kind of live angry. And these people that are just kind of like. If you think of anger as like a liquid in a glass container right. And basically like they're just filled to the brim so it's real easy to get to boil over. Or it doesn't take much to just kind of give it a little shake and it spills over. Whereas like here's the thing. If we're living with our proverbial anger glass. You know it's only like one tenth full. You know because we're just not really an angry person. Then they're going to have to pour in a lot of provocation. And we're just kind of like. Okay I can handle it. It's going to take like hours. You know it's okay to get angry. And it's not okay to be angry with your brother without a cause. It's not okay to get angry for something stupid. And it's not okay to be quick to anger. The Bible says the Lord is slow to anger. And the Bible says that we should be quick to hear. Slow to speak. Slow to wrath. And so anger rests in the bosom of fools. It's very foolish to just go through life mad all the time. And then you wonder why somebody cuts you off in traffic. You were already mad. If you're having a great day or you're rejoicing in the Lord and somebody cuts you off in traffic you're not just going to blow up. You're just going to be like whatever. You're going to laugh it off and not worry too much about it. So it's interesting to see how those two halves of the verse go together. When I'm reading these verses in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes I'm always looking for connections because sometimes it seems like he's changing the subject so fast. So I kind of look for connections. And I was thinking about a connection between verse 9 and verse 10 where it says, Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these? For thou didst not inquire wisely concerning this. And you know the person who's really down on our generation or down on our time you know this could lead you to be an angry person if you constantly feel like things used to be better. And you know this always blows me away. And look you know I dislike creepy Uncle Joe just as much as everybody else does. Okay. But here's the thing. People post these pictures showing like these were the gas prices under Trump and these were the gas prices under creepy Uncle Joe and so you know now look obviously Biden is wicked. Okay. Obviously it's going to cause inflation when you're just giving out trillions and trillions of dollars and you know I mean just the money he gave me alone should bankrupt the government you know because it gets paid per kid. Huh? Brother Dickon? Huh? Yeah. You know all those birth control sermons are starting to pay off. You know people are like God bless Pastor Anderson for teaching me this. Sometimes people are like why did Pastor Anderson teach me this? But now it's like thank you. Thank you new IFB for this teaching. But the thing is the thing that's so stupid about that is that every single president there are times when the gas prices are really high and when they're really low because the gas prices fluctuate wildly. I mean come on has the gas hit four dollars a gallon here in Arizona before in the past? It's hit three ninety-nine and stuff it's four bucks but that was a long time ago. But you don't remember that you're posting a picture of dollar seventy-five under Trump and here you know two seventy-five with five. Look I've seen gas be seven dollars a gallon in Needles California because Needles California man that gas up there is always like weight. Like right now it's probably like five or six bucks or something. It's always like way too expensive. But what I'm saying is the gas prices fluctuate they go up and down and so you know don't get this attitude that says like oh things used to be so much better and now they're so horrible. It's a cycle. Life has its cycles right. You know or people will say like oh you know in my dad's generation it was just so easy and they were just rolling in money and everything but you know what people living back then I mean yes some people were rolling in money. Like like like you know if you lived in Los Angeles in the nineteen fifties it was booming. Doesn't really necessarily mean that the entire country was booming equally and then the fifties is kind of an aberration. What about in the thirties? You know I mean there's going to be the ups and downs there's going to be the boom and bust and so don't get this attitude that oh the good old days it was so much better. You know we tend to romanticize the past and remember it as being better than it actually was. And it's the same thing with church. You know you get these people they don't want to listen to any new preaching. They don't want to get excited about what God's people are doing today in 2021. They don't want to get involved in the revivals that are taking place now and in the soul winning that's happening now and in the preaching and teaching of today it's just oh man back in the seventies back in the eighties back in the nineties you know and they're so into the old IFB. They don't want anything new. Guess what if you would have been back then you'd see all the problems with it. Nothing's ever been perfect. Okay so the Bible says that asking why the former days were better than these is a stupid question. You're not inquiring wisely when you ask that. Now it is true that our nation is getting progressively more wicked. But that doesn't bother me because here's the thing the darker our world gets the darker our nation gets the lighter our the brighter our light can shine. So I think it's indisputable that a hundred years ago America was a lot more godly than it is now. And that's been pretty steady. I mean you know there's kind of two steps forward one step back. But it's pretty much on a bobsled to hell at this point. You know I mean look at all the sodomite pride this month. Look at you know we just on the way we were just coming back from soul winning and there's this billboards the billboard company itself was advertising sodomy. Like nobody even paid for it. You know what I mean because it's like it's one of those ones where it's not advertising anything it's just the billboard company. Lamar or whatever just advertising homo month. Obviously things are getting worse but here's the thing I don't look at that as oh the former days were better than these. Because I would not want to be alive at any other time. I want to be alive right now in 2021. I think it's the best time to be a Bible believing Christian right now. Because I mean look at all the tools we have. We've got cars that could take us. All these different places to go soul winning. I mean think about how easy it is to evangelize when you don't have to walk and ride a horse everywhere. You know we can just hop in the car and drive these. We can hop on an airplane. I mean I think brother Raymond has probably gone soul winning on all continents in the last like month. That guy gets around. You know it's like that wouldn't have been possible in the past. You know missionaries used to get on some ship where they're getting scurvy or something you know to be on some ship for months and there's not any fresh fruits and vegetables and the water gets tainted and there's rats running around and whatever. You know to get to some country and then they get there and they got to learn the language and there's no Duolingo. There's no Rosetta Stone. There's no Pimsleur. And I mean think about nowadays we could learn the language on our computer. You can learn like any language on your computer even if you have no one to practice with. You could just learn it and then you could just get on a plane. You could fly there. You could be there in like 24 hours. Even the furthest places. You could have your hotel ready to go. Rental car. Local guide. Hire a tour guide off the internet. You could show up. When we go on mission trips we get the first person saved like less than two hours after the wheels touch the ground. Seriously. When we do a mission trip people are getting saved the same day we land. It's not like taking months to figure out where we are and how to speak the language and you know where do we stay and you know half of us got sick on the way there and some of them died and stuff. You know we're living in a great time to evangelize this world. Plus we've got the internet. We've got YouTube. We've got YouTube. Amen. We've got Facebook. We've got you know all these different tools to spread the gospel online. And you say yeah but it's you know there's so much sin. There's so much wickedness. But you know what? It's better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. Because we could look at it and say we could look on the negative side and say well you know America is just so wicked how can we raise our kids for God in this wicked place? But you know the good thing about our country just being so insanely absurdly wicked now with what they're promoting is that our kids are less likely to fall for it. Because think about it like our kids aren't going to be like hey you know maybe mom and dad are a little extreme and you know maybe we should just kind of live the worldly life because then it's like the worldly life. And it's just so extremely perverse that and here's the thing you know if I get up and scream about Romans 1 and reprobates and stuff it's so easy for them to see that that's true. They're going to quickly see that everything I'm preaching about that is correct because it's getting so weird out there. And you know when I get up and scream you know these homos are a bunch of pedophiles like they don't have to believe that by faith anymore. Because now they're just actively targeting children and having the drag queen story or whatever. You know I just saw this week the country of Hungary is my wife is half Hungarian and I've been declared an honorary Hungarian by my father-in-law by the way. He explained to me that you know some of the greatest Hungarians are not necessarily born Hungarian and that I could become a Hungarian by choice. You know he's not a Hungarian which is one outwardly in the flesh you know it's of the spirit. And so you know just as I'm a spiritual Israel you know apparently you know my father-in-law has declared me to be an honorary Hungarian. But just this week the country of Hungary in Europe just passed a law and it was part of an anti-pedophilia bill they put in an amendment that says you're not allowed to expose children under the age of 18 to LGBT information or propaganda. Like you need to shield them from that, shelter them from that. They're not old enough to understand that. Hey I'm still not old enough to understand it. But anyway you know but they're basically saying hey these kids could be scarred for life or damaged from being taught these perverse things and I mean this is the government in Hungary doing this. I mean what to God we had a government like that. And then people wonder why I'm disgruntled with the Republican Party because that you know do be like Hungary then we'll talk. Then you'll get me voting again. Maybe. So but I'm not going to sit there and say well what's the cause that the former days were better you know I'm just going to think to myself you know what this is the time period that God has put me in it has its pros and cons. Yeah it's more wicked but at least my children can see a clear difference between the people of God and the world. They can see a clear difference between righteousness and unrighteousness. It's pretty easy to tell the difference today. So you know that's at least something. So the way I connect verses 9 and 10 is don't be this bitter person who just is oh it used to be so much better. Church used to be better. The preaching used to be better. America used to be better. You know so and so the restaurant used to be better. Find a new restaurant. You know because because here's the thing if you if you have that attitude you're going to become an angry person. Because there are a lot of people today man they're just angry people because they're just and maybe they're even angry about some of the right things about you know maybe angry about the way our country is going. But honestly I'm not going to let the way our country's going turn me into an angry person. And if that means turning off the news for a few days then then so be it you know. Don't listen to it. Don't read it because if it's making you too angry because you don't want to just be this person because here's what happens. I've noticed that if I get if I'm angry about something maybe even something legitimate you know let's say I'm angry about something legitimate I've noticed that then if somebody else does something minor I could tend to blow up at that person. You understand what I'm saying? I mean what if Jesus you know you know Jesus looking around on everybody in the synagogue with anger that's a legitimate anger right? Maybe I could get really angry about you know false religion or get angry about abortion or get angry about some sodomite billboard or something and then I could end up snapping at my wife or snapping at my children or snapping at my friends right? Because I'm just angry. So you don't want to just go through life this angry person because then you're going to end up just lashing out at everyone. And so don't get this attitude that's so down on our day. You know 2021 is a great time to be alive and serving Christ. And you say yeah but we're afflicted. It's good to be afflicted right? It makes you a better person. And you know what I think that if let's say Christians end up getting persecuted in America because right now we're not really experiencing persecution folks. We're not exactly ready for a new chapter in Fox's book of martyrs. Okay because you know our YouTube got shut down or whatever. But think about it if persecution were to seriously come to America it would probably make Christians better. It would probably make the preaching get better. It would probably make churches better. Yeah it would cause a lot of people to apostatize but they were lame anyway. It would cause the good Christians to get even better. So that's how I'm kind of connecting all this. Let me hurry up and get through a little bit more material here tonight. It says in verse 11, wisdom is good with an inheritance and by it there is profit to them that see the sun for wisdom is a defense and money is a defense but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. Consider the work of God for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked. And again that's another reason why we don't need to just be so angry and lamenting all the time about the state of our country because of the fact that it is what it is. We can't fix it. And so have the serenity to accept the things that you can't change. Amen. And so you know you can't make straight what God has made crooked. In the day of prosperity be joyful but in the day of adversity consider God also hath set the one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him. And what he's saying here is that you know there are going to be good days and bad days. Good times and bad times. And I always think about this verse because it says God has set the one against the other. And what are the two days? The day of prosperity and the day of adversity. Do you ever have a day where just everything is going wrong? And I've literally just gone to bed like an hour early on certain days because I'm just like I'm destroying everything I touch. I need to just go to bed before I can do more damage. But you know what it is? It's like you'll have these days where they start out bad and it just seems like everything goes bad. Everything's falling apart. Everything's not working. And then other days where everything's going great. And I always remember this verse that God has set the one against the other. And so whenever I'm having that bad day where everything's going on you know what I always just tell myself? Hey tomorrow is going to be a good day. Tomorrow is the day of prosperity. So just do as little damage as possible. Just get through it. Survive. And tomorrow is going to be great. But then it's also a sobering thought when we have a great day and everything's going great we don't want to get too excited because we realize hey tomorrow may not be so great so don't get too high minded or puffed up with that. So he says in verse number 14 in the day of prosperity be joyful. You know hey be happy when things are going good. Be happy. But in the day of adversity consider. You know stop and think about the fact that you know what there's going to be another day that's better than this. Because some people they have a bad day and it's just like oh my life's over. Or just I hate my life. My whole life stinks or whatever. But you know it's really just that day that stinks. And things do end up getting better if you hang in there. So don't just don't despair when things go bad. Consider when things go bad and think about the fact that better days are coming. Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning. He says in verse number 15 all things have I seen in the days of my vanity. There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness and there is a wicked man that prolongs his life in wickedness. You know that's just the way life isn't fair. He says in verse number 16 be not righteous over much neither make thyself over wise. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked neither be thou foolish. Why shouldest thou die before thy time? Now this is a portion of scripture that some people fail to understand or maybe they're confused by it. Because when it says be not righteous over much that seems a little bit of a paradox. Because wouldn't you think that you could never be too righteous? I mean doesn't God want us to be righteous? I mean didn't Jesus say be therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect? So I mean what does this mean be not righteous over much? Is he saying you know sin a little bit? You know a little sin in your life. You know don't be too righteous. Of course he's not saying that. Because does God want us to sin at all? Obviously God's not condoning any level of sin in our lives. Any sin that we have in our life is something that we need to get out of our life. Okay at least we should be working on that or trying to get things right in our life. And so what does it mean when he says be not righteous over much? You know I believe that this is talking about people who could be doing too much righteous work. And they could do too much and burn out. Because obviously he's not telling us to sin a little bit. So what else could this possibly mean when it says be not righteous over much? Well righteousness is pretty much two things. It's either doing the right things or not doing the wrong things. Aren't those kind of the two ways that we do good in our life? By doing something good or by skipping something that's bad. Well we know he's not telling us to get a little sin in our lives. So he must be talking about the good things that we do. So what are the good things that we do? What are the righteous things that we do? Reading our Bible. Praying. Helping others. Giving. Going to church. Going out and preaching the gospel. Winning souls. Memorizing scripture. Now aren't those all good things? Those are all righteous deeds. Now can you see how you could do too much of those things? Now you might think to yourself like oh you could never read the Bible too much. You could never pray too much. You could never go soul winning too much. Well is that really true though? Because the Bible says be not righteous over much. This verse must mean something. And certainly it's not telling us to sin a little. But I do believe that it's possible for people to hold themselves to too high of a standard and end up getting discouraged or burned out or crash and burn because they're just pushing themselves too hard. It's sort of like if you're running a marathon wouldn't it be fair to say don't run too fast? What do you mean don't run too fast? It's a race! How can I run too fast? The faster I run the more like I am to win. But is that really true though? No you could run too fast in the marathon not just because you're going to get tired and have to start walking but you could run too fast to the point where you could even collapse and not even finish. You could even injure yourself seriously or something like that. And so you know we need to be careful in our Christian life to know our limitations and don't let people around you pressure you to do more than you can handle. You know people might try to pressure you. You don't need to go soul winning more. You know everybody's different and that's why when we go on mission strips as a church you know we've set the standard for soul winning at four to five hours of soul winning per day. We cap it at five hours. Because you know soul winning for five hours is pretty exhausting. That's a lot of work. It's pretty tiring going soul winning. Especially in a receptive country. Because if it's unreceptive you could go for longer than five hours and you'll probably be okay. But man when it's receptive you're like giving the gospel all day long. And then of course some holier than thou comes along and says I go soul winning eight hours every single time. I always do eight hours. Nine or ten. But here's the thing you know is it possible that maybe one person's capable of going for eight hours and still staying encouraged and feeling good and able to continue and another person isn't? Because everybody's different right? One guy might go out for a couple hours and he's just toast. We need to understand that different people have different limitations. And so we don't want to pressure other people. You know one guy reads his bible four, five, six times a year and it's just a piece of cake man. But are most people going to be able to do that? And do everything else they need to do in life? And you know maintain their relationships, their job, their health. You know sometimes there could be like young single guys that are maybe going to have more time and energy than say you know married men or men with children. You know what I mean? So we don't want to compare ourselves amongst ourselves and feel like we have to match what other people are doing. Because if I'm running a marathon what if the guy that's next to me is some expert runner I'm just kind of a weekend warrior and I'm like I'm going to match this guy's pace. I'm going to crash and burn. It's the same thing in church. You don't necessarily want to try to match the pace of other people in church that are maybe doing more than you're capable of. Now it's definitely also possible to go too slow and to do little. You know some lazy Christians hearing this sermon like yeah I need to relax more. Look obviously God wants us to work hard and yeah let's read our bibles a lot. Let's pray a lot. But is there a limit? Yes there is. Yes there is. It's possible to do too much and get burned out and crash and burn. You know I'm in this thing for the long haul. Christianity is measured in decades. It's not measured in years. And so I'm not trying to just push myself as hard as I can and drive it till the wheels fall off and burn the candle at both ends because I've been doing this for over 20 years and I'm still going to be doing it God willing 20 years from now because I know how to pace myself. And I'm not going to overdo it. I don't want to under do it either. And look if you're capable of doing incredible amounts of Bible reading and soul winning and prayer I don't want to throw a wet blanket on you. I don't want to slow you down at all. If you're capable then go man. Go as fast as you want. But know your limitations and don't burn out. And you know it doesn't make me uncomfortable if someone in the church is excelling me personally in a certain area because of the fact that I realize that I don't have to be the best at everything. That's pride. Let someone else do more if that's what they're able to do. Everybody is going to give according as God has given them the ability to give. And when it comes to giving it's accepted according to that a man hath and not that he hath not. God doesn't expect us to give what we don't have. And you know what? Sometimes when you're kind of redlining in your life you kind of know when you need to back off a little bit don't you? And realize like I'm getting burned out here. I'm getting ready to crash and burn. I need to let off a little bit. Know your limitations and don't let other people around you pressure you into doing more than you can handle. Because you'd rather be here ten years from now. Slow and steady does it my friend. And again look if you can handle high levels then hey I don't want to throw a wet blanket on you. I'm not trying to slow you down. But I'm just warning those that maybe are trying to do too much don't be righteous over much because you don't want to end up being destroyed by that. You know another thing is I was talking to somebody this week and I was explaining to them how you know when you feel like you're behind at something it seems like you do worse at it than when you feel like you're caught up and on track. Let me see if I can explain it and I'll close on this point. But this is an important point. Maybe I'll preach the rest of this chapter on Sunday night or something. But basically you ever get behind on something and then you just like don't even want to do it at all because you're just like oh what's the use I'm so behind. Forget it. Who knows what I'm talking about. So here's what I've discovered over the years is that let's take Bible reading for example. If I get behind on my Bible reading it makes me want to read my Bible less. Ironically. If I get ahead on my Bible reading I read my Bible more when I'm ahead. If I'm way ahead then I just read tons. Now it's kind of a paradox isn't it because wouldn't you expect it to be well when you're behind you want to get caught up. That's not really how it works though because it's discouraging to be behind all the time. So here's the thing. Some Christians they basically have these kind of just ridiculous goals for say soul winning Bible reading whatever and then they just feel behind all the time because they can never hit those goals. Some people have this attitude like well you know you aim for the stars and you reach the moon you know or whatever. But you know I've found that personally in my life that's not how I operate. So you know I have a certain Bible reading plan for myself and obviously I'm a pastor so it's a lot of Bible reading because I'm a pastor. You know obviously everybody's going to be different. You know I don't expect someone who's a layman to read the Bible as much as I do as a pastor. You know everybody's going to be in a different place in their life and different things are important. For me reading the Bible is huge as a preacher. And so you know I have a certain Bible reading plan but I'm always ahead. And then it feels good to be ahead and then I read more. So here's the thing. I don't make these goals for myself that are like stretching me to my limits. You know if I'm going to sit down and make a Bible reading goal for 2022 I don't make some goal that's going to be like man if I really push myself and really work hard I think I can hit this. I set a goal that I know I can hit. I set a goal where I know I can hit this goal and then I just like enjoy getting ahead and doing extra and piling on more things to my original goal. Like yeah I did my goal and then I added more. And why am I bringing this up? Because I don't want you to get discouraged in your Christian life like oh man I'm not reading the Bible enough I'm behind on my Bible reading. Maybe you just need to set more reasonable goals. And then here's the thing. Look at your goals not as a maximum but look at them as a minimum. So when I look at my Bible reading plan every day I don't look at this as like I'm going to read this and I'm done. I look at my daily Bible reading as this is what I have to get done and then hey let's see if we can get more done. You know everything on top of that's just gravy. Maybe if you had that and you know everybody's different but I'm just throwing this out there because I know that it's possible for people to be righteous over much and get destroyed where they're doing too much, reading too much, soul winning too much, and you know most people are not doing enough of those things. I get that. But I'm preaching to that small group of people that is doing too much or could be doing too much. And you know even those of you who maybe aren't doing too much you know I just find it a lot more pleasant to go through life always ahead on my goals than always behind on my goals. And I find that I do more than if I'm just beating up on myself all the time because I'm just behind every day, falling behind every day. I remember the first time I tried to read the Bible cover to cover, I was 9 years old. And you know I was like I'm going to read the whole Bible this summer. I was like 9 or 10 years old. And so I was like I got to read 15 chapters a day. And so you know I read 15 chapters a day. I made it through Genesis, fine. 15 chapters a day. Got it done. Exodus. It got a little rough there toward the end but I made it through. And then I got into Leviticus and it was like there was a day when I had to, when I fell one day behind. So it was like 30 chapters in Leviticus and Numbers. And I just looked at that and I was just like I can't do this. And I just stopped reading my Bible for the whole summer as far as that plan. I mean I still read my Bible a little bit every day just to check off but my dream of like reading the Bible cover to cover went out the window and I didn't actually finish it cover to cover until I was 18. So because I couldn't get it done in 3 months I'll just wait 9 years to get it done. Isn't that stupid? Like wouldn't it have made more sense to say like I'm going to read through the Bible in a year. Or how about this? Hey, instead of reading 30 chapters in one day in one of the hardest parts of the whole Bible maybe I could just add one day to my goal. Maybe I could just finish one day later. But that did not enter into my 9 year old mind. But I'll tell you what I'll tell you what I do now. If I get behind on my Bible reading on a certain area because I have a whole bunch of different readings that I'm doing. If I fall behind on something I'll tell you what I do. Because I do it on an Excel spreadsheet. That's where I keep track of all my Bible reading. And here's what I do. I just grab the whole column and I just shift the whole thing down a couple days. You understand what I'm saying? And now I'm not behind anymore. I'm caught up. That's how I catch up my Bible reading. I just grab the whole column and just drag it down a couple days. Because you know what? Then I'm encouraged, I'm feeling good, I'm on track I'm hitting my goals. Hey! Move the goal post. Amen? Here's how you hit your goals. Move the goal post. And I know it sounds silly but you know what? I end up reading a lot of Bible. It works. Because I stay encouraged. I stay happy. I stay on track. And so when you have a plan. Let's say you're on a diet. You ever just blow that one meal and then you're just like pfft. And then you just binge for the next week. Okay, you don't. I do. I do. It's like you have one bad meal. Don't just throw in the towel. Right? You just slide the column down one click. Just don't count that day on Weight Watchers points. Just don't count those points. Call it a cheat day or whatever. And the reason I bring this up is because I want you to be in it for the long haul. I want those of you that are here tonight in church. You know, I want you to still be serving God five years from now. I still want you serving God ten years from now. I'm not just wanting to be like, get to work. Get to work. I heard a Baptist preacher one time preaching and he's like, I don't care how much you read in your Bible. You should be reading it more. It's like, how do you know that? I don't care how much your soul wouldn't do more. I don't care how much you pray. Pray more. It's like, well, that's not always necessarily the best advice. Because you know what? I want you here still five years from now. Ten years from now. Fifteen years. I'm not just going to be like, work harder. And look, when we're on some missions trip together, I'm not going to be a slave driver on the missions trip making people go soul winning seven, eight hours a day because then they're never going to want to go on one again. I talked to a guy who came back from a missions trip that was like that and he said, I'm never going on a missions trip ever again. And it's like, so what did you accomplish by making that guy go an extra two hours every day? You turned the trip from being fun to not fun. You know, I'd rather everybody goes soul winning for five hours and has fun than to go for seven hours and not enjoy it. Yeah, but they'll get more people saved on that one trip. What about the next trip that they don't go on? How many people do they get saved on the next trip that they don't go on? Zero. When you don't go, you get zero people saved. And when you make people's life miserable, they're not going to want to go. And look, the reason why so many people go on our Indian trips, on the small town soul winning trips, the reservation trips, our missions trips, you know why they go? Because they're fun. That's why we keep going. And you know what, it's not like we don't get any work done, folks. You get a big crew of people and everybody's going soul winning for four or five hours, you get a lot of people saved in these mission fields. So, you know, if I can lead a mission strip, you know, I'm thinking of a certain mission strip in particular that I led. If I can lead a mission strip and we can get several hundred people saved in a matter of a few days and everybody has fun and everybody is just talking about how they just can't wait to do it again, that's a success. Not just everybody goes home burned out and sick of it and saying I never want to do it again. I'm glad I got those people saved, but I'm never doing it again. So, know your limitations, be not righteous over much, don't pressure other people to keep up with you in the Christian life because you know what, some people aren't going to be able to keep up with you and don't try to keep up with others necessarily. Run your own race. Know your own limitations, pace yourself. Now look, if you're not soul winning at all, if you never show up for soul winning, it's time to get in the race. If you're not reading your Bible at all, or you're reading your Bible for five minutes a day like, yeah, that sermon really spoke to me, Pastor Anderson, I'm not talking to you. You got two hours for the TV and you got five minutes for your Bible, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the people that are serious, okay? Know your limitations, set reasonable goals, set goals that you can actually hit. And people are like, oh, New Year's resolutions are stupid because nobody ever does them. But you know what, I do. I hit the goals because I move the goalpost. And I make the goals easy. You know, and then I stay encouraged and then I get things done. And so I hope that that is helpful to you tonight. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Help us to learn from the wisdom in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Lord. And help us all to work hard and read our Bibles and pray and win souls, Lord. But help us also to know our limitations and not push ourselves to the point where we get burned out or angry or depressed, Lord. Help us to be balanced in our lives, Lord, and to know our limitations. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Take your song books, please, and turn to hymn number 324. Draw Me Near, number 324. Sing it out on that first verse. I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice, number 324. On this first verse together. I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice, and it hold thy love to me. But I want to rise in the arms of the men, and be close and drawn to thee. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to that precious plea inside. Come to create me now to thy service, Lord, by the power of grace divine. Let my soul look up with steadfast love, and I will be lost in thine. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to that precious plea inside. O, the pure delight of a single heart that before thy throne I spent. When I kneel in prayer, it will be my God, my communest friend when I stand. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to thy precious plea inside. There are camps of love that I cannot know, till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights of joy that I need at peace, till I rest in peace with Thee. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me near, O dear, O blessed Lord, to that precious plea inside. ... ... ... ... ... ...