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Now, of course, Naam chapter 1 is the text verse. Naam 1.7 is a text verse for our church. Naam 1.7 says, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust Him. That is where the name for our church came from, Stronghold Baptist Church. Now one of the things that you notice in this chapter as you read in chapter 1, it's a very negative chapter. It talks a lot about how angry and furious the Lord is. And see, we need to remember that because in the day that we live in, this is an aspect of the Lord that is not being taught, generally speaking, in Christian churches. There's a very watered down Christianity that people are kind of getting used to and accustomed to, and people are viewing Christians as, oh, you need to be, you know, this real soft-spoken and not offensive, not say anything that might offend anybody, and just be real passive, and God is love. And God is love. Praise God. But that's not all He is. And when we read the Bible, those that do read the Bible know that there's a lot more to God, and we actually hear a lot more about His anger than we necessarily do about His love. And it's a good warning that we need to keep in mind. And one of the things that we need to be here at Stronghold Baptist Church is people who are going to give the warning, and people need to understand. Now what's great about this chapter is you read everything is pretty negative, and it's talking about who can stand before His indignation. God is mad. He is angry. He's going to come, and He's going to destroy. But verse number 7 is thrown in there as just one positive verse. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him. So while the enemies are going to be devoured and destroyed, He's saying, just come to the Lord. The Lord is that stronghold. The Lord is someone that you can trust and you can be confident in, and you have no fears or worries about all of this, all of the demise that's going to happen to the wicked. That this is, while all of this is going to happen, all of this is going to go on, if you have your trust in the Lord, then you will be safe in the day of trouble. Now, again, I want to point out that in this verse, the Lord is the stronghold. The name of our church should reflect our trust in the Lord as being that stronghold. God gets the glory. God gets the honor. Now everything that we do here, we're not here to boast ourselves. We're not here to brag on our own group of people. We're here to boast of the Lord, if anything, and then we're going to do the work for Him. God is the one that gets the honor. God's the one that gets the glory. I feel like this just needs mentioning in a day of a narcissistic society, in a day of social media and Facebook and YouTube and everything else. Now look, we stream our sermons. We're recording our information right now. We want to be a blessing to other people, but I'll tell you what, I don't ever want this church to get to a point where we just think like we are God's gift to everyone else and that we're so awesome, we're so great, we're better than everyone else and we get this puffed up type of an attitude because that's going to bring us down. That's not what we're here for. That's not what we're about. We're not out to make a name for ourselves. We're out to go spread the word about the name that's above every other name, about Jesus Christ. Now we want to reach as many people as possible. We're going to make waves. We want to just get a loud speaker and shout from the rooftops about Jesus Christ and His glory, but don't forget that it's about Him and not about us. We are not here to be self-glorifying. And even down to the name of the church, we have this name as a stronghold to give honor and recognition unto the Lord who is our stronghold, who is our trust, who we can confide in. But what we also want to do with this church is to be a stronghold for other believers. As much as we're reflecting God's security, we want to be an outpost in this wicked, dark world as a place that believers can go to and be among other like-minded believers that want to serve God, that want to do the work of the Lord, and who are not ashamed of what they believe in, regardless of what the world says. Now I want to answer this concern briefly, because I saw someone had made a point in asking about the name of the ... not to me directly, but I had seen this in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. You don't have to turn there, but there's a ... I'll read this for you, where the words stronghold are used in kind of like a negative connotation. We just saw in Nam 1.7, this is where we get the name of the church, there's nothing negative or wrong with God being a stronghold, right? But in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse number 3, the Bible says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Now, the words strongholds, I mean they're very simple words, it just literally means it's a strategic or well-fortified structure or place, anyone can have it, there's nothing special or unique about those words. I know I feel almost silly explaining this, but obviously the negative connotation, the pulling down of strongholds is referring to wicked people. That's why the next verse says, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. This is the stronghold, because wicked people have strongholds too. We're here for a stronghold for the Lord, for the good things, for the righteous things, for the truth. We're going to be a stronghold on the good side, on God's side, for the truth, and we're going to be fighting against, spiritually, the strongholds of the wicked, the strongholds of those that would lift themselves up against the Lord, and against the knowledge of God. And that is our warfare, that is our battle. That's what 2 Corinthians 10 is talking about. It says, we walk in the flesh, but we don't war after the flesh. It's not a physical fight. We're not going to go and get our guns and just start shooting people. That's not the fight that we're involved in. It's a spiritual battle, and there is a spiritual war that's going on right now. And we are to fight that war, and this is our stronghold here in this area for the Christians that want to engage in that fight and in that battle to get spiritually prepared as well as to just have a place of strength and respite from the world. Now, I'm going to take the time this afternoon to explain just who we are as a church. We'll be unified. Now, I know a lot of you know each other already, and that's Amen and Amen. That's great. I'm thankful for that, and to be honest with you, I'm going to be preaching about that a little bit more this evening, but that's why I'm here. Because there are so many people here that already are ready to come together and have a church, but we need to all be unified. We need to have a good structure here to be the most effective in doing work for the Lord. Who are we? Well, there's a few things I'm going to bring up here. Through the Lord, He provides a stronghold, and we saw there in the day of trouble in Nahum 1.7, a stronghold in the day of trouble. These are troublous times or perilous times that we live in. We need to have a stronghold, and we're going to have a stronghold here of solid, biblical, fundamental doctrines is number one. Point number one, this church, we are going to stand on the literal Bible, on the King James Bible, the Word of God. That is where we get our truth from. We are King James Bible believing only in this church. We believe that for the English language speaking people, that God has preserved His words today perfectly for us to rely on and trust in and not have to worry about, oh, is this really what God said? I don't know. Should this verse belong in this book? I don't know, and cast all kinds of doubt on what God has for us. We don't have any doubt. Now, if you were to look at just all the different versions of the Bible, that's enough to cause a lot of people to doubt and say, well, why are there over 400 different versions of the Bible in English? That's really confusing, and you know what? That is very confusing, which ought to show you that that's not of God. You know, the people that want to tell you that, oh, no, I read all these different versions, and then I get my understanding from reading all of them. That's confusion, my friend. That is not the way, that was not God's design, but we know who the author of confusion is. That's Satan, and he is the reason, literally, why there are so many different versions of the Bible out there. He wants people to be confused. He doesn't want people to get the true word of God and just have that security and assurance that we have God's word. We're a King James Bible believing church only. I don't want to break off and do an entire sermon because it's easy to do. You need to do many sermons just based on that one topic, but I want to hit a lot of the fundamentals that we believe in here and that this church stands for, and these are non-negotiable. Okay, what I'm teaching this morning, if you don't believe these points, then maybe this isn't the right church for you. Okay, now, don't worry, I'm not going to throw anything out there probably different than what you're expecting, but I'm just saying, this church needs to be unified around these fundamental doctrines. These are basic truths, and it is not up for debate. If you have a question on something and you don't understand something, that's fine, you come talk to me and I'll try my best to explain it to you, but you're not going to be convincing me otherwise of the fact that the King James Bible is the word of God that's been preserved for us through the generations in the English language. That is where we stand. We are an independent Baptist church. We are independent. This is a church that we don't need to get any instruction or marching orders from anybody else. Jesus Christ is the head of this church, and I'm going to make sure to keep it that way. There is a tendency for people just in general, I think naturally, to want to yoke up and to group up to the point of turning into these denominations. We are non-denominational in the truest sense. Now we're Baptists because people need to know what we believe, at least in general. Baptist has meaning to it. The name has meaning. That's why we call ourselves Baptists, because if you tell someone you're Baptist, you at least have a rough idea of people knowing, well, you believe in salvation by grace through faith. You believe in one saved always saved, which is another facet of our belief. We believe that salvation is by grace through faith, not of works lest any man should boast. We believe that there is no work involved beforehand or after hand to prove that you're saved. None of it. You call on the name of the Lord. You call on Jesus Christ in faith in your heart. You are saved. You have eternal life. You are saved forever. You can never lose that salvation no matter what you do. It is eternal. We believe God's Word. We believe the promise of God. That He has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. We believe that. We believe it's eternal. We believe it lasts forever. Again, non-negotiable. This is what we preach. This is at the heart of what we believe. This is salvation. We also believe that God exists as a triune being, as the Trinity. The classic or orthodox, whatever you want to call it, what people have believed for a long time now, a couple thousand years in the Trinity, that there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And we believe in, yes, three persons, three wills. We believe in an authority structure that there is God the Father, God the Son and Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit. We believe that those three make up one God. And there's been all kinds of just stupidity and chaos and nonsense going on online in other churches, and I don't want any of that to creep in here. And again, I'll tell you right off the bat, you know, as much as I want this church to succeed, I will not compromise on the Word of God in any area. Now, if this is something that you've been watching and you're confused about, again, please talk to me about it, but you're not going to convince me that God is one person. I'm not a oneness. I'm not a modalist. We don't believe that here. We're not going to believe that. I'm not going to tolerate that creeping into this church. We'll be solid on this, and I'm going to have sermons. Every single thing I'm bringing up this afternoon is going to get its own sermon as we continue on here. Everything needs to be established. I'm going to go through every single fundamental every week until we get done with all the fundamentals, because it needs to be spelled out. I want everyone to know where we stand on these issues, on these doctrines, because they are important. If we're going to be a stronghold of the fundamental doctrine, it needs to be spelled out and made very clear for everyone to know what we believe. We're not Calvinists. We don't believe that God picks and chooses who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved before they're born. We believe that we have free will, that we have the ability to choose whether or not we're going to put our trust or our faith in Jesus Christ. We believe that the fact that Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to pay for our sins is a gift that God makes available to us, the fact that He's paid a punishment for our sin, but it's up to us to choose whether or not to receive that gift, whether or not to call on the name of the Lord in faith. That is our choice. And we do have that choice. And we're not Calvinists at all. We are a zero-point Calvinist. And again, that's going to be deserving of its own sermon. But I want to try to cover some of the things that I came up with just to make sure it's not up for debate. We are non-dispensationalists. We don't believe in all these various dispensations. Now, when I say there's a lot of different definitions for dispensationalism, again, I'm going to go into this as well, but what I am really strongly against the most that I think is just heretical is when people believe that people were saved different ways at different portions of time. So people say, oh, people in the Old Testament, they were saved by keeping the law. And people in the future, they're going to be saved by keeping the law and all this other stuff and these preaching different gospels. I believe that's a damnable heresy. And we do not believe that for a second here. Again, I'll get into more clarity about that, but that is what's non-negotiable. Now, I've talked to people and they say, well, didn't God deal a little bit differently with Adam and Eve in a garden than He did with like Moses? Okay, if you want to say that there were some differences as the Word of God has been revealed in the way that we practice, like now we don't offer sacrifice and stuff, you want to call that dispensationalism? I'm going to disagree with you. I think that's wrong. But if that's what you mean by it, I'm not going to say, oh, well, you're not allowed in this church. But when you start saying that people are saved differently, you know, that is where the line is drawn for sure. You start talking about other gospels, then you're going to be rebuked like in Galatians 1, it says that, you know, if any man preach any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be accursed. As I said before, so say now again, if any man preach any other gospel than that you have received, let him be accursed. And the hyper-dispensationalists are preaching another gospel. They say, oh, no, no, but for this dispensation is my grace through faith. Yeah, but you're talking about other gospels as well. I don't care what time frame you're talking about. The gospel is the gospel. There's an everlasting gospel. This church needs to stand on good, solid, fundamental doctrine. And, you know, I have this in here just so people know, this isn't going to be, you know, the way that this church is going to work. We don't have rules per se laid out where many churches, many Baptist churches might have, like, you have to sign this waiver or sign this agreement, saying I'm going to do this and this and this and this. Your Christian walk or your walk with God, the things that you decide to do in your life, it's your choice. I'm not going to be policing after you. But what we follow here is basically 1 Corinthians 5 and a few other places that will talk about just biblical church discipline and what the way things are going to work here. We believe in being very separated and nonworldly, but, look, we know we're all sinners, so it's not like, oh, we catch you sinning, you're out of the church. There are some major sins. The Bible talks about being, you know, drunkenness, fornication, extortion. These are the types of things. You can read 1 Corinthians 5 to get that whole list of what is not going to be tolerated here. We do not say anything here. We do not say everybody welcome. We do not say all manner of sin and wakenness, all of it. Sodomites, come on in. No. No. It's not tolerated. There are some things that are not tolerated. If any man be called a brother and does the things in 1 Corinthians 5, we're going to be putting that wicked person away from us. There has to be a standard. And we are going to follow that standard. The Bible says in 1 John 2.15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. We don't believe in living and acting and being just like the rest of this world. We love God. We want to keep his commandments. We're going to show God our love by keeping his commandments here. Now, again, I don't want you to take that too far of saying, oh, well, if I'm doing anything at all, we're going to be kicked out. No. No. There's very specific things. And again, that will get its own sermon in and of itself. So that's our first point. We're going to be a stronghold in good, solid, literal, fundamental doctrine. No. 2, we're going to be a stronghold for people that are dedicated ministers of the Lord, people who want to serve God, the actual people. First point, it's what we believe, what we think, what it is that we are kind of unifying together on when it comes to solid doctrine. No. 2, we want to be a stronghold for those that love God, for those that want to be ministers. And when I say ministers, what it means is you're serving other people, and the best way to serve other people is to go out and win souls of Christ. Soul winning. That's what this church is about. Soul winning. Soul winning. Soul winning. That's why we're here. Once you get saved, once you've received that free gift of eternal life, even if you are the best Christian, quote, unquote, in following God's law and keeping God's love, what good is that going to do if you don't ever tell anyone else about that free gift? Really, what value is that? Do you think God just wants you to be like put on a shelf in a museum and just have yourself all polished up and just sitting there and not doing anything just for Him to look at? That's not why we're here, my friends. Now we want to get the sin out of our life because we want to be a better laborer. We want to be used of God even more. So I encourage you this afternoon, if you've never gone out and preached the Gospel, decide and say, you know what, it may not be a comfortable thing. Look, doing the right thing is always going to be the harder thing to do anyways. Just remember that and realize that. But you can overcome your fears if you have a willing heart. God can change you. And I'm not going to get into the ways that God has changed me, but He's changed me immensely. I mean, if you would have known me 20 years ago, I am a completely different person and I cannot take credit for that at all. God has changed, now it's taken some time. It's taken a lot of growth. And you know, don't worry about, you know, don't feel like a failure if you're not going out and sowing as much as all these other people. Grow, just make sure you're moving forward. Okay, make sure you're moving forward and that when you see the things in the Word of God that you don't shun it or not, you know, bristle at it and not want to do it and have a stiff neck, let the Word of God convict you and learn to get out there and just, I mean, when you have this reality, when you have this sense of people, if you would actually look around you and stop and think, when you go out grocery shopping, when you go out and do anything in your day-to-day life, just take a second to look at people, people that you might be real friendly with that you don't even know. You might stop the chat with, oh hey, how's it going? Great day, isn't it? And just be friendly to someone. Think about, is that person going to spend an eternity in hell? And remember that and think about that because there's a lot of very nice people out there that you could probably be friends with and maybe they've never even heard the gospel of Jesus Christ before and in the true gospel, that it's just a free gift, that it's easy to get saved, they've probably been lied to their life, and if someone would just tell them about it, they would get saved. And it's incumbent upon us, this is why we're here, is to tell others about it, to let other people know that this free gift is available. The Bible says in Proverbs 11, 30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that win his souls is wise. If you want to be wise, you're going to win souls. Mark 16, 15, of course, says he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. This is the command of Jesus Christ. As he was leaving, as I was saying, look, this is what I want for you to do now. They spent all this time, you know, a few years with Jesus Christ, learning from him and learning from him, and now he's saying this is what I want for you to do. Go out and preach the gospel to every creature. And just as much as 2,000 years ago, people today still need to hear the gospel. It's the same gospel, the message hasn't changed. We don't have any, you know, we're not Mormons, we don't believe that there's any more books added to the Bible. We don't have these prophets that are giving us extra words from God that contradict the actual Bible itself. He's given us his words, the commandments clear. God, the Lord's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God wants everyone to be saved, but again, we're not Calvinists, we don't think he just picks and chooses. He's given us that job. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, you can turn there if you would, please. 2 Corinthians chapter number 5, I want you to see this. It's important. 2 Corinthians chapter number 5, we start reading in verse number 18. This is going to spell out for you that God has chosen believers. He's chosen us to go out and do this work. And it is work. I understand, I probably understand more than anyone, our family getting used to this. It's hot, right? We're in the summertime now, it's hot outside. It's not going to be comfortable to go out and spend some time in the sun and sweat a little bit and do this. You might rather be sitting in an air conditioning somewhere, sitting on the couch or relaxing on a Sunday. I get it. You might want to do that. But that's not what God's called us to do. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, look at verse number 18. We'll see this here. The Bible says, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. So what's that saying there? God has reconciled us to Him. We had a problem with God being a sinner. We have a big problem. We've broken His laws. We deserve hell. But when things were made right, we were reconciled back with God because Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins. And when we accepted Christ to be our Savior, we put our trust and our faith in Him, now we're made right with God through Jesus Christ. We're reconciled. Now that we've been reconciled, it says He's given unto us this ministry of serving other people because this life is not just about you. Jesus Christ didn't come here to be ministered unto. He came to minister. And He is the perfect example. So if Jesus Christ came and He was ministering, He ministered unto His own disciples. He washed their feet. He went around homeless and just traveled around because He knew people needed to hear the Word of God. And that's what He did. He traveled around, He served others, and He brought that ministry of reconciliation where He would be reconciling sinners to Christ. Reconciling people to God through Jesus Christ. Look at verse number 19 says, to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. That's what Christ did. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. When He was here on this earth literally walking around, He was reconciling people to God through Himself. Not imputing their trespasses unto them and have committed unto us the Word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead. Be ye reconciled to God. This is our job. You are to be an ambassador. You are representing Jesus Christ because He's not physically walking around this earth anymore. He hasn't been for a couple thousand years. Now it's our job. We are walking around on this earth as long as we have breath in this flesh. We're walking around and we are to be ambassadors. We are representatives of Jesus Christ. Which is why the first point is really important, having that good doctrine. Not living worldly. If you're going to be representing a holy God, a holy Jesus Christ, well how ought to you be representing Him as an ambassador? Well, as closely as possible to the way that He was. That's going to be the way you can best represent Jesus Christ. But even if you don't feel like you're outwardly that good of an ambassador, you still have the job of being the ambassador and giving that word and reconciling people to God. So what I mean by that is we're all at different levels of our spiritual growth. Maybe you're newly saved. Maybe you're not newly saved. Maybe you've been saved for a long time but you still have a lot of sin in your life. No matter where you're at, it's still our job to reconcile people unto God. Now you're going to be way more effective the more you can get the sin out and the more you can reflect Jesus Christ and be that good ambassador. But it's still incumbent upon everybody to go out. Every single believer. It's your job to be an ambassador for Christ. And to take that job seriously and to reconcile people because Jesus Christ isn't going to come and save people by themselves. The Bible says the faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But it says how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? It's Romans chapter 10. People need to hear the Gospel from a preacher. It's not good enough for them just to be reading the Bible. Acts chapter 8 talks about the Ethiopian eunuch. He was reading God's word. He was reading specifically a verse that had to do directly with Jesus Christ but he didn't understand it. Because a natural man receiveth not the things of God. He doesn't understand. This book is spiritually discerned. And if you don't have the Spirit you can't understand it. He needed a preacher to expound the word of God unto him and to show him what it takes to be saved. And it's the same way today. Those that are unsaved need somebody that has the Holy Spirit to explain the Gospel to them. To explain Jesus Christ to them and how he died for their sins so that they can receive it. So that that word can be sown into their hearts and they can receive that word and that word can bring life. But they're not going to get it on their own. It's our job to do that. We are a strong hold for soul winners. And third, in my last point, turn if you would to Hebrews chapter 10. Not just a strong hold for soul winners but just a strong hold in general for the family of believers. People who are born again. Everyone who is born again is brothers and sisters in Christ. We all are born of that same seed. And we need to treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. As part of a spiritual family. And I believe strongly in this church coming to church. If you haven't been going to church very much because there hasn't been, you can't find a good church or anything like that, you are missing a lot. You've been missing a lot. Church is more than just preaching. It's way more than just hearing God's Word preached. Hearing God's Word preached is important. Amen. The doctrine is important. The soul winning is important but there's still more to coming to church than just hearing the Word preached. We are here for each other. To encourage, to edify, to strengthen one another. We are a strong hold for believers here to help each other continue going especially as the times get worse and worse and the days get darker and the world gets more wicked. We need that encouragement even more. We need to be there for each other. We need to be a family of believers here. Hebrews chapter 10, look at verse number 23. The Bible says let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. For He is faithful that promised and let us consider one another. So you're thinking about each other. Consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. Let's face it, sometimes we need provocation. We need to be provoked to go out and do something good. How hard has it been? And you know all of you that are sitting here this afternoon that you love God, you want to go soul winning. I know many people out here have gone soul winning before. But you're going to see the difference. It's hard to just go out and go soul winning on your own and just to choose to pick up and just to go and do it. It's not an easy thing to do. I was a member of Faithful Word Baptist Church for seven years before I was sent out to go out and pastor a church and Pastor Word of Truth Baptist Church. I'll tell you what, it's a lot easier when there's a church, they have established soul winning, they have everything set up and you go and you can show up and you can participate and I did that. And that was great and I praise God for that and it helped strengthen me and help build me up. But when it got to the point of me starting a new church and pastoring in a small town, when it came down to it and there's no one else going soul winning and I just have to get up and go and do it because I'm the leader and I'm the pastor and I need to do it, that's not easy. No, I did it. I did it. I did it faithfully. Every week. But it's not easy at all. You need that encouragement and the provocation of other people because all it takes usually is one person. Thank God I had Brother Sebastian for the longest time was my encouragement because it was me and Brother Sebastian, me and Brother Sebastian always going out soul winning and I had one other person at least and even just having that one other person was huge. But we need the church in general to be there for each other, to listen and care about each other, to pray for each other, to be concerned about what's going on in the lives of others, to be there to lend a helping hand, to be there to encourage each other to say, no, no, hey, you notice someone, look, you notice people might start slipping, might start backsliding and having friends and other believers that actually care about you and love you, instead of just ignoring everything and not wanting to say anything, that actually love you enough to say something, say, hey, you know, I'm concerned about you and just to bring it up to them, that might be all they need is just to hear it from someone to get them back on the right path. We need that from each other. Verse number 24, let's read that again and let's consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. And if you remember from Nahum 1.7, the text verse for our church, the Bible says the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. As we see the day approaching, we need church. We need the exhortation. We need the provoking so much more. It is getting more and more necessary to come together. He says, you know what the matter of some is to just say, forget it. It's too hard. Forget it. I want nothing to do with it. And those are the people that just end up getting completely into the world and wasting their life doing nothing for God. We need to be an encouragement to each other. Turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. I cannot stress enough the importance of being in church and coming to church and getting into and just really getting involved and getting on fire for church. The last time I preached in front of a congregation was at Faithful Word Baptist Church and it was a similar message. It was just all about being in church. Why? You say, why would you preach at Faithful Word Baptist Church? Because people still need to hear it. I don't care what church you're a part of. We're all individuals. Every single person has temptations and has trials and has problems in their life. Everybody does. And sometimes we need to be reminded that instead, because too many times the natural inclination is when people start getting into sin, they might even get embarrassed to then go to church. They don't want to. They feel bad about it. They're like, well, I can't go to church now. That is the wrong choice to make. If anything, you need it even more. You need to get back right with God. And you need the encouragement and the help of other people. Don't just back out and just quit and get out. You're going to be wasting your life then. Church is given for a very, very good purpose. Again, it's more than just receiving teaching. Receiving teaching is very important. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to downplay that too much, but there's still so much involved with being a part of church and being part of a congregation, a group of believers. Ephesians chapter 4, it's so important. The Bible says in Ephesians 5 that Christ gave His life for the church. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave His life for it. It's pretty important. Ephesians chapter 4, verse number 11, the Bible says that He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. So it's talking about gifts that God's given to people. Some people, obviously there were some apostles. There are some prophets. There's evangelists. There's pastors. There's teachers. These are all jobs and gifts that God is giving unto certain people. Why? For the perfecting of the saints to help you, the believers, those who are sanctified through Christ, be perfected, to be more complete, to do the work of the ministry. These leaders have been given gifts to help God's work be done and to be unified and for the edifying of the body of Christ. If you're a born-again believer, you are part of the body of Christ. You're part of this church. Again, we don't have any requirements. You don't have to fill out any forms or go through any classes to be a part of this church. If you're a born-again believer, baptized believer, you're part of this church. But let's keep reading here. Verse number 13, so we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, make an increase of the body and the edifying of itself in love. If church wasn't important, then God wouldn't have given all these gifts to different people in order to do the perfection of the saints, in order to do the work of the ministry, in order to edify one another in the body of Christ. It is important. We're going to close on this. Turn, if you would, to 1 John chapter 3. It's my closing point. I thank God that this church has such a great start already. There's so many people here, I know, that know one another and care about one another already. That's a great start. There's a church that's already, I believe that the church is practically in existence already, just waiting for the things that are wanting, waiting for the ordination of a man of God to come and just to help the lead and just bring everyone together and be unified and to go out and do this great work. There's been so many people here that are like-minded and I know many of you are traveling from far just to come and be a part of this church and praise God for that. And some of you, others that are close, take encouragement by that. Think about that. When people are willing to make sacrifices to come and just come together as a group and to win souls for Christ and to do this work, you take encouragement about that. When you don't feel like coming to church and you live like 10 minutes away and you've got people who are coming from hours away, not just that, but just think about the other people. We don't want to have an attitude or a mindset of what can this church do for me? We ought not to think like that. Now a lot of people, especially after you first get saved, you do think like that. It's kind of a fleshy way to think of just what programs, you'll hear this all the time, what programs do you have, what do you have for my kids, what do you have for this, what do you have for that? That's not what church is all about. You go to church thinking, how can I help other people? Who can I help out? Who can I edify? Who can I encourage? That's why we're here. Who can we win to Christ? Let's get better at this. Let's do this. 1 John chapter 3. This is the spirit that we need to have here. 1 John chapter 3. Look at verse number 13. The Bible reads, Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. You know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, look at this, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That's a great love. The Bible says great love hath no end, and this is a man who laid down his life for his friends. Jesus Christ came, he's the example. He came and laid, he sacrificed himself. His own life he was willing to give. You read about in the epistles of Paul, he talks about how he labored day and night and he was willing if it were possible not to impart the gospel of God unto them only, but even his own soul. Because he loved people that much. Jesus Christ loved you that much that he endured the suffering and the shame, even the shame of the cross. And this is the love that we ought to have for the brethren. We ought to be willing to say, hey, you're a brother, you're a sister in Christ, I'm willing to die for you. That's a strong love. That's what we ought to have. Now we know not everyone's perfect, I'm not saying that everyone here would just be willing to take a bullet for someone else, but hey, we ought to. We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Verse number 17, but whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It's easy to tell someone you love them. It's easy, oh yeah brother, I'm praying for you. It's easy to say that. And this is a complete, almost completely separate topic. If you tell someone you're going to pray for them, you ought to do that. There are way too many hypocrites out there that they say, you know, why? Because it sounds good. Because people like to hear that, people like when you say that, and it's going to make you look like a good guy, oh I'll pray for you, I'll pray for you. You better make sure you do it. Otherwise you're going to bring false witness on yourself when you don't do that. I'll tell you what I know I'm going to do, when I tell people I'm going to pray for them, I pray for them right away. Because I know what it's like to forget, I know what it's like to get real busy. You just do that right away. Why am I bringing this up? Because the Bible says here, let's not love in word. This is loving in word. You tell someone you're going to do so, oh yeah, I care for you, you know, read James chapter 2, you know, someone comes to you, they have this world's need, they have a need, like hey, I don't have any clothing, or I need, you know, I'm real hungry and it's your brother in Christ, and they're coming to you, and they have need, and you just say, oh yeah, well, God bless you, be warmed and be filled, and you don't actually do anything to help them. You're just loving in word. You actually have to do something about it. You say, oh yeah, I love people, I want to be saved to go to heaven. I don't want people to go to hell. But then you don't go out and preach the gospel to them, you're loving in word, and not in deed, and not in truth. You need to back up what you believe with action, with doing something. Let us here not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth, and hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. Verse number 20, for if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things beloved. If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. Notice it says that this is His commandment, we should believe on Jesus, right? You're a believer here this morning, you're saved, and love one another. Let's keep those commandments. You probably already kept the first one, right? You believe on Jesus. Amen. Let's keep that other commandment. Let's be an encouragement to each other, let's love each other, let's be a stronghold to help other people, to join in this common goal of serving the Lord. In He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in Him, and hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He hath given us. I am extremely excited, I can't say it enough, for this church, in the days here, we are ready to serve the Lord, and there are already so many people here that I know love God. Let's get on board. We're going to go out this afternoon, we'll go over the details in just a few minutes. We'll go out and preach the Gospel. And you know what, the laborer is worthy of his hire, so don't worry, we'll feed you. I know people are going to be sticking around here for a while. We're going to go out, we're going to try to win people to Christ, we're going to stay in this area, real close to here. I've got maps printed out. We're going to go out and preach the Word of God because that is what it's all about. That's why we're here. This is why the church started here. As you all very well know, there's so few people that are going out and actually doing the work. Well, we're here to do the work. We're here to stand on the Word of God firmly. We are here to not compromise in the doctrine, in the labor, or in the love that ought to be among the believers in the church here. Stick around after service and join us in this work. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You so much for bringing this group of people here together. We know that it's You that builds the church, dear Lord. Myself, nor anyone else here can really take the credit for building this church, dear God. It's You who has built this. And I pray that You would please just help us as a church to grow together, to love one another, and to love the lost, dear Lord, to go out and preach Your Word. I pray that You would please encourage us and edify us and help us edify one another. And God, teach us from Your Word. I pray that You would please teach me, help me to be a good leader and teacher here for everyone that's here today and that will continue to be coming, dear Lord, in the future. And bless Strong Old Baptist Church and just help us to magnify Your name. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.