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clothed immortal wings its fly to realms of day this my song through endless ages jesus led me all the way this my song through endless ages jesus led me all the way amen good singing this evening brother jeff would you open us in a word of prayer amen all right for our second hymn this evening one for the kids if you'll turn to 176 jesus loves the little children 176 now this is a shorter one so what we're going to do is sing it twice through and we'll just keep going right after we end we'll just loop back around in time sing it through one more time give the kids a chance to sing it out 176 jesus loves the little children 176. 176 let's sing remember we're going to do it twice let's start on the first there jesus loves the little children all the children of the world red and yellow black and white they are precious in his sight jesus loves the little children of the world jesus loves the little children all the children of the world red and yellow black and white they are precious in his side jesus loves the little children of the world amen thank you for coming to pure words baptist church if you need a bulletin um for the camera get you one on the inside we have our service and soul winning times uh as well as our church stats is there any uh soul winning that needs to be reported of for the last few days one all right great praise the lord on the soul winning on the right hand side we have our list of expecting ladies um miss sarah gomez and congratulations miss corinne darnell that's exciting for them pretty soon they'll have 45 kittens i'm sorry just kidding they'll have another one on the way that's exciting and also we have some upcoming events our texas chili cook-off october 31st and we have in november our thanksgiving service we also have our christmas candlelight service and this sunday grabbing brother duncan he's going to be coming down and he's going to be preaching for you guys um in november you're going to have a double dip of past i'm sorry brother chris agura he's going to be coming november 14th and november uh 28th so a lot of good guest preachers coming out here and that's exciting to have them out and be a blessing unto us prayer request if you've been in prayer for brother edward domino's health and if you have any other prayer requests you can always submit those throughout the week your words baptist um there in the back so and thanks to all that participated in our conference it went really well we had a lot of fun uh in the dowsport area and it was a great spirit and so i encourage you you can listen to those sermons i i think one of them was on our our backup viewers channel and a couple of them were and then some of them were on our other steadfast channel and we had a great time of fellowship and fun and so thanks for you guys driving up there i know a lot of y'all went up there and we had a pretty good time so that's pretty much all i have for announcements we'll go ahead and go to our third song 106 abide with me brother cameron's relief for us 106 abide with me all right 106 106 we'll sing there starting on the first abide with me fast falls the eventide the darkness deepens lord with me avoid when other hell first fail and comforts flee me help of the helpless so abide with me swift to its close ebbs out life's little day earth's joys grow dim its glories pass away change and decay in all around i see me oh thou who changes not abide with me i need thy presence every passing power what but thy grace can boil the timpters power who like thyself my guide and stay can be me through cloud and sunshine oh abide with me hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes shine through the gloom and point me to the skies heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee in life and death oh lord abide with me amen while the offering plates are being passed around turn if you would to ax chapter number 19 ax chapter number 19 we'll read that chapter as all right we're there in ax chapter 19 the bible says and it came to pass that what apollos was that quorum having paul passed through the upper coast came to ephesus and finding certain disciples he said unto them have you received the holy ghost since you believe and they said unto him we have not so much as heard whether there be any holy ghost and he said unto them what then were you baptized and they said unto john's baptism then said paul john barely baptized the baptism of repentance saying unto the people that they should be believed on him which should come after him that is on christ jesus when they had heard this they were baptized in the name of the lord jesus and when paul had laid his hands upon them the holy ghost came on them and they spake with tongues and prophesied and all the men were about twelve and when he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of god but when diverse were heard and hardened and believed not but spake evil of that way before the multitude he departed from them and separated the disciples disputing daily in the school of one tyranas and this continued by the space of two years so that they all they which dwell in asia heard the word of lord jesus both jews and greeks and god wrought special miracles by the hands of paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the disease departed from them and the evil spirit went out of them then the certain of the vagabond jews exorcists took upon them to call over which the hand of evil spirits the name of the lord jesus saying we adjure you by jesus whom paul preaches and there were seven sons and jews and chiefs of the priests which did so and the evil spirit answered and said jesus i know and paul i know but who are ye and the men in whom the evil spirit was leaked on them and overcame them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of the house of naked and wounded and this was known to all the jews and greeks also dwelling at ephesus and the fear fell on them all and the name of the lord jesus was magnified and many that believed came and confessed and eschewed their deeds many of them also which used curious arts brought their book together and burned them before all men and they counted the price of them and found it 50 000 pieces of silver so mighty grew the word of god and prevailed after these things were an ended all purposed in the spirit when he had passed through mesdonia and akia and to jerusalem saying after i have been there i must also see rome so he went into mesdonia to them that ministered unto them timotheus and arastus but he himself stayed in asia for a season in the same time there arose no small stir about the way but a certain man named demetrius silversmith which made silver shrine for diana brought no small gain unto the craftsman whom he called together with the workmen of look occupation like occupation and said sirs you know that by this craft we have our wealth moreover you see then here that not alone this diffusion pieces but almost throughout all asia this paul hath persuaded and turned away much people saying they be no god which are made with hands so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at naught but also that the temple of the great goddess diana should be despised and her magnificent magnificence should be destroyed whom all asia and the world worshiped and when they heard these things they were full of wrath and cried out saying great is diana of this vision and the whole city was filled with confusion and having caught gaius and iraq when a mesdonia halls of companions and traveled they rushed with one accord into the theater when paul would have entered into the people entered into the people the disciples suffered or not and a certain of the chief asia which were in the friends sent unto him desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theater some therefore cried in one thing in some another where the assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were came together and they drew alexander out of the multitude and the jews putting him forward and alexander beckoned with the hand and wound and would have made his defense unto the people but when they knew that he was a jew all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out great is diana of the fission and when the town clerk had appeased the people he said ye men of the pieces what men is there that knoweth not how the city of the fission is the worshiper of the great goddess diana and of the image which fell down from jupiter seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against ye ought to be quiet and to do nothing rashly for ye have brought hither this men which are neither robbers of churches nor yet blasphemers of your goddess wherefore if demetrius and the craftsmen which are with him have a matter against any man the law is open and there are deputies then them impede one another but if you inquire anything concerning the matters it shall be determined in a law full assembly for we are in danger to be called in question for the day's uproar there is being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concord and when he had thus spoken he displeased dismissed his emperors let's have a quick word of prayer thank you men so we were going through the book of acts and we were in chapter 19 last time i was preaching and i didn't finish the entire chapter and so i just want to kind of finish this chapter and we're going to pick back up in verse number 18 and the setting is that we're in ephesus and so we haven't really changed locations in in chapter 19 you can even see in the verse one it had said and it came to pass that while paul's was at courant paul having passed through the upper coast came to ephesus and finding certain disciples so the setting is ephesus and it's going to continue being uh ephesus and then we pick up in verse 18 it says and many that believe came and confessed and showed their deeds so the apostle paul is there he's doing special miracles he's getting people saved he's preaching the gospel they end up seeing a lot of these special miracles of healing and devils being cast out because of that it says that many believe and because they believe they're confessing now their confession it's really important to understand the confession here is really a confessing that christ is the son of god they're confessing jesus christ is their savior it's not necessarily they repented of all their sins or they were confessing their sins of the priest or some catholic interpretation here it's simply that they're confessing that they're now a christian their their faith is in christ and it says a little bit more in this uh verse it says and showed their deeds now now in connection with believing in jesus christ obviously the most logical thing to do after you've believed in christ would be to abandon whatever false religion you had before and wholeheartedly accept christ now we understand that someone doesn't uh have to do that to be saved i mean the bible makes it clear that salvation is not of works so theoretically someone can believe on jesus christ and just go on with their life and do nothing different and they're still headed for heaven but that's not a good idea that's not something that we emphasize after salvation we emphasize getting what baptized we emphasize you know going to church we emphasize reading the bible and obviously a big thing to do would be to turn away from whatever false religion you'd been connected with in the past that's why i don't really like it when people uh going soul winning will kind of uh they'll be real gentle about someone's false church you know they'll be really gentle about them going to a catholic church or some wicked church that they weren't saved in at all and be like well we don't want to take you from a good church or you know it's not a big deal which church you go to or i don't you know things like that you know you want to be careful to say uh things that are true and you know not give them the wrong impression you know that's why a lot of times when i'm done giving someone the gospel i'll make it real clear i say the church you're going to is bad it's wrong you shouldn't be going there this is a false religion and in today's world is a little bit more nuanced than it was back then back then or at least in this specific chapter an example it wasn't like another form of christianity they converted from they're committing converting from literal idols or they're converting from a complete false religion and in this case it's even worse than that look what it says in verse 19 many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men and they counted the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver so mightily grew the word of god and prevailed so not only that some of these people are mixed up in what you know appears to be some kind of a witchcraft or sorcery these books could have been false religion you know is the seven part series of harry potter and i mean these people just brought them together and they're burning them and look this is a pretty important uh thing to understand is that they burn these books as an evidence and a sign that they're no longer going to want to serve you know a false religion have anything to do with a false religion they're burning bridges as it were they're saying you know what i'm a christian now i'm going to do christian things and honestly this is a hefty price that they're paying now we don't know for sure i just want to give you just an idea of what this is because we read 50,000 pieces of silver and we're just like okay what does that even mean it's kind of hard to put a tangible price with that but i want to give you an idea so keep your finger here go to exodus 21 for a moment go to exodus chapter 21 now this is a long time ago exodus in comparison to the book of acts however you know the bible doesn't really teach the concept of inflation it's not a it's not a biblical principle it's not something that god wanted it's not something that god's really inventing that's in in my mind a more modern invention of economics and it's really just a wicked invention to steal money from the poor but i don't want to get super deep into that economic theory really the point that i just want to make is that the price of goods wasn't drastically changing for you know the old testament or even into the new testament you know the same amount of money should have been about the same price of goods for year after year after year century after century even millennia after millennia it should have been the exact same price now in today's world a lot of things that are laws in the books they've gotten kind of obscured by inflation because they would literally put monetary value for theft or for other kinds of issues or criminality type pieces of legislation and they'd put like twenty dollars or five dollars which at the time of writing legislation that twenty dollars might have been more like two thousand in modern day times or something like that whereas twenty bucks today is almost like nothing and so you know because of inflation it's kind of altered our viewpoint on things but i think when we look at exodus there's not a great chasm of inflation or something that's really altering the price of goods from then into acts so it's probably a relatively similar figure when it comes to trying to calculate the price i say that all to give you some idea x is 21 look at verse 32 the bible says this if the ox shall push a man servant or maid servant he shall give unto their master 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned so notice it gives you a price of killing this ox so you know and again reading this chapter it's probably a very uh a very reasonable price for the ox it's probably not really inflated there's probably not necessarily attached penalties so we could say generally speaking an ox is worth about 30 pieces of silver okay let's go back to our chapter now let's think about some math for a moment how much is a an ox worth today now i'm just going to assign just a generic price for cow because if you get a very specific bull in today's breeding market it could be real expensive i mean it could be ten thousand bucks or fifteen thousand dollars but just on average a cow or you know something that's used in as a heifer today would be around fifteen hundred to thirty five hundred dollars depending on weight specifically but also just brand and you know how it's fed and certain things that kind of go into its quality of the beef you know it's marbling things like that but let's just say it's about two thousand bucks okay if it's about two thousand dollars and it was thirty pieces of silver how much would that make one piece of silver anybody know any homeschoolers can do some math for me in their head two thousand dollars divided by thirty pieces of silver what would that roughly be for a piece of silver about sixty seven all right sixty seven dollars for a piece of silver now if you you you kind of bump that up maybe use a higher end number for a cow maybe or this was an ox you know maybe it was like the thirty five hundred then you're getting even closer to like over even a little bit over a hundred dollars per per piece of silver so i would say you know based on that number it's anywhere from about sixty seven dollars to maybe a hundred and twenty dollars um if you look at other places in in scripture it seems to be a pretty reasonable number there's all kinds of places where it puts these numbers and it's kind of interesting when you think about it like does anybody remember how much samson was sold out to the lila how many pieces of silver it was eleven hundred okay so it's eleven hundred pieces of silver now if we put our modern number with that that would be about a hundred thousand dollars you know that she ended up getting to sell out samson now what about jesus how many pieces of silver was he sold out for how many pieces thirty there we go all right someone reads the bible and so it was thirty pieces of silver so what would that be that would be like you know maybe three thousand dollars or something like that so we kind of have some idea of some of these numbers what about this one though fifty thousand pieces of silver if we put you know around a hundred dollars for the price of a silver that would be five million dollars five million now if you go a real low in number maybe it was like only a half a million dollars but it's like almost probably at a bare minimum a half a million could even be all the way up to like six seven million dollars that is the the equivalent in today's currency how much money they're literally burning in their books now that tells me a couple different things first of all it tells me that false religion has got some big bucks attached to it doesn't it i mean that's some serious money uh when it comes to the amount of money that's attached to these type of books and this false religion and everything that's going on it also tells you another thing that these people are real serious about serving god weren't they i mean you don't just burn five million dollars just on a whim i mean that's a real serious thing you know you must actually believe you know this is real and this is important and you're burning bridges and here's another thing you also don't care about money that much because wouldn't some people say like well let's sell them you know like i'll get rid of it but let's just sell it right they're not even selling it they're burning it and you say why are they burning it well they just don't want the next part they don't want someone else to get entrapped in the false religion they're saying this stuff is wicked it's not just like well i'm not going to use it anymore it's like a garage sale item you know one man's trash is another man's treasure they're like this is just trash and so they just want to burn it they want to get rid of it they want nothing to do with it anymore and they made a public showing of it signifying how much they were willing to serve the lord how they've changed their mind i mean this is some serious stuff here now that's going to freak people out you know it's going to freak people out the ones that make those books the ones that sell those books the ones that are distributing those books they're going to say thinking like whoa this is going to start hurting our profits you know people are burning books here they're burning our are the ones that we're selling that's not going to be very good publicity for our merchandise you know for the stuff that we sell and really i think the latter portion of this chapter is really going to hit and hammer this one thought of you know thinking about the cost of serving christ and thinking about money and monetary things let's keep reading it says in verse 21 after these things were it ended paul purposed in the spirit when he passed through mastodonia nakaya to go to jerusalem saying after i have been there i must also see rome and he sent into macedonia two of them that ministered unto him to motheus and rastus but he himself stayed in asia for a season in the same time there was no small stir about that way for a certain man named demetrius a silversmith which made silver shrines for diana brought no small gain under the craftsman whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation and said sirs you know that by this craft we have our wealth moreover you see and hear that not alone at ephesus but almost throughout all asia this paul persuaded and turned away much people saying that they be no gods which are made with hands so that not only this our craft is in danger to be said it not but also that the temple of the great goddess diana should be despised and her magnificence should be destroyed whom all asia and the world worshipeth now we just saw the burn all these these books which was of great price of a lot of money now someone takes notice of what's going on in this situation and they start freaking out it's that demetrius and notice a few things about demetrius it says in verse 24 who brought no small gain under the craftsman meaning that the stuff that he's making the stuff that he's selling is of high value he's making huge profits on the silversmithing that he's doing what is a silversmith it's one who graves or makes graven images you know he carves he molts uh you know graven structures that are going to be diana are going to be other false gods that then he can sell at a really high price and of course it's going to be real expensive because the material being used is silver itself so just the fact that it's already silver is going to make it costly the fact that it's going to take a lot of skill a lot of effort a lot of creativity in order to form these kind of images and to make them into something that's really attractive that someone wants to buy takes a lot of attention to detail you know you have to do these probably in small batches and everything like that he's going to have a huge profit margin that he can attach to these type of goods and he's saying look i make these little silver shrines you know i make uh these little houses and huts for diana and and you know he's make he's he's part of the program now again there could be all manner of different people involved in this maybe he only makes the houses he's probably also making graven images too but obviously whoever diana is or however they worship diana they've got the graven images they've got the little houses and really when i think about this you know i think about catholics let's just be honest because if you go into a catholic neighborhood you know you're going to find all kinds of shrines for mary and they worship mary and they literally have all kinds of statues to marry and if you want to go see this go to a restaurant called bucket of beppo okay who's ever eaten at a bucket of beppo anybody i don't recommend it but i did it on accident because i didn't realize how catholic it is this restaurant literally you walk it like in the wall they have all kinds of mary shrines and one of the tables that i walked by on my way to the bathroom literally had a pope head just like right in the center of the table freaked me out i'm just like you just walk you just see a head on a table and you're just like what was that you know it's like the catholic head but look catholics literally have all manner of false graven images and all kinds of housing and huts you know there's certain areas in phoenix i saw this a lot where you'd go into a real hispanic neighborhood and they're very catholic that they literally just have like this mini house like right in their front yard it's like a mini house that's like a little hut that's got like all these graven images in them and then they like decorate it and it's got lights and whatever and it's just it's bizarre you're just like what is this type of stuff but obviously someone's selling that merchandise someone's selling those graven images someone's selling those shrines someone's selling those huts so you know you walk in and you convert them all to christianity that's not going to be good for business that's not going to be good for the catholic superstore when everybody becomes a christian it's not going to work out very good for diana the superstore or whatever you know who's selling all these goods whenever you're bringing in true religion whenever you're bringing in christianity in the bible and notice in verse 26 this is what paul was saying saying that they be no gods which are made with hands meaning every graven image is false so he's saying i make stuff for diana but i'm going to bring this up to all of the guys that are involved in making graven images all the people that are involved in this kind of merchandise because we're all affected and so he's kind of creating a confederacy or a conspiracy and kind of this group and he's plumping them all together saying look if we don't do something you know we're going to lose our wealth he said in verse 25 he said ye know that by this craft we have our wealth so the the rich people are what the ones selling the merchandise to false religion and it's no different today you want to you want to know where a lot of money is it's in false religion and it's the people that are selling false religion today they're selling you know worshiping devils and literally you know the bible tells us in first corinthians chapter number 10 that that which they sacrifice unto idols they sacrifice unto devils so this is literally the devil's religion it's literally that they're giving money to it and and they're paying for it and a lot of money funnels into false religion now keep your finger here because there's another guy in the bible that's mentioned go to second timothy chapter number four there's another guy mentioned in the bible that's going to be really related to this kind of a subject matter to this chapter now i don't think it's the same guy as demetrius maybe it is i don't know there's no way to know for sure there's another guy in this chapter that actually has his name could be a different guy could be the same guy i'm not exactly sure but it's the same situation second timothy chapter four look at verse 14 alexander the coppersmith did me much evil the lord reward him according to his words so he's probably a different guy than demetrius just because demetrius is a silversmith alexander is known as the coppersmith but there is another alexander that's mentioned in this chapter probably a different guy but at the end of the day he's the same person as demetrius meaning what people that are making graven images hate christians why because christians are coming in and destroying their wealth destroying their money and they don't have the same attitude as all the people they got saved notice all the people that got saved they burned all their books they literally lit five million dollars on fire but the guy that's not saved he doesn't want to lose his job he doesn't want to lose his silversmithing position he doesn't want to stop making shrines into a false god he doesn't really care that much about diana he obviously alludes to that fact it's like oh man we're gonna you know this is a great place where people come to worship you know he probably says that not because he really wants to worship diana but think about it this way when in any when any time there's an epicenter of false religion what do you often have you have a lot of people coming into that area you have a lot of people traveling into that area do you have a lot of tourists you have a lot of people making their sojourning pilgrimage and what do they like to do they like to buy merchandise have you ever been to walt disney world okay and have you ever been to a football game ever been to a baseball game what do they sell you they sell you a hot dog for twenty dollars you know it's like how how much money did it cost you to make that five cents okay how much do you sell for twenty dollars all right i mean it's like you want a coke yeah ten bucks you want ice cream ten bucks you want anything i mean it's it's egregious prices that they're charging because you traveled into that area because it's a special center it's a special area so this is an epicenter of worshiping diana you know this is one of the places where it's really big it's really popular it's kind of like a main area worshiping him then these guys are real nervous about everybody coming to christian and shutting down their tourist trap you know shutting down their heavy operation their heavy hitting operation here of all this money that's being brought in and you know what like i said false religions big bucks you know you go down to mexico and you know you'll see right at the border when you're trying to come across idols you'll see i mean literally it's just lined up with all manner of of graven images and idols and you have all these guys out there pedaling and selling all manner of these big graven images and i mean these things are fancy i mean they got like wings and they're like i mean they're like this big and they're all intricate and then got all kinds of colors and they've got all manner of of graven image and they've got the dawn and they've got you know the mafia boss and they've got angels and mary's and i mean just anything and everything you ever imagine is a graven image they got it all lined up right there and they're trying to sell it to everybody it's big business if you walk down there and you start preaching christ on that street corner they might get mad at you they might turn on you because you're literally driving away their customer base you're literally ruining their profits that are coming in and there's a lot of false religion that's making some big bucks on it the catholics look at the pope look at the where they're at you don't think there's a lot of money there in the vatican in the vatican city i mean that thing's flowing with money that thing's overflowing with all kinds of wealth and goods and money so you know what the catholic church doesn't like christians preaching the gospel of jesus christ you want to know why they're killing christians throughout the dark ages because it was costing them money it was costing the catholic church money and ties and all the indulgences that they were selling it was indulgences you'd literally go to the catholic priest and you would say hey i'm gonna i'm gonna steal the tomorrow here's 20 bucks so you can you can pay for my sin hey i'm gonna go commit fornication tomorrow here's my how much money do i owe you and then they would basically say oh you're exonerated from your sin that you commit in the future literally that's what indulgences were they were paying the sin that's big bucks because you know what i know for all sin it comes short of the glory of god if you can if you can literally get people paying for sin i mean you're there's the sky's the limit there you're just gonna be raking it in talk about since just start that business in vegas sin city i mean you're just gonna get all kinds of money and in fact if you think about it casinos are like that because even just to pay you have to pay to play in a lot of places you have to have an ante just even gamble so you're like paying an indulgence just to get started gambling and sinning and there's all this money attached to what sin and the false religion and the evil there's no new thing under the sun and so when you start preaching the gospel of jesus christ you know what you do you start turning off the gravy train of false religion you start turning off the gravy train of sin and evil and smut and what's going to happen is they're going to end up turning on you they're going to get mad at you for stopping their gains whether that be the catholics islam hinduism any of those things why because it's affecting their pocketbook go to the first timmy chapter number six first timothy chapter number six and there's an important point you have to realize in the bible and i think this is something that we often don't necessarily trace backwards but when it comes to evil in the world there's only one route to all evil what the bible tells us first timothy chapter number six look at verse eight and having food and raiment let us be there with content but they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lust which drown men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they've erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows but thou o man of god flee these things and follow after righteousness godliness faith love patience meekness fight the good fight of faith and we could keep going in this chapter you cannot overemphasize preaching against the love of money the love of money is the root of all evil and i really like this chapter that we're reading in act in acts chapter 19 because we see a strong dichotomy we see those who are willing to burn books and cost themselves millions of dollars potentially and then we see the others who are holding on to their wealth they're holding on to their money and it's going to cause all manner of evil and when it comes to wickedness in this world when it comes to evil when it comes to harm it's always traced back to the money money is the problem people love money and money is at the root of all the evil that you see today it's like why do they destroy the twin towers as an inside job well it doesn't hurt the fact that there was the world's largest gold repository underneath and a large portion of that just happens to go on go missing afterwards it doesn't hurt the fact that they get to enter into the middle east and do all kinds of war exploits which then just puts all this money in the pocketbooks of the military industrial complex which then the military industrial complex puts money in the pocketbook of a lobbyist which then a lobbyist puts money back in the pocketbook of all the politicians and then it's just this recirculating you know just constantly circulating money and money and money and look then they have inflation more money you know any banks more money interest more money all the things that are going on in this world that are just causing so much problems it's all about money my friend it always trace backs to money you say hey i wonder why they want everybody to get a vaccine not because they care about your health it's because of money what it's all about money and power and wealth and just having all that control and look they think through money they have power and control and all these things but really it's a vain it's a vain attempt at getting those things because you'll never have enough you'll never get there it the devil doesn't care about you anyways the devil's never going to hand you over the keys it's the devil that's the god of this world you know and you can be his pawn for a little while but at the end of the day you're never going to have enough you're never going to get that that's why we're supposed to just be content isn't that what it said with food and raiment let us be there with content so you know it's not in that list your curious books okay burn those hey everything else just get rid of don't care about don't worry about look at the point that you're starving to death or the the point that you're freezing to death yeah you need to worry about that you need to be like i need to get some food i need to get some clothing right away i can't just be content uh perishing literally perishing but when you have food and clothing can't you exist anywhere for any reason i mean homeless people seem to do really good and and what do they need food and clothing right i mean as long as they got those two things they can exist in california forever they can exist there until you know it basically falls off in the ocean or whatever it is and at the end of the day that's all you really need now i'm not saying be a homeless jerk or a homeless bum but what i am saying is this we should stop caring about money we should stop caring about the things of this world and only care about spiritual things and when we look at the great men of the bible that did great things they were never chasing money you know paul's not chasing money on his trip and he's not looking to see how many bucks he can get in fact he's kind of doing the opposite in a way because he doesn't even pay himself legitimately he's just working on the side just even pay uh you know his partial bills or whatever he's a tent maker on the side he's having to work his way through and at the end of the day false religion is going to be the exact opposite they just want the money they just want the income gimme gimme gimme and we look at all the churches today and in houston i feel like they all have the same problem the love of money the love of money and it's causing a lot of issues you know it'd be good if churches could just decide that they're not going to love money and as soon as the church starts loving money you're going to see the ministry start to fail start to turn into something that it's not supposed to have all kinds of weird issues creeping into it that's why we have to get rid of the the love of money in our hearts and we have to appreciate the only thing that has real value which is the word of god you know the true riches today and look these things we'll give them give you one for free i mean it's not going to cost you a lot of money you know if you when we burn all the false bibles you know that costs a lot of money you can get a king james bible for a dollar but you know you want to get an id you want to get you know the action bible you want to get that faggotty queer bible he got how much was that thing 15 man it looked like it was expensive i mean some bibles are 30 40 50 bucks i mean you get a scofield reference bible you get a john mcarthur study bible or you get one i mean these things are like 50 bucks apiece and you know when we burn our false bibles back here i guarantee if you looked at the the stock price of those items i mean it was hundreds hundreds probably thousands of dollars all the books that were burning back there and you say oh why would you do that because they're wicked trash because we're here to serve god because we're pure words baptist church we're going to leave the pocketbook out of it and we're going to say we just want the king james 1611 text and you know what instead of selling bibles we give them away for free we're not here to see if we can make our own version of the bible and start selling it like the southern baptist convention does with their home and christian standard bible and with their bookstore called lifeway which notice lifeway is a failure anyways why because it's not biblical and you know what i don't care about selling things or selling goods that's why this church has never sold anything we don't sell stuff we give it away i'm not interested in seeing how much money we can make as a church you know what even if people take all of our money notice we can still show up and have church can't we notice we can still hear the word of god being preached can't we youtube you can still upload for free hey you know they might delete your channel but you just start a new one you know and you have like a hundred subscribers but you know whatever then we gain a few here there and then once you hit like a thousand they're like nuke him again you know and then you're like i'm back all right and you just keep popping up and they just keep you know smashing them down or whatever and it's just a fun game but at the end of the day you know church is us in person anyways you know i'm not trying to see what kind of weird atheists i can reach online or whatever you know nuts to them you know it's about the people that are in the room it's about us coming together it's about the holy spirit being with us it's about jesus christ being in our midst and we need to say nuts to all the money go to luke chapter 16 for a moment luke chapter 16 stop worshiping money today you know stop caring so much about money today it means it's meaningless you know when you get into heaven you're not going to know how much money anybody had on this earth when you're in heaven you won't it's not like oh wow you must have had a lot of money on earth no you won't know no one will know because it doesn't matter it doesn't there's no impact it doesn't matter where you lived it doesn't matter what house you had it doesn't matter what kind of clothes you wore it's not like oh sweet you must have wore the the cool jeans you know back on earth who cares you know none of that stuff matters whatsoever it's vanity vanity of vanity say it the preacher all is vanity you know the thing that matters is going to be how much you serve god what's going to matter is the works that you did for the lord look at luke chapter 16 look at verse 13 verse 13 no servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other he cannot serve god and mammon and the pharisees also were covetous heard all these things and they derided him and he said to them he or they which justify yourselves before men god know with your hearts that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of god and here's the reality you cannot serve both money and god that's what mammon pictures mammon represents money in the bible because what does money get you it's bread right a lot of people even call money bread you know it's kind of a slang term about money and at the end of the day you cannot serve both at some point there's going to be a breaking point for you where you say you know what i'd rather have my money than god or you said rather have god than my money and you know the people that in acts chapter 19 started off pretty good by saying you know what let's just burn all these books what did they say money doesn't matter to us we want god we want to serve the lord and you know what you're going to have a lot of pressure in the future and you're going to have to decide who do you really serve where is your heart really at people say i don't want to keep going to church and serving god and going soul winning and reading my bible and praying no i need to worry about my job right now i need to worry about making money right now i need to worry about my clothes right now i need to worry about my career right now i need to worry about my education right now you know what none of those things matter whatsoever and if you add eternity in mind you would say like i can't miss church i can't miss soul winning i don't want to miss a payment i mean how many of you want to miss a paycheck this this month anybody nobody nobody wanted to miss a paycheck that's weird how many of you want to miss a spiritual paycheck though you know people won't won't just quit on their job i mean you know people in this room all right obviously there's a lot of people that just are lazy in this world today but if you don't want to skip a paycheck what do you do you show up at work because you say i'm not going to miss my paycheck it's like people don't even want to go to work at all people say i hate going to work i despise work i don't even want to go i there's no i know nothing inside me that wants to go what's driving you to go there though your paycheck isn't it because you know if you don't go they won't pay you they'll fire you but you know what the same exists spiritually when you don't serve god guess what you're not getting a spiritual paycheck but people are fine skipping spiritual paychecks but not the physical paycheck and i'm telling you if you had eternity on your mind if you actually considered what's real and what's going to have everlasting value you would say i'd rather skip a whole bunch of physical paychecks and make sure that my spiritual paychecks keep getting checked and keep getting cash and keep going into my 401k up in heaven and you know what i want to get double payment i want my employer to pay the portion and i pay my portion i want it all you know but what kind of person has that kind of a attitude one that walks by faith and not by sight the person that walks by sight is so much more concerned with the physical things that they have in this world rather than the spiritual things that they have in this world and you know when you preach against the love of money it hurts because the flash is screaming no what is this guy saying this guy's is crazy don't listen to him let's have cake you know let's buy a fancy car let's let's live it up let's be like the hollywood celebrities you know you got the devil on the one side and the angel on the other side but at the end of the day you know what it's going to always be a constant war with your flesh and with your spirit and you have to die daily and you have to say no i don't want to serve money i don't really care about money all it gives me is problems anyways i'm just going to lose it all anyways you know i don't like looking at george washington that much anyways or andrew jackson or any of these other presidents you know imagine we're so far removed from them so it's a little bit more palatable but imagine if your bucks were just bill clinton barack obama and joe biden wouldn't you just love looking at that wouldn't you just love all that look george washington was a free mason you really think he was just so much better of a person than these other guys really so much more honorable and maybe some of them were i mean maybe at least some of them knew that they were actually still a person and they knew their first name but at the end of the day i mean they were probably still wicked some of these founding fathers literally wrote their own bible i mean some of these founding fathers were wicked as hell thomas jefferson he literally wrote his own version of the new testament taking out all the miracles of the bible taking out everything that was negative i mean they he would make the joe of his witness blush about how much he didn't believe in hell i mean he was just a freak it was a reprobate and it's crazy i don't want that on my dollar i don't want that on my money i don't want to look at thomas jefferson and be like oh man this is so great i got this god-hating reprobate that i'm worshiping right now that i'm bowing down to it's like oh i don't bow down to diana of the effusions oh yeah how about thomas jefferson how about andrew jackson how about george washington how about abraham lincoln how about sakajawea you know you got your little gold coin a sakajawea coin or whatever who you worshiping now who do you really serve now at the end of the day you know we it's really easy to look at these chapters and be like oh what kind of fools you know they worship raven images you know it's no different than just the the dollar bills you got in your wallet and nowadays you don't even get that satisfaction it's just numbers on a computer screen that are completely meaningless a fiat currency that's completely fake nobody even realizes that we have to accept number 19 i mean who's to say you don't just add numbers on the computer screen what does that even change i mean that's all they do anyways they're just printing money they print money electronically they can just do whatever they want at this point and people just don't even realize it it's all fake it's not real you're chasing the wind when it comes to the money of this world today and you know what those that serve god he's going to make sure you got clothes he's going to make sure you got food but at the end of the day you can't keep take it you can't keep it and inflation will ruin it moth and rust and thieves will break through and steal i mean you can't protect yourself these days no matter how much protection you try to have no matter how many policies you have or whatever insurance or whatever bars or gates or locks or anything that you have today you know what they can still figure out a way to rip you off take advantage of you and you know what i say nuts to it take all that i got so i can get more rewards in heaven just steal it from me because you know god would pay back like double quadruple five times in the bible and i'm thinking like i wish i had more money for you to steal from me i wish i lost more you know like come and take it or or give it away you know because god says you're going to receive a hundred fold in this life in the next and i'm thinking like sweet and you know what you say well i don't have a lot of money to give well what about your percentage of money that you give away because the woman who had two mites who basically gave like two nickels or whatever it was a hundred percent of her income and jesus said that she gave more than they all that sounds pretty cool for her she lived a really poor a really lowly life having almost nothing but she's gonna be filthy rich in heaven maybe it's not filthy but that's just pardon my phraseology she's gonna be loaded in heaven all right i mean she's gonna be walking on the streets of gold and having a huge mansion and we're gonna we're gonna be like there's gonna be this giant house everywhere that everybody can see and we're like who's that and it's like that poor widow woman with the two mites yeah that's her you know she's got the house on the hill right i mean she's the one that we're all looking at people think like oh man i'm not bill gates i don't have all this money in this life or whatever it's meaningless it was all a test anyways the question is how are you doing on the test and you know the more money you have the harder the test gets honestly the less you have the easier it is it's easier to give the two mites than it would be to give millions of dollars than to burn the five million you know dollars worth of books or whatever it is and so if you have riches you know you should be careful where your heart is if you don't chase it don't try to go after it look what it says in verse 28 and when they heard these sayings they were full of wrath so what was the sayings that they were going to take away their money that diana of the fisians might you know no longer be a big deal and they cried out and said great is diana of the fisians greatest mary of the catholics you know great is zeus you know they're just worse they're just so disappointed that they're false god verse 29 and the whole city was filled with confusion yeah because you're worshiping a woman okay and having caught gaius and rusticus men of mastodonia paul's companions and travel they rushed with one accord into the theater isn't it weird all these guys are so into like this woman goddess false guys like what in the world they must have been the guys that would go watch joyce meyer preach too huh verse 30 and when paul would have entered in under the people the disciples suffered him not and certain of the chief of asia which were his friends sent unto him desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theater some therefore cried one thing and some another for the assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together this is just a chaotic scene where they're just people are just screaming and yelling as violent and here's some tips don't get involved don't go running and settle it you know whoever was paul's disciples here did a good job saying like don't get involved in this stay away from this look whenever you're in a situation where people are not interested in hearing the things of god don't try to force the issue don't try to get involved in it you know stay away from it and it's just this confusing mess because look that's all that false religion brings is confusion and a violent dangerous situation says in verse 33 and they drew alexander out of the multitude the jews putting him forward and alexander beckon with the hand and would have made his defense unto the people when they knew that he was a jew all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out greatest this is like the football game or something you know they're just like two hours straight of just screaming for their false god and this is the this is the sad reality of the unsaved is they just don't know their left hand from the right hand you know they just don't even know what up and down is and they they're real excited they're real passionate they're real sincere but you know what they're still going to hell they're still worshiping a false god and don't let sincerity don't let zeal don't let the excitement of you know worshiping a false god draw you away into false religion or into something that's wrong realize that there's a lot of people that are just wrong he says in the bible says in verse 35 and when the town clerk had appeased the people he said he meant of ephysis what man is there that knoweth not out that the city of the ephisians is a worshiper of the great goddess diana and of the image which fell down from jupiter seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against he ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly for ye have brought hither these men which are neither robbers of churches nor yet blasphemers of your goddess wherefore if demetrius and the craftsmen which are with them have a matter against any man the law is open and their deputies let them and plead one another but if you inquire anything concerning other matters it shall be determined in a lawful assembly for we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse and when he had thus spoken he dismissed the assembly so essentially they're trying to take the law in their own hands you know the demetrius has riled up a crowd riled up an angry group of people to try and attack them and hurt them and the town clerk just kind of speaks some common sense of them saying look if this is a real issue let them just take them to the court let's just take them to the law let them handle this civilly let them handle this you know appropriately but what you're doing you guys are gonna get in trouble for doing and you know i think that a couple things can be learned here you know sometimes it makes sense to reason with the unsaved to some degree to just say look you know let's still obey the laws let's still you know be reasonable here you don't want to suffer consequences for attacking or whatever but at the end of the day you know you can't necessarily control the unsaved you can't know what they're going to do but what i noticed throughout the book of acts is that god always makes sure to keep the unsaved at bay and it looks really dangerous and really scary at this point but then just some random guy shows up calms them and it moves on and a lot of times that god uses people like this in the bible he'll use roman soldiers or he'll use gamaliel and some of these people aren't even saved but he just allows these other people to kind of uh to speak up for them to to hold back the tidal wave to try and prevent them from you know being destroyed and so never underestimate god's ability to preserve you or protect you in any situation and he could even allow unsaved people to give you favor or to basically protect you from evil just so as that you the gospel is not destroyed or hurt or harmed or damaged in any way go to luke chapter number 14 go to luke chapter number 14 for a moment and so really you just have to have your faith in god you can't know what's going to happen and it looked really bad at the moment and i say this when it comes to america let's let's try to make a modern application of this okay what would be a modern application of this well i would say right now we're kind of as a country a little bit in the scene where everybody's screaming and yelling and it's confusing and it's really dangerous i mean if you just look at our economy you look at our politics you look at what's going on it's really confusing there's a lot of people that don't know what's going on there's a lot of evil happening it's a really dangerous situation what would be a really stupid idea is to get directly involved in that you know you needed some disciples to say paul just stay away just don't have anything to do with this right now just just walk away from this issue okay and you say well then how is it going to get resolved how am i going to fix it well notice in the story did paul fix it did the disciples fix it did any christian fix it no none of them what happened a random town clerk that's probably not even saved we don't even know he ended up saying like guys this doesn't make sense let's just move on and then it just became a nothing burger and then they just got to move on and it's settled and it's all fixed so that tells me this it's plausible that god could just raise up some town clerk in the united states or some random person it's not saved doesn't have our best interest in mind necessarily but it's just like guys let's just kind of like move on fix things and just kind of just squells the issue and then life just keeps going on and you know what i don't need to be that town clerk i don't need to you know go and campaign for the town clerk i don't need to go vote for the town clerk i don't need to get involved in all the town clerk issues of today or try to settle all of their confusion because yeah they're stupid they're literally screaming great is diana of the athesians you know this makes me think of people standing up like great is the vaccine of pfizer great is the vaccine of moderna great is joe biden great are the celebrities they always know what's right you know it's like you're an idiot you know these people are foolish they're stupid but you know what you can't reason with those people either there's no purpose and me getting involved and trying to consume my life and trying to you know get involved with all these other people and all these other events i can only do so much you can only do so much with your life and instead of getting wrapped up and chasing all the carnal issues of today why don't you just focus on what you can do spiritually and you say well but that means i could maybe lose things carnally right if i don't get involved in all this maybe i could lose my job or lose my position of authority or lose some of my goods or whatever yeah you have to count the costs you have to decide what's really important in this life today and you know what the people that are going to chase all those goods they're probably going to end up losing them anyways they're probably going to get destroyed anyways but look what it says in luke chapter 14 verse 26 if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple and whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple for which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether you have sufficient to finish it less happily after you lay the foundation and is not able to finish it all that behold it begin to make means against him i'm sorry to mock him yes mocking is a thing that happens whenever you make a stupid decision and look it's foolish to say you know what i'm gonna i'm just gonna sell all and i'm gonna serve god and then all of a sudden they change then all of a sudden they're not what they really set out to be you know and it's a really stupid idea and and here's the thing you say well what happens to that guy he gets made fun of he gets made fun of for not actually counting the cost and not really going all the way and and not going full in you know who doesn't get made fun of the guy that's just steadfast the guy that's just rock solid the guy that's willing to put it all on the line and not look back not saying well no if you want to be christ's disciple you have to just stay the course ugly good bad whatever happens you lose your money lose your job you lose whatever you just say you know what i'm not changing the people that change the people that compromise are going to be made fun of and going to be ridiculed and really you know it's for good reason because when you get made fun of you have one or two reactions you fix it or you know you basically just burn you just you just you bite the dust right or whatever it just kind of pushes you a little bit in in the direction you were going to go hey you're going to fix it we give you an opportunity by making fun of you or we just push you down you know and we kick you while you're down a little bit you know and it's like but at the end of the day the the mocking didn't actually hurt you it actually helped you because it gives you an opportunity to realize wow i'm stupid wow that was dumb maybe i should actually fix that you know whenever you're you're like look stupid like maybe you got something on your face you're wearing something ugly or whatever what happens all your friends start laughing at you and you know what that does it gives you an opportunity to fix it because if they weren't laughing at you and making fun of you you wouldn't know you wouldn't know that you're doing something foolish or stupid or looking ugly or we're having some kind of a problem or issue so it's not that them mocking you is the problem you're the problem and you know i'm going to give you a real specific example of this and and you know people might not like that but it is biblical who's someone who didn't really count the cost decides to change on a dime and now he's getting made fun of it's uh grace and fritz of all scripture baptist church now here's something that he did he got let go and fired from his position for preaching against the sodomites preaching against the homos and preaching its fags and getting all like he was screaming and yelling and just beating the pulpit and yelling and just really hardcore which i was thinking like praise the lord this is great this is awesome you know they've got it right front and center on their website how they feel about fags and everything like that guess what now all of a sudden the section that he had against homosexuals on his website or against fags gone why why now after you've already lost everything anyways it's like what what they're gonna fire you from your lawn mowing job or whatever i mean it's like they don't really care they're gonna fire you from your dead-end job now i mean it's like at this point why not just go ahead and embrace it at this point when you already had a huge loss but you know when you when you just you don't continue you don't keep building the tower when you don't have enough to keep going you don't have the stamina you don't have the integrity to just stick with the word of god you know what ends up happening people start making fun of you for it and you say i don't like people that make fun of it well you're the reason that we have an opportunity to make fun of it you know things are funny because they're true and it's not fun to make fun of things that aren't funny like you know the left and democrats try to make jokes all the time and it wasn't for their laugh tracks no one would be laughing it wasn't through their fake audience with the sign saying applaud then they wouldn't have anybody laughing and smiling at their jokes you know and at the end of the day you know if this guy would just have counted the cost and said you know what i'm all in we would never be able to make fun of them you'll be looking at you as a great example it's embarrassing though to start out one way and then completely change on a dime it's embarrassing to have the guy that literally ordained you that literally told your whole church that you should be their pastor and set you up and laid hands on you and prayed over you and as your friend to then turn your back on him and say like i don't know the man you know it's embarrassing when peter says like i know not jesus to the little damsel it wasn't a cool moment it wasn't like good job peter that was great no you make fun of peter you say like peter you a little girl is saying do you know jesus and you said no you say i know not the man i mean it's just like that was stupid peter you could make fun of peter for that there should be a meme of peter you know being afraid of a little girl because that's sad that's pathetic and at the end of the day you know when people aren't going to be steadfast you know it makes christianity look bad you know the last thing we need is more pastors backing down compromising not willing to take a stand because you know when the pastor won't take a stand how are the congregants going to take a stand how are christians going to take a stand and you know what when they don't get called out for being a compromiser for being fake and being lily livered and being a wet noodle then you know what it sends a bad message to all their church members too and a bad message to other christians because they say oh well look at your friend being a compromiser why didn't you say anything about him no i will say something about it because you know what you're not supposed to compromise you're not supposed to quit you're not supposed to stop serving god realizing that you're supposed to sacrifice for other people what kind of a bad example sets up and says you know what this is how i feel about fags but if i get a little bit of pressure i'm going to take it off of the website i'll send through the comments i'll turn my back on the people that you know have loved me and done good unto me you know even if pastor anderson went bad tomorrow i would still at least be able to appreciate him for all the good he's done in my life and and feel sad about it and feel bad about it and not want to just be like i don't want to have anything to do he's such a mean person such a meanie all these people are making fun of me it's like why are they making fun of you though what can you just stop and think for a second and be like maybe what they're saying is true you know maybe people are being mean to me because i deserve it maybe i'm a liar you know and he of course is a liar he lies about me he lies about all kinds of different people go to Philippians chapter 3 his last place of return he said that i had preached a sermon against his wife saying that his wife's hand should be cut off and i'm like that's so stupid because i i did preach you know in the bible where it talks about two men that are spat they have a spat they're they're fighting they're striving with one another it says that if the wife of one of those men goes up and grabs the other man by the secrets that her hands supposed to be cut off and it's like yeah i believe that and in fact if we live in a righteous society i would say that that should still be the law but beyond that law you have principles that can be taught with that in the sense that women shouldn't go and take cheap shots against other men when they're in a spat with their husband you know when it's some kind of a disagreement again we're not putting this setting as like a criminal breaking into your house okay women if a criminal breaks in your house shoot them in the face with a gun okay double tap him all right obviously we're not talking about defending yourself against a rapist or a predator or a criminal breaking in your house but it's like two guys is having an argument or a fight it's not appropriate for the wife to walk in and start taking cheap shots on the other guy so as to protect her husband you know no the husband's supposed to be man enough to be able to take care of himself and defend himself and dana fritz was taking a bunch of cheap shots at my friend pastor erin thompson and so i use that biblical principle to say you know what she should stop from making these railing accusations online and i said her hands should be cut off anyway i said the next breath not literally because i wasn't saying literally i'm saying in the figurative sense just like paul saying these people should be cut off you know it's funny the niv will say that these men should emasculate themselves because they don't understand the difference they don't realize that he was speaking hyperbole and saying look i want them to quit doing it not like literally cutting themselves off or something you know not literally cutting the hand off right i said it's not sharia but then they get up in a book and say oh pastor jonathan so he lied about my wife he said that you know her hand should be cut off boo hoo you liar and he's like i don't like these guys because they always twist my words liar because you twisted mine i didn't no one in the in their right mind would have thought i literally taught her why his wife hand needed to be cut off okay this isn't the japanese game show with chris farley when you miss a question and your hand gets cut off okay that was an inside joke for anybody that's watched that all right it's pretty funny skit philippians chapter number three let's read a few more verses at the end of the day we need to just count the cost and say i'm all in for christianity no turning back i mean isn't that what we sit up and sing i mean what kind of a shame that you literally sing that no turning back and then it's just like oh but i'll delete all the things i believe and hide what i believe and hide all the comments and hide all the videos i can't answer any of the questions that anybody has for me you know i get sick and tired of hearing about these repent of your sins pastors who are offended by people calling them and asking them what they believe there was a controversy where there's a pastor pastor stacy shifflett where he was getting so offended at people calling him and asking what he believes about salvation and i'm sitting here thinking like how do i sign up where people literally just call me and say sirs what must i do to be saved i'm like sign me up i mean if there's one thing a pastor should want is people to ask him what he believes about salvation what kind of a weirdo doesn't want people asking them what they believe about salvation i want to tell everyone what i believe about salvation that's the whole goal of soul winning is we go out and we say hey do you know what i believe about salvation i want to tell you i get mad when they don't want to hear not when they want to hear what kind of bizarre you know who doesn't want to tell you that is a false prophet who doesn't want to tell you believes in a workspace salvation that's who doesn't want to actually tell you that's the kind of person that's afraid of telling people what they believe and that's why you should be afraid of a church that'll hide their doctrinal statement hide what they believe you know does that cult do that the mormons do that manly perry does that apparently now grace and fritz is hiding what he believes about facts what do you believe now do you still believe the saying i mean it's just sick it's stupid it's disgusting it's a shame you know what we're supposed to preach upon the housetops what we believe we're not supposed to hide it under a bushel you know the bible says when assault loses its saltness it's good for nothing but to be trodden under foot of men and at the end of the day you know what i don't care who it is that quits it's a shame to quit it's a shame to be a compromiser it's a shame to backslide you don't have to be my friend until jesus comes but you know what you should be jesus friend you shouldn't be ashamed of christ and his words because he does whosoever's ashamed of me and of my words of him shall i be ashamed you know it's embarrassing it's a shame it's a mockery i don't like you guys spirit well you know what i don't like liars i'd rather have a mean spirit i'd rather be the harshest meanest jerk that tells the truth than to be the sweetest liar than to be the most syrupy sweet kindest gentlest nicest looking sweetest spirit liar i'd rather just be an annoying sounding young whatever you want to call me jerk just inconsiderate harsh truth teller than your syrupy sweet lies why because i've already counted the cost i've already decided you know what i didn't start pure words baptist church to see how much money i can make in fact all it was was a money pit for me when i started the church all it was was just me just writing checks constantly to try and get this church off the ground because it's not how much money i can make and then whenever i went to take steadfast on oh yeah i had to sell my house which was like a negative twenty thousand dollar loss and then on top of that i have to take a 20 pay cut whenever i get up there and i'm constantly getting ripped off by thieves and liars and robbers and having all kinds of evil happen and you know what i say bring it on who cares it's not if i have to go get a job i'll go get a job i'll make tents if i have to but at the end of the day we shouldn't be compromisers we should count the cost we should be steadfast in our hearts we should decide we're going to serve god with our lives i'm sick and tired of people that want to serve god get away from me then don't be my friend all right he's like i don't want to be pastor shelly's friend he might call me out if i quit well then don't be my friend look at philippians chapter number three and look what paul's opinion is verse number six concerning zeal persecuting the church touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless what things were gained to me those i counted loss for christ yay doubtless and i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ jesus my lord for whom i have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done that i may win christ look at paul's attitude hey it's all done hey i gave it all up hey i don't want any of it just get rid of all of it none i want none of it i just want christ i just want the word of god i just want people to get saved i just want the christianity to be good in the whole world nuts to this world nuts it all sucks anyways it's all going downhill houston sucks all of a sudden and it's not all of a sudden look i mean hurricanes come through and it just runs all of our bridges and all of our roadways and it just deteriorates everything there's trash everywhere there's more homeless people by the second and you know who's cleaning it up no one when do they fix any of the roads over here they just get worse and worse and worse and you look at all the apartment complexes we go to they get worse every year more deterioration no the pools aren't being filled up the pools are just like the swamp creature area and there's more there's more bugs and mosquitoes and cockroaches everywhere this building when's the last time the the business owner put more money into the building into the property property owners aren't putting any money into the buildings anymore i mean america is literally on fire burning and people are so afraid of losing it it's like you lost it it's gone it's being destroyed it doesn't matter what matters is the word of god what matters is christianity and you say oh but if you preach it without fags people will get mad okay well let's make a dvd about it and hand it out to everyone i'm not afraid you know we're not supposed to be afraid of this world we're supposed to be fearing god and it makes me sick when i see people not afraid of god they're supposed to be the man of god that are supposed to be servants of god that are supposed to be the children of god you know what it's gross when you watch little kids disrespect their parents isn't it isn't it gross when you see kids they're just running around screaming and yelling and dad says stop running and they're like yeah yeah just do whatever i want you know that tells me they don't fear they don't fear dad and it's embarrassing it's kind of you're like whoa you know you ever seen a kid mouth off to their mom or dad it's like it's horrible looking you're just like oh that's terrible but then we have christians today who don't fear god they just lie and they rail and they steal and they compromise and they're just saying to god and you know what god is going to rain on them you're going to rain on their parade we ought to fear god today of what he can do to us and we ought to start counting the cost so that when we uh you know go through difficult times we're already prepared and that we don't fold like a deck of cards we don't fold like a compromiser like a wet noodle and everybody makes fun of us you know i'm in it to win it i like and i preached this up in uh fort worth but i like the fact that whenever i started this church before i started you know brother samson called me and you know what he said to me he's like i'm a lifer and i'm like sweet but you know what as much as i love brother samson and he's a great person i hope i always tell that story in a positive light because as soon as he quits that story it doesn't it doesn't sound as cool does it it's really cool right now it'll be cool whenever he dies serving god and we're like this guy was a lifer you know what it's really stupid to say things like that if you don't mean them just go ahead and meet him so go ahead and just decide in your heart hey i want to serve god you know there's people that came to this church at the very beginning i remember this is one guy this is this is the one that we mocked i had a guy come up to me the first service pure words baptist church we have our service he's like i'm so excited about this church he's like i'm going to every soul winning every soul winning time i'm coming to every single service i'm going to every marathon i'm going to every event i'm so excited never saw him again i'm like okay and you know at this point when people tell me things like that i'm just kind of like sure buddy you know cool it doesn't matter if you say it what matters is you know i don't care if you told me that or not you don't need to tell me that in fact you probably shouldn't but you should do it and if you do say it you really should do it then because it's better not to meet some kind of an oath or a promise or a swear and then not to do it than to have you know just basically kept your mouth shut let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father so much for this chapter for our church i pray that we wouldn't uh we wouldn't take christianity lightly thanks for the example of the christians in the book of acts where they were willing to just burn books they were just willing to just burn it all down and just say you know what nothing in this world matters except for christ and we see examples of paul who says you know what i count it all done the only thing that matters is christ and realizing that's going to make a lot of people mad it's going to make a lot of people angry all the false religion they can't understand because they only care about money today but i pray that god's people would not be infected with the love of money today but rather they would just say nuts to it they would say it doesn't matter that they would fight the good fight of faith that they would flee those things that they would just pursue christ that they would consider their life uh you know their works journey more about a spiritual paycheck than a physical paycheck and that you would encourage and strengthen our hearts that as we go through hard times that we've already counted the cost and we're just going to continue to endure to the bitter end and in jesus name we pray amen for our last song psalm 67 all right psalm 67 in your white handout or alternatively in your bible psalm 67 psalm number 67 so let's sing god be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us that thy way may be known upon earth by saving up among all nations let the people praise thee oh god let all the people praise thee oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy for thou shall judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth the nations upon earth say love let the people praise thee oh god let all the people praise thee oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy then shall the earth yield her in peace and god even our own god shall bless us god shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him let the people praise thee oh god let all the people praise thee oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy amen with that you are dismissed have a safe night you