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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Good morning. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could find your seats and grab your song book. Let's turn our hymnals to song 175, It's Just Like His Great Love. Song 175, It's Just Like His Great Love. Song 175, It's Just Like His Great Love. 🎵A friend I have called Jesus🎵 🎵Whose love is strong and true🎵 and yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away It's just like Jesus to keep me name by name It's just like Jesus all along the way It's just like his grave, the heart Song 175 on the second Sometimes the clouds of trouble We dim the sky above I cannot see my Savior's face I doubt His wondrous love But He, from Heaven's mercy, See with me only God Himself In pity first the clouds be free And shows me He is there It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away It's just like Jesus to keep me name by name It's just like Jesus all along the way It's just like His great love When sorrows, clouds, are take me And break them on my head When life seems worse than useless When I'm never home I take a grief to Jesus then Or do I go in hurt? For help we hope He gives and cheers Like sunshine after rain It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away It's just like Jesus to keep me name by name It's just like Jesus all along the way It's just like His great love Oh, I could sing forever Of Jesus' love behind Of all His fair and tenderness For this poor life of mine His love is in and over all And when it moves away When Jesus whispers peace, be still And rolls the clouds away It's just like Jesus to roll the clouds away It's just like Jesus to keep me name by name It's just like Jesus all along the way It's just like His great love Raise your hand. Usher will bring you one. There should be a couple extra by the printer back there, guys. I'd rather have Jesus Give you a second to pass those out. I'd rather have Jesus. On the first. I'd rather have Jesus Than silver or gold I'd rather be His Than have riches untold I'd rather have Jesus Than houses or land I'd rather be led By His welfare's name And to be the king Of the best of me For the elven sins this way I'd rather have Jesus Than anything His world of course today I'd rather have Jesus Than lands of cause I'd rather be faithful To His dear cause I'd rather have Jesus Than worldwide fame I'd rather be true To His holy name And to be the king Of the best of me For the elven sins this way I'd rather have Jesus Than anything His world of course today He's fair and lily But rare is blue He's sweeter than money From out of the cold He's all that my hunger Things fair and neat I'd rather have Jesus Than land and peace And to be the king Of the best of me For the elven sins this way I'd rather have Jesus Than anything His world of course today Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't already get a bulletin, just slip of your hand real quick. And we can have one of our ushers come by, get you guys a bulletin. There on the front we have Psalm 148 verse 13. We're getting really close to finishing this. And a tip or a trick to try and memorize this, you could always sing the psalm. You know, that sometimes helps you with memorization. And we did sing that Wednesday. And hopefully we'll incorporate that into our music more often. It's a really good tune. I really enjoy it. And also the lyrics are great. On the inside we have our service and soul winning times. Also we have our church stats down below. On the right we have a list of expecting ladies. Please keep all of them in your prayers. We also have a separate prayer list just for any other requests. And we have several people there that are asking for other prayers. If you have anything specific that you want to add or throughout the week, you can just email that to us. Or you can fill out a communication card and slip that into our offering plate. And we'll make sure to try and get that incorporated. Just make sure to indicate if it's a public or private prayer request. Otherwise we just assume it's public. So if you don't tell us real specifically. On the back, this is a new announcement. We have a sign up sheet on the cabinet. But we're going to do another church yearbook. And we've done one about 18 months, two years ago. Somewhere in that time frame. And it turned out really nice. And Miss Lucy is so gracious. She's going to help us do a lot of the pictures. But we do need you to sign up. And we want everyone to participate. Okay? Don't be shy. Even this young single guys and everybody would like everybody to participate. So there is a sign up sheet over here on the table. And basically starting next Sunday, we'll have times where you can sign up for. It'll be 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after each service for the following two weeks. So essentially, you know, starting – since we have 1030 morning service, at 10 a.m. you can show up here and there's five minute time slots. So it's 10, 1005, 1010, 1015. So you need to try and be here 10 minutes before your time to take a picture. Just to make sure you're ready, your kids are there and everything like that. And we'll try to take pictures. We'll also want to take baby pictures. So we'll take a family portrait and then we'll also take baby pictures. And we're going to have those available. We'll give you a copy of that as well as we're going to have just a complete church yearbook with everybody's photo that we give to all the members. And we might hold off ordering them until the end of the year just because we got a couple babies, you know, that we want to get thrown in there. But hopefully we'll try to get them, you know, ordered by the end of the year and get them early 2022. But we can give everybody's photos to them sooner. So it's just a nice way to get a nice photo. We're going to be taking them in my office. And we had put up, brother Jason helped us put up a really nice wood wall background. So you can, it looks pretty similar to this, it's a little bit different. But just so you know, all you ladies that care about how you coordinate with the wall and colors and all that, I don't know. But essentially it'll be kind of a nice wood background. If you really need to, you can take a look at it. Just let me know and I'll let you take a peek of what that's going to look like. But we will have one week of just kind of makeup if for some reason you miss. But if you show up late, your time slot will be forfeited to the next group that's ready. And you'll just have to wait to be at the back of the line. So like if you're at 10.05 and you show up at 10.15, you're going to be pushed to the back of the line if time allows. Otherwise you'd have to go to a makeup day. If you show up late for the morning and you don't get your picture, you can go to the end of the line of that day, the same day maybe, if time allows or a slot's open for somebody else. But you can't, you know, push your way into someone else's time slot because you're late. You know, bad management on your part is not a crisis on my part, okay? So that's kind of a typical quote people put out there. But I'm really excited about this. I think it's going to be really nice and hopefully we can also take a church picture. And I'm hoping to make kind of a combined yearbook this year and actually throw in peer words too. So we'll just kind of have like a steadfast peer words yearbook and we'll try to get pictures of all of our churches. And I'm really excited about it. So down below, we have a chili cook-off this evening. So you're almost there. You've almost made it. You've almost arrived. You just have to stick it out a little bit longer. And like Brother Dylan said, instead of worshipping the devil and demons and having people, witches and warlocks come knock on your door tonight, we like to provide an alternative where you can enjoy good food and fellowship and have fun. And we're going to have that immediately following our evening service. So you don't even have to necessarily go anywhere. If you are interested in entering your chili into the competition tonight, immediately following the service and all the announcements and everything like that, I'll give another instruction. But you need to go see my wife and she'll get you a number for your chili so that way we have all that designated. And unfortunately, my wife will have to do all the competition stuff first before you can eat. So you can't just run over there and start eating. You'll have to wait just a minute for the competition part to get set up, the judges to get all their chilis, and then it'll be a free for all. But you can sit there and talk as much as you want. And then also if you do have a chili and you're able to bring a ladle or an extra, just bring that just because we probably don't have enough extra ladles at the church. And that will just help with service of the chili for everybody. I think that's pretty much all I have for announcements there. We are going to be awarding a first, second, and third place. So if you want a really nice prize, you're going to enter. And I'm sure there's going to be some stiff competition, so I'm excited about this. We also need to get a few judges. In order to judge, you have to be 16 or older. And you have to have no family relation to anybody that entered a chili. So it can't be your brother, sister, mom, dad, or whatever. If it's like a cousin, that's okay. We're not Kentucky here or whatever. Or maybe we are. That's not your family enough. But you can interpret that however you want. And then also just a couple other quick announcements. We have November 13th, our Oklahoma City Soul Waning Marathon. December 9th through the 11th, we have the Brownsville-Madam Morris Soul Waning Marathon. We have sign-up sheets for those as well. And then we also have a New Year's Eve party that's going to be happening December 31st. We also are going to do our Christmas caroling again this year. I need to put that in the bulletin when I get the exact date of what night we're going to do that. So we have a lot of other great events that you can look forward to. We'll have a dessert fellowship for our Thanksgiving services as well. We'll try to add that into the bulletin. But please, please, please make sure to sign up for the yearbook photos. So, you know, do it. Because we don't want to go the first week and no one signed up. And then all of a sudden we get pushed back and whatever. So we want to be really gracious to Miss Lucy and her time. And be respectful and make sure. Because if everybody signs up appropriately, we should be able to get through it in the first two weeks, no problem. So I do have a couple other quick private announcements I want to make. And then we'll move on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In addition to celebrating God's love today, we're also going to celebrate all aspects of God. We love all aspects of God at Steadfast Baptist Church. So turn your Bibles or your white handouts to Psalm 139. And this is not lyrics that Pastor Shelley wrote or that Pastor Anderson wrote or some other hate preacher wrote. This is the Word of God that we're going to be singing. Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Psalm 139. Psalm 139. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to 2 Kings, Chapter 4. 2 Kings, Chapter 4. 2 Kings, Chapter 4. The Bible reads, Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto with my two sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil. And she said, Go, borrow the vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her, and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more, and the oil stayed. Then she came and told the man of God, and he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. And it fell in a day that Elisha passed to Shunem, where it was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall, and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick. And it shall be when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither. And it fell on a day that he came thither, and he turned into the chamber and lay there. And he said to Gehazi his servant, Call this Shunemite. And when he had called her, she stood before him. And he said unto him, Say now unto her, Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care. What is to be done for thee? Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or to be captain of the host? And she answered, I dwell among mine own people. And he said, What then is to be done for her? And Gehazi answered, Verily she hath no child, and her husband is old. And he said, Call her. And when he had called her, she stood in the door. And he said, About this season, according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son. And she said, Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not lie unto thine handmaid. And the woman conceived, and bare a son at that season that Elisha had sent unto her, according to the time of life. And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that he went out to his father, to the reapers. And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died. And she went up, and laid on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath. And she said, It shall be well. Then she saddled an ass, and said to her servant, Drive, and go forward. Slack not thy writing for me, except thy bid thee. So she went, and came unto the man of God to Mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite. Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet. But Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone, for her soul is vexed within her, and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord? Did I not say, Do not deceive me? And he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way. If thou meet any man, salute him not, and if any salute thee, answer him not again, and lay my staff upon the face of the child. And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose and followed her. And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awake. And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands. And he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him. And the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunammite. So he called her, and when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went. And Elisha came again to Gilgal, and there was a dirth in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. And he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds as lapful, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage, for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat, and it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot, and they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal, and he cast it into the pot, and he said, Pour out for the people that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot. And there came a man from Baal-Shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? And he said, Give the people that they may eat. For thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the morning service, and also for our pastor. I pray that you fill him with your spirit, and help him to preach his sermon for us, give him clarity of mind, and also help us to pay close attention to the message, so that we can listen, learn, and apply it to our lives. And I pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Look at verse thirty-eight, again where the Bible reads, and it says, And Elijah came again to Gilgal. There was a dearth in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. And he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot and seed pottage for the sons of the prophets. One went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full. He came and shred them into the pot of pottage, but they knew them not. And they poured out for the men to eat, and it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. And he said, Then bring meal, and he cast it into the pot, and said, Pour out for the people that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot. Now, the title of my sermon is actually coming from this short little story we have here in 2 Kings chapter number four. And the phrase that I want to point out is verse 40, where it says there is death in the pot. And the title of my sermon this morning is Death in the Pot. Death in the Pot. And, you know, what's really cool about reading the entire chapter before we get preaching, is if you're really kind of paying attention, this whole chapter is like a little mini preview of what Jesus Christ is going to be like in all the gospels. Where he's going around, and he's preaching, and he's healing people, and he's performing miracles, and he's raising people from the dead. And we see all these incredible things. He's feeding people, a great multitude of people, just from a few little pieces of bread here. That reminds us of somebody, right? Jesus Christ. And that's because Elisha is picturing Jesus Christ. All the prophets picture Jesus Christ in certain aspects of his life, death, burial, resurrection. All manner of the gospel, and all manner of Jesus Christ. The prophets picture one small slice, or one little piece of Christ, and we have to fit them all together in the gospels to really get a full picture of who Jesus is. And this passage is no different. This little story here not only points to things that Jesus Christ did, but then we can extrapolate from that and gain a lot of great doctrine from this short little story here. But let's pay attention to the elements that are introduced in this story. It talks about them creating a pottage. So they're making a dinner, a supper, some kind of a meal. And in order to accommodate this meal, some of the people go out and they're gathering herbs, but they end up finding a wild vine. And they end up gathering wild gourds of this vine. So that's basically some kind of a vegetable, fruit, just the produce coming from this wild vine. And essentially those wild gourds are introducing death into this meal, into this food, into this pottage, as it were. So what does this kind of picture, what does this kind of symbolize here, and what fixes it? Well, they introduce meal into the pottage, and that fixes it. But notice that the group that they're feeding is who? They're feeding the sons of the prophets. This is kind of a picture of preachers, of people that would preach the word of God. And I think probably the most apical or the most primary interpretation of this passage, in my mind, is the food substance that preachers are feeding people with. Because we kind of look at this pottage as they're feeding people, and that's an important job as a pastor, as an evangelist, as a missionary, as a deacon, whoever it is that's a person in a position of leadership in the ministry of God's word is to deliver the word, is to feed the people. Jesus said unto Peter, feed my sheep, feed my lambs. That's the whole purpose of being a pastor, is to feed the flock. The shepherd takes the flock to green pastures so they can eat, and they can basically grow, and they can be well-nourished, and they can be satisfied. And so feeding is a very important aspect of the word of God. And when it comes to a preacher, they're supposed to feed you the word of God. So what would the wild gourd and what would the wild vine represent? Well, this would represent information that's not coming from the word of God. Go to Ephesians chapter number two for a moment, go to Ephesians chapter number two. Notice the word wild. What does wild mean? Well, wild can have a lot of different meanings according to the dictionary, but if we just kind of genuinely think of the word wild, what do you think of? Someone that's untamed. Something that's untamed. Something that's unruly. Something that has no boundaries. Something that's not being subject to any kind of dominion. When we think of a wild animal, what are we thinking? It has no owner. There's no one that's basically boxing it in. It's not an offense anywhere necessarily. So it's without boundaries, it's basically untamed, it's just kind of doing whatever it wants, it's not subject to anyone, it's not submissive to anything. That would be an animal, same way when it comes to gourds, meaning that a farmer didn't till up ground, he didn't plant good seed, he didn't water it, he didn't strap it to some kind of wood post or something and he's trying to trim it or prune it or take care of it. It just grew on its own. It has no master, it has no boss, it's just doing whatever it wants and that often really is represented also in mankind. Look at Ephesians 2 verse 1. And you had the quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Now go if you went to Romans chapter 11. I read you that to help you realize that when you were unsaved, when you did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you were wild. Meaning what? You didn't have any ruler, you didn't have any master, you're just doing whatever you want and you're described as a child of disobedience. Now when someone says, hey, you have a wild child, what does that typically mean? It means that they're not well behaved, doesn't it? It means that the parents aren't, you know, chastising them or they're uncontrollable or they don't listen, they don't pay attention or anything like that. And really that's kind of where we're getting this idea of what the word wild means. Look what it says in Romans chapter 11, I'm sorry, Romans chapter 11 verse 24. For if thou were cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and were graft contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted in their own olive tree? So the Bible uses the word wild to describe Gentiles versus Jews and basically showing that the Jews were under the law, they're the children of God, theoretically, and those that are not are wild. Okay, so all I'm doing is I'm just setting a definition of the word wild here for a moment, okay? Don't go into Job chapter 39, Job chapter number 39. You look up in the dictionary, wild can be described as untamed, no boundaries, not subject, not submissive, you know. So we look at this vine, it's a wild vine, nobody knows where it's coming from, how did it grow, and the fruit of this vine is also going to be wild. It's wild gourds, okay? So you have a wild vine, you're going to have a wild fruit, you're going to have a wild gourd. Look what the Bible says in Job 39 verse 5. Who hath sent out the wild ass free, or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? So notice he's saying, how did you let something that was wild go free? It was already free. It was already doing whatever it wanted. Okay, so we've looked at multiple contexts in the Bible of where something's either to be described as wild or the word wild is used. What is it kind of referencing? Just untamed, okay? So what does the meal represent? Go to Genesis chapter 18 for a moment, go to Genesis chapter number 18. And I'm just trying to set some definition, set a little bit of foundation, and then we're going to really kind of apply some of these principles here once we kind of slow down and pay attention to what the Bible is teaching here. But meal is an older word. Today, we think of the word flour, okay? When we hear the word meal, we think of eating like a whole course of food. Like, you know, it could be all manner of items of food that we'd be eating, grapes, fruit, produce, meat. You just say it's meal time and you just assume that it's just anything that you're going to eat. Now the reason why that became so common is because most people throughout history, their meal time consisted of bread. Like, it's just some form or fashion of bread or cake or just some wheat-based product. That's why it just became meal time because that's what you're eating. You know, it's bread for lunch, breakfast, and dinner, and you know, that's just kind of life. So it becomes synonymous. Here's a word like that, Kleenex. Kleenex is a brand of a product of tissue. But it was just pretty much just so common that when people want a tissue, they say Kleenex regardless of the brand, right? Because it just became so commonplace. So the word meal became so commonplace with eating that it just became meal time whether you ate bread or not. You know, it isn't like paleo or something, or keto or something, they don't even eat bread or whatever. But they would still say they're eating a meal. But in the Bible, the word meal is going to be synonymous with flour. Now look what it says in Genesis 18 verse 6. And Abraham hasted into the tent unto Sarah and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. Notice how the Bible is describing this meal. Saying it's fine, meaning that it was what? It's already been ground up. So how do you make bread? You grow wheat, and then you gather the wheat, and then you have to separate the wheat from the chaff, and you get the grain from the wheat. And then that grain, which is just little kernels or whatever, will get ground up in some way. That ground up grain is meal. It's flour, essentially. And it could be a varying level of coarseness or in that process of being ground up. Notice this is being described as very fine meal. So this is what you would expect when you go to the grocery store. You get all purpose flour. Or you could get it, and it could be all manner of grains. Corn meal, barley meal, all different kinds of meal, essentially. That's what we're kind of talking about here. And that's what then you would make these products. Cake, bread, anything that's basically wheat based. Even pastas. A lot of the things that we eat today that are the primary substance of our meal are coming from wheat. Or some variation thereof. Now go to Numbers chapter 11, Numbers chapter number 11. So let me kind of give you an application of this parable. We have a pot, and we're going to feed some people. And we're talking about the sons of the prophets. So if a son of the prophet is going to feed people, or if you have prophets here preparing for the sons of the prophets, or basically the people that they're feeding, what does that kind of look like? To me that looks like preaching the word of God. Or a sermon. And here's my first application is that the pottage is a sermon. And in order to make sure you have a good sermon, you have to have meal in the sermon. And if you only put wild gourds into that sermon, you could end up having death in that sermon. You could end up having something really crazy put into that sermon. And what does the wild gourd represent? This represents the world's philosophies on life. And when it comes to preaching today, we have churches galore that are feeding people wild gourds. We have churches today where people are getting all their information from a wild vine. And you say, what's the wild vine? Anything that's not the Bible. Anything. You say, oh, like really bad philosophies. No, anything. All the stuff that's coming from not the Bible, you know it not. And think about Jesus' words when he's talking about my sheep hear my voice and they know not the voice of a what? Stranger. They don't know it. Meaning what? That we're not supposed to care about all these other voices in the world, all the other information, all the other philosophies that are out there. Because while it could be good or you don't really know, you're taking a risk. You're taking a chance when you base your life on information that's not coming from the Bible. And oftentimes, it contains death in it. Now, let me give you some real specific examples because I don't like to be vague. Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey, and look, I'm going to give you examples that people like, not ones that we're all in agreement on. Dave Ramsey, while some of the information he gives is biblical, some of the information he says is right, he's also got a lot of wild gourds in his teaching and his instruction. And I'm going to say something, his goal, his stated goal is for people to be wealthy. Is to teach you how to be wealthy. That is his stated goal. Now, the Bible does not teach that. That is a wild gourd. The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. Why would I want to try and strive for something that the Bible is saying be aware of? Like, don't strive for this. You know, the Bible doesn't tell you, labor not to be rich is what the Bible just literally plainly states. That's in direct violation of his principle, main principle, okay? And he's also very ecumenical because what's his goal? Making money. So then what does he do? He tries to sell all of his material to as many churches, as many ministries, many parachurch ministries. He wants any and everyone to listen. Hormans, Jehovah's Witnesses, whatever. So he's never going to say anything that offends anybody under the umbrella of Christianity. In fact, that wasn't enough money for him so he tries to brand himself to the whole world too. Because look, lots of people that are unsaved that aren't even claiming to be Christian like Dave Ramsey. Now that's weird. When unsaved people like you in your ministry, you're doing something wrong. It's just that simple. It's just that plain, you know, well unto you and all men shall speak well of you. Or so do their fathers and the false prophets. Why is this guy on every radio show? Why is he invited to all these churches? Why do so many unsaved people love this guy's principle? Because he's teaching them how to make lots of money. And of course that's what the world wants. That's a worldly philosophy and it's adding debt into the pot. Here's another person that's a wild vine that's producing wild gourds. Alex Jones. Now look, just because these individuals say things that are true at times, just because some of the things that they say are right at times, you can't just say, well, you know what, this little gourd, some of it's good. Because if it has some poison in it, that'll kill you. You know, if it's 99% water and 1% arsenic, it's still not drinkable. You know, you don't want to have any of this lemon. And look, what is Alex Jones all about, just conspiracy in general? And look, there's plenty, like Alex Jones is saying that we need to like, you know, just transcend with God and be like one with the universe and the spirit or whatever. The guy's not safe. Why do I want to know what he has to think about spiritual matters or life in general? Look, he's a wild vine producing wild gourds. And when you're just bringing Alex Jones into your church and your sermons are just an Alex Jones remake, you're just warming up in the microwave Alex Jones sermon that he preached last night, you're introducing death in the pot. You know, God's people, hey, you can go listen to Alex Jones for all day. You don't come to church to hear Alex Jones re-microwave or to hear Dave Ramsey warmed over again. No, you're supposed to come here to hear the word of God being preached, okay? How about Tucker Carlson, Episcopalian? Probably not saved. I mean, I would say he's definitely not saved, but I don't know for sure. But most everybody that goes to one of these churches is just not saved. They're not trusting in the finished work of Christ alone for their salvation, okay? And if someone was in that church and believed that, they would be the exception, not the rule, okay? And the thing is, Tucker Carlson, a lot of the stuff he says, I think is great. It makes a lot of sense. But here's the problem. You start taking their philosophies and you start eating their gourds and pretty soon he gives you a bad gourd. He mixes in some kind of a death gourd in that whole lump and it's not trustworthy. Sean Hannity, he's way worse than Tucker Carlson in my opinion, okay? This guy, I think he did an interview with Caitlyn Jenner, calling it Caitlyn, calling it a girl, using female pronouns. Like, what person 50 years ago could you have sat down and said, hey, the popular news acres are going to go on national television and talk to men and call them women. They would be like, I don't believe you. There's going to be men in dresses on television and men are going to actually believe that they're women and claim that they're women. That's death in the pot. It's just we've been so brainwashed and so desensitized as a culture, as a nation, to start thinking those things are normal, to start thinking that that's somehow reality or something, or that it's acceptable. Look, I'm never going to use the right pronoun, okay? I mean, at least sometimes they use the word they and that might be accurate considering how many demons they have inside of them. But outside of the word they, all their other, I'm not going to use a he for a she or a she for a he. Not going to do it. I'm not stupid. I'm not a fool. I'm not an imbecile this morning and God doesn't believe it. I don't care what I attach to my body. I could go and attach 100 tree limbs to my body and I'm not a tree. And I don't care what body part. Look, if I cut off Ryan's arm and I attach it to me, I'm not Ryan. I didn't change, okay? If I cut off your hair and I put it on my face, I'm not you. Okay? And no matter what you do to your body, you're either a man or you're a woman from birth. Actually before birth, conception. God already decided all of that, okay? It's not for you to decide what you are. I don't get to decide that I'm Shaquille O'Neal. Well, I decided that I'm the President of the United States all of a sudden. No, I don't get to decide things that aren't true, okay? And just make them up and force everybody else to believe like I believe. The only people that are shoving their personal beliefs down everybody's throat are these LGBTQ. That's who's doing it. How about this person? Ben Shapiro. Dude, this guy is death in the past. This guy is a Christ-rejecting Jew. Like, what else do you need? Done. Like at that point, well, yeah, but he thinks men are men. Wow. Good job. I don't even know he actually believes that. He's been caught hot-miking, you know, pandering the transgender community and all this kind of nonsense. Ben Shapiro is not somebody that I'm going to take all of his sermon points when he goes and does little debates and bring them in and preach them to God's people. David Icke. The guy that literally claimed to be Jesus. Like, I'm trying to think of like the escalating level here, okay? We have like bad Christians, then we have unsaved Jews, then we have guys claiming to be the Messiah. Like at what level do you say this person is a bad source of information? Like I already had it unsaved, okay? And it's even before that too. Someone that's even saved that's just like producing a lot of bad fruit, I don't want to listen to them either. But it's like bad saved people, unsaved people, other religions, Jews, David Icke. Like you can't really get worse. What's worse than a guy claiming to be Jesus? That is the ultimate blasphemy. The Bible says it's the abomination, you know, the worst abomination ever. I mean the Antichrist going in the holy place, calling himself God, it's the worst sin ever. And David Icke is saying, let's put him in our film. Let's interview the guy. Let's bring his talking points into my sermon. That's death in the pot, my friend. How can you have fellowship with Belial here? And people are so insane they think like, well, I know he claimed to be the Messiah but he makes some good points. Well, I know the devil is the devil but he makes some good points every once in a while. No, he doesn't. No, I don't care what he believes. I don't care what he thinks. I don't want to know what he thinks about the future. The guy is full of devils, okay? How about the great debaters of our time? People that are championing the faith, the Christian apologists, Michael Brown, James White, David Wood, William Lane Craig. They're so good. They debate atheists. And look, I've been in churches where they say, you know what, we're going to do a long series on Christian apologetics. And we're going to bring all these apologists into our church and they're going to teach you how to debate atheists. That's a wild gourd. Where does the Bible say debate atheists? The Bible calls them fools. The Bible says you have nothing to do with them. A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. Where does that fit in with your Christian apologetics? It just doesn't. You know, when you perceive in the lips of him no knowledge, you're supposed to go away from, go from the presence of a foolish man when they'll perceive us in him, not the lips of knowledge, what the Bible says. Go away from the presence. It doesn't even say like, well, let's debate them. No, go away from them. Get away from the heretics. Get away from the idiots. Get away from the fools. Have nothing to do with them. How much bad junk do you want your food? None. So why would you want bad philosophies? Look, we eat spiritually every day. You flip on the television. Let me tell you what you're doing. You're eating spiritually. You flip on the radio. You flip on, you know, social media. You flip on all this. You're just spoon feeding whatever they're giving you, and it's the world's philosophies, and you know what? A lot of it has death in the pot. Now, say, well, how do I fix this? Sounds like we need to go get a commune somewhere and get away from the world. You just think you can't get away from it. That's why when I name all these names, most of you know who I'm talking about. You know who Ben Shapiro is. You know these Alex Jones. And I'm not telling you to just get away from the world and never check the news or do whatever. But you know what? If that's your only diet, you're in severe danger. You have to get some meal in your life to fix the pot. And what's that meal? Well, look at Numbers chapter 11 verse 6. But now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes. And the manna was as coriander seed and the color thereof as the color of bedelim. And the people went out and gathered it and ground it in meals and beat it in a mortar and baked it in pans and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. So the Bible says when the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, they had to collect this thing called manna, which is angel's food. It's basically how they're interpreting this. And they would gather this crop and they would get the grain and they would beat it in the mortar. And then they would be basically what? Meal or flour as it were. And they would use that to then produce their bread for the day. Now Jesus quotes this and talks about this in the New Testament. And he makes it abundantly clear that the manna from heaven is him. It's the word of God. And that they were supposed to gather it every single day to live. And he says that man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God. Meaning what? That we're supposed to eat spiritually every single day just like we eat physically every single day. And more important than your physical meals are your spiritual meals. And that spiritual meal is the word of God. And when you go out in this world and you have the great pot of all these vain philosophies and weird stuff. You know what fixes that is putting some meal into that pot. And then the Bible says that there's no harm. Meaning when I know, oh, David Icke's a Christ rejecter. David Icke claimed to be the Lord Jesus Christ, okay, in the flesh. God in the flesh. Then anything he says I just reject it. It bounces off of me. What if I didn't know that? What if I was ignorant of those scriptures? What if I was ignorant of false Christs and all this? Well then his damage could come into me. And it could start affecting me and it could start hurting me and it could kill me. Literally. So that's why it's important to put some meal. And when I'm talking about this I'm talking about how about a sermon? You know some people forsake church today. But you know what? You're getting sermons every single day of your life. You need to come to a church where you get some meal. Where you get a sermon with meal in it. Let's put some meal into your life so that you don't have the death that's coming from the world. Go to Romans chapter 8 for a moment. Go to Romans chapter 8. Now how do you get meal again? You ate the wheat, you beat it, you grind it up. What does that look like? Well, I think it's been well developed. It's been processed, right? And a good sermon, someone's going to prepare a good sermon. What they're going to do is they're going to take the wheat and they're going to gather it. And then they're going to do what? They're going to process it. They're going to sit there and they're going to grind on it. What is this word in the Bible? It's called meditation. You're supposed to meditate on the word of God. You're supposed to think about the word of God. You're supposed to allow that to process and develop. And to get finely ground up to where it's really well prepared. So that then you can produce a really great product. You can't go straight from grain to bread. If you want to feed people bread, you have to grind up those grains. You have to get that really fine meal. And the more fine the meal is, the better the bread's going to be. Typically, who likes Texas Roadhouse? I like Texas Roadhouse. Why do you like Texas Roadhouse? Let me explain this to you. Because the rolls are excellent. And you say, why are the rolls excellent? Because they're so buttery soft. I mean, isn't the texture, I mean, it's just silky smooth. It's so soft and it just tastes so good. And it's like, there's other restaurants, you know what they serve? Cornbread. Now, I love cornbread. Okay, and I'm not against cornbread. But cornbread's a more coarse texture. And people prefer the softer breads. You know, even when we go to Cheesecake Factory, they have the white bread and they have the brown bread. The brown bread's soft, delicate. The white bread's coarse and hard. You know what everybody prefers typically? The brown bread. Why? Just because it's a little bit nicer in general. It's more desirable. You know, it tastes better. So you have that fine meal. So here's the thing. The preacher that sits there and just meditates on the word of God and just keeps grinding it down and then grinding it down and then just meditating on it more and just getting it more fine and more fine and refining it and refining it. Then when he creates that bread, it's just going to taste so sweet. It's going to have a great texture to it. It's not going to be rough around the edges everywhere. It's just going to be smooth. It's going to taste so good when it goes down. Again, I'm not against, don't take my parable so literally like, oh, I'm not going to eat bread that's like cornbread or whatever. My wife makes great cornbread, okay, and we're going to enjoy some this evening. But what I'm saying is the principle is if you want to have a really good sermon, you've got to grind that meal. You've got to grind that grain into a really fine meal. And men that are going to preach the Bible, you want to preach great sermons? Meditate on the word of God. When you're meditating on the wild gourds, when you're filling yourself with the wild gourds, you know it's going to come out junk. And this is, you know, a lot of times I'll criticize bad people, they're preaching, and I'll say their preaching is terrible. And what I always mean by that is that what they're saying is wild gourds. People are like, oh, he doesn't like the sound of my voice, or I stutter too much, or my vocabulary is not as well refined or something. I don't care about any of that. To me, the preaching is more about if you're preaching the wild gourds or if you're preaching me the meal of God's word, okay. The most unsophisticated preacher preaching the truth sounds great to me compared to the most eloquent liar, the most eloquent wordsmith like Ben Shapiro, who's an unsaved Jew, getting up there and talking circles around freaks and weirdos. It still sounds like cymbals clashing because the guy's a wild vine, my friend, with wild gourds. And look what the Bible just plainly states, Romans 8, verse 5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Let me tell you something about Ben Shapiro. He doesn't please God. Let me tell you something about Ben Shapiro. He's in the flesh, and he's mindful of the flesh, and it's death. The carnal mind is death. It's enmity. It's not anything, anybody that's unsaved is never going to give you good advice in that area. It's all worldly philosophies, and they all lead to death. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. And many there be that which go other out, because according to the Bible, you know, all the information you can get is junk, except for this. All junk. Doesn't matter. And look, any information that is good, it's always based on principles in here. And it's just kind of like a lame version of it. You know, it's basically, it's the plastic knife you get at the restaurant or whatever. Like this thing barely cuts. You know, when you got a steak there, and you have a plastic knife, it's basically worthless. You need a real sword there. You need a real sharp instrument, like the word of God. And why would I want to go for the cheap substitute? I mean, if you go to the steak restaurant, and they offer you a knoth, you know, this is a knoth, my friend, you know. You go to Outback, and they're like, that's not a knoth, this is a knoth, you know. It's like the plastic knife, they're going to laugh at you. You're not going to get anything done with that thing. You got to get a real weapon there. And so, you need the word of God. You need the King James Bible. It just doesn't make any sense why these people are doing these things. And, you know, I've noticed that a lot of people in the last two years, they've become what I call a COVID evangelist. Like, that's all they can talk about. That's all they can share on their social media. Every post is about masks, and vaccines, and watch COVID land now, and watch Plandemic now, and watch Alex Jones this, and watch David Icke that. And it's just like COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. And I'm like, you're no different than CNN. Or Fox News. Because you know what they talk about? COVID. Every second. And it's like, I wanted to hear anything else. Can I just hear about anything else in my life? Like, is anything else happening in the world besides that? And let me ask this question. Before COVID, were people dying and going to hell? Hmm. And during COVID, were people dying and going to hell? And post, if we ever, I don't know if we're getting out of it, but. People are still dying and going to hell, right? So like, if I could think, what's the most important truth I can tell them right now? Is it COVID, or is it how to escape the damnation of hell? Hmm. And look, it's not like there hasn't been great truths to tell people at all times. Hey, September 11, 2001, inside job. You know what I didn't become? A 9-11 evangelist. Now, I'm not saying I won't talk about it. I've talked about it. I said, believing the official stories of sin. I've preached on COVID. You know what I'm not going to do? Preach on COVID in the morning, and in the evening, and on Wednesday, and on my podcast, and on my livestream, and on my Facebook, and have a shirt about it, and have a movie night about it, and just go on and just COVID, and COVID, and COVID, and COVID. Look, what are you doing? You're just feeding yourself with all these wild gourds and these wild vines, and you know what you only care about? The flesh. Because what does it matter? Let me tell you a secret. There's going to be a lot of people in heaven that wore a mask in their life. And you know, let me tell you another secret. You know what I've noticed? The people that wear the most masks are unsaved, and the people that wear the least masks are saved. So if you really want to stop people from wearing masks, let me tell you how to get them to stop from wearing a mask. Preach on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know what I've noticed? The people that are mask wearing, they're not going to be reached with your stupid mask video anyways. The only thing that's going to change, the people that are not wearing them, you've already reached them. Okay? Quit preaching to the choir. If you want to reach people that don't agree with you, you know you're going to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Red pilling them with the ultimate truth. Jesus Christ said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Hey, you want to ultimately red pill people? The gospel of Jesus Christ, my friend. Do you know what I'm not going to do? I'm not going to preach sermons on why you should not wear a mask for the rest of my life. Stupid. Foolish. All you're doing is just eating wild gourd after wild gourd. Look, you don't think that there isn't other important issues. There's so many things you could preach about that pertain to the flesh. How about election integrity? How about any of our politicians? How about the border? You know, if I want to hear about these issues, you know what I do? Fox News. Alex Jones. And I can just get fed that all day long. Let me tell you the one thing that they all have in common. It only has to do with your flesh. It only has to do with your money, your pocketbook, your house, the economy of our country. I mean, some of these people, I don't know. But I almost think if there was two buttons on the table, on the pulpit right now, and it said, if I press this one button, we're going to have a great economy and everything's going to go back the way it was. Or B, we're going to go into a great depression, but more people will get saved. I don't know which button they would press. And here's the thing. Why do you need physical prosperity? Because you only care about your flesh. Does it really matter? It's only going to be here for a short while anyways. If you had to press a button right now, think it in your mind, okay, I'm going to suffer greatly, lose my house, lose my cars, miss a couple meals, but way more people are going to get saved. Or I'm going to have a Trump, we're going to get Trump elected, and everybody's going to get a million dollar bonus from the government, and the economy's going to be booming, and they're going to finally get new cars on the car dealership so I can get one. I know what a lot of people's buttons they would press. I know which button Alex Jones would press. I know which button Ben Shapiro would press. I know which button David Icke would press. I know which button all these other people would press. You know what they wouldn't press is my life sucks so people get saved. But you know what? God's people will press the save button every single day. People that are right with God will say, you know what, I'll take suffering, and it will save other people. You know who pressed that button? Oh yeah, Jesus Christ. I'll give up everything. I have everything, and I'll come down from heaven, and I'll literally sacrifice myself so that people could be saved. That's what he did. Was he mindful of the flesh, or was he mindful of the spirit? He gave his flesh up. He sacrificed his flesh. Hey, was Paul mindful of the flesh? When he said, hey, I can go into this next city, and they're going to beat me into a bloody pulp, they're going to toss me around like a dried up raisin, and they're going to throw me into the city, they're going to mock and ridicule me, but I'll get a few people saved. You know what button Paul pressed? That button. He just said, you know what, Ephesus, and Thessalonica, and Rome. Hey, wherever I need to go, wherever I need to get beat up, no matter what needs to get taken from me, no matter what kind of shame or evil I have to go through, oh, you're advocating for communism. No, I'm advocating for salvation. And I'm telling you this, when you only feed yourself the flesh, this junky, garbage, nonsense, you will become unspiritual. And there's death in that pot. You know what you're going to be like? You're going to be like Korah and Barabbas, who end up rising up in an insurrection and die. How many people did Barabbas get saved while he was thrown in prison for murder? And you know what? And you know what? A lot of these people are pressing this button. Civil war. We need a civil war. We need bloodshed. How many people are going to get saved when you're putting bullets in them? You know, you can still get people saved even if you're in communism, potentially. You know? And in fact, the more you're afflicted, sometimes the more you grow. Interesting how it's like, we've been afflicted. Insane, but we just keep growing. I feel like I'm doing nothing. And new people just keep being added to our church just constantly. Just constant people just show up. And I keep thinking, we need to actually do marketing for our church. Like, good marketing. Stuff that people would want to come for. But it doesn't matter. That's being mindful of the flesh. You know what I actually care way more about? Is my sermon biblical? And I'll think, some people get offended by this sermon. But is it spiritual? Okay. I'd rather feed the spiritual person than the fleshly person. Go to Matthew chapter four. Go to Matthew chapter four. I have no idea how much time. All right. Y'all are in trouble when I don't know how much time we're in. I need to make two more points. So hopefully I'll make them quick. For your sake. All right? But you know what? You've been fed a lot of wild gourds. And so I need to put a lot of meal into your life. Here's my second application. The potage is salvation. And most people, all they're doing is they're putting wild gourds in their pot for salvation. Catholic, Catholic gourd. Episcopal gourd. Muslim gourd. Atheist gourd. Just all these wild gourds. And you know what they all have in common? Death. Because none of them give salvation. The only thing that'll give you salvation is putting the meal into that pot. But what I love about it is when you put the meal into that pot, just a little bit of meal. No matter how much death you had, no harm. You could be a Catholic your whole life, but at the very end, if you just put a little bit of meal in there, you're saved. You just get saved one time with just a little bit of meal just from Jesus Christ, just one bite, just one drink, and you're saved. Matthew 4 verse 4. But the answer to that is, written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that preceded that of the mouth of God. You know, we get our life from the words of God specifically. Go to Matthew 16. Go to Matthew chapter 16. No matter how many sins you've committed, no matter how much death we've earned, all it takes is a speck of Jesus, a grain of a mustard seed, just a little bit of that meal tossed in, saved. And some people get, oh, you're saying that what people believe saves them? Yes. It's about what you believe. It's about your doctrine. Look at what it says in Matthew chapter 16 verse 12. Then understood they, how he made them, not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Look, doctrine saves and doctrine damns. Beliefs, let me explain the word doctrine, believes. Whatever you believe, whatever you believe, however you want to word that, it's your faith. Faith saves and bad faith doesn't save. Go to John chapter 6. The doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees is putting death in the pot. It's the wild vines being put in the pot of salvation. And the Bible warns in 2 Peter chapter 2, I'll read for you, that there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. The Bible says there are certain beliefs, there are certain doctrine, there are certain viewpoints, that if you believe it, you're not saved, you're damned. Damned. You say, what does that have to do with my life? Nothing. Because your lifestyle doesn't save you. Your lifestyle only condemned you. The only thing your life did was cause you to deserve hell. That's all it can do. And the only thing that can save you is your doctrine, believing in Jesus, putting your faith in Jesus Christ. And if you believe the wrong thing, you're not saved. Jesus said this in John 6 verse 32. Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And notice how he words this, you come to Jesus and you believe on him. That's how you get that bread. That's how you get that meal. So just like the death pot is there, just putting a little meal saved. No harm. Mark chapter number 8. Go to Mark chapter number 8 for a moment. Isn't it great the salvation is so easy? You can screw up the whole time, but then just toss a little meal and it's fine. You're like, I mean, how much effort went into screwing up a lot? You went to the wild vine, then you gathered the wrong fruits, you gathered the wild gourds, then you shirred them in the pot. I mean, you just lie and you stole and you had bad thoughts and you did. I mean, you just kept shirring that pot. Some of you have a lot of wild vine gourds in your pot. But it doesn't matter because if you have just one shred of the poison, it's death. You know, I heard a person preach about salvation and he used this analogy. I like it. He said, in order to understand salvation, you have to understand that you're condemned. And he said being condemned is like hanging from a dangerous cliff and you have thousands of chain links and you're hanging over a fiery death. And he says, how many of those chain links have to break for you to die? There's just one. Just like the Bible says, whosoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point he's guilty of all. Meaning just one sin casts you into hell. Just like one chain link that breaks casts you into hell. That's why it's not about your lifestyle. It's about getting rescued by faith in Jesus Christ. Mark chapter 8, look at verse 36. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Ask that to Alex Jones. Hey, what does it profit you, Alex, if you get all the money in the world and get all the goods and all the fame, all the retribution, you destroy the new world order, what does that profit you if you go to hell anyways? And you take everybody with you. Verse 37. For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words and this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Now when we think of the word soul, we often think of heaven or hell. We think of, you know, salvation of your soul as being in general of going to heaven or hell. But the soul is a little bit more complex than that because that's certainly true. When we say, hey, when we die, your soul is going to go to heaven. That's true. All day long, how do you save that? Believing in Jesus. But the soul is much more complex and more deep than that, okay? So what are my two points so far? We need meal in our sermons. We need meal in our salvation. But here's my third point. We need meal in our soul. And I want to speak to the soul a little bit differently than just salvation. Go to Psalms 140 for a moment. The soul is the immaterial part of your inner being. It's who you really are on the inside and it's almost inseparable from your spirit. The only thing that can distinguish between the soul and spirit is the Bible itself, okay? It's that tightly wound. You know, I'll read for you Hebrews 4 says, For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing, even the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Bible is comparing a soul and spirit with joints and marrow, meaning that your bones and your marrow, they're so tightly wound and they're so close that it's very difficult to separate these, to extract one from the other. Meaning that your soul and spirit are just very intertwined, very hard to separate these. But I liken your soul as to who you are. It's you as a person. It's who you are. You know, someone will say you're an old soul. What does that mean? It's the quality of you. It's your characteristics. It's your attributes. I'm a young soul. What does that mean? You know, or a mean soul, right? Or a nice soul. Describing who you are as a person, okay? And let me give you some advice, single people. Marry someone's soul, not their flesh. Marry someone's soul, not their flesh. Because you know what? The flesh is going to change a lot. Have you ever seen your grandparents and then looked at a picture of what they looked like when they got married? It's different. You know what? Their soul could be the same. The soul is what you marry, okay? And you can really get attracted to someone's soul. But you know what? God wants us to put meal into our soul. God wants our soul to be a specific person. You know, your soul could be dead on the inside. And a lot of people struggle with this. You know, why am I preaching this sermon? Because I think you've had a lot of wild gourds attacking your soul lately. You flip on the news and it's just depression, anxiety, worry, stress. You flip on Facebook, worry, stress, depression. I mean, you don't watch Alex Jones to be uplifted. This could be my last broadcast. Every time. But make sure to buy this long living, you know, substance. Make sure to buy food for 25 years even though this is probably my last broadcast. That doesn't seem contradictory, does it? Okay. And it's interesting. When you've been telling everybody the world's going to end tomorrow for decades, you start to question the narrative. Please do, okay? And I'm telling you what. Listening to this junk over and over destroys your soul. It destroys who you are. You start thinking that everything's a conspiracy theory. It's out there. Actually, it's in here. Okay. Some people get this weird idea that everything's a conspiracy theory. Everybody's paid off and everybody's working for the government and everybody. It's like, whoa. It's like, what are you eating? You know? Like, under the pure, all things are pure. Right? Isn't that what the Bible teaches? And I'm telling you, if you've been in this room and you say, you know what, Pastor Shelley, I'm going to be honest this morning. I've been really upset and stressed and depressed a lot lately. Okay. Well, let me tell you how to fix that. You're going to put some meal in your life. And let me show you some meals, Psalms 140, all right? Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man. Preserve me from the violent man, which imagined mischiefs in their heart. Continually are they gathered together for war. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent. Adder's poison is under their lips, Selah. Heat me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from the violent man who have purposed to overthrow my goings. The proud have hit a snare for me and cords. They have spread a net by the wayside. They have set gins for me, Selah. I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God. Hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord. O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation. Thou has covered my head in the day of battle. Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked. Further not his wicked device, lest they exalt themselves, Selah. As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them. Let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into the fire, into deep pits that rise not up again. Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth. Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him. I know the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor. Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name. The upright shall dwell in thy presence. You know what that is? That is the medicine for your soul. Because you hear Biden, he's going to get destroyed. New World Order, they're going to get destroyed. The violent man, he's not going to touch me. Evil, all this bad stuff, every time the evil tries to hit you, you're just like, don't care. God's not going to make, God's going to take care of me. God's going to provide for me. Hey, that is going to help your soul today. Listening to all this junk is going to get you all worried and stressed and anxious. And where do I sign up now? And I better share every single COVID thing I can because I'm just so worried about it. Or you could share Bible verses that will actually uplift people's souls. That could actually encourage someone. You know, all this doomsday news it does is just destroys your soul. It makes you walk around like a worried just incel. Just so afraid of everything, so afraid of everybody. Everybody's bad, everything's wicked. It's like, there's plenty of wicked people, but just leave them alone. Don't worry about them. You know? I mean, let burning coals fall upon them. They're going to be casting the fire into deep pits. Let them go to hell. Don't worry about all this stuff. You know, if the internet didn't exist, I think a lot of people in this room would live happier lives. What do you do? Again? What? That? You know, the news is really, it's really a brainwashing technique. Because you cannot fathom how big a number seven billion people on the planet is. It's so astronomical. The number of people that die every day is astronomical. You can't even think about or comprehend. So if you just want to know about every single person that died, or got killed, or got raped, or got molested, or this bad thing happened, you can have more than you could ever comprehend. And then you can just believe that the world's just crashing around you. But if you never know about, I mean, most of us, if we didn't have a TV, we would think that everything's great. We would walk, we'd be like, wow, it's so sunny and it's nice. Obviously, you kind of have to ignore a few things out here. But I'm just saying like, you'd be like, you're just thinking like, some people are going to hell today. You know? That's great. Some evil people are going to die today. What if that was your thought? You read the news and you say, this horrible person died and went to hell today. Praise the Lord! Rather than being like, oh man, oh no, I'm so sad that they died. I'm not. Look, I'm sad for every innocent person that dies and goes to hell. You know, there's some people that the Bible's teaching, like, you're praying for it. How am I supposed to interpret this? Let them be cast into the fire, into deep pits, that they rise not up again. You know what he's saying? Let them go to hell and never be resurrected. Oh, you have a mean spirit, Pastor Shelley. Well, you're calling God mean. You're blaspheming the Word of God here. There are some people that you just say, I want this person to go to hell. And you know what? That's a lot easier to deal with than having to believe that these psychopath reprobates are good or something. You are unhealthy if you believe that. Go to Psalms 23, the last verse I'm going to have you turn to. I want to read for you from Psalms 13 real quick. How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord, my God. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against them, and those that troubled me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. You know what God wants you to do? He wants you to sing to him every day, not be worried every day. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And let me tell you something. Death in the pot is scary. Isn't that scary? I mean, wouldn't you be a little terrified if I said, hey, I've got a pot here, and I put some wild gourds into it, like when people put beans and chili, OK? It's scary. You don't know what's going on in that pot. And I said, people that have eaten this have literally died, OK? And to eat that would be terrifying, wouldn't it? It'd be kind of scary. And look, that's life. Look, the fact that people want to kill Christians and hate us and make threats, whatever, that can be scary. You know what? When you put a little bit of meal in there, you can say it's not scary anymore. You put your faith and your trust and your confidence in the word of God. You let the word of God, let me give you some meal. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He makes you a good person again. He restores your soul. He makes it new again. He gives it life. He gives it happiness. He gives it joy. He gives it peace which passeth all understanding. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. I will fear no COVID. I will fear no mask. I will fear no Biden. I will fear no Shapiro. I will fear no atheist. I will fear no disgruntled church member. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil and my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. You know what God likes to do? God has a sense of humor. Is he doesn't want you to just feast behind some big towered wall where you're protecting and you got moats all over. You know what he wants you to do? He wants you to walk right in the middle of the enemy and plop down right in front of all of your adversaries and just have a picnic right in front of all of them. And he says they're not going to touch you. Do you know what that takes? Faith. And sometimes it feels like man I feel like I'm just surrounded with enemies. I feel like everybody but you know what God said he's going to prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. And you know what I'm not going to fear it at all. I'm not afraid of the death in the pot. Because you know what? We've got some meal in that pot. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for our church. Thank you for the word of God. Thank you for putting meal into our souls for salvation. Thank you for giving us the word of God so that we could put meal in the sermons and the preaching of God's word. Thank you for giving us the meal, the bread of life so that not only could we save physically from going to hell but we could also just be renewed in our spirit. Be renewed in our soul, in our inner person, our personality. I pray that the people in this room that have been struggling with anxiety and stress and worry and frustration and problems that you would restore their soul today with the word of God. They would get a deep hunger for the Bible. They would turn off the wild gourds of this world. They would stop throwing them in the pot and they would start putting meal in their pot and you would make them a new person again. You would just help them to just have courage and have faith and have joy and have peace and have all the fruits of the spirit rather than the fruits of a wild gourd. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. For our last song, we'll go to song 419. And quick reminder as you're turning there, remember if you're entering at Chili tonight, meet with Mrs. Shelley right after service and get your number from her and also make sure to bring a ladle or serving spoon or something like that this evening. 419, sound the battle cry. 419. For our last song, we'll go to song 219. And quick reminder as you're turning there, remember if you're entering at Chili tonight, meet with Mrs. Shelley right after service and get your number from her and also make sure to bring a ladle or serving spoon or something like that this evening. And quick reminder as you're turning there, remember if you're entering at Chili tonight, meet with Mrs. Shelley right after service and get your number from her and also make sure to bring a ladle or serving spoon or something like that this evening. And quick reminder as you're turning there, remember if you're entering at Chili tonight, meet with Mrs. Shelley right after service and get your number from her and also make sure to bring a ladle or serving spoon or something like that this evening. And quick reminder as you're turning there, remember if you're entering at Chili tonight, make sure to bring a ladle or serving spoon or something like that this evening. And quick reminder as you're turning there, make sure to bring a ladle or serving spoon or something like that this evening.