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

I'm in the way, the bright and shining way, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the way, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the glory land way, Heaven is nearer and the way growing clearer, for I'm in the glory land way. Let's do the call, the gospel call today, I'm in the glory land way, On earth the humble race to obey, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the glory land way, Heaven is nearer and the way growing clearer, for I'm in the glory land way, Onward I go rejoicing in His love, I'm in the glory land way, Sir, I shall see Him in that humble bubble, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the glory land way, I'm in the glory land, glory land way, Heaven is nearer and the way growing clearer, for I'm in the glory land way. I will meet you in the morning, just inside Easter day, then be ready faithful children, Bless you and meet you today, I will meet you, I will meet you, just inside Easter day over there, I will meet you, I will meet you, I will meet you in the morning over there, If you face it all to glory, leave her near Easter day, for I'm coming in the morning, so you'll not have long to wait, I will meet you in the morning, just inside Easter day over there, Keep your legs all trimmed and burning For the bridegroom washed away We'll be with us at the meeting Just inside Eastern Gate I will meet you I will meet you Just inside Eastern Gate Over there I will meet you Lord, I will meet you In the morning I will meet you In the morning Over there Oh, the joy of that glad meeting With the saints who brought us here What a blessed and happy meeting Just inside Eastern Gate I will meet you I will meet you In the morning Just inside Eastern Gate Over there I will meet you I will meet you In the morning I will meet you In the morning Over there Oh, the love of God Is greater than Let's not forget And ever tell We choose beyond The highest star And it is true The lowest gain The guilty prayer The bill we pray The living Son to give His erring child He reconciled And partied from We sing Oh, love of God Outridged and pure Outmeasured Less and strong It shall forever More endure The saints' and angels' song When years of time Shall pass away And earth be thrown And kingdoms full When men who hear Rehearsely pray On rocks and hills And mountains full God's love so sure Shall still endure All pleasure less And strong Redeeming praise To Adam's grace The saints' and angels' song Oh, love of God Outridged and pure Outmeasured Less and strong It shall forever More endure The saints' and angels' song Could we within The ocean fill And burn these skies A part should make For every stock The earth would fill And every man A scribe or trade To write the love Of God above Would drain the ocean dry Mark with a scroll And take the whole The saints from sky to sky Oh, love of God Outridged and pure All pleasure less And strong It shall forever More endure The saints' and angels' song Sing that chorus acapella with me. Oh, love of God Outridged and pure Outmeasured Less and strong It shall forever More endure The saints' and angels' song There's a fall coming Bringing all the restless slaves Send the light Send the light There are souls to rescue There are souls to save Send the light Send the light Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine And so is your Lord Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine Forevermore We have heard the mass And only call to you today Send the light Send the light In the golden offering At the cross we lay Send the light Send the light Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine And so is your Lord Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine Forevermore Let us pray and praise We're everywhere around Send the light Send the light Let the Christ's light Spirit everywhere be found Send the light Send the light Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine And so is your Lord Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine Forevermore Let us not grow weary In the work of God Send the light Send the light Let us gather jewels For I'm proud of God Send the light Send the light Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine And so is your Lord Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine Forevermore Let us gather jewels For I'm proud of God Send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine Forevermore Let us gather jewels For I'm proud of God Send the light Send the light The blessed gospel light Let the Christ's light Be found Forevermore May be new, may be new, and may be soon, coming again, coming again. Oh, what a wonderful day it will be. Jesus is coming again. Forest and flower, exclaim, mountain and meadow the same. All earth and heaven proclaim, Jesus is coming again, coming again, coming again. May be morning, may be day, may be evening, and may be soon, coming again, coming again. Oh, what a wonderful day it will be. Jesus is coming again. Now, standing before Him at last. Trial and trouble all past. Out at His feet we will fast. Jesus is coming again, coming again, coming again. May be morning, may be day, may be evening, and may be soon, coming again, coming again. Oh, what a wonderful day it will be. Jesus is coming again. One day, Lord, shall we by sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus. One day may be whole and near, nothing but the blood of Jesus. All our precious is the form that is divine and strong. Oh, other that I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And for my part in this I see, nothing but the blood of Jesus. For my quaintness I be, nothing but the blood of Jesus. All precious is the form that is divine and strong. Oh, other that I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can force it at all, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Not a good plan I have done. Because if you want something to get in, there is like a big amount of people walking around. I was only able to talk to people here. Even last time we went to a lot of schools, so I would be at a big time. So I can imagine more than any of the schools should be in session for you and you should be able to talk to people here. We are going to go one more time. What time? I don't think we have time. But he said that the time line is now. And we get some salvation for the most part. That makes sense because it is not a good thing. We are going to work on that one. Thank you very much. He was just saying if you wanted to go cruise, to maybe try to avoid it. It was just like a hybrid vacation. Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. It is great to see everybody here tonight. If we can go ahead and find our hymnals, we will get started with the first song. For the first song of the night we will go to song number 359. Song number 359. Thy word have I hid in my heart. Song number 359. Everybody sing it out together on the first. Thy word have I hid in my heart. That I might not sin. Thy word have I hid in my heart. Forever oh Lord is thy word. This death and this all night. Thy faithfulness sung to all men. Thy word have I hid in my heart. That I might not sin against thee. That I might not sin. That I might not sin. Thy word have I hid in my heart. That morning and noon and night. I ever will give thee praise. For thou art my portion of all. And shall be through all my days. Thy word have I hid in my heart. That I might not sin against thee. That I might not sin. That I might not sin. That I might not sin in my heart. Through hell do thy word have foretold. The Savior and morning star. Salvation and peace have been brought. To those who have stayed afar. Thy word have I hid in my heart. That I might not sin against thee. That I might not sin. That I might not sin. That I would have I hid in my heart. Praise singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer. Lord we love you and thank you so much for this church and the people here and just the ability to sing unto you Lord. We just ask that you fill this room with your spirit. Bless this church and bless everything we do in your honor and glory. Lord we love you and it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Alright for our next song. Let's go to song number 144. Song number 144. A mighty fortress is our God. If you're familiar sing it out loudly. If you're not follow along. A mighty fortress is our God. A mighty fortress is our God. Of old work never failing. On a prairie amid the flood. Of mortal hills prevailing. For still our ancient road. Does seem to work thus flow. Its craft and power are great. And armed with cruel name. On earth is not its equal. Did we in our own strength comply. Our striving would be duty. Were not the ripening of our sight. The man of God known to duty. Dost pass through death with thee. Christ Jesus did it thee. Lord several of his name. From age to age the same. Gave he us with the battle. And though this world it never still. Should threaten to undo us. We will not fear for God hath willed. It's true to triumph through us. The prince of darkness will. We tremble not for him. His rage we can endure. For love is to be sure. One little word shall tell him. That word above all earthly powers. No thanks to give up our hand. The spirit and the gifts are ours. Through and through with the sighted. Like good and kindred come. This mortal life holds no. The body they may kill. God's truth the violence will. His kingdom is forever. Amen. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get one of our bulletins we cannot hand them out. Okay we're out I guess. Sorry. On the front we have the Bible memory passage Matthew 28 verse 8. And on the insides are service soul winning times. We have our church stats down below. Please make sure you're turning in your stats for soul winning. And we had a really good year last year. But we're hoping to crush it this year. So we want to do a lot more this year. And we have a lot of opportunities, a lot of events. I've updated our calendar on our website. And so if you go to the events tab of our website you can see those events. And there's even a few things in there that I had not already put into our sheet before. So if you want to verify or double check you can go there. The list of our expecting ladies and our church reminders. Make sure children are not running or rough playing in our church. Also please no children on the stage. Children should also not be in our kitchen fridges or ice machines. Basically kids you can't do anything fun. If anything is fun it's off limits okay. Fellowship room also no play area. Please don't use any of our church supplies. Make sure you're cleaning up after yourself. Water bottles in our fridges for soul winning and our visitors. Parents please make sure you're watching your kids. And if any adults give you instruction kiddos just say yes sir, yes ma'am and just do whatever they ask. On the back we have our prayer list. I'm going to go ahead and go through that real quick. We have the Naims. We've been praying for their grandmother and also Miss Charlotte. We've been praying for the Carlson's mother, Miss Rebecca. We've been praying for the Miller's friend, her mother. We've been praying for the Scotts, both Mr. and Mrs. Scott for his cancer and for her nerve pain. We've been praying for Mrs. Garcia's daughter who is expecting. And we're praying for brother Tony for his work. I've been praying for the Foley's for their visa. And also praying for brother Alex which he had a praise report the other day. He let me know things are going well there. So also pray for brother Chalmer, the Warner's brother. Pray for the Hernandez's grandmother who is recovering from surgery. Pray for the Goodwin's friend, Miss Sarah. And then also for an upcoming test. We've been praying for brother Nick's mother for her salvation. We've been in prayer for brother Sue Hale's father-in-law. And be in prayer for their brain treatments. Please be in prayer. Also Billy had prayer for his friend, brother Blake. And also his coworker Corey. And so if you just pray for them. Also pray for brother Rich's father and those that were in California for a lot of those fires. And then also brother Fur was asking for prayer for a couple people here. Brother Trevor and his niece Hadley. So if you'd be in prayer for them. I'm going to go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for our church family. If you'd please join me. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for all these ladies who are expecting in our church. I pray that you'd please be with them during their pregnancies. Please help those also that are wishing to conceive. Also if you'd please bless those who have recently given birth. You'd help them with their children and their development. And for them to continue to grow. I pray that you would just also bless our church family that needs help with sickness or illness. That you'd help them to recover and get back into church. Those who have been praying for these chronic issues. I pray that you would just give them favor. Please if possible just give them miraculous healing. Please comfort them during their tribulation and their difficulty. I pray that you'd help those who are needing either their work or job or favor with traveling. Please help bless them. Please also help us to have an opportunity to preach to our family and friends that need to hear the gospel. That you would give us the opportunity and that you would give us the boldness to preach. And I pray that you would just continue to bless the works and upcoming events that we have for our church. That we would do them all in the honor and glory of your son. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. A couple other announcements. Brother Sam's also going to be putting this in his chat. But they are looking to potentially schedule their wedding very soon. And so we're going to put that information out there. And he wanted to invite the entire church. So if you'd like to come we're anticipating that everything goes smoothly. And so we're going to have a date set and have everything planned. It is possible things may not work out. But God willing we're hoping that they're going to work out. And we're shooting for February 1st at 11 a.m. So we're going to have a ceremony here. They are going to provide lunch. But to really help us we need you to RSVP. And so if you are interested he's going to put a chat link out there. Please make sure to RSVP. I'll probably ask people on Sunday just to get an idea. And I don't know we might even just do a sign up sheet on top of that. We just want to make sure we have a good idea of who's planning on attending. And so that's exciting for them. Let's give them a round of applause. Also we had a large group come down with us to Houston last Sunday. And I think we had about 50 of our members down there for Sunday services. As well as many people out there soul winning. And just for the soul winning day about 85 people showed up. And we ended up having 65 salvations on that Saturday. And then we had a couple more dozen on Sunday. So we had like over 80 salvations for the weekend. The church services we had about 106 people in church at Spring Crest Baptist Church there in Houston. With Pastor Reyes and great church, great spirit, very hospitable. And so we really appreciate their friendship. And if you ever get an opportunity, great church to visit. It's on the north side of Houston. And we highly recommend Spring Crest Baptist Church and Pastor Reyes. And thanks for those who are here and helping with services. We still had really big attendances here. And a lot of people going out soul winning. And so it's great to see that even when the cat's away the mice are still going to go out there soul winning. Alright. He didn't play. He went out soul winning. Okay so no but a lot of great things. Also I put in our Spanish group some information about the Reynosa trip. We also, I saw the sign up sheet. I'm going to make sure to message those people about our Reynosa trip. But we should have opportunity for church transportation to go down there if you want to go. It's just they're going to be leaving a day early. They're going to be leaving on Wednesday. So if you want to go with the church transportation that's going to be your option for that. So I just wanted to give those few announcements. That's really all I have as far as announcements are concerned. We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week. Psalm 146. Psalm 146 is in our special handouts. Alright that was Psalm chapter 146 in your laminated handout. Psalm 146. Everybody sing it together with me on the verse. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. While I live, will I praise the Lord? I will sing praises unto my God while I have any need. Would not your trust in princess, for in the Son of God, in whom there is no help, when there is no help. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. His breath goeth for him, he turneth to his earthen man. Every day his thoughts perish, happy is he that hath done. God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord, the Lord is God. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. Which made heaven and earth the sea, and all that there it is which keepeth true forever. Which executed judgment bore the oppressed with given food to the free, the Lord loosed in the prisoners. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. The Lord o'er and in the eyes of the blind, the Lord raiseth him now. Our bow down, the Lord loveth the righteous, the Lord reserveth the strangers. He weep, even the father, they sail with us. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. But the wail of the wicked, he turneth upside down. The Lord shall reign forever, even by God, oh Zion. Unto all generations, praise he the Lord, praise he the Lord. Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7. That's the book of Matthew chapter number 7. The Book of Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter number 7, the Bible reads, Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider'st not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son shall ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. For this is the law and the prophets. Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for the chapter of the Bible. Thank you for the steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for the people that have gotten saved, Lord. I just pray that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit, that he would preach your word unto us, and help us to receive it with a glad heart. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Matthew 7, the Bible says in verse 1, Judge not. That's it. That's all it says. No, I'm just kidding. Obviously, this is like what a lot of liberals would say is their favorite verse in the Bible, but they don't read the whole verse. They just read that first part, right? Just don't ever judge, right? But that's not really what the Bible is saying here. It says, Judge not that ye be not judged. And it says in verse 2, For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. And so what the Bible is really warning about is the concept and the idea of being a hypocrite. And that's consistently being brought up in the Sermon on the Mount is people that are hypocrites, people who, when they give money to the poor, they're not doing it because they actually love people, but rather doing it to be seen of men, people that are praying in the synagogue and opening the street corners. They're not doing it because they actually care about praying. They're just doing it to be seen as spiritual. People who are fasting, they're not even fasting because they actually want to flick their soul and become more spiritual, but they want to appear like they're spiritual and appear righteous. And so the Bible is constantly bringing up hypocrite after hypocrite after hypocrite. And in Matthew chapter number 7, it's also describing the hypocrite. The hypocrite would be one who is going around judging other Christians, judging even the lost and the unsaved for things that they themselves are guilty of or they're guilty of worse things. And the Bible is saying we should not have this judgment type mentality where we're criticizing other people, offering all kinds of advice, unsolicited advice and judgment and criticism towards individuals when you yourself would not want that criticism pointed back at you. And so this is what it's really warning against. Now, when you look at Matthew 5, 6, 7, this is what we know as the Sermon on the Mount. They seem to have a little bit different themes. And it's not to say that there isn't a few verses that are just kind of isolated, but I've noticed a few themes in these chapters. It seems like chapter 5 is describing true righteousness, true righteousness. And Jesus is really elevating righteousness, describing the spirit of the law, not just the letter of the law and describing what true righteousness really looks like. In chapter 6, it seems like he's really identifying true religion. So he's identifying the difference between fake religion and true religion. And here in chapter 7, it seems like he's really drawing out the idea and concept of true Christians versus fake Christians. That's really kind of one of the themes that's here in Matthew, chapter number 7. And one thing you'll notice about the most fake people are they constantly are judging other people. They're very judgmental, but they themselves do not allow for criticism. They don't take criticism well at all, in fact, and yet they like to hurl out all kinds of judgments. Now, really, when we are to judge someone, we're offering criticism, we need to first, if we're going to be successful in judgment, we need to first put ourselves in the situation that we are judging. And we have to ask ourselves this question. If I were in that situation, how would I want people to treat me? And then that is going to give you a much better litmus test of how you should behave. Say, hey, if I made this mistake, if I have this problem, if I'm dealing with this issue, how would I want people to respond to me in this particular situation? And then that's how you have a better idea of if you're actually being a hypocrite or not. Maybe put someone that you like in that situation. Maybe put someone that you care about. Maybe put your spouse. You know, you should evaluate the situation and say, would I judge everyone the exact same based on this situation? Because if you're judging everybody the same, then there's no problem. Because they're saying, hey, if you judge people that way, expect people to judge you in the same way. But here's an example. What if someone is bringing up a mistake that you have from years ago that you got right or you fixed or you're trying to live down, and they're just bringing out and just trying to make you look bad by talking about some mistake you've made years ago. Well, is that something you want people to do to you? Do you want people to just go around and pick out all of your mistakes from the past and all the problems that you've had and constantly hurl those accusations against you and never allow you to live anything down? Well, you know, that's what's going to happen. If you're going around and just constantly criticizing people for past things that they've done, mistakes they've made in the past that they've either gotten right or fixed or anything like that, well, then expect people to just constantly attack your background and attack your past and your history. And for me, I don't want that. I don't want to sit here and just have everybody bring up every mistake I've ever made, every foolish decision I've ever made. And in fact, most people don't even know most of the really bad decisions I've made in my life. Like most of the actual things that I've done that are really bad or stupid or foolish or I'd be really embarrassed about, praise God, most people don't even know about that. But the few people that may do know about that, it would be really embarrassing if they would constantly bring it up or let everybody know and you just can't live anything down. I would feel really embarrassed. I wouldn't want someone to do that to me. So what I need to do is I need to not do that to other people. And I need to have the right kind of an attitude. You know, when people are going to constantly attack you for things that are petty or not even necessarily true, they're just speculation, gossip, rumor. They're going to really attack you over things that are just a difference of opinion. Well, then expect people to reciprocate and then attack you in the same way. You know, I don't want people to sit here and constantly attack me and speak evil of me and constantly judge me for things that are a difference of opinion, things that are not even necessarily true. We don't even know if it's true. It's just a rumor that they heard. Or it's something really petty and really minor. You know, I wouldn't want someone to attack me that way. So why would I then want to go around and just point out all of your petty issues, all of the accusations made about you, rumors about you that I don't even know if they're true or not, or things that are just simply a difference of opinion. You know, I don't want people to go around and attack me and criticize me and judge me for all these minor grievances. So we should be careful that we're not constantly doing that to other people. Go to Proverbs 17. I want to keep your finger. Obviously, we're going to come back to Matthew 7, but go to Proverbs chapter 17. And I want to show you a couple of verses here in the book of Proverbs on this subject. But, you know, don't be surprised when people judge you the way you're judging other people. When you just start getting really critical, it's almost like a natural response and a natural reaction of people to think the exact same way about you that you're judging other people. When you start pointing out their flaws and their criticisms and their issues, you start thinking like, well, what about you? You know, how does this apply to you? And whenever you're more gracious, more kind, and you're just letting things go, people typically are going to be more kind, more gracious, and letting things go with you. Obviously, there's always exceptions. We're just talking about general principles here. But the Bible is telling us, hey, if you don't want to constantly be judged in an unfair way, then don't be a hypocrite. Don't sit here and judge people a way that you wouldn't want to be judged. Now, this does not mean we should just have this liberal Christian mindset where we say, well, just out of abundance of caution, I'm just never going to judge anything. You know, it doesn't matter. If people walk into church dressed inappropriately, I don't want to judge that person. Right? If someone were to literally show up exposing their nakedness, would we want to say, like, well, I just don't want to judge people? Or would we say, no, we're going to judge that person and say, hey, put some clothes on. You need to cover that part of your body. That's inappropriate. But it's not something that I'm a hypocrite on. I would hope that if I did the same thing, people would be like, hey, put some pants on, man, you know? Like, cover yourself, right? That's a proper and a righteous judgment because I'm saying if I was in the exact same situation, I would want someone to judge me on that. I would want someone to correct me. Hey, if I go around and spout some nonsense like the earth is flat, I would want someone to say, you're an idiot. You're stupid. You're wrong. I want them to make fun of me so that I'd feel so embarrassed I would change my mind and that I wouldn't have to be that type of person. So, look, it's okay to judge things. It's okay to criticize things. It's okay to bring up things that are wrong. But not when you're going to be a hypocrite about it. Not when it's something that you're guilty of or you yourself would not want someone to criticize you over. We have to think, hey, how do we want society to act? If I killed somebody, I would want there to be legal punishment for me. I'm not a hypocrite in saying, like, well, I don't want to judge. No punishment for murder. No punishment for theft. No punishment for lying. No punishment for grievous sins. Obviously, we still should have crimes, and we should all agree, hey, it doesn't matter which of us does this. The law is blind. Justice is blind. The person that commits first-degree homicide, we put them to death, like the Bible says. And even in society today, most people that commit first-degree homicide do get a very severe, harsh punishment, even up to the death penalty. And that's not us being hypocrites in judgment. We all agree. That's basically how the system should work. But what's being a hypocrite is when you essentially want to judge people harshly when they do something wrong, but you wouldn't want the same punishment or the same criticism if you did the exact same thing or something very similar. And what I've noticed is that these very judgmental people, it's almost like they like you to screw up. And I was thinking there's a proverb about that. Look at Proverbs chapter 17. Look at verse number 19. He loveth transgression that loveth strife. That's a really interesting verse. It's like people that like to just constantly criticize people, they actually like for there to be problems so that they can then criticize you. It's like they're hoping that you screw up. They're hoping that you make a mistake. They're hoping that you do something bad so they have the opportunity to criticize you. Why? So that they can bring in strife, so that they can attack, so they can criticize, they can do something. And it's interesting that enemies often will wish for their counterpart, their enemy, to essentially screw up so they can attack them, so they can say something against them, so they can be vicious and go against them. And it's like they love transgression. They're excited. They're actually happy that someone transgressed the Word of God. They're actually happy that someone sinned. And you know, what an evil attitude if you were actually happy that someone did something wrong, or you're happy that someone had something bad happen to them. You know, the Bible says that we're not supposed to rejoice when our enemy stumbleth. You know, we're not supposed to be excited that people are doing wrong or screwing up or something bad's happening. We should hope for the best. We should bless our enemies. We should love our enemies. We should hope for good to our enemies. We should not hope for transgression. We should not hope for them to screw up their lives. This would be the carnal idea. Someone criticizes you. Someone says, hey, I don't like your family. And you're kind of hoping like, well, I hope that you have problems in your family. Or I don't like your car. And you're like, oh, I hope his car breaks down. Or I don't like your face. And you're like, well, I hope someone punches you in the face and you get uglier. You know, like it just it's like that's kind of the natural response. The carnal idea is like when someone's criticizing, you're attacking you. You kind of like almost wish that something bad will happen to them or they'll screw up or whatever. So that then you can kind of criticize them and then and get on their case. You know, that's not the Christian attitude. The Christian attitude is one that even if they curse you, you bless them. Hey, even if you don't like me, I still hope that your marriage is successful. I still hope that your kids are successful. I hope that you're successful at your job and your work. And I'm not hoping that you fail and that you have problems. You know what? Because we should hope for their good even when they hope for our demise. But evil, wicked people, they hope for you to screw up just so they can then point out that you screwed up. Just so they can seem to be better than you and exalt their gate and make themselves better than other people. It's often in order to improve themselves, they have to tear other people down because they themselves don't want to work and improve and get better. They just simply want to tear other people down so that they seem like they're standing taller. Look at what it says in verse number 20. He that at the froward heart findeth no good and he that at the perverse tongue falls into mischief. You know, a froward is just being contrary. Contrary to what? It kind of seems to indicate in the Bible, a froward person, they're just kind of against everything. You know, you meet people like this or they just seems like they're just always complaining. They're just always against something. They're not happy about anything. They're just a froward person. They're just contrary to everything. It's just always a bad day. Every person in their life is bad. Everything's a problem. And notice what it says. He that at the froward heart findeth no good. If you want to have a bad day, you can have a bad day. Because if you're just against everything, everything's bad, everything's horrible, there's no good in my life. Well, then, of course, you're just going to believe that your life has no good and you're going to find no good. And of course, this type of person is going to find no good in others. And they're going to very easily judge other people and criticize people all the time. But it's not that other people are just bad. It's just their froward. You know, we shouldn't be sitting here nitpicking and constantly attacking other people and just trying to point out every little minor flaw in others. You know, that's a froward person. And of course, if you're going to nitpick and find every little fault with certain individuals, you have to ask this question. Are you being a hypocrite about that, though? Are you wanting everybody to point out every one of your flaws and every one of your imperfections? And are you doing that to every single person? Or are you just cherry picking people you hate and then nitpicking every single one of their flaws? Well, it sounds like you just are a froward person then, where you just can't find any good in this individual. You know, we should be trying to find the good in people and celebrating their positive attributes and encouraging them and trying to carry their burden. And if they're weak in a certain area, we should try to help them get better in that area, not point out their flaw, not constantly criticize them and nitpick them and try to tear them down. But rather, we should just celebrate what they have that's good. The old adage, which I think seems like a biblical principle, it's like if your mother said to you when you're young, if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing at all. And in some cases, it seems like that's in line with some of these verses that we're looking at, that if you're not going to be judged in the same way, well, then just keep your mouth shut. Don't be a hypocrite in judgment and criticism. And if you want to really be a godly person, we shouldn't be constantly froward and against and contrary, seeking for evil, looking for transgression. You know, the Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. The love is trying to cover the sin. The hatred is trying to expose every little imperfection, every little grievance, every little issue that people have, won't let people live things down. You know, this is a bad person. And the reality is, go to chapter 11, go to Proverbs chapter 11, I want to show you another verse here. It's very easy to judge someone when you're not in their life situation. Many times we criticize people or we judge people very quickly, not realizing that if we were in their situation, we would probably make the same decision. Like many times we would make the same decisions for people that we criticize. And the reason why we judge them so quickly and harshly is because we don't understand. We don't have all the facts. We don't have all the details. We don't know their life circumstance. It's real easy for us to judge people that have lived lives where maybe in the past they did drugs, or maybe in the past they got in with the wrong crowd, or maybe in the past they maybe even committed a crime or did something. But we don't know what you would have been like if you had their parents, or lack thereof, if you had their life situation, if you were put in the same school that they were put in, if you were put in the same demographic that they were put in. We don't know what those decisions that you would have made, and you like to think that you're better than other people, but the reality is we don't know if you're better than that other person. And you should be careful how you judge people for past decisions, life situations that they have, when we don't really know all the facts, when you don't really know what's going on. You know, Jesus Christ didn't seem to just go around and tear everybody down. In fact, people with the worst past love Jesus. I mean, the publicans and the harlots, the most sinful people were hanging out with Jesus, and they liked hanging out with Jesus. And he said, hey, those people that had the worst past, they end up liking me more than you guys that had a nicer past or a better past. And so we need to be careful when we're judging people that we're not just constantly going around and judging people, not understanding the situation, not realizing the circumstances. This is not to say don't judge, but we should not always judge. You can find yourself, if you never judge anybody, you're pretty much wrong. If you're always judging people, you're wrong. We have to use discretion and discernment to think about, OK, how would I handle this situation? You know, this is one that is for me personally is driving. OK, and I'll just be honest, in the last probably five, 10 years, I think I've become a lot more gracious of a person when driving because I'm thinking, like, if I was that person, I probably would have made that same move. Like, I would have probably cut me off, too. And I'm just thinking, like, I cut people off. They cut people off. Sometimes I'm just like, hey, that was a good move. You know, just like, hey, squeeze in there. No problem. No harm, no foul. And I don't want to be this person that's constantly criticizing every other driver because I'm thinking, like, you know, it's probably a lot to nitpick about my driving. You know, if people really wanted to, there's probably issues that I have. I don't always turn on the turn signal. Sometimes I kind of squeeze in an uncomfortable spots. Sometimes I cut people off. I get it. OK, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to sit here and then be a hypocrite and constantly judge everybody that does it to me. And I can just be like, hey, no problem. I don't have to give them a one finger salute or anything. OK, I can sit here and just and just be like, hey, no problem. And, you know, in Texas, we're supposed to drive the friendly way, you know, whatever that means. And it's just, you know, it's polite. Let somebody in, you know, let people go. When people are in an uncomfortable spot in traffic, sometimes you need to think about how other people would be. Let them in. Let them move. And this is not just about driving, folks. This is every part of our life. We should just recognize, hey, I make mistakes. These people make mistakes. You know, we don't want to sit here and just criticize every single person. And we don't want to go around and share everybody's problems. Problems. That's I would hate to live in a church where if I know if I do something wrong, everybody's going to hear about it and everybody's going to judge me for it. That's an unhealthy environment. A healthy environment is one where people are not constantly going around judging everybody for every little thing. And if someone even notice you did something wrong, they're not going to go tell everybody about it. But what does the Bible say? Proverbs chapter 11, verse 13, a tale bearer reveal the secrets, but he that is a faithful spirit concealed the matter. Now, this is a principle that's taught even in just the world, because everything that's true and everything that's good is coming from the Bible somewhere. There's a principle found in the Bible. And this is what I was thinking about. Like, even in our world, we have situations where you don't reveal information. You know, we have things like maybe a setting, like a medical setting. It's supposed to be that your your information, like your medical record information is kept private. That if you go to a doctor and you talk to them, you tell them certain things about your medical history or your situation, that they're not supposed to go and tell a whole bunch of people about your medical situations because it could be embarrassing or compromising in some way. And so your medical information is supposed to be kept private. When it comes to the law and you talk to attorneys, there's a thing called attorney client privilege, where it's not legal for an attorney to share the conversations and information you've had with that particular lawyer out in the public. It's not even admissible in court. The conversations and the information you've had with your attorney to be brought against you as some way to attack you because it's supposed to be private information. This should also, as a principle, apply in marriage that you as a spouse are going to get information about your spouse that's potentially damaging or harmful. And according to our own Bill of Rights, you are not required to testify against your spouse because it would be a communist hellhole if spouses were going to testify against one another. You're not even obligated because you're considered one flesh. And so it should be considered private. It's not to be used against you. Another situation would be, you know, typically most churches honor this. Our church certainly does. But if you have a private conversation with your pastor, it's supposed to be a private conversation. How embarrassing would it be if people are telling their pastor private information and then that's leaking out or being shared or used against them? That's completely unethical. That's just that's just evil. That's just weird. And that's being a tail bearer, you know, revealing secrets, trying to destroy people. Go to Proverbs Chapter 20, go to Proverbs chapter 20. Yet I see people that don't respect that at all. I see pastors that don't respect that at all. If you know, and this happens, you know, because our movement so got some drama around small people constantly try to send me information. They'll be like, hey, I have this secret information about this person or I recorded this thing about this person or I have this stuff or whatever. And they're trying to get it to me to, like, look at or hear. But here's the thing. I don't want to listen to secretly recorded messages of private conversations that are with pastors or whatever. That's extremely unethical. If I were to sit here and try to release private conversations and private information between a pastor and a different individual. How would I then be a good pastor if I'm recommending, sharing and encouraging people to listen to private conversations between pastors and church members or individuals? Like you would have to be a giant hypocrite if you were going to do that. And it shows you have no respect for the position of a pastor. I mean, just think of a doctor is trying to find all of the private medical record information of other doctors and then releasing that, releasing all that. That just shows you have, like, no respect as a doctor. If you're a lawyer and you're trying to use private client information and expose that and attack a client that shows you have no respect as a lawyer, you'd lose your license. And as a pastor, how dare you then try to secretly get information from other pastors and other church and then try to share all that. And it's so funny, those same type of people that would do this. If the pastor was releasing secret information, they would be condemned for it. But magically, because it's a person they don't like or whatever, now they're going to share this and do whatever. And that's just wicked. It's evil. And you're a hypocrite because I guarantee every person that does that would be so embarrassed and so frustrated if people were releasing their private conversations or private counseling sessions or whatever information is put out there. You know, you can sometimes actually stumble across information or conversations that you're not supposed to be involved in. And you know what you should do? Exit. Exit the conversation. You ever walk up on somebody and then all of a sudden you start realizing this is probably not a conversation I'm supposed to be hearing? Don't be like. Just walk away. Just walk away. You know, I remember this is back in the old times that you have the landline phones or whatever. Every once in a while it would get crossed and all of a sudden a random conversation just starts happening. And I'll be honest, I did not do the right thing. I just sat there, listen to it. OK, but the right thing would have been just hang up, not listening to other people's conversations and doing these, you know, because how would you feel? What if someone stumbled across you having a private conversation? Would you want them to listen in and hear everything that you're saying? I mean, this is just not a Christian attitude. Proverbs Chapter 20, look at verse 19. He that goes about as a tale bearer revealeth secrets. Therefore, meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips. We should not be tale bearing, revealing secrets, private information that's not to be out there. Now, look, some information is not meant to be private. And of course, there's discretion when we come to these situations. But there's plenty of things that do need to be private. And it's embarrassment when people are going to try and release private information. Go to Matthew Chapter seven, because, you know, only a hypocrite would do such a thing because nobody, nobody wants to live in Big Brother. Nobody wants to live in 1987. Nobody wants to live. Or was it 1984? Sorry, 1984. Nobody wants to live in this communist Big Brother system. What you already do. I mean, you just say something, your phone's like got an ad for exactly what you just said five seconds ago. I'm like, I'm having a conversation with someone. I bring up like a cruise line in the Bahamas and then instantly my phone's like, hey, there's a new ad for this cruise line going to the Bahamas. I'm like, that's weird. OK, that's creepy. I didn't like that. I wish I could turn that feature off on our phones where it's like you're secretly listening to me and then curating ads for me or whatever. I don't want that feature. I don't want that feature in my life either. Where people are constantly trying to use private information and trying to be a tail bearer and revealing everybody's secrets and everybody's past sins and everybody's issues. You know, that is not a healthy environment. It's a froward person. And it's someone that loves, loves strife. They love strife. They love transgression because they're just addicted to drama. They just love Jerry Springer. They just love Weekly Worldly News. They just love the tabloids. They just want they just want to know. They just want to hear some dirt. That's how they live their life. They live their life consuming dirt, gossip, tabloids. They're just a busybody and a tattler because they have nothing going on in their lives. And I guess since they don't watch TV, they just have to make a soap opera out of their own life. And, you know, that's not the type of Christianity that we should strive for. We should strive for one where we're covering for our brothers and sisters, where we're blessing them. We're letting things go. We're forgetting them. If Jesus forgives them, why should I remember them? I mean, if you sinned and then you you forsook it and you repented and you got right. Why would I bring that up if Jesus isn't going to bring it up? You know, that's weird when people are doing these kind of things. We need to make sure that we're not giant hypocrites. Look at verse three. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider'st not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye. Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. What could this look like? I don't know. Maybe someone is a giant railer and then they get mad at people for using a bad word. You know, it's like, hey, maybe stop railing and constantly lying and slandering people. And then you can help people that every once in a while, maybe they say something inappropriate or maybe every once in a while they said something minor. Because what's the what's the picture? Someone's got a beam in their eye and they're trying to help someone that's got a little tiny, little imperfection, a peccadillo. OK, just this little tiny thing. And then they're trying to fix it and they've got this giant, obvious, huge sin issue. You say like, well, how do I know what's a beam and how do I know what's a tiny little peccadillo? Well, I don't know. How about a beam is when it's in First Corinthians, chapter number five listed explicitly and that you're thrown out of church and that a peccadillo is one where there's not even a clear verse at all about your sin issue. That's a good way to judge if something's a big issue in the Bible. It's like some people that get so mad about things that are not even explicitly stated and they're ignoring things. They're just clearly mentioned over and over and over again. You know, we should be more concerned with the things that are just the beams of Christianity than all the little splinters that everybody wants to get so hyper focused on. And of course, they want to get you hyper focused on the splinter. So you ignore the beam that's going in on their eye. Because if you look at a picture, a painting, really, if you get really, really close to a painting, you could end up not realizing what the painting is even about because you're just so focused on like one little tiny section. And, you know, we don't want to have this type of Christianity where we're just so micro focused on stuff that we just miss the big picture. We just miss the big point that the Bible is often bringing up when it talks about things like let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. It's like, what application is that? Well, the main application is lying, slandering, being a railer. And then like we could take like second, third, fourth, maybe interpretations of this and saying, hey, maybe we shouldn't use certain languages because it offends people every once in a while. You know what? That's not the prime. That's not the that's not the beam. That's the moat. And people get so fixated on the little things instead of what is really the beam. Make sure when you're judging someone, you're not guilty of something worse or something similar. And look, this is not to say we can't judge people right. I can't sit here and say, like, I'm not going to judge people. We're not going to church because I go to church. Like if I'm going to church three times a week, you better believe the people that don't go to church and be like, hey, you need to get in church, buddy. That's not a beam that I have in my eye when it comes to showing up at church. If I'm going soul winning multiple times a week, I'm going to certainly tell people, hey, you need to start going soul winning. Right. But the people that are like not going to church, not going soul winning, not reading their Bible. And then they want to hyper focus on some minor little issue you have while you're going soul winning and going to church. I mean, that's being a giant hypocrite. It's like, hey, how about you get plugged into church, go soul winning, start reading your Bible. And then if you want to pick me apart, come on. But why don't you get there first? And then once you've gotten there, you'll probably realize that you still have some issues and you probably won't want to judge me anyways. Right. Because the people that are least judgmental are typically the most humble people. The people that are really prideful, arrogant and have giant sin issues are usually the most judgmental people that you'll meet in your life. Now, as we keep going, we're going to kind of get more into our theme here in this chapter. I spent a lot of time on these few verses, but I wanted to spend them because I think that the really important parts of this chapter that are often neglected. And we kind of go to these other portions more. But this whole chapter is really an incredible chapter. It says here in verse six, give not that which is holy unto the dogs. Neither cast your pearls before swine unless they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. A lot of one liners. This is just kind of like a singular verse. That's a really great truth. This is the this is something that I think is really important that I never get answers from is when I talk to other Christians, I say Jesus told us to not give that which is holy unto someone. Now, you may disagree with what I interpret dog ass, but why don't you just tell me who they are then? Because no matter how you read the Bible, there's somebody we shouldn't give that which is holy unto. Who is that? And it seems like the people that get mad at me for my interpretation never offer an interpretation, never offer a single person that we can fit in this category. And I'm saying, well, that's a problem because why would I then just ignore this verse and just pretend like it doesn't exist in my Bible? No, we should be able to identify who a dog is. Well, you know, the Old Testament tells us that a dog's a sodomite. That seems a bit pretty well here. Don't give that which is holy unto sodomites. Hey, you know, I had a person that was mad at me when we were, you know, in Hearst and they were mad because all the protesters. And they said, tell me a time when when Jesus called someone a dog. And I'm like, how about this? And he's like, I knew you would go there. What kind of question is this? Show me a verse that says everlasting life. John three sixteen. I knew you would do that. Yeah, of course. Like, why wouldn't I go there? And I'm thinking like the whole point was they're mad at me that we had a sticker that literally said no dogs allowed. And then we like put it up on our window or whatever, our church or something. And they're like, they're offended. When did Jesus ever call someone a dog here? What about this verse? But then it's like they don't provide an answer. They don't provide an alternative. Oh, yeah. Let me explain what that verse actually means to you. They just ignore it, don't they? They just try to pretend like it doesn't exist in the Bible. And you know what? I like all the verses in the Bible. And I think this is important. Notice it says also swine. They're not only dogs, they're swine, which is also mentioned in Second Peter, chapter two about unsaved people, false prophets. Also in Second Peter, chapter two, you know who's brought up? Sodomites. Same group, same category. Is it any coincidence that the people that come and protest our church are false prophets and sodomites? And then they're mad at me for not giving that which is holy under the dogs. Like, how dare you not give them the gospel? How dare you not try to sit down with them and give them water and subway sandwiches and whatever? It's like, I'm just not going to do that. Like, I'm not going to waste my time because if I go out there, they're more likely to literally rend me than to want to hear anything I have to say. Just because you're mean. No, because here's the thing. There's a lot of nice versions of me out here. They'll never say anything mean and they don't want to talk to them either. It's not like they're going and hanging out at their church or wanting to hear what the gospel is then. Plus, I constantly run into these type of people out soul winning and they don't know who I am and I don't know who they are. And I'm trying to give them the gospel and they still don't want it. It's funny to me, the people that criticize us for not wanting to give the gospel to sodomites are the same people that give the gospel to no one. It's like you're mad at me for not giving the gospel to five percent or less of the population while you don't give the gospel to everyone. How is that? How are you mad at me? Talk about a beam in your eye. And then it's not a moat. In their mind, it might be a moat. It's still not a moat. And I've still given the gospel to more of them than you. So who's really reaching these people? And if they were getting saved, get them saved. But it's funny that they don't seem to get them saved. Like if I'm wrong on the reprobate doctrine, if I'm wrong on the sodomite deception and all these movies, all the church needs to do is just fill their church with all these former sodomites and just prove it. I mean, right? I mean, couldn't they just prove it instantly? Couldn't they just get all of these homos saved? All of our protesters are saved and then be like, see, this is how you do it. It's funny that it's like, never show me that. I'm like, I'm ready to be proven wrong. Go for it. Have fun. But actually, I'd rather you do what Jesus said and just not give that which is holy unto the dogs. Verse seven, ask and it shall be given you seek and you shall find knock and it shall be open unto you for everyone that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth and him that knocketh it shall be open. What man is there of you? Whom of his son has bread? Will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? If he then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children. How much more shall your heavenly or shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? So here we have the principle of just God repeating again. We should ask him for the things that we need and notice many things because it says good things. He says your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him. God wants to give us good things. How do you get them? Ask, seek, knock. And, you know, this principle Christians need to learn really just people need to learn. Wives need to learn this. Children need to learn this. OK, children, if you want something from mom and dad, ask for it. Wives, if you want something from your husband, ask for it. Men, if you want something from your boss at work, ask for it. Christian, if you want something from God, ask for it. This is a principle that we need to learn and ingrain into our minds that if you want something, you ask for it. And you know what God doesn't do is he doesn't give you things you didn't ask for. Most of the time he's just sitting here waiting for you to ask for it. And all of the people that I brought up, it's probably the same way. The reason why you don't get things at work is because you didn't ask your boss for it. The reason why you don't get things from your husband is because you didn't ask him for it. The reason why you didn't get things, children, is because you didn't ask mom or dad for it. And you got to pick which you got to pick the right one sometimes. I know. Right. You always try. Right. You always try which one's going to give you what you need. But most of the time, the reason why you don't have what you need is because you just simply aren't asking for it. And I love how God words this. Did you notice how he said in verse number eight, for everyone that asketh receiveth. Now, if you compare this to other chapters in the Bible, we understand, of course, that there's this is not a genie in a bottle. The Bible says that if we ask according to his will, he heareth us. But here's the thing. The things that we ask God for according to his will, he will grant us. And he does want to grant us and he wants to give us. And we should have confidence in our prayers when we're asking things according to his will. And yet many people are just simply not asking for things or they're asking a miss. And that's, of course, a whole nother sermon. But we should be in a regular attitude of asking things for God. We have a prayer list. We love to pray and ask God for things. And we need to constantly praying and asking for things for God. And we see constant miracle. This church and me specifically, I've seen so many miracles in my life. So many things I prayed. There have been many things that I prayed for that I did not believe I would get. But I also believed it. And I don't know how to word that any better than I just did. But I'm just saying there were things that I'm like, I honestly don't think that this is going to happen. But I'm going to pray for it anyways, because I just God is a God that can do things that I can't see happening. And then I just prayed. And I didn't pray with a skeptical prayer. I'm just saying in my carnal flesh, in the mind of my body, I'm kind of thinking like, I just don't think that this is going to ever happen. But you know what? With God, all things are possible. So I'm just going to pray anyways, and I'm just going to ask Him for this. And then it happened. And I'm just thinking like, wow, that was what else can I ask for? You know, like, I need to ask for some awesome things. And, you know, we need to have a big faith and we need to say, hey, God can change this. I see God change people's hearts, people's minds, people's marriages, people's kids, people's life circumstance, people's financial circumstance, people's health. I mean, all kinds of things have changed that you would think, I don't even think there's hope here. You know what? We should continually have hope in the Lord and constantly ask. And the Bible says for everyone that asketh receiveth. God wants us to give us things. And, you know, we need to implement this in our carnal lives. And we need to ask this in our spiritual lives. Notice again, when children ask their parents for things, they give them stuff and they don't give them bad things. They give them good things. He said, we're evil and we know how to give good gifts. We're not good. We're evil. God's so much better than us. And He wants to give us things. We need to constantly be asking Him. Verse 13, enter ye into the straight gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way which leadeth the destruction, and many there be which go in there at. Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth them to life, and few there be that find it. Here's where we kind of get, again, this theme. And this theme is really emphasized in these next few portions of this chapter. But this idea of the true Christians, ones that are not being giant hypocrites. Of course, we're separating people from the Christian to the dog. The dog is someone that we want to stay away from and not give that which is holy unto. And, of course, we should ask God for things. But when it comes to salvation specifically, the Bible brings up this concept of a straight gate and a narrow gate. And that is the way that you get saved. And straight not meaning necessarily not crooked, but just basically narrow. It's a synonym for narrow in the sense that there's not a wide opening. Why is it narrow? Because there's only one way to heaven. There's only one. It's like imagine if I said there's a house. It's a giant house, but there's only one door. It means the only way to get into the house is through that one door. Now, that's the same way with salvation. There could be a house with 50 doors on it, but that is not salvation, according to the Bible. The true religion of the Bible is not 50 doors on the house. There's one door into the house. There's one door into the ark. And when you get in, he seals it behind you and you're shut in. And you're going to be saved. You're going to be delivered. That is the picture of salvation. That we enter into that one door and we are saved. Now, for a second time, go to Luke chapter 13. I want to show you another verse here. And I need to kind of speed up on these points, but Luke chapter 13 says in verse number 23. I think this is important to show this cross reference, because I guess some people might misconstrue what this passage was bringing up, but we're talking about salvation. And why I know that is when I cross reference with Luke chapter 13. Look at verse 23. Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the straight gate for many I say unto you will seek to enter in and shall not be able. So when we actually see this from another angle, we realize why did Jesus even say this? It was in response to a question. What was the question? Are a lot of people saved? And the answer is no. Let me explain to you something. The true religion in the world is one of few. It is not of many. If you have a religion where many people are saved, it is a false religion. It is not the true religion. The true religion, only few are saved. The many are not saved. And some people will say like, well, I want to be with the most popular crowd or the most popular religion or the most popular viewpoint. But you know what? That's the wrong viewpoint. The true religion has few people being saved. So if you are right in your interpretation of the Bible, if you are right with the right religion, it would be that few people are on that path. And you know what? Let me explain something. Salvation by faith alone is a few path. If you go and knock doors, sometimes you hear this weird accusation. Oh, well, if you guys are right, everyone is saved. And I'm thinking like, I talk to people all day, every day, and they say that salvation is by being a good person. They don't tell me it's by faith alone in Jesus Christ. They don't tell me that you can't lose your salvation. They don't say it's childlike faith, a one time trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. They tell me it's works. They tell me that it's a lifetime of repentance. They tell me that salvation is a lifestyle. They tell me they can lose their salvation. That's what the broad way is, which leads to destruction. But the narrow way, the straight way, is simple faith and the blood of Jesus Christ and that His substitutionary death, burial and resurrection paid all of my sins and I accepted the free gift of eternal life when I trusted in Him. And you know what? The few believe that. But the cool thing is that I can go out there and in 10 minutes explain that to someone and they can walk through that same doorway and they can get saved. But, you know, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the layers be few. Hey, that matches exactly what we're doing too. Few people believe salvation by faith and few people are preaching it, but many people believe it, and the harvest truly is plenteous. It seems like everything Jesus said is always true. You know why? Because He's the truth, the way, the life, and that's the only way to the Father. Because it's a straight and a narrow way. So it's a sad reality, but it's a reality that most people are going to die and go to hell. Go back to Matthew, chapter number 7. That is what the passage is saying. It's in context of salvation. So we can discern who is what? The true Christian who's not the true Christian. Now He's going to give us a lot of ways to identify this. In verse number 15, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Let me say something about a general consensus of the Bible, is that you'll notice that the false prophets generally outnumber the true prophets 100 to 1. Hundreds to 1. Almost consistently throughout the Bible, there's hundreds of false prophets. There's one good prophet. There's hundreds of false prophets. There's a couple good prophets. And if that's the consistent theme throughout the Old Testament and all the way up into Jesus Christ and beyond, why would I then believe that there's anything different? Why would I believe that it's now just magically everybody's a good prophet or a good guy when that was never the case historically, biblically, Old Testament, New Testament, or even just doctrinally? The Apostle Paul says that you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers. Why? Because there's very few people actually getting fruit and getting people saved, but there's all these people that are the Christian teachers, Christian preachers. You drive up and down this street, you'll find a church instantly. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of church in this area, yet no one's saved. Why? Because they're all false prophets, folks. And I'm not saying everyone, but I am saying the vast majority of preachers and prophets in the world are false prophets. That's what it says in 1 John 4, verse 1, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out in the world. The Bible just told you that a few are saved, and then it tells you that there's many false prophets. So the reality is most preachers are false, most preachers are liars, most preachers are doing nothing for the kingdom of God. And that's the sad reality of the world that we live in. But what God said is, I'm going to help you identify who is the true prophet and who's the false prophet. What is a false prophet? It's one in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire, wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. So here he gives us a way to identify a false prophet versus a true prophet. How? Their fruit. Now, what does this mean? Keep your finger here, go to chapter 12. Just flip the page, chapter 12, look at verse 33. Matthew 12, look at verse 33. The Bible says, either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt. Sound familiar? For the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. Notice what the Bible's bringing up, is the fruit that's coming from these people? Their words, what they're saying. Go to Luke chapter number 6, go to Luke chapter number 6. Matthew chapter 7 isn't necessary as elaborative on the point of what the fruit looks like, but if you look at the context, you'll realize it's also talking about words. But in Luke chapter 6, it's very clear, it's parallel passage. Look at verse 43. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth the corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. So the Bible is clear that the fruit that's being described here is talking about words. Now going back to Matthew chapter number 7, let me explain what this means though. Number 1, almost every single false prophet that we can identify very easily is based on one simple thing. What do they believe about salvation? I mean if we were to just say like, how do we as a church and as a congregation and as individuals, how do we discern that someone like Billy Graham wasn't really a good prophet? It's by listening to what he had to say about salvation he says you have to repent of your sins. How do I know that the Catholic priest is not a legitimate man of God? Because he'll tell you that's just work salvation. He'll just be frank. How do I know the Catholic bishop is not saved? What he says about salvation. How about the Church of Christ? What they say about salvation. How about the hardcore Calvinist that believes that you don't even have to believe? I mean that guy is insane. How do I know the Lutheran? And how do I know the Mormon? And how do I know the Islamic terrorists? How do I know Muhammad? I mean how do I identify the 99.99999999999% of false prophets is based on one thing. What do they believe about salvation? That is how you identify who is a true prophet and who is a false prophet of God. Do they have the spirit of error? Do they have the spirit of truth? Do they believe Jesus Christ came in the flesh? Do they not believe him? Do they deny the Trinity? Do they deny the Father and the Son? Well, they don't have either then. Okay, if you deny the Son, you deny the Father, you're an anti-Christ, you're a false prophet. I want nothing to do with you. So like if we were to just say how do I identify 99.99999999999% of false prophets? It's just simply one easy test. What do you believe about salvation? And they just tell you works, be a good person, get baptized, whatever nonsense they have to say. But then there's obviously .00000000001% of false prophets that can sometimes be tricky, cunning, say the right things. They're more like the Judas types. That is not what this passage is really emphasizing. It's emphasizing the 99.9999999%. That's what this passage is bringing up. So if I want to identify who's the false prophet, it's not how big their church is, how nice their clothes are, how sincere they are. What do you believe about salvation? And if they have the wrong gospel, false prophet. If they have the right gospel, well, they could be a Judas. They could be kind of using deceitful words here, but the vast majority of false prophets, they don't even know what to say. They just say the wrong thing. They're unsaved, and we can clearly identify those individuals. And those individuals cannot bring forth good fruit. What does that mean? Well, they're never going to explain to you how to be saved. Think about it. A Catholic priest is never going to accidentally tell his parishioner. When someone comes in for their confession time, they're not going to be like, hey, just by the way, salvation is by faith alone. Believe in Jesus Christ and be saved. They're not going to just stumble in their little homily. They're not going to just accidentally read John 3.16 and say, oh, yeah, I've been wrong forever. The whole church is wrong. It's actually a free gift. You can preach faith, believe in Jesus Christ, and just start getting people saved. Now, it's possible for someone to have been mixed up, get saved themselves later, and then end up preaching the right gospel. I think that there's exceptions to that. But I'm just saying, as an unsaved false prophet, as someone that's been preaching a false gospel, they're not going to accidentally get people saved. They're not accidentally teaching anybody anything that's right. And think about it. If you preach the right gospel to someone, what happens? They could believe it and get saved. If you preach a false gospel, you're going to produce something else, evil fruit. Did you notice what it says here in Matthew chapter number 7? It says, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. What is evil fruit? It's a damnable false prophet like themselves. It's a proselyte of themselves. It's a twice-dead individual who's been hearing this false gospel, false information, and so we see the result. Evil fruit is just simply the product of something. If I'm preaching good, I'm going to end up yielding good results. If I'm preaching bad, I'm going to end up yielding bad results. So what's a conclusion we can draw from this? The converts of a true prophet are going to be saved, and the converts of a false prophet will not be saved. Why? Because one preaches the right gospel. The other preaches the false gospel. So another way to make an application out of this is if you start talking to all the people that go to this person's church and they're all unsaved, it's probably a false prophet. And if you go to a church and you're talking to all the people at that church and they're all saved, it's probably the right guy. Always exceptions, and we're not really highlighting the Judases here. We're just talking about the general principle that's being taught here because if I go to this random church, a Christ church, I'm going to notice they're all unsaved. Why? Because the preacher is a false prophet, and he's not bringing forth good fruit. You walk into a Baptist church and they're all virtually saved. I mean, you're pretty much guaranteed that guy is a good guy. Now, I'm not saying there isn't exceptions here. We're not talking about the Judases. We're talking about the general principle that's being taught here. Here's another thing that could be an application of this. It's just simply if you're preaching the right things, not just the gospel, you're just preaching what the Bible says, you're going to produce good things in people's lives. They're going to bring forth other kinds of good things in their life. They're going to be soul winners. They're going to be producing good fruits in their life. So, you know, if you want to find a true prophet, find someone that's getting people saved and producing good things in their life, spiritual things in their life. The false prophet is going to be producing evil in their life and heretics and destroying people. That is the general principle that's being brought out here. That's how you can know the false prophet from the good prophet. Verse 21, Not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter in the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Notice again, verse 21, Not everyone that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord. So, again, we're evaluating what people say and this is important because, you know, I don't have time to go and ask every single person that says they got saved from Billy Graham what they believe. You know, wouldn't it be faster than me checking every single person in someone's church? If I could just go to their website and just look and it says salvation by repenting of your sins and just know, oh, you're bad. I don't have to go around and necessarily talk to every single person that's ever been around this person to get an idea about them. I can go right to the source. But then what is an obvious conclusion is if someone's preaching the right gospel, hey, something's going to happen. Look, if you're filled with the Spirit of God, something's going to happen. You know, it's so funny to me. People that are filled with the Spirit of God, they're going to preach great sermons and they're going to get people saved. People that don't have the Spirit of God, they're going to preach garbage sermons and they're not going to get people saved. And it's so funny, the people that want to constantly act like they're such great men, great men of God, great Christians, I'm thinking like, well, where's the sermons and where's the soul winning? Because I just don't see that from you. And I'm not going to discriminate against anybody. If someone has a great sermon, I want to hear it. And it's so funny that the people that constantly lift themselves up as these great individuals, it's like, okay, where's your fruits? Show me the great preaching and show me the soul winning that you've got. Oh, you don't have either of those? Hmm, interesting. Oh, your sermons are actually filled with heresy and like false doctrine and you're like destroying the things of God? You seem like you're producing evil fruit, not good fruit. And you know how I evaluate a preacher? What is he saying? You know how we evaluate someone saved? What they're saying. And this is what we should judge people on, what they are saying. Look at verse 21 again. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Not everybody that's a Christian is a Christian, folks. Not everybody that confesses Christ is legitimate. He says specifically, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have ye not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name have done many wonderful works. And though I profess them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Here in this passage, we notice that these individuals are not testifying of the gospel. They're not preaching the gospel. They didn't mention this. They're simply testifying to their works. And this is why this group of people, these individuals are not saved whatsoever. It's kind of interesting because even in 2 Peter chapter 2, I'm not going to go there for the sake of time, but if you look at the false teachers that are mentioned in 2 Peter chapter number 2, it says that they deny the Lord that bought them. Isn't it funny? You're standing in front of the Lord that bought you and he's saying, why should I get in? And instead of testifying of him, they deny the Lord that bought them and bring up their works. And that's why they're damned. And they bring that false message of a works-based salvation, a repentant of their sin. I got into church. I did all this works. I did whatever. And they're denying the Lord that bought them. They're denying the true thing that would have gotten them saved. And he says, I never knew you. Because once God buys you, you're bought. You're sealed under the day of redemption, is what the Bible says. So you can't lose it. This is a great verse on proving that you can't lose it. In fact, if I'm going soul winning and they're kind of iffy, sometimes I go to this passage and I say, why are these people not going to heaven? What are they trusting in? And it's almost a good litmus test to figure out if they figured it out or not. In fact, it's funny. I was soul winning last week, last Wednesday, and I'm just preaching. And I don't normally go to this verse at all or this chapter, but I'm just preaching the guy and it's got to the end and I'm kind of explaining salvation just by free gift, by works, you can't lose it. And he goes, wow, that makes this verse that I was thinking about make total sense where he says that I never knew you depart from me that work in equity. And I said, yeah, because they were never saved. And he's like, exactly. And I said, what were they trusting in? He said, they were trusting in their works. I'm like, we didn't even go there. This guy, I'm just preaching the Bible. I'm preaching the gospel. And then he just totally like made the Matthew 7 connection just on the fly while I was talking to him. And I was just thinking like, yeah, this guy's getting it. It was, that was the Holy Spirit helping that guy figure out, hey, that verse that you didn't understand because you weren't saved. Now it makes sense because you're hearing what the gospel is and things are clicking and this guy is ready to get saved, right? Look at verse 24. Therefore, whosoever hear these sayings of mine and do with them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not. For I was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and do with them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell. And the great was the fall of it. Now, this is kind of an interesting idea and it could, all these things could be a whole sermon in themselves. But this is the simple point I think you need to get from this. Going to church is not why you have bad things in your life. Did you read what this said? It said the person that built their house on the rock had the winds and the storms come. And the person that did not build their house on the rock had the winds and the storm come. You will have storms of your life. You will have the challenges of this life. Let me say something. Getting married is difficult. Having children is difficult. There is a lot of storms. It is hurricane season sometimes. It's tornado season and hurricane season and there's fires that are raging. All at the same time. Having, I mean, if you have children and a marriage, like having a job, having a career, living in this world, inflation. There's a lot of evil people with tiny hats that don't like you. And they're going to bring all kinds of storms in this life. You will have opposition in this life. I don't care who you are. You could be the most atheistic person and there is going to be severe problems, severe storms, severe enemies, severe attacks. You will have problems in this life if you go to church or not. But what church will often do and reading the Bible often do is help you to be on a rock when that storm comes. And when you're on that rock, instead of going to drugs, instead of going and having an affair or committing adultery, instead of going out and getting drunk and destroying your life, instead of going and hanging out with bad friends, instead of going out and committing crimes, instead of doing things that are really stupid, you're going to have like brethren and Christians keeping you on that rock and saying, hey, you know what? Don't go to that stupid thing. Hey, don't be depressed. Come with me and go soul winning. Don't be discouraged. Go with me and play it. Let's sing some songs. Let's sing some hymns. Let's pray. Let's do something spiritual so that we can get through this difficult time because you know what? You will have difficult times. And there's this lie out there, the satanic evil lie that I've heard consistently. As soon as you leave the new I have be your life's amazing. What I don't like to tell you, those people that say that, and they don't know, is all the people that I've seen their lives completely destroyed as soon as they left the new I have be church. They don't want to highlight those people. I've seen just horrible and hurt. I mean, people contact me and knowing about things and I'm not saying it's because they left the new I have be church. It's really just because when you leave a new I have be church is because you're leaving church in general. Most of the time when people leave church, they're just leaving church. I've seen just horror story, tons of bad things happening. They don't want to highlight that example. Why? Because you know what? You need to stay in church. You need to stay in a good church. You need to be one that's founded on the rock. You know, you could go to a church that has rock in the name, but that's not going to be founded on the rock. You need to go to a church that's going to keep you away from sin, that's going to keep you focused on the things that actually matter, because the storms of life will come, the storms of life will happen, and you know what? Those who are built upon this are going to survive, and the people that aren't are going to be destroyed. Well, I know someone that's not a Christian, and their life's great. Dude, you don't even know how many people are on antidepressants. Like, you think that people have great lives. You have no idea. You have no idea. Everybody's a fake, okay? Facebook is fake. Their smile is fake. The vast majority of this world are on drugs. The vast majority of this world have severe financial issues, severe problems. Many people are constantly contemplating suicide. They're constantly going out and just doing alcohol or all kinds of weird things to just get by. The vast majority of people are so unhappy, so discouraged. They just live for the next high or game or hobby or something just so they just don't quit on life. And you think, like, oh, they have it so good. So many people you think have it good are really just having the worst life ever. It's usually the people that are posting online a lot about how great their life is. I don't know why, but I'm just telling you, the people that are constantly bragging online. I'll see people bragging about how great their marriage is, and they have the worst marriage sometimes. Sometimes you could have it. Sometimes it's true. If you have a great marriage, God bless you. I'm really happy for you. But you know what? There's a lot of people doing it, and it's fake. It's not real. It's a charade. Don't get sucked into this idea of if I get away from the things of God, life will be easier. His yoke is light. His burden is light. His yoke is easy. Stay with the things of God, because storms will come. Verse 28, and it came to pass when Jesus did any of these sayings, the people were astonished as doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes. You know, the Bible says to rebuke with all authority. Preachers should be like Jesus, and they should preach with authority. You know what I hate about false prophets and false teachers? How they give an uncertain sound constantly. How you hear the sermon and you feel more confused about the topic than before you heard them preach. You should have more confidence in what the Bible says after hearing a sermon, not less. And preachers should preach with confidence. And here's the thing. If you get an opportunity to preach, preach something that you know is true and preach with confidence. Don't get up and say, now, I don't really know what the Bible is saying on this subject, but let me just give you my ideas. Now, again, on difficult passages, some things that most of us have studied for a long time and we still don't know, yeah, I think there's room to say here's a couple options just to give somebody a semblance. But your sermon should not be an uncertain sound. Your main point should not be something that you're a little hazy on or confused. It should be just clear, straight statements from the Bible, and we should preach with authority. This is what the Bible says. And this is how Jesus ends his sermon. Jesus preached the whole sermon. It was spicy, folks. It offended everybody. People were crying after the sermon, okay. He's rebuking false prophets. He's calling people dogs. I mean, that was Jesus' sermon, and he preached it with all authority. You know, you have to realize Jesus was a hard preacher. People were kind of like blown away when this guy came in and preached. And, you know, if you get an opportunity to preach, we should preach as much like Jesus as possible. People should be blown away by the Word of God, not confused. You know, the Word of God is powerful. You should get rid of lame preaching. Preaching should not be lame. Preaching should be powerful. Preaching should be convicting. Preaching should be what the Bible says. It should give you a clear understanding. It should be a revealer of just all the dark sayings in the Bible. I mean, the Bible talks about Daniel being a revealer of, you know, dark sayings. He's basically expounding on what the Bible says, you know, not making it confusing and more cloudy, and you don't know what it's saying. We should make it clear what the Bible is saying. And if you don't know what it's saying, then don't say it. There's this one guy, Bozo is what I call him. He'd like start all the sermons like, no, I didn't check with anybody smarter on me whether this is right or not, but I'm just going to preach it. The worst way you could ever start a sermon. Start a sermon with like, I know this is what the Bible is saying, right? Start with a clear statement and build from that. And of course, we should trust the red letters in our Bible. If Jesus said it, we need to believe it. We need to preach it with authority. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for this great sermon that was delivered by the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that we would take all of the sayings of His seriously and that we would build our house on the rock. Please help those that are struggling and they're going through trials right now. They're going through the storms of life to just cling to the rock, cling to the King James Bible, cling to church, cling to the spiritual aspects of their life and realize that the storm will pass. But we need to stick with the Word of God. We need to stick with the Bible. You're the one that's going to guide us through these difficulties. I pray that you just help our church no matter what storms we face to just be steadfast and always just producing fruit for your honor and your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. In closing, let's go to song number 130. Song number 130. Yesterday, today, forever. Song 130. Let's all sing it out together on the first. Oh, how sweet the glorious message simple faith may claim. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same. Still he loves to save the sinful, heal the sick and the brave. Cheer, oh Lord, still the tempest glory to his name. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same. All may change for Jesus' name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change for Jesus' name. Glory to his name. Ye who are in caring need are never needs thou fear. He that came to faithless love is all thy doubt would fear. Ye who led the love disciple on his bosom friends, bids thee still with love as never lean upon his friends. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same. All may change for Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change for Jesus never. Glory to his name. He who bid the raging bellows, walked upon the sea. Still can't touch the wildest tempest as on Galilee. He who had him prayed and anguished in Gethsemane. Trace with us each cup of trembling in our agony. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same. All may change for Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change for Jesus never. Glory to his name. As the holy rock in Vegas, lift him to the high. So through all our training, longeth ever near our side. Soon again shall we behold him facing for the day. But we'll still be missing Jesus as he wades away. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same. All may change for Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change for Jesus never. Glory to his name. Great singing, everybody. You were all dismissed. Thank you.