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

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see everybody this evening. We'll go ahead and get started. Welcome to Pure Words Baptist Church. Let's go ahead and find your seats and pull out your hymnals. And go ahead and open your hymnals to our first song, 379. Song number 379, Bringing in the Sheaves. Bringing in the Sheaves, 379. We'll go ahead and start there on the first. Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness. Sowing in the new tide and the dewey. Waiting for the harvest and the time of reaping. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows. Fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze. By and by the harvest and the labor ended. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Going forth with the weeping, sowing for the master. Though the law sustained our spirit of degrees. When our weeping's over, he will bid us welcome. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. Amen, great singing. Brother Mo, you want to pray for us this evening? Amen. All right, go ahead and flip in your hymnals to song number 56. Song number 56, when we all get to heaven. Song number 56. We'll start there on the first. Sing the wondrous love of Jesus. Sing his mercy and his grace. In the mansions bright and blessed. He'll prepare for us a place. When we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus. We'll sing and shout the victory. While we walk the pilgrim pathway. Clouds will overspread the sky. But when traveling days are over. Not a shadow, not a sigh. When we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus. We'll sing and shout the victory. Let us then be true and faithful. Trusting, serving every day. Just one glimpse of him in glory. Will the tolls of life repay. When we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus. We'll sing and shout the victory. Onward to the prize before us. Soon his beauty will behold. Soon the pearly gates will open. Not to tread the streets of gold. When we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus. We'll sing and shout the victory. Amen. Great singing. So at this time we'll go ahead and go over the announcements for the evening. If you don't have a bulletin just raise your hand. We'll have Brother Cameron bring them around to you. And on the front page we do have our Bible memory verse and chapter. We are in Romans chapter number 8 verse number 30. We are moving right along one verse per week and we are on that latter half. So if you can memorize the entire chapter word perfect and quote it to a non-family member you will receive a prize. So keep working on that. On the top left on the inside of the bulletin we have our service times. 1030 a.m. Sunday morning, Sunday evening 530 p.m. And our midweek Bible study is on Thursday evening at 7 p.m. We have our soul winning times listed there underneath that with the respective leaders and also our church stats. So we had, we started this morning with 528 salvations. We had three to add this morning from Brother Edward. We went out today and had 16 to add. Okay so we're at 19 salvations for the day. A very fruitful day. So good work, soul winning. They're on the next page. We do have an expecting lady in the church. We have Miss Sarah Gomez expecting a little baby boy, a little Silas due in December. So be in prayer for that little guy and Miss Sarah Gomez and that everything goes well with the delivery. Some upcoming guest preachers which is you know today October 3rd. We have Pastor Aaron Thompson from Sure Foundations Baptist Church from Vancouver Washington. It's been a blessing having him today. Definitely thank him for coming down. He's been a busy man and traveling all over the world. So definitely thank him for coming down to preach both services for us. And underneath there we do have some upcoming events. This next week October 6th through the 10th is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship up at Steadfast Baptist Church. Again Pastor Thompson is going to be preaching that Wednesday night so he's going to be doing some more traveling. So definitely go up there for that conference the 6th through the 10th. They're also going to have a lot of other fellowship events and things like that. So definitely write that on your calendar. Sunday October 31st is our annual chili cook off. So that's going to be here at the church. It's going to be that chili competition Texas style no beans. So definitely take note of that. Tuesday November 23rd is our Thanksgiving service. So the midweek service will move from Thursday to Tuesday. And then Thursday December 23rd is our Christmas candlelight service. And then I just wanted to just note that this next week during the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship there is going to be no midweek service here at Pure Words. So if you want the midweek service go to the fire breathing. So just wanted to throw that out there. This next week there's going to be no midweek service for Pure Words. But definitely tune in online or make it if you can. But lastly if you do have any prayer requests email those into the church at PureWordsBaptist at gmail.com. And you know Pastor Shelley goes over those prayer requests during the midweek service. And we can be in prayer for everybody that needs it. But that is the announcements for the evening. Go ahead and pull your hymnals back out. We'll have Brother Cameron come lead us in our third song. 187, 187. Alright hymn 187. It's time for the kids to wake up because it's Jesus Loves Me. So I need some help from all the kids. We can sing it out nice and loud so God can hear us and clap his ear to us. 187, 187. Jesus Loves Me. Let's sing there starting on the first. Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Jesus loves me, he who died. Heaven's gate to open wide. He will wash away my sin. Let his little child come in. Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Jesus loves me, he will stay. Flows beside me all the way. Thou has bled and died for me. I will henceforth live for thee. Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. Amen and good singing this evening. If you would while the offering plate is being passed around turn to 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Brother Sam, would you read for us? Yes sir. Alright we are here again. Amen. Read this chapter together as always. If you would find your places. Right here in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 follow along with me. The Bible reads starting in verse 1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I have become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mystery, all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to be the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long and is kind. Charity envious not, charity vaineth not itself, not puffed up, not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. Rejoiceth is not iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, bearing all things, believe all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. And now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known. Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. If I had for a quick word of prayer, if a father would come for you, again, thank you so much to all of you, and thank you for coming to salvation today. Pray with you, be with those people, show them what you all have experienced. Get them into a good church, like you have, feel up. Touch down from once again to your Holy Spirit, and build this church for your Holy Spirit. Pray to you, and give me thanks, we love you, and always give you thanks. Amen. Amen. Alright, well it's great to be back tonight. And I hope you all got a little bit of rest. I know that you went slow and you probably didn't. But anyway, I just want to thank everybody for coming tonight. I want to thank Pastor Shelley once again for having me down at Pure Words Baptist Church. Great church here. and I really look forward to even coming back again sometime in the near future. And I've got a lot of good friends here, a lot of people I don't know very well, but some people I do. And I haven't got a chance to meet you after services. Glad to shake your hand and meet you and talk with you for a little while. But let's get into the word of God tonight. And we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Look at verse number three. Bible says, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I feed, or excuse me, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. And so what I want to talk about tonight, what I want to preach about tonight is the charitable industrial complex, the charitable industrial complex. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for all these great people who would come and hear the word of God on a Sunday night, Lord, where many people are focused on many different things. Lord, I pray that you just help us and meet with us tonight. Lord, that you fill me with your spirit and boldness and power. I pray that people would have ears to hear what your spirit says unto the church tonight. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Amen. All right, so the charitable industrial complex, and I get this from, obviously, the military industrial complex, which describes a relationship between the nation's military and defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. So, basically, there's this symbiotic relationship between war and the people that supply war, right? But now, what I'm talking about tonight is the charitable industrial complex. And so, in like manner, the charitable industrial complex would be the poor and those organizations that supply their needs. Now, you think that that's not really, you know, that's a good thing, right? Pastor Thompson, we just read this whole chapter. It talks about charity. And I agree, it is good to help the poor. It is good to help people. I don't have a problem with charity. Obviously, the Bible's for charity. The Bible says, if you feed the poor, but you don't have charity, it really means nothing. And then this whole chapter is basically talking about all these things you can do, all these great things you can do for God. But if you don't have love in that, then it means nothing. But I would say this today, that charity, the word charity means something else to other people. To us, it's like Christian love, loving unconditionally, loving people and helping them. And you know, when we go soul-winding, it really doesn't benefit you in any way besides the rewards you're gonna get in heaven. But to that person, it means everything. It means eternal life, you know, out of the lake of fire and into heaven. So, you know, but when it comes to charity, this world looks at it like, hey, I'm giving money to help the Bill Gates Foundation. You know, hopefully nobody in this church gives to the Bill Gates Foundation. That would be like, just, you know that meme where the little Chinese kid has like the boot on his, it looks like someone's put a boot on his neck, but you see the other one, it's actually his own hand inside the boot, like putting the boot on his neck. That's kind of what that would be. It's like giving to the temple foundation, you know, the Temple Mount Foundation, where you're like, just paying for the Antichrist to come sooner, you know, that kind of charity. That's not the kind of charity that we want to give to. But around the world, there's all kinds of different types of charity. Some are Christian organizations. So, you know, so they say, and some are just secular. You know, you got Habitat for Humanity, where they, you know, do good things for people, and it's more of a secular thing. Even atheists have gotten in on the charitable thing, which it seems like, you know, the atheists, you know, they're all pretty much out for themselves, but they still want to show that they're nice or something. I don't know. But anyway, so 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 13 says, and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. So out of all those things, charity is the most thing. Showing love is the most Christian thing that we can do. And of course, what I believe the best thing we can do is show people the way to get to heaven, right? That's the type of charity that I would like to import on people. But you have even Christian organizations so-called that, you know, do all these things in the name of feeding the poor and helping the poor. And like, charity has become this big business. And that's why I'm talking about it being a charitable industrial complex. It's like, this is just like a big machine that creates billions of dollars, and most of that money probably is not actually going for what it's supposed to be going for, which is supposed to be helping people. But, you know, in my day, my earlier days, who's heard of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, right? If you're older in here, a little bit older, you know who that is, or maybe you've heard of her. But Mother Teresa was this Catholic Church saint. She's now considered a saint. She apparently cured two people of tumors in their brains, and then now she did miracles. I guess part of being a saint in the Catholic Church is you have to have done some kind of miracles that are attested to or whatever. But this person, you know, she was like a very popular person that did charity work, and she worked in India with the poorest of the poor and helped people and did hospices and all these different types of things. And, you know, but she was a Catholic. So here's the problem is that she's doing all these things, and it would seem like it's love, but in reality, she was a missionary. She was a nun, she was a Catholic missionary. What was she actually doing? Was she sending people to heaven? She was easing them out of this world and helping them supposedly, but in the end, they all die and go to hell anyway, because she wasn't bringing salvation to them. So what in the world is the point of giving to a charity that isn't even actually helping someone to accomplish the ultimate goal of what God has in store for each and every person that would believe on his son, Jesus Christ, that they would actually go to heaven? That's the most important thing. And so, you know, when I was in my early days as a Christian, I would put, you know, you'd see the bell ringing out in front of Walmart or whatever, and it was like, here's five bucks, okay, just let me on. But, you know, I actually, at one point, I did think that that was helping somebody. But, you know, what I found is that if they're not, if they don't have salvation in their organization, then why would I give my money to something that isn't even spreading forth salvation? I mean, you got all kinds, you got the Shriners. That's a Masonic group that helps children, and I'm all for helping children. But ultimately, are they bringing salvation to the people that they're helping? What is the point of their charity? It's so that they can have accolades on earth to show people how giving and how loving they are. Here, join our organization, because we're so, we help children, we do this, we do that. And so, ultimately, it can be used as a veil to bring forth a false salvation. You know, people think Mother Teresa, I mean, when she died, I think she died in, well, I'll get to that here in just a second. Let me just read a little bit about Mother Teresa. Here, I'm jumping around a little bit. Mother Teresa, in 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation that had over 4,500 nuns and was active in 133 countries in 2012. The congregation manages homes for people who are dying of HIV, AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis. It also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children's and family counseling programs, as well as orphanages and schools. Members take a vow of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and also profess a fourth vow to give wholehearted, free service to the poorest of the poor. Now, on paper, that sounds like it's really nice, doesn't it? It sounds like it's a good thing to do. But remember, Roman Catholic charity, okay? Roman Catholic charity. There is no salvation inside the Roman Catholic church. Let me just tell you that right now. It says, by 1997, the 13-member Calcutta congregation had grown to more than 4,000 sisters who managed orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, caring for refugees, blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor, and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine. By 2007, the missionaries of charity numbered about 450 brothers and 5,000 sisters worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools, and shelters in 120 countries. You know, and one of the things that Mother Teresa liked to do is she liked to baptize people when they're on their deathbed. So converting them to Catholicism and adding, you know, they have their numbers too, don't they? You know, we have 16 salvations today of all the people that went out sowing today, and 19 salvations, what was it for the whole weekend, right? Or was it more than that? I think it was more than that, right? Yeah, it was 19 just for, yeah, the weekend, okay. But I mean, that's a lot of salvations. That's a lot of good that was done. But nobody's gonna recognize your name in the newspaper tomorrow, are they? They're not gonna say, peer words Baptist Church gets 19 salvations, you know, praise God. That's not gonna happen. But you know, Bill Gates will be in the newspaper tomorrow, somewhere, that he's helping people, you know, get vaccinated when actually he wants half the population to die. I mean, how does that work? Isn't that kind of working again? It's like, you know, it's contrarian, isn't it? It's a contrary belief. It's like, I wanna help these people by giving them vaccines, but I also want half of the population to die. So that's not a charity we wanna give to, right? But this complex, this industrial complex of charity, it's not always a good thing, is it? It's not always done with good intentions. And Mother Teresa, you know, she had goals and things that she was trying to do, but she wasn't saved, was she? And so if she was a missionary, and she did this for many, many years, I mean, do you think that she was just, you know, she just didn't, you know, she didn't realize what she was doing was wrong by being a Catholic nun. No, she was preaching a false gospel. And it's a gospel of works. That's what the Catholic Church believes is the gospel of works. You know, you have to do all this and, you know, say Hail Marys and carry beads around, and you know, when they do these bows of poverty and chastity, they walk around in their little wizard outfits and stuff, they have like, we were in England, and this guy, you know, with the fryer tuck, you know, have you ever seen like the fryer tuck chicken or whatever, it's got the, there was a guy, and he was wearing like a potato sack or something, and he had like, just like a belt around his waist, and he had his prayer beads on one side, he was like Indiana Jones of the Catholic Church or something, he's got a whip on this side to whip himself with or something. But why do they do that? Because they want to show everybody, I took a vow of poverty, look at me, look at my potato sack and my leather belt, oh, look at how great I am. You know, he barely, he has his reward. There's a lot of people that do charitable work and they're doing it to be seen of men. The Pharisees, you know, they would blow a trumpet before they gave alms to someone. I mean, what do you think that's pretty weird? You know, it's like, hold on everybody, and then some dude in a wizard outfit walks over and just goes, here you go, my son, be warm and filled or whatever, you know. It's pretty weird, but we live in a society where people think, and these Hollywood people think, and all these people, these football players or whatever it is that they are, they all have these charities that they give to, don't they? And even if you go to the store, have you ever noticed you go to the store and you swipe your card and it says, hey, would you like to round up for, you know, Jude's Children's Hospital or whatever? You know, they're trying to make you feel bad. Oh, what, you can't give a couple cents, you cheap son of a gun, you know, it's like, what's wrong with you? You can't help Jude's Children's Hospital? It's like, I give to my local church. That's where I give my charitable donations. And, you know, when we give alms, those are supposed to be done in secret, right? If you give outside the church and you're helping somebody out and you give alms, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing, right? But when I give to charity, I give to the only good charity on the earth, which is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the best charity. That's where that money is gonna be turned into love somewhere else down the line. Now does every dime you go to go to just preaching the gospel or just feeding the poor? No, it goes to all different kinds of things. And I'll get into that at the end of the sermon. But, you know, Mother Teresa died September 5th, 1997. I remember my mom, who's not a Catholic, go, did you hear Mother Teresa died? And it's like, yeah, okay, like, I don't care. You know, it's like, I didn't have a candlelight vigil with all the people around the world. You know, she was a phony. And I wasn't even saved back then. I was just like, okay, whatever, Mom. You know, I don't care about Mother Teresa because, you know, she sent probably thousands and thousands of people straight to hell. You know, she made people twofold more the child to hell than she was herself. Compassing sea and land and making brokering deals with all these big name people from around the world that were, you know, the presidents. Any place that she walked into, any country she went to, you know, she was getting donations from these big name money type people. And, you know, these people are evil people. So at one hand, she's like, I just wanna be, you know, all about peace and love and feeding the poor and stuff. And then she's receiving money from these, the worst people in the world. All these politicians and movie stars and scumbags, right? Turn to Luke chapter six, verse 26. See, people will speak well of all these types of people, these charitable, industrial, complex figureheads. And people will even worship some of the people that are in them. I mean, people worship football in this city, don't they? People worship football, American football, and look, I like football. But like, you know, I was just reminded, I was here, the last time I was here was Super Bowl Sunday, and guess what, I didn't watch the Super Bowl. I don't care. You know, and the Texans, I was told that when the Texans play, you can't even drive around the town at all. Because everybody's so into the game, and I think they got beat, by the way, today. But anyway, when it comes to these charlatans that are purporting that they're so charitable, these people have millions and millions and millions of dollars, and they act like if they gave $100,000 away or something, they're like the greatest person on earth. Oh, Shaquille O'Neal gave $100,000. He's got probably over $100 million, I would venture to say. I mean, if anybody wants to pull it up on their smartphone, what's Shaquille O'Neal worth? I'm sure someone can pull it up real quick and let me know, I'd appreciate it. But anyway, let's look at Luke chapter six, verse 26. It says, woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. When Mother Teresa died, all people spoke well of her. How much? 400 million Shaquille O'Neal's worth. 400 million. You guys got that sitting around at home? You got 10% of that? Probably not. But you know, they act like they're just doing this great deed, you know, they're storing up treasures on heaven, I mean on earth. They're storing up treasures on earth, and they're not even gonna make it to heaven. You know, he's got $400 million, but you know, he gives a million dollars and people act like that's the biggest deal in the world. That's pocket change for him. I mean, he probably has a million dollars just sitting around his house somewhere, who knows? But like Mother Teresa, when she died, people spoke well of her. When Billy Graham died, they spoke well of him. When these people that are these figureheads of these charitable organizations, they die, they think that, oh, that person was so godly, that person was so great. But in reality, what were they really doing? They were just taking care of people's temporal needs. And look, there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want you to get the idea that I'm against charity and helping people, I'm not against that at all. The Bible has a whole chapter about it, about loving people and caring about people. But you know, we gotta understand, we gotta put our money in the right place. You know, it should have something to do with giving to your, you know, if you're gonna give to charity, give to your local church. If you're gonna help somebody, help someone that's hurting in your local church. If you're gonna help the poor, actually make sure somebody that's poor, not just some drug addicted person that put themselves there in the first place. There's people, there's families out there struggling that do work jobs, that don't have anything. Those are the types of people we should help. The working poor. Jesus wasn't all about, hey, let's give to the poor, the people that live under bridges and throw their trash all over the place. That's not the type of poor people he was talking about. But you know what, there are poor people all around the world that don't have what we have in this country. Places like India where people literally do live in trash dumps and things like that and pick through garbage to get their daily food. That's really poor. That's really, that's heartbreaking. When we went to the Philippines, I remember my wife just started crying because little children were running up to us and begging us for money. And she's like trying to pull a $20 bill out of her pocket to give to this little girl. Part of it, they really are destitute there. I've watched families rip open a bag of rice that some restaurant gave to them and they're all eating it out of the bag with their hands. Their children, they got their animals with them too. It's different. When you go there, you realize the difference between America and the Philippines. But my wife, if she would have gave one of those kids a $20 bill, that might have been the end of that person's life. I said, don't give them $20. If you're gonna give somebody, obviously give somebody something, but if that little girl walks off with 20 bucks, people would kill her for that in countries that are destitute in third world countries. But we don't even realize, if you stepped into a country like that, then you would realize. Or maybe you're from a country like that or maybe you've visited countries like that. Then you see what true poverty is. Then you see what true poor is. And then you've got a place like America that has more money than any place on the planet and you got a bunch of hobos and bums laying out on the sidewalks and doing drugs in front of families. You got drunkards and pedophiles and rapists amongst them. I mean, it's disgusting. And we come from a city in Portland, Oregon where it's the beacon of hope for all these homeless people. People like travel and go to Portland on purpose just because of all the social programs that they have. That's not the type of people that we should be giving our money to, people that are just bums, okay? So, you think about charities like the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army, there's no salvation in the Salvation Army, did you know that? Just like there's no salvation in the Catholic Church. And I'm sure there's some accidental saved people that are involved in the Salvation Army, but it was not started by a saved man. They believe in a workspace salvation. And it's just become a charity, they get $5 billion a year in charitable donations. And what do you think that they're doing with that? I preach a whole sermon about it if you want to look at it from last year, and I'll show you what they do with it, it's pretty disgusting. But pretty soon you're gonna start hearing that bell ringing outside the stores. You're like, Pastor Thompson's too early to start talking about the holidays. Well, guess what, it's upon us. He's already talking about Thanksgiving, okay? He's already talking about Christmas, okay? It's upon us, all right? So, but I mean, I just figured this is a good sermon to help us understand where we should be putting our money and what's a good charitable organization? You know, what should we, how should we deal with poor people? And the Bible does say a lot about it. Actually, so many scriptures, I didn't even have time to put them all in there. But you're gonna hear that bell ringing outside of Walmarts and Targets, and if the Salvation Army doesn't have salvation inside of it why would you put any money inside one of those pots? And look, you can do whatever you want with your money, that's fine, but like, I realized a long time ago that my $5 bill is gonna go farther in the local church than it's gonna go with the Salvation Army. So I make a base salary of about $50,000 a year where I work. And so, and as long as I've been working there, I've never got a raise of merit the whole time I've been there. In fact, I know people that have worked there for 30 years and they've never gotten a raise based upon merit. And a merit raise is basically, this is what you guys did for working extra hard or whatever. Everybody gets paid the same amount of money there in their work classification. So the only increases we get are cost of living. You know, and it costs money to live places, right? So they give us the cost of living and that just goes up and up and up. But they say that it's not in the budget to give raises to people that work where I work. And they waste billions of dollars on helping the lazy. So, and I'm not just saying billions, I'm not just throwing numbers out there. The city of Portland literally throws out billions of dollars to help homeless people. And so, Multnomah County is where Portland, Oregon's located and people, I did the math on it and it's probably not exact, but they have a $55 million plan for the next 10 years to help homeless. Every year, they do a budget for the homeless because like I said, it's the beacon of hope or whatever for people to come to and get free handouts. But I did the math on it, there's four to five, there's a little less than five homeless or 5,000 homeless in the Portland metro area, in Multnomah County alone, okay? And that's the city of Portland, the city of Portland is. That equals out to $20,000 per person per year for the next 10 years, 20,000. But they get, just because they say I'm homeless, I'm drug addicted, I'm poor, it's not, and if you've ever been to Portland or if you've ever been to, I don't know, do you guys have the big homeless camps here? You do? Or they just, you know, they camp, then the city makes a move, and then when they move, all their trash is left behind, you guys have that? And then guess who goes and picks up that trash? Another agency that the government pays to go pick up someone else's trash while they just go and destroy another property somewhere else in the city. And then, you know, so they get paid all these services, all these free services, all this money, but that works out to be about 20K per person. So if my base salary is 50,000 per year, you know, I actually have to work for that money. I actually have to go out and work, you know, an eight hour day, 10 hour day, or 12 hour day to make the ends meet at a job like that, and everybody else in this room understands what that's like. You have to go work for your money. Does someone just hand you 20K every year for no reason? Well, maybe Joe Biden did, but that's a different story, okay? But you know, anything that they're willing to give me back after all the taxes I've paid for my whole life, you know, okay, well, whatever, thank you very much. You know, at least we actually worked and put tax money into it, and look, I'm not getting down on people for being poor. The poor are always gonna be in this world. That's what the Bible says. So, you know, but these homeless just in Multnomah County are getting $20,000 per year per person. There's a population of 5,000 homeless people, and that might be a low number, but that's just what they budget for the 10 years. Every year, they redo these budgets. So, but think about this also. It's not just those, that's not the only amounts that go into help all this big complex of homelessness in or in areas like this. Think about the cost to emergency services. You know, if you work downtown at all, you're gonna hear sirens going off constantly. You know why the sirens are going off? Because the fire department is getting called to some person that just OD'd in the middle of the street, and so instead of the little old lady that fell down at her house getting help with some OD'd, you know, dirt bag that's laying there dying, and so they don't go and take the calls that were, you know, they're being tied up in calls that they shouldn't be having to go to because they're getting handouts and free handouts and drugs and needles and whatever else the city wants to provide for them to just be a homeless vagrant bum, and we're paying the tab for it. Wrong. It's wicked. And so when people are like, oh, I help, you know, how come your church isn't helping the homeless? They got plenty of help, don't they? As a matter of fact, I don't wanna have homeless services at our church. I'll help the poor. If someone comes to church and comes and sits through a service and they say, hey, can you help me out? We'll go buy them groceries. We'll go help them out. We'll do all kinds of things like that, but you know what they like to do? They just like to call. You know, they're laying there with chips on their chest, you know, underneath the bridge or whatever, like, hey, can you help? Hey, can you help? They're calling every church. No, they don't have a phone book anymore, I don't think, but every church on the Google, you know, whatever. I always picture like they're going through the phone book because that's what they used to do, but now there's no more phone books unless it's online. But you know, many of these people that are getting these handouts too, they're sex offenders, they're perverts, and they're trying to avoid being detected and having to register as a sex offender. So who knows what's going on in all these camps all the time, but you know, there's a lot of crime. There's a lot of rape going on. There's a lot of, you know, there's murders that are going on in these types of camps, but you know, the governments, they just think that it's just, it's good to just throw money at the problem. Let's just throw some money at the problem and see if that helps. Well, it's not helping. It's making it worse. It's making more people wanna live, you know, or move to that city and just get the free handouts. Well, it's not, and it's not just the 55 million that's budgeted for that 10 years, but it's all the cost and police and paramedics and firefighters and then plus all the other stuff that other people do to help that's not even budgeted. People are just like, I wanna go and go hand out stuff on Thanksgiving. You know, I'm gonna go donate my time. My family wanted me to do that, and I was like, I ain't doing that. I'm gonna enjoy it with my family because those people, like, there was a Portland police officer that told me, he said, on any given day, you can get 11 free meals in Portland. If you just know where to hit them, you get 11 free meals in Portland per day. I mean, so are they really going without? They're not going without. You know, when you got a brand new REI tent on the corner and a brand new coat and brand new shoes, I mean, they don't look homeless. The only reason why they look homeless is they just don't care. They get all drugged out and wasted, and they fall down and get dirty or whatever, but they're not hurting for what they need. They're actually getting something they shouldn't be getting because they need to be working is what they need to be doing. They need to be on programs that get them off drugs, and they say that they do, but most people don't even take advantage of those things. Why would you if they're just gonna hand you everything that you want and everything you ask for? So in Oregon, you only have to register as a sex offender one time per year. In Washington, it's every week. In Washington State, and I'm not saying Washington State's a great state, but for this it is. Washington State homeless sex offenders are required to report their whereabouts to the police every week, not once a year as in Oregon. The hardship of being a registered sex offender sends most sex criminals into a downward economic spiral. Most jobs and apartments are off limits. Even public subsidized Section 8 housing is unavailable. Important, about 275 of the 3,992 registered sex offenders, 7% are homeless, and just note the word registered because they don't always all register. What I've heard upwards of up to 20, 25% of these homeless people are sex offenders, child molesters, perverts, whatever you wanna call them. And it says Portland has long been known as a city that attracts homeless people because of its generous social services so that it's likely increasing the local sex offender count. So Oregon's not just drawing in homeless people, but they're drawing in homeless sex offenders. There's people from Oklahoma City in this article that I was reading, they got out of prison and then drove from Oklahoma City straight to Portland so that they wouldn't have to register in Oklahoma City and so they just went and registered in Oregon, it's a done deal. But they're drawing all the worst types of people there. See, this charitable industrial complex, when you get down to the details, it's not a good thing. But people say, oh, you just don't care about the homeless, the church doesn't care. We care, we care about people that are hurt, we care about people that are poor. I want our church to have charity, I want our church to care about people. But you know what's gonna do the most good for them is for them to get saved, get in the right mind, get a job, get their family right. That's gonna help them, that's gonna help the poor. See, Jesus told us to go and preach to the poor, didn't he? Because the poor are gonna be the most people that are likely to receive it. But when you're poor, but you have everything, you're labeled as poor, but you're given everything you need and you have no need of anything, you might as well be rich. Haven't you gone to places that are actually pretty poor areas and they don't receive you? Why is that? Well, because they've already been given everything they need, they got the housing, they got the food stamps, they got the free rent check, Biden's giving them money every month or whatever. And people that have need of nothing, what do they need God for? They don't need them. So sometimes people are classified as poor, but really, they got more stakes in their fridge than I do. It's true, it's true. So basically, they're getting away. Portland is known as a tolerant place, right? Have you ever heard that term, tolerant? Yeah, it's liberal is what it is. And it's not liberal in a good way. It's liberal in a bad way. The city's out of control. There's fighting going on every night there. You know, that's a different sermon for a different time. But you know, a place that's gonna harbor these types of people, these wicked child molesters, you know, the Bible has something different to say about them than we should give them charity, right? Look at Mark chapter nine, verse 42. I know I've been lying on Bible, but that's about to change here in the next few seconds. Mark chapter nine, verse 42. The Bible says, and whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. What does Jesus recommend that we charitably do to these people? You know what's charity? Get in these scumbags out of our society. That's charity. So that they could never hurt another kid ever again for the rest of their life. You know what's charitable? To put them to death. For the government to put them to death. Do your job, sir. You know, you wanna get paid all this money, but then the judges just sit there and let them do whatever they want, and they let them out of jail. You know, they shoot someone. They don't even get in trouble for it. You know, all this Antifa and all this stuff has just been a way for criminals to just thrive. But, you know, Oregon has become a place where they just allow the worst types of people to come, and it is sending a beacon, isn't it? It's sending a beacon, hey, here, fags, come here. Here, homos, come here. You know, we'll let you come. You don't even have to register, but once a year. And if you're homeless, you know, who's gonna check? So you got all these homeless perverts out there getting a free meal on our, off the backs of the people that actually work hard. And they get a big percentage of what we make, right? They already get our taxes, and then we only make, I only make $30,000 more a year than somebody that just sits there and smokes drugs on the street corner every year? Good, you don't wanna know what's wrong with this country. That's a big part of it. So turn to Deuteronomy chapter 15, verse 11. See, we're always gonna have poor people. We're always gonna have people in need, and that's always gonna cause these charitable-type people to come and say, oh, I wanna help them. I wanna give them, you know, but Jesus said that there was always gonna be the poor. Look at what it says in the book of Deuteronomy. It says, for the poor shall never cease out of the land. Therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy needy in thy land. You're like, well, Pastor Thompson, that's contradicting what you're saying. Yeah, the poor and the needy in your land, it doesn't say the lazy and the drug addicted and the alcoholics, does it? It says the poor and needy, people that just, you know, some people are just poor, and there's nothing wrong with being poor. There's nothing wrong with being poor. It's just not a very good social status for some people. I mean, people that have more money generally have a little more fulfilled of a life, but are they happier? Not necessarily. Why did Jesus say to go to the poor? There's a lot of Christians that are poor, and there's nothing wrong with that. They actually probably are gonna have a better life than some rich snob that's gonna die and go to hell, right? But Moses is saying here that there's always gonna be poor people. And so, you know, if there's always poor people, there's always gonna be people that try to take advantage of poor people too. Now, turn to 1 Samuel 2, verse 8. The great thing about God is it doesn't matter where you were born. It doesn't matter what your last name is. It doesn't matter, you know, what social status you're in. God can lift up anybody. He can exalt anybody. You know, David said that he was poor, right? And God lifted him up, right? Look at 1 Samuel 2, verse 8, it says, He raised up the poor out of the dust and lifted up the beggar from the dung hill to set them among princes and to make them inherit the throne of glory for the pillars of the earth of the lords, and he has set the world upon them. So, God is able to take the beggar that's in the dung hill, and just, I mean, just think about that picture for a second. Someone's begging for food. They're in a dung hill. What's a dung hill? Yeah, a doo-doo, right? It's not something you want to be sitting in, right? But God is able to take someone like that and pick them up and clean them up and get them right with him, and so that God can bless their lives, and he can make them to set among the princes and to them that inherit the throne of glory. Everybody on this planet is on a level playing field when it comes to God. God's not a respecter of persons, so anybody that's poor can be saved, and in heaven, they might be poor all the days of their life on this earth, but you know what? In heaven, they're gonna walk with princes. They're gonna be among the princes. They're gonna be inheriting with everybody else. We all inherit heaven, don't we? We all get everlasting life, and so nobody's, I'm not saying poor or worse or rich or worse. God looks at everybody the same, but you know, he's able to pick the poor person up and take them out of that dung hill and set them with the princes. Now turn to Proverbs 13, verse seven. Proverbs 13, verse seven. It says, there is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing. There is he that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. See, there's a lot of poor people that are richer than Bill and Melinda Gates. I think Melinda's Mel or whatever, but anyway, there's people that are poor in this world that have way more money than people realize. They're rich, they're going to heaven. You know, and anybody in this room that's saved, you're all rich. You're like, well, come look at my bills, Pastor Thompson. Well, I'm talking about in the life to come. We're all gonna inherit the riches of God, amen? And God has unlimited resources, unlimited resources. See, we have limited resources, don't we? When we get paid, we're like, man, where'd all that money go? Rant. Rant. Rant just takes a big chunk right off the top, doesn't it? But you know, we have limited resources, but one day we're gonna have unlimited resources, the unlimited resources of God. You know what, we can still tap into that even in this life now. God can still bless you and lift you up and help you. But you know, sometimes people need to be poor. Sometimes people wouldn't handle it good being rich, and God just says, you know what, I'm not gonna let you get above this certain level because I know what you're gonna do once you get there. You're gonna turn your back on me, and you're gonna stop going to church, you're gonna stop serving me. And so, you know, God knows what we need, and we should just accept that. Maybe you're a person that's been lifelong poor, living paycheck to paycheck. That's what I can, you know, poor. You know, if you never have to look at your bank statement, then you're not poor, okay? But if you're always having a look and say, hey, do I got enough money to make it through, then you're on the poorer side. But there's a lot of people that make a lot of money that still have to look, you know, live paycheck to paycheck, because people always go into debt as to how much money they make, right? So just because they have a lot of money doesn't mean that, you know, they're still not poor too, because most of their money is invested in cars and houses and all the things that people want in this world. So Proverbs 19, verse 17 says, he that hath pity upon the poor, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't have you turn there. Proverbs 19, verse 17 says, he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again. See, here's the nice thing about God too, is that, you know, when you, you know, and it says when you have pity on the poor, you lendeth unto the Lord. When you help somebody out that's having a hard time, you know what, God's gonna look at that, and he's gonna say, I'm gonna make sure that he gets recompensed for that. You know, and obviously you do it in the right spirit, you do it with the right heart. Well, it goes back to our chapter, charity. If you don't do it out of a charitable heart, then what good is it really? If you did it to be seen of men, or so you can tell someone, well, you know, I lent someone so a thousand dollars, you know, just so people can, oh, wow, he's so giving. You have your reward. So don't do things with the wrong agenda. You know, if you're just doing it because you really, truly wanna help someone, God looks at it like you're lending to the Lord. And that which he hath given, will he pay him again. Turn to Proverbs 21, verse 13. Trying to make it easy on you, just keep going through Proverbs here. Proverbs chapter 21, verse 13 says, whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard. That's a chilling scripture. You know, you see someone, you know they're destitute, you know you could do something to help them. It's in your power of your hand to help them in some way. And you just say, eh, I'm not gonna help them. You know, there's gonna come a day when you're gonna be crying, and God's not gonna hear you. So I mean, it's good to be, you know, just charitable with people. Proverbs chapter 28, verse 27. Proverbs chapter 28, verse 27 says, he that giveth unto the poor shall not lack, but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. So the Bible's very, you know, Jesus even said, like on this earth, that it's good to give to the poor. You know, it's blessed to give to the poor. You're blessed, and so he, you know, giving alms, he talks about giving alms to the poor and helping people out. And that's what I'm talking about. There is a difference between, you know, giving to people that don't, that shouldn't be giving it, and giving it to the right types of people. The right types of poor people. The poor people that just can't make the ends meet. You know, both of them work at McDonald's or whatever. I mean, maybe, you know, McDonald's is hiring for like 20 bucks an hour or something right now, isn't it? I mean, you might be getting rich from McDonald's. I don't know, that sign might have been fake. I saw some, you know, Facebook, everything's real, right? But on Facebook I saw, I think it was 18 bucks an hour McDonald's was hiring for, I was like, dang. You know, it used to be like three bucks an hour. I'm getting old. Anyway, let's look at, did I have you turn to Proverbs 30? Turn to Proverbs 30, verse eight. Proverbs chapter 30, verse number eight. It says, remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me. Lest I be full and deny thee and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. You know what's good to be? Write somewhere in the middle. You know, not be super poor and not be super rich because both things can be inconvenient for you. Both things can be a detriment to your life. And so that's a good prayer to have. Hey, don't make me be super poor, Lord, but don't make me be super rich because I want to just be right in your will, right in the middle somewhere, right? Matthew chapter five, turn to Matthew chapter five. Matthew five, verse three. The Bible says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. See, poor doesn't always necessarily even need to be someone that is monetarily poor, but someone that is also poor in spirit, you know? And so we can give, you know, sometimes people hurt. You know, sometimes people are hurting and you can just come up alongside someone and just encourage someone when they're going through a hard time. And so that's giving to the poor, in my opinion. You're helping someone, you're ministering to someone. You know, because the pastor can't always be there for each individual person, for each individual problem that you're having each individual day. It's a lot of work. But you know, that's why we have brethren. That's why we're here together, gathering in his name, and you know, we're supposed to help each other. You know, we're supposed to help each other when we're having a poor time in our spirit and a poor time financially. You know, we should be helping each other. Matthew chapter 11, turn to Matthew chapter 11. How did Jesus Christ let John the Baptist know that things were being done, you know, the things that he was doing were the right things? Well, look what it says in Matthew chapter 11, verse five. It says, the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them. Why do we go to the poorest areas first in the city? Because they're the most receptive. Did you guys go to a receptive place today? Was it a poor area? Yeah, and see, the poor are gonna receive the gospel. That's why we're supposed to go to the poor first. And unfortunately for Houston, some of the people that live in these mansions and whatever, they might not ever be reached in this generation. Who knows? There's a lot of poor people to reach around here. This is a big city. It's humongous. Like, we flew over it, and I was like, dang, it's big. So I heard it's like the fourth biggest city in the world. Yeah, not in the U.S., I'm sorry. I mean, not in the world, we'll do that. So it's the fourth biggest, but Chicago's trying to cheat, like usual. But actually, it's been overtaken by Houston, I think. They just don't wanna give up the title, third largest city in the country. But in a city this big, and then look how small the church is right now. It's gonna be hard to get to those big, whited, sepulchre houses where the rich people are just gonna slam the door in your face. But we still gotta try to reach them all anyway, right? But Jesus said, you know, the poor have the gospel preached unto them. And that's not just the poor people in monetary money, it's also the poor in spirit. The people that actually will receive the gospel, most of the time, those aren't real rich people, though. Have you ever been to a rich area of so many? It can be tough. You know, it can be frustrating. It's like, okay, well, let's go back to the poor area. That's right. You know. We need to lick our wounds and get some people saved here. Turn to John chapter 12. John chapter 12. So here's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying we shouldn't help poor people. I am saying we should help poor people. Again, it should be the right types of people, though. And you know, if someone's drug addicted and they're an alcoholic, Jesus can save them, too. You know, if we have an opportunity to preach the gospel, we should preach the gospel. But what I've found is that a lot of these, supposedly homeless camps, they don't want to hear the gospel. They just do not want to hear it. And it's because everything's been provided for them. And a lot of them are, if you think about it, if 25% of them are already reprobate knowing that they're sex offenders, that's just 25%, right? It's like going to prison. You know? I'm sure there's a lot of reprobates in prison. I'm sure it's a higher percentage than you're going to see out here knocking doors. So a homeless camp is probably going to be similar things. Again, I'm not saying don't preach to the homeless. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that they're not as receptive. John chapter 12, verse four says, "'Then saith one of his disciples, "'Judas is scary as Simon's son, which should betray him. "'Why was not this ointment sold for 300 pence "'and given to the poor?' "'And he said, not that he cared for the poor, "'but because he was a thief, and he had the bag, "'and bare that which was therein.' "'Then said Jesus, let her alone against the day "'of my burying, as she kept this.'" So I mentioned this story this morning when I was preaching, and there's a lot of people that they really don't care about the poor. They just want the bag. They want what's in the bag. This would include people that are in these charitable places. You know, you think about the Bill, or the Clinton, what was it, the Hillary Clinton Foundation or whatever, and Haiti, and it ended up all this money just disappeared, millions and millions of dollars. You know, they're trying to help these people that went through this terrible earthquake, and in reality, it's just them just stealing all the money. And the people that actually were affected didn't even get any of it. Hurricane Katrina, same type of situation. We're just, these people that are supposedly charitable are the ones that are just profiting off of all this stuff. But Jesus said, let her alone, and it says, "'For the poor always ye have with you, "'but me ye have not always.'" So what was he saying, you know, we're always gonna have poor people, just like it said in Deuteronomy chapter 11. You know, we're always, or 15, it says, we're always gonna have the poor people with us, but Jesus, he was saying, hey, it's not wrong for us to focus on Jesus a little bit. Judas was just being a hyper-spiritual bozo here, and trying to act like he actually cared about people. And I'm just telling you this, there's a lot of people in these charitable organizations that don't care about the people that they're supposedly trying to help. They have ulterior motives. Turn to Galatians chapter six, verse nine. Galatians chapter six, verse nine. But our motivations for helping people shouldn't be, well, are they really poor? Well, let's see your bank statements, you know. Are you really, you know, this or that? I mean, we should still help people, and we should help all people if we have a chance to. You know, but not everybody in here is independently wealthy, as far as I know. So you can't help everybody, but help the people that you feel like you can help. Galatians six, nine says, let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially them who are of the household of faith. What does the Bible say? Well, who are we supposed to be helping the most? What's the Bible actually say? It says those that are of the household of faith. We're supposed to be doing good unto all men, but especially them of the household of faith. Now turn to Second Thessalonians chapter three. Second Thessalonians chapter three. Now, this is where I would say, you know, the Bible instructs us very clearly on who should and who should not be getting charitable donations or help from other church members. Because sometimes people play, they play it up too much, don't they? Look at Second Thessalonians chapter three verse nine. It says, not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. So what's the Bible say? If a person won't work, they should not eat. If you think about Ruth, look at how poor she was, and Naomi, when they came back into the land, that she was literally, they had a system in Israel where you could go and glean, you know, the corners of, you weren't supposed to cut all the corners of the land so that people that were poor in the land could go and pick things, whatever the crop was, and then they would be able to take that and feed themselves. But you notice it wasn't just given to them. They didn't cut it and pick it and put it and hand it to them when they walked there with a nice little bow on it and tell them, here you go, Ruth, here's your gleanings. No, she had to go and work for that. She worked hard. That was one of the things that Boaz liked about her is the fact that he noticed that she worked hard, and what was she doing? You know, she didn't grow the crops, she didn't plant it, she didn't do all that work, but what did she do? She went and gleaned from the fields. She reaped that stuff on her own. She picked that stuff herself and put it in something, carried it around with her. So if you don't work, you shouldn't eat. So it wasn't just some free-be-free-for-all in Israel. It was actually, hey, you gotta go work for your food. If we're gonna give you something for free, I mean, it's not really free at that point, right? She's actually working for it. So it's not really a gift, but it's something that God put in place in the land. Unfortunately, there's so many social programs that the church doesn't even really have a chance to help some people. They're so helped that there's nothing else that we can really do for them that's gonna be edifying to them. So who should we help the most? That's why I think the Bible says that if, you know, that we're supposed to especially help those of the household of faith. I think that that's a good reason to do that. But look what it says, we're still in 2 Thessalonians. It says, for we hear that there are some, verse 11, which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies, and then that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. Just keep your mouth shut, put me in a busybody, get out there, it says that these people aren't even working, they're just busybodies. So what's the commandment of the Lord Jesus and the apostle? Well, it is with quietness that they work and eat their own bread. They eat, brethren, be not weary in well-doing. So you see, he repeats it again here in 2 Thessalonians chapter three, the apostle Paul, he says be not weary in well-doing. You know, sometimes we can just do so much that you get weary and you get tired of helping people, but the Bible says not to do that. The Bible says we should always have this heart to help people and not be weary in doing it. Look at verse 14, it says, and if any man obey not the word of this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him that he may be ashamed. So if someone is in this church and they won't work, they're just asking for handouts all the time, they just refuse, they have excuse after excuse not to do anything, what does the Bible say is supposed to happen? It says note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed. So what does that mean? A person goes, right? This is the Jimenez Doctrine that you've heard about before. It's actually the Bible Doctrine, but it's known very endearing as the Jimenez Doctrine, and the Jimenez Doctrine says, and the Bible says, that you're supposed to have no company with someone like that. So see, there's certain people, and so if someone doesn't work, if someone refuses the labor, then are we supposed to help that person, yes or no? No, and so all these people out there that are not, they're refusing to work, they're just bums, sponging off the system, collecting welfare, collecting their 11 meals a day in the city, or whatever it is that they're getting, their brand new REI tents, they get their camps cleaned up for them after they just put garbage all over the place of stuff that somebody else had to pay for to give to them, you'll have couches. It's like, where did this couch come from? Someone gave them this couch, and you know what they did? They just ruined it, and left it out in the rain, and then it's there for someone else to pick up and take to the dump. Someone has to be paid, and they have to put on gloves, you know, and you know, flamethrower themself after they're done. You know, who wants to touch that stuff? Who actually wants to touch a garbage pit that was with a bunch of needles, and homeless, and feces, and piss? I don't. The minute they ask me to start doing that, it's game over, you know, but they have divisions. You know, they have a place called Metro that is taxpayer funded, and these people, what they do is they go out and clean up homeless camps. That's what they do. It's like, they have a full-time job to babysit and clean up people's trash. They can't even clean up their own trash. That's how lazy they are. I mean, it's not like there's not garbage cans all over the place. It's not like they don't set up these porta, porta, I call them porta pisses, but porta potties, all over the place for them. What do they do? Tip them over. Destroy them. It's like, it gets hard to want to have a heart for people that would just, you know, everything that they're given, they just don't care about. They just discard it, and they just throw it in the trash and ruin it. So, let's look at some verses here about being slothful. So, Proverbs 12, verse 27, and as a Christian man or a Christian woman, we should not be known as slothful people. What does slothful mean? It means lazy. You know what a sloth does? It kind of just, have you ever seen one at the zoo? And it kind of just like really slowly, like, yeah, just like, yeah. They're slothful, they're very slow, okay? Have you ever worked with someone who's really slow, and it's like they're always in your way? My wife's like, that's you. Now, get out of my way, I'm trying to do something in here. But like, there's some people that just intentionally are slow, like they just don't, you know, they're here, I'll get that for you, you know. We should not be like that. We should be ready to go. When we go to our workplaces, we should not be lazy. We shouldn't be lazy at church. We shouldn't be lazy with anything we do. And Proverbs 12, 27 says, a slothful man roasteth not that which he took hunting, but the substance of a diligent man is precious. Yeah, when you work hard for something, it's precious to you because you worked hard for it. So when someone wrecks something that you worked hard for, it angers you, doesn't it? It's precious in your sight. It's like, man, I worked really hard for that. I worked two, three hours for that. But someone that's slothful, they won't even roast something that they took in hunting. They won't even clean the animal and drain its blood or whatever. They just cut a chunk off of it and they're good to go. But you know how many times I see just like total, you know, just food that hasn't even been eaten just laying on the ground at these homeless camps? It's sick. It's disgusting, it's revolting. Proverbs 19, verse 15. Proverbs 19, verse 15, you're like, well, you're being pretty mean to the homeless people here, Pastor Thompson, I thought you were a Christian, I thought you had charity. I do. You know, sometimes when you have charity, you have to say the hard things. Just because I rebuke a false prophet, you know what that is? That's actually showing love to someone else so they don't have to be violated by that person later on. You know, maybe that video gets to the one person that was gonna listen to Ravi Zacharias and become one of his converts later on. You know what, I love that person enough to tell them the truth. That's what charity, you know, that's part of charity. Charity is loving people. But you know, sometimes loving people is saying what's true, saying what's right. As a matter of fact, you know, before I turn to that verse, I thought this was a really good verse in 1 Corinthians. I'm just gonna read it for you real quick. Oh yeah, verse six. Rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in truth. See, when someone has charity, they rejoice in truth. We bear all things, we believe all things, we hope with all things, endureth all things. Charity never fails. You know, so sometimes it's reaching down and helping someone that's really in a hard spot. It's counseling someone that's going through a hard time. Maybe they have a death in the family. They've lost a child. They can't have children. Whatever it is, you know, as Christians, we should be helping each other out, having charity. But also telling people the hard truth. I talked about this this morning. If you are really a good friend and someone says, hey, you know, give me some good advice, you know, of course do the caveat of, are you sure you really wanna hear the truth? Because you might not wanna hear the truth. Because you know, people are just babies today. They can't even handle a little bit of correction. They can't handle any reproof at all, let alone a rebuke. You know, you rebuke someone or you approve someone and three years later they leave your church and they're still mad about it. You know, when you rebuke a wise man, they're gonna learn from that and get better. And it might hurt, it might sting a little bit to get reproved or to get rebuked. But you know what, it's good for you. Because you're not always right, are you? I'm not always right. And sometimes I gotta hear the hard truth sometimes. You know who usually gives it to me? My wife. Hey, if you're a good wife or a good spouse, you're gonna help each other get better too. Maybe there's something that you think that they can improve on and they don't see it. You know, we do that for each other. That's what husbands and wives are supposed to do. And it might hurt a little bit. It might hurt your feelings. But in the end, usually, if you're a grown up about something, then you're gonna receive that and correct it. So like when I'm sitting here saying, hey, don't be slothful. You know, don't be lazy. Don't help out people that are lazy bums. You know, they should work for their food. They should work and provide for their family. Then there's nothing wrong with that. I'm trying to help. It might sound mean. It might sound mean to call someone a bum, but that's exactly what they are if they won't work, period. So where was I at? Proverbs chapter 19, thank you. Slothfulness, verse 15. Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. You're gonna get hungry if you don't eat. But see, that's why you shouldn't feed them. Don't feed the bears. Don't feed the bums. There's that saying, what is it, where you teach a man to fish. How's it go? Does anybody know how it goes? Teach a man to fish. Yeah, very good. Thank you very much. That's a quoteable quote. Now Biden would have said that differently. I was about to say it like Biden would have, so I was just like, I better ask somebody else. Teach a fish and they'll bite you. But it's true, if you give someone something, you're feeding, if you give a person a fish one day, you're helping them for that one day, but if you teach them how to do it, then they'll be able to fish and provide for themselves. You teach them the right way. Hey, don't just expect handouts. You know, everybody's gotta do their work in life. Now, so slothfulness casts us into a deep sleep. When people are lazy, they're always tired. You ever notice that? So tired. Get up and do something and you won't feel tired. Proverbs 19, 24 says a slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again. That's how lazy people can be is that they put it in their bosom and they're like, oh, I'm just too tired. They won't even eat because they're too lazy to put their hand to the plate and put it in their mouth. I mean, that is slothful. That is lazy. Look at Proverbs 21, verse 25. This is how we should never be as Christians, obviously. And these are extreme pictures, obviously. I mean, I don't know if you ever met anybody that was so lazy they wouldn't even put their hand up to their mouth, but. Obviously, there are people like that because the Bible wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. Proverbs 21, verse 25. The desire of the slothful killeth him, for his hands refuse the labor. Proverbs 22, verse 13. The slothful man saith, there's a lion without. I shall be slain in the streets. You know, if you all want to do something, one excuse is just as good as the next. There's a lion out there, an escape from the zoo. I can't work today. It might kill me. I mean, there's milk in the fridge. You know, it might expire. I'm supposed to, I gotta drink this milk by the end of the day. You know, I can't go to work today because this milk is gonna go bad. I mean, when you don't want to do something, one excuse, and people will just make all kinds of excuses why they can't work, why they can't do this, or why they can't do that. And me and Brother Samson were talking about this, and it's like, there's people that you work with, and they are so busy trying to, they work harder trying to get out of work than they do, you know, than they would have to to just get the job done and do it right now. They'll sit there for hours on hours on a job site just like, well, you know, we really shouldn't do this as a breaking procedural, and this and this and this. You know, I don't know, we need to call the engineers. We need to call this person. They just don't want to do it. And so they literally spend their whole shift trying to figure out how they can get out of doing the work and just get it done. That's the way you should be as a worker. Don't find a way not to do it. Find a way to get it done. That's what boss is like. People wonder why they get fired from jobs all the time because they see your work ethic, and they don't like it. Where am I at here? Proverbs 20, let's go to Proverbs 26 verse 14, Proverbs 26 verse 14. It says, as the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. What does the slothful do? He likes to lay in bed and eat chips and call churches and say, hey, can you help me out? But you know, just like the hinges on a door, the slothful man turns upon his bed. You know, he's getting bed sores because he's laying in bed so long, he needs to turn over. Turn to Hebrews chapter six verse 12. Hebrews chapter six verse 12. I know I'm belaboring this point, but we need to hear this in 2021. There's just a generation of people that have become lazy. You know why? Because socialism and communism is creeping into this country. It's not creeping in, it's already done crept in. And you know, the fact that people are paying people not for work is crazy. It's not gonna end up good. There's people that refuse to go to skilled jobs, skilled people that have the places that employ skilled people, they can't find anybody to work for them. So they have to take, you know, some inexperienced person that's just at least willing to do something. But sometimes they have to take people that aren't willing to do something. I was telling brother Samson about this guy at work that refused, everybody else is out working and he's sitting in his truck in the air conditioning talking on his phone or something with his girlfriend. And he just felt entitled, he's a young man. And the boss walks over and says, hey, you know everybody else is out here working and he tells them, F you. And the guy that he said that to like probably wanted to drag him out of the truck and show him what was what, but it really made him mad. And I could understand why it would make you mad because it's like, who do you think you are? The boss is out, outworking everybody and you're sitting in your truck while everybody else is in the hot sun working because you feel entitled? That's the generation that we're in. And don't get offended because there's a lot of, there's still a lot of good people in this generation. There's still a lot, you know, but you know, places aren't gonna tell you stuff like this. People aren't gonna tell you, except for at church, you know, or maybe at work, that you need to get your butt in gear and get some work done and stop being lazy. The Bible says, you know, the Bible speaks a lot about this, but look at Hebrews chapter six, verse 12 where I had to turn. It says, that ye be not slothful. Don't be lazy, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Abraham wasn't turning about on his bed with hinges. Oh, I just better stay in bed today. You know, do you think Jacob was a hard worker? Jacob was a hard worker. He talked about how his wages were changed and yet he still worked hard and did what his job was to do even though the boss is treating him bad, even though he's losing sleep at night, he's freezing, he's out losing sleep, losing pay, getting his wages changed 10 times or whatever it was, and he's still out working hard. You know, that's the work ethic we should have. Hey, who do we follow? We follow the followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Who's our people to look up to? The people in the Bible, not the lazy people, not Ben Haydad who's drinking himself drunk by noon, right? He's drinking, they're in their pavilions, you know, these princes of, what is it, Assyria? And he's drunk by noon. It's five o'clock somewhere, you know? But apparently it's five o'clock in his tent. But you know what happened? God smoked all those people because they were lazy drunkards. We ought not to be lazy as Christians. So don't support lazy people who refuse labor. Help the working poor and fellow Christians that actually need it and actually work hard. And don't be a lazy Christian mooch. I'm not saying don't accept help. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't help each other and we shouldn't receive help. I'm not talking, if people need help, they need help. I'm talking about the person that's the perpetual mooch in the church. That's the people, you know, at some point, hey, you know, gird up thy loins like a man. Show thyself a man and get out there and work. Turn to Acts chapter 20 verse 35, Acts 20 verse 35. It says, I have showed you all things how that so laboring you ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said it is more blessed to give than receive. So we ought to have a heart, like Jesus said, to support the weak and remember the words that he spoke. It is more blessed to give than receive. And so it's hard to give if you don't have anything to give. You know, don't be lazy. You know, make it so that you can be a person of good. And hey, even if you can't give monetarily, there's lots of different ways to give, isn't there? You know, your time is very valuable. So your time, giving your time to people, you know, giving your talents to people, those are things that you can do to give. Hey, maybe you don't have a lot of money. Maybe you can't give in that way, but you can still serve. You know, and God will see your service to him, and maybe he'll bless your life. Hey, maybe these people need a new minivan. Maybe they need the 15 seater. We'll see how faithful they're gonna be. See if they're gonna go soloing. You know, God is able to lift us up out of the dung hill. Amen? So instead of throwing money to these poor organizations, you know, these giving to the poor organizations that are against the gospel, they're doing stem cell research to help people, while they kill children to do so, give to an organization that actually changes lives for eternity, the local church. If you're gonna give monetarily, give to the local church. And when you give to the local church, here's what you're doing. Let me just give you a little bit of list before I end here of things that you're helping when you help the local church. Well, first of all, you're helping the lights to stay on. You're helping the building to be rented. It's not free. You're helping missionaries and missionary work, because I'm sure that this church has gone on missionary trips, and obviously the COVID thing has kind of messed up your guys' mission script, I understand that. But mission work is also out, you know, you personally going to these countries and doing stuff. You know, a lot of people have missionaries that they support, but you all can be missionaries and you have been missionaries in the past in other countries. That's what that money supports, and your time. You know, it supports being able to have the equipment to be able to actually go on YouTube and do these social media efforts to get the word of God out. It's not to be a popularity contest. We don't go on YouTube so that we can just be popular, because what we preach is never going to be popular to the masses. Do they love Mother Teresa, but they hate Pastor Thompson? They love Mother Teresa, but they hate Pastor Shelley. And that's not the way it should be. In the future, it's not going to be that way. It's going to be flip-flopped, isn't it, in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. We're going to be the ones that people are going to be looking up to, finally. You know, you're going to be the ones that are going to be looking up to. We're all going to be ruling and reigning with Christ for a thousand years. Not just me, not just Pastor Shelley, but Brother Nick, Brother Sampson, you know? Everybody in this room. We're going to be serving and ruling and reigning with Christ. And so, when we give to the local church, it does help families that have a need, you know? And it does help with the soul-winning, the local area soul-winning and soul-winning materials. You know, you have materials to go out. You know, there's some churches that actually charge you money to have invitations. I'm serious. 25 cents, 50 cents, you know, we just got to make sure that you're taking care of the materials. Like, I'm sure everybody in this room has some invitations in their car right now. And you didn't get charged for them. But maybe if we charge you $5 a stack, you know, come on, we do a roundup. You guys do a roundup, you're like, hey, we're running a lot of invitations, everybody bring your invitations in. So we recycle. But yeah, I mean, your money that you donate here goes to those projects. And what's more important than going and winning souls? Nothing's more important than going and winning souls. But in order to go win those souls, it costs money to get the Bible, to get the things that you give away and the invitations. So, you know, and Bibles cost money. Media costs money, the DVDs cost money. You know, and they're a good, it's a good cost. You know, you're like, well, the Sodomite Deception movie, you know, is that a good cause? Yeah, it's a great cause. If it just turns one person away from letting their faggot cousin babysit their kids, that's a good thing, isn't it? And the world's gonna hate it. The world's gonna take down the billboards. The world's going to, you know, protest your pastors' church like they did today, again, like they're probably gonna do all this week. Why are they protesting it? Because they hate the fact that someone's shining the light and blinding these cockroaches and, you know, they're out of the closet. So they're loud and proud. So they're allowed to do whatever they want. But ultimately, you know, the money that you give to this church, the time that you spend at this church, you're free to thrive at this church. You're going sowing. You're spending a lot of hours here, aren't you? This is your church. You know, invest in it. And not just monetarily, invest in it with your time and your talent. When you're not here, you're missed. You know, if the nose of the church isn't here, then it's going to be a detriment to the other people. And I don't, you know, the nose smells the false prophet or smells the terrible story that someone's trying to tell about how they got saved or something, I don't know. But everybody has a function in the body of Christ and God likens it unto a body, doesn't it? And so everybody here assembled together as the church and you all have a purpose here and God put you here for a reason. And he tempered the body of Christ together. And the picture is that we are the body of Christ. Everybody knows what a body is. You all have one. So it's important for you to be here. It's important for you to be invested in this place even if you don't have money to give. Hey, you got your time. You got your talent. You know, you mean something to this church. Don't forget about that. You know, when you're like, I don't know, you know, it's an extra half hour in traffic to get here on Thursday nights. Well, try to come. Try to make it. Try to be here because it's an encouragement for the people that preach here. It's an encouragement to your pastor when you're here. And you know, come on time. It's good to come on time and be here on time. Obviously, you know, you're in a city where the traffic is bad sometimes, but you can't use that excuse every week, okay? You can, but maybe you just need to leave a little bit earlier, right? I'm getting on to you people that were late. Anyway. But you know, what else does it do? What else does your giving do for this church? Well, it supports your pastor and his family. Supports the, yeah, it supports the pastor and his family. The guy that works night and day trying to make this church a better church. The guy that, you know, cared enough to make sure that there was a place in Houston for you guys to come to church. The guy that cares enough to take over a church that was just, you know, gone through a bunch of trauma because the pastor ended up being, you know, a terrible person and doing a bunch of wicked things. So there's nothing wrong with supporting your pastor. You know, and I'll just tell you this. I was just in England, Brother Nick was saying about how I've been all over the world and it's true. I mean, not all over the world, but in England. So I've been traveling a lot this year and it was on purpose. So I wanted to get as much done this year as I possibly could. This is my last trip of the year. My wife's very thankful for that. But you know what I found when I'm just traveling to all these different places? Is that there's a bunch of people just like you in all these different places. And, you know, supporting the church goes to supporting church plants. You know, church planting is very important. It's something that, you know, I definitely believe in. And does every church plant succeed? Well, sometimes they fail. And I found that out the hard way. But you know, sometimes they do great. And there's a lot of people in this country that wish they had a church to go to just like this church right here. There's a lot of people in this country that wish they had a church to go to just like Stedt-Best Baptist Church. You know, and people are the same. You know, they are hungering and thirsting after God's word in this nation. They're hungering and thirsting after righteousness. And they wish they had a church like Pure Words Baptist Church that they could go to Wednesday or Thursday and Sunday morning and Sunday evening and have so many times. So hey, you know, be thankful for what you have here because it's special. It really is. I'm not just saying that. This is a special church and it's gonna grow. It's gonna get bigger. And you know what, you can have a big part in doing that. And it starts with supporting your local church. Not just monetarily, but with everything that you got. You know, we're supposed to be a living sacrifice, aren't we? You know, we're supposed to be holy, acceptable. That's our reasonable service, isn't it? It's just reasonable. Hey, God saved us. He picked us up out of the dung hill spiritually. He washed us off, cleaned us up, gave us some new clothes. You know, and isn't it reasonable that we should serve the person that did that? Because we were poor in spirit. Because we were poor and in the dung hill. And he lifted us up. Let's look at one last verse here. Jude chapter one, verse 21. I know I went a little bit over here. I'm sorry about that. But I just want to say that there are people all over this country and all over the world that want exactly what you have here. They have like passions. They want a great church to go to. But how many of them are there out there? It's becoming, you know, a lost thing for those great churches to go to. And I'm not saying that there isn't other great churches besides the New IFB. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that, you know, can you talk about the poster of free rapture in those churches though? No, you can't. Can you talk about the Jews not being God's chosen people? No, you can't. It's weird going back to one of those churches when they're like, you know, I mean, I don't know. We have, it's a blessing to be in a church like this. It really is. Jude 1 21, I'll finish off here. It says, keep yourselves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And if some have compassion, making a difference. And others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh. It's a great scripture here. But the thing I would take out of this is that, hey, keep yourselves in the love of God. Love, you know, have charity towards each other. Have charity towards those who are without. You know, give to the right things. You know, when you see the person ringing the bell, that person doesn't need your money. They got $5 billion coming in this year. You know who needs your money? The local church. And God doesn't even really need your money. He's gonna get it done anyway. But you know, giving to things that are just not profitable is not a good idea. So, you know, we need to keep ourselves in the love of God and have compassion on other people and make a difference. Get people saved. Be here. Soak in the word of God in your ears and in your hearts every single service that you can. Because tough times are coming. Tough times are here. Our churches are being persecuted left and right. You know, are you gonna stand with us? Are you gonna stand with your brothers and sisters in Christ while we go through persecution? I hope so. But if you can't do it when it's easy, you're gonna have a hard time doing it when it's not. But I just wanted to encourage you to give to the right things and have charity. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for this great church here. Lord, I pray you bless it. Lord, put a hedge about it. Lord, I pray you bless Pastor Shelley and all the people here in leadership, Lord, and all the people that just come here and make this the great church that it is. I pray they never lose their zeal for you, Lord. I pray they never lose their zeal for souls. I pray you bless this church continuously. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, we'll turn to our last song for the evening. If you would, go ahead and grab your hymnal. Turn to hymn number 211. 211, 2-1-1 in your hymnal. 211, whosoever meaneth me. Whosoever meaneth me. 211, we'll sing their starting on the first. I am happy today, and the sun shines bright. The clouds have been rolled away. For the Savior said, whosoever will may come with him to stay. Whosoever surely meaneth me. Surely meaneth me, oh, surely meaneth me. Whosoever surely meaneth me. Whosoever meaneth me. All my hopes have been raised. Oh, his name be praised. His glory has filled my soul. I've been lifted up and from sin set free. His blood hath made me whole. Whosoever surely meaneth me. Surely meaneth me, oh, surely meaneth me. Whosoever surely meaneth me. Whosoever meaneth me. Oh, what wonderful love. Oh, what grace divine that Jesus should die for me. I was lost in sin for the world I find, but now I am set free. Whosoever surely meaneth me. Surely meaneth me, oh, surely meaneth me. Whosoever surely meaneth me. Whosoever meaneth me. Amen, and with that you are dismissed. Have a good night.