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[0:00] Bibles to Matthew chapter 7 this morning, on this first Sunday of the new year. Good way to start it off. Everybody here has perfect attendance for 2021.

[0:20] See if we can keep that going. Matthew chapter 7, we got down to verse 7. And so we'll pick it up right there.

[0:36] Let's bow our heads together before we get into the text and ask God to help us out. Father, it's a privilege to stand in a pulpit and open up the Holy Scriptures.

[0:48] God, these words are so much higher than I ever will be and so much higher than all of us. And Father, we believe these words and we trust that this book is inspired and it's given by inspiration.

[1:02] And so Lord, as we study it, please help us to have discernment and understanding. Help us to be able to make sense of these things and never to misapply or misinterpret anything.

[1:12] But we ask that your Spirit would give us direction as we study the Scriptures. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Verse number 7, we read last week, Ask and it shall be given you.

[1:24] Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth. And to him that knocketh it shall be opened. And the comments we made, just to refresh you there, is that these are prayer promises.

[1:38] And we need to understand who is on the receiving end of these promises. It's these Jewish disciples. And we've got to be careful not to just say, Hey, I like how that sounds.

[1:49] That sounds like whatever I ask God to do, he's going to do for me. And I'll claim it. And then I'll go live my life frustrated because I can't get God to answer the prayers that I keep praying. And so we need to rightly divide our Bibles and understand Christ's audience.

[2:03] And he is preparing these men to minister. And he's showing them how God's going to work through them. These guys are going to receive powers to cast out devils, to heal the sick, to raise the dead.

[2:18] That's not something you and I possess, nor will we ever possess in this life. And so when he's giving promises to these men, that's where it stays. And I can't just go pick a verse that I think I like and want to apply it to my life and say that's for me.

[2:33] We ran a few references. I know we went to Matthew 21. We went to the Book of Mark. We went to John 14 and saw several of these kinds of things.

[2:45] One of them had to do with removing the mountain, casting it into the sea. And that would happen if they had faith. And so you're left to decide. If you fail to rightly divide your Bible and study this stuff out and get it nailed down, you're left to decide, is God lying in that verse where he said I'd be able to do that?

[3:08] Or is it my fault because I don't have enough faith that God's going to do that for me? Or am I just misapplying the scriptures that were not intended for me to apply to my life?

[3:19] And, of course, the last is the answer for today. The prayer promises to us. There are several of them in this Bible, but we're not going to be pulling them out of the Gospels where Christ is instructing his Jewish disciples about a kingdom, that they're going to have powers and things are going to be manifest through them.

[3:38] It's a great little acronym there, ASK, Ask, Seek, and Knock. And there's certainly application that we could be making here.

[3:49] We could be, you could preach through this stuff and make it work as long as you're careful not to say that God's obligated to fulfill his word because it says Matthew 7, such and such. But it helps a lot to understand the doctrine of this book and these Gospels, period, so you don't frustrate yourself trying to believe God's word and trying not to doubt or feeling like it's your fault.

[4:12] And so the big guys, I refer to them often on TV. I refer to them often because they have a huge audience and they put false doctrine out there and it's permeating society and believers even.

[4:27] And they put that stuff out there saying that, well, it's not God's fault, it's your fault. And so they feel they've not reached some level or attained to some degree of faith and belief and therefore they've got to keep working at it, keep working at it so that I can get God to answer my prayers and that's just not the way God works.

[4:48] So moving on then in verse number 9, continuing the thought how God, as their father, Christ is kind of bringing these Jews into this understanding of a personal God that they can reach out to.

[5:01] And he says in verse 9, Or what man is there of you whom if his son asks bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? And the obvious answer, no, no father would be like that to his child.

[5:13] If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? In Luke chapter 11, Luke uses the term that he'll give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.

[5:27] Now it's not a reference to salvation, but it's a reference to the powers that these men would have. And that's who he's talking to, that's his audience. We need to remember that. Jesus Christ throws in that little phrase, being evil.

[5:41] If ye then, being evil, and he's referring to these hand-picked disciples and those Jewish followers that followed him up the mountain, want to hear from him as he teaches on the kingdom of heaven, and he tells them they're evil.

[5:55] And it's striking, but it's wonderful how this Bible declares such a statement on the condition of man and how the Lord Jesus Christ just throws it in in his conversation to his disciples, something that you and I, if we were writing the Bible, if man was writing this text, it would just kind of slip past.

[6:14] We wouldn't be throwing that in. But the Holy Son of God does, and it's all over the book. And as you read that book, it shows you your condition. Paul says that we're servants of sin in Romans 6, and he says in Romans 5 that we're the enemies of God before Calvary, that we're the ungodly.

[6:33] Solomon says that man at his best date is altogether vanity. And so Christ says, if ye, and he's talking to some people who are following him, and he's going to empower and do some wonderful things for their Heavenly Father all this way through, if ye then being evil, because that's what you are, being evil, that's God's view of man, and you won't find a leader, particularly in our age, a political leader, someone who's trying to get an audience to follow him and believe what he says, to stand there and tell the people that like him and that came to his rally, you're evil.

[7:10] You guys are no good. While the political guys talk them up, you're the good ones. We're going to take care of those ones out there. But the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't want to use the word attacks his audience, but he tells them what they are.

[7:26] He tells them exactly what they are. And it's interesting that he just throws that in there. Don't ever forget that you're evil. Don't ever forget what lies within you and me, even here in church on Sunday morning for Sunday school.

[7:40] There's a degree of sin inside of us. Paul said, It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And what's sin? It's a noun.

[7:51] It's a person, place, thing, or idea. And it's dwelling inside of you and I, right here as we speak. Don't ever think that you're past it. And keep that book in front of you.

[8:02] Let it just keep jabbing at you, trying to get you to be better than you are. Trying to show you who you are and what God wants to make of you. In verse number 12, Matthew 7 verse 12, Therefore all things, whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.

[8:19] For this is the law and the prophets. It's kind of the summary statement of the Old Testament. And it has to do with your relationship and actions to others. And it's so important to get this doctrine down.

[8:33] That is, this is not New Testament salvation. And we don't have a problem with that, I'm sure. We're in here knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ. But so many religions have a huge problem with understanding, with discerning what the gospel is for us today.

[8:49] And where our faith rests in the finished work of Calvary and the Lord Jesus Christ. And these passages just trip them up and they confuse them so much because they're like, well, I'm supposed to treat everybody good.

[9:03] I'm supposed to take care of my neighbor. I'm supposed to do this. I'm supposed to do that. And if so, doing so, gain favor with God. Look back at chapter 5.

[9:15] And notice verse number 20. For I say unto you, this is still part of this same sermon as Christ is teaching on the mount.

[9:26] For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. You don't have a chance. And wow, if I'm not careful, I'm going to start teaching a works-based salvation and you earn your way and you get yourself cleaned up in this life so you'll find favor in God's eyes and then you'll be able to enter into eternal life.

[9:54] This is not New Testament salvation we're dealing with. And as we noticed at the very beginning of this study, we're in Matthew before the cross of Calvary. This is not New Testament material, as unfortunately many think it is.

[10:08] This is the law and the prophets, he said. I'm not going to run this chain here of scripture, but I think we've hit it somewhere on a Wednesday night or something that the law and the prophets, Luke says, is until John.

[10:22] The law and the prophets are until John, Christ said. And when John showed up, there's a transition taking place. And that's how this book starts with John the Baptist showing up, preaching the kingdom of heaven.

[10:34] And then Jesus Christ in Matthew 4 preaching the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so a transition's taking place and that's the book that we're studying, this transitional book of Matthew, moving from the Old Testament and the setup that God had for his people, moving into something new where the king of kings shows up, their Messiah, the one that's promised to them.

[10:55] In one sense, the savior of the world, the way we see it, but to them it was the savior of Israel, the deliverer, the one that would come to Mount Zion and rule and have dominion.

[11:09] The transition is trying to move toward a kingdom which was rejected, therefore it kind of gets put on pause. Back to verse 12, therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.

[11:23] We call that the golden rule. And it's a good thought in connection with where he started the chapter in verse 1 of judge not, that ye be not judged and so forth. It's good advice to anybody.

[11:35] And all of that is backed up in their Old Testament scriptures. Moving on to verse 13, So now we're introduced to two ways here.

[12:01] Come back to Psalm 1. Psalm 1. This is something familiar to a Jew. From their Old Testament scriptures and their training, there are two ways.

[12:21] Psalm 1 verse 6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. There's one way. But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

[12:34] There's the other way. There's too much to run with this. In the Proverbs, I'm not even going to go there, but there's verse after verse after verse about the way.

[12:48] It's all separating the way of the righteous from the way of the wicked and their life. And it's common knowledge to a Jew that there's a right way to live life and there's a wrong way.

[13:00] Now this is not something that we preach and teach about. You have to be on the straight and narrow way as far as living your life or you're going to go to hell. But they did. The man had to walk in those ways, in the ways of God, in the ways of Moses, in the law.

[13:15] He had to live that life. So they understood this. So in Matthew 7, Christ says, Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in there at.

[13:27] In verse 14, he talks about life. In verse 13, he talks about destruction. These terms are not very explicit as far as in the statement of destruction.

[13:39] What does that mean? Well, we could run the verses. The Bible uses the word destroy to reference eternity. It uses damnation. It uses perish as three words that are pretty common and they're interchangeable in several passages and texts to describe eternity.

[13:58] And so it wouldn't take me long to run some references to show you this is an eternal view of what Christ is talking about. Not just if you live a sinful life, you'll die early, which is another biblical truth and principle, but this is eternity that he's dealing with because verse 14, it describes them a way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find it.

[14:18] So there's two options here. There's a straight gate and there's a broad or a wide gate. There's a narrow way in verse 14 and there's a broad way in verse 13.

[14:32] And the illustration's beautiful. It's very easy to picture in your mind. It's another, it's just typical of the way the Lord Jesus Christ taught. Very typical of illustrations, things that anybody can get from any age, any era.

[14:46] It's no difference of culture here. You can get this picture of a broad way versus a narrow way. Now there's a problem with the text with some of the new versions of the Bible that needs to be brought out here.

[14:59] And where your Bible says that narrow is the way. Some of the new versions will get rid of the wording that straights the gate and narrows the way and they'll make it say that difficult is the way.

[15:12] For instance, the RSV says hard is the way that leadeth unto life. So, if that's the word of God and if that's the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, He told them that it's hard.

[15:27] Getting to life is hard. And the New King James Bible. This is just, this is probably more dangerous because they put the words King James Bible on their book and they say we're a new King James Bible.

[15:40] We're better. They even say we use the same manuscripts as the King James Bible. We've just improved a few things and if I'd have remembered it, I'd have brought one out and read to you a few things they put in their preface that they indicate or at least try to pose themselves as being honest and scholarly and really attempting to give you the truth and it doesn't take much study to debunk all of it but what the New King James says is difficult is the way.

[16:07] So, a couple years later Jesus Christ stands up and we read it in John 14 verse 6 where He says I am the way. So, difficult, hard, is that a right rendering or translation of the text?

[16:24] or is it narrow? Is it straight? As in, there's not much wiggle room here. There's one way and it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

[16:36] The scriptures, the scriptures are pure. The words of the Lord are pure words. When men get involved with tinkering and playing around with the text, they insert problems they don't even know what they're doing.

[16:50] They think they're making it easier for you to read. Some of them are truly deceived so much to think they're helping you out by translating this word this way or this phrase that way or updating it to this and they're too blind and deceived to see that they're being led of the devil to distort and to attempt to replace the holy scriptures.

[17:12] They're imitations and there's no need to tell somebody that the way to life is hard or that it's difficult. when later on Christ talks about bringing the little children that they by, we call it childlike faith and even in that case he talks about them entering into life.

[17:32] So that's a contradiction in the text if you're going to say that it's difficult and then Christ says a little child can do this. That's a problem. That means those new versions that mess with those words are junk.

[17:45] I don't know how else to say it. They're lies. They're not helping you out. And if we want to take it a little step further why not? If they don't make enough changes in this book they don't have the rights to put out a copyright to own the words to get the royalties from it to get money from it to publish it.

[18:03] They have to make a certain number of changes to every other version that's out there in order to call it a new work and put it out there on the market. So they'll make a change in Matthew 7 verse 14 an unnecessary change a change that perverts the truth.

[18:19] And there's enough of that going on. Everybody needs to understand that. This is a doctrine that is probably one of the keyest issues in our day is that old devil knows what he's doing and he's been doing it for so long he's been perverting religion and causing so many to be deceived about that and now that he's done that just take a step further and go after the truth and start to pervert that so much so that men and women don't even see it.

[18:46] They don't understand it. They bought the lie. They believe they've gotten something improved. They think they can read it. It's been updated to our language of today and I could give you a list.

[18:58] If you've never looked at this this would just I guarantee most of us would probably get this wrong if we didn't have any understanding of this at all. What you've been fed for so long is that the King James Bible was old it's archaic we can't understand it's wording and we need it to be updated and the new versions oh they've done that for us and now I can understand it and I could take you I could take a list of words and put on the screen a word that's in one version and the word that it was changed to in another version and I could show you that the new versions every single one of them have words that you don't understand and that you never even understood you never used a day in your life and I would say which one of those words is from the hard version you would always think well that hard word is the King James Bible and you would not realize that they're lying to you when they tell you they've updated and made it easier to read.

[20:01] It's the truth and I didn't mean to get off on that but there we are Matthew 7 verse 14 somebody put that in there some serpent slithered his way into the text to tell you that the way to life is difficult when Jesus Christ said it's narrow it's straight narrow and straight are synonyms narrow and difficult are not synonyms in the perfect text as it always is it defines itself the other thing is broad and wide are synonyms but they didn't adjust that one so anyway moving forward here we'll keep going verse number 15 and now we're jumping off into something else let's just get it today let's kick them all verse 15 beware of what's the next two words please false prophets okay let's keep that in your mind beware of false prophets so this is a warning right beware beware of false prophets what about them okay they come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are raviting wolves all right so we'll get back to that thought there or we're going to definitely come back and make sure we're all on the same page or something but there's a lot of material in this going forward of these writers about false prophets the apostle Paul warns against it

[21:29] Peter dedicates 2 Peter chapter 2 the entire thing to false teachers Jude warns against it and throughout the gospels the Lord Jesus Christ warns and even goes toe to toe with the religious men calling them out calling them hypocrites calling them liars letting us know that they're of the devil and so much of this thing is dedicated to warning and exposing against false prophets and false teachers and the first designation that Christ gives to us about them is that they come to you in sheep's clothing first thing he lets us know about them is they have the appearance of one of us the appearance of righteousness of being innocent of a sheep's clothing you wouldn't notice it by their appearance that this guy or this gal is a false teacher or a false prophet or somebody who's going to be spreading damnable heresies as Peter says even denying the Lord that bought them beware of false prophets they show up looking right gentle meek like sheep's clothing like they're one of the flock when they're not why do you say that because on the inside they're still a wolf they're ravening wolves what about these guys notice look at chapter 23 quick

[22:54] Matthew 23 and here's the these Pharisees that were of their father the devil according to John 8 according to the Lord Jesus Christ these are the hypocrites these are the the children of hell from verse 15 come to verse 27 woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for ye are like unto whited sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful outward but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men like sheep's clothing but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity now it would take somebody like the Lord Jesus Christ to know what's on the inside it would be it would take him to do that and so he stands up and tells them what's on the inside he knew their thoughts sometimes even calling them out when they were just thinking in their heart about something and he calls them out about it how are you and I going to know what's on the inside well according to the passage back here it's by their fruit back in Matthew 7 it's it's by what comes out of them they may show an outward appearance of good and clean and innocent and righteous but verse 16 says ye shall know them by their fruits and then verse 20 wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them and he gives an illustration in between there of trees and what we do with trees that have good fruit or ones that have evil fruit and how we discern them and how we take care of it and he says well in a sense

[24:42] God's going to do the same thing book of verse 22 before we get into that verse 22 here's these false prophets right remember that's what we're talking about verse 15 false prophets verse 22 many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name back up that day has to do with the second coming of Christ and the institution of the kingdom of heaven on earth and that's in verse 21 not everyone that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven many will say to me in that day Lord have we not prophesied in thy name in thy name have cast out devils in thy name have done wonderful works I'll profess to them I never knew you so what's what's some what's some of the fruits of the false prophets one of them is they're prophesying in the name of the Lord look back at Jeremiah chapter 14 they're talking the talk Jeremiah 14 why if we just take that on the surface that sounds good to me this guy's talking about the Lord he's reading from the Bible gotta be one of God's prophets preachers worthy of following him right or no

[26:10] Jeremiah 14 verse 14 then the Lord said unto me the prophets prophesy lies lies notice in my name have we not prophesied in thy name Lord the Lord says these guys are prophesying lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them neither spake unto them they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of naught and notice the deceit of their heart the deceit of their heart you remember the phrase later on in Paul 8 epistles I think it's to Timothy where he talks about them deceived and being or deceiving and being deceived these are men and women who are uttering things in the names lies in the name of God that God did not give them that word to speak and they say oh I just got a word from God no you didn't you got a word from the devil if you got a word from anybody don't tell don't put that on God but they do they prophesy in the name of Jesus they open their mouth and claim Jesus oh Jesus and they dance around and pretend that what they're doing is from the Lord and God saying

[27:23] I never sent them I didn't say anything to them and furthermore if they knew what they were talking about let me see if I have it written down here let me see might be chapter 23 I didn't write it down yeah try Jeremiah 23 that's it look at verse 16 let's say the Lord of hosts hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you they make you vain wow that is that is right you think this book is out of date that is right on target with 2021 and these wannabe preachers and women preachers that are running around dancing on stage talking about the Lord and His word you know what they you know what their congregation is they're not walking with Christ and their fellowship is not being drawn closer they're thinking about money they're thinking about positive things they're thinking about having a better year this year that's where they're at and they're vain they speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord and we could go on for a while on this look down at verse 21

[28:56] I have not sent these prophets yet they ran so they must be motivated by something to make them run but it's not the Lord I have not spoken to them yet they prophesied you figure out what's motivating them to do what they do but if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings if these prophets today were in verse 25 again they prophesy lies in my name saying I have dreamed I had a dream let's not go into that one but these men are liars they're charlatans they're false prophets and there's plenty to say about this but let's go back to Matthew 7 and get to a point that I really want to make today Matthew 7 verse 15 beware of what's the next two words again please false prophets thank you which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves you shall know them by their fruits illustration do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles of course no even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit every tree that bringeth forth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire and there's application there we can make that pretty plain here in a minute wherefore by their fruits ye shall know and that's the last word is them them false prophets now here's my problem and it's a problem and it's not

[30:38] I think you have to be in a certain place to get it and it was brought up on the other night with New Year's Eve when Chris gave a testimony about being in church and being out and realizing what's not here or out there and so forth my problem is a message that is a misapplication of Matthew 7 looking at people that walk away from church and saying well they're never saved they probably were never saved to begin with well how do you know by their fruits ye shall know them they're living in sin so they're obviously not saved really so when you sin Mr. Churchgoer when you sin what's that evidence of it's evidence of the old man right it's evidence of the flesh and you giving into the flesh and when somebody gives into the flesh and gives into the flesh and gives into the flesh saved gives into the flesh and then goes on that way and gets sucked into a life of sin and they'll regret it and it's not going to be a great life does that mean they lost their salvation does that mean they were never truly saved

[31:54] I can't stand that word they were never really saved to begin with as if there's a difference of being really saved versus saved come on this is where they go as they bring out this thought to say that well I'm looking at their fruits and their fruits right now is sin and a lifestyle of sin and they don't want anything to do with God so they're lost don't give me that if you're born again a birth takes place what brought you into this world a birth now if you decide that you're not alive does that mean that you were never born if you decide you don't like your life and you take it does that mean you were never born no a little bit of logic if a man was born of the spirit he's made alive in Christ he possesses eternal life that's never going anywhere he's in Christ any man woman any teenager any child that says I'm done with that

[32:55] I don't want to live that life it's usually the ones that go grow up in church and just get a taste and an appetite for the world and I understand you're left to wonder oh I never saw any fruit I don't know why are you looking for that because a lot of times they've heard this verse shoved down their throat so many times that we're dealing with false prophets that's what they're teaching false prophets he's warning of false prophets coming in and confusing and deceiving the flock and taking them away that's not the teaching of what Christ is talking about here about their personal salvation and you look at somebody who has a testimony saying I was saved when I was young or whatever they give you that testimony you don't have to ever doubt that you don't hang your hat upon how they're living today there will be days that you could take me back to years of my life where if you looked at the way I got up and what I did in the day and went to bed you'd say can't be saved no way because he didn't do anything for Christ that day didn't read his Bible and pray didn't sing

[34:04] Jesus loves me or go to church matter of fact he cursed he used drugs he broke the law he ran around with lost people and never once told them that they're in need of a savior you said I was on my way to hell if you were just looking at my fruits the fruits were evil fruits but they were coming out of the flesh not evidence that I wasn't saved and you can't see what's inside the heart can you you gotta be careful judging somebody based on their lifestyle today and I know it's hard I know I know there's a guy that preaches so stupid he preaches that that very thing that if you're not living the way I'm living you're not he says born again you never got born again that just trips me up when he says that and the guy's nuts he says he preaches against things that are right he says that just to be funny but the idea is he preaches against everything check check check check check everything that's wrong and if you're not on this side then it's obvious to him you're lost and you know how easy it is to get people saved again by making them feel lost and I'll tell you this too one thing I despise about preachers and preaching and it's just where I live is in the pulpit so when I see it

[35:30] I recognize it is when they try to make you lost when they preach from the pulpit and they go down a certain road that causes you all to doubt whether you're truly saved get out of here with that preach the preach the word of God about how you know you are saved and let the spirit of God bear witness to that inside of you and if he's not bearing witness to that inside of you that you did that that you trusted Christ then let the Lord deal with you but don't you come at people trying to make them feel guilty because they live in sin because they have carnal thoughts the men that do that they're not saints I can promise you that because nobody is and they fall short of the glory of God and it's just a little pet peeve of mine because I've heard it so many times you hear it at camp with little kids you hear it with teens you hear it in revival services and I could even go down a list of some times of different messages I've heard of guys going at people trying to get them saved again just to want to make sure that we're all saved and all it does is causes confusion and then you feel like I got it settled this time until what until you slip and fall out into the world again and then

[36:46] I don't know if I ever really truly meant it back then either and now you're just in this spin this tailspin cycle of not knowing for sure that Jesus Christ saved your soul from hell and that you possess eternal life now I wanted to get there because that's just not even teaching the passage but it's trying to unravel what some preachers have done with this passage and it's wrong it's absolutely wrong to take it and then try to shove it down your face that if they're not in church this morning well chances are they never were saved to begin with that's a lie that's not true and the Lord knows their heart and if you know somebody that's not in this place that should be or that's out of fellowship with God and you're not sure their salvation I don't know what to tell you but to pray for them and to witness to them or at least to try but if they've given a clear cut testimony that Christ saved that they believed on Jesus Christ the same way you did it's not up to you to find that evidence in their life to say oh now I know that they're saved because they've got a sinner inside of them that is going to be inside of them and maybe they never got victory maybe they never took that first step what does a baby have to do to start running he's got to start somewhere and if a babe in Christ never gets discipled and never takes things in the proper order he's going to fall he's never going to be able to walk he's never going to he's always going to have an appetite for something else and crawling around in the mud and so they need prayer they need patience and anyway

[38:25] I've been out there and I know what it's like to be saved and to be confused about my own salvation because it's the second generation syndrome you grow up in church you grow up around the gospel you hear it all the time and it's easy to accept and believe it and then it's also easy to walk away from it but it doesn't mean you lost it it doesn't mean you never had it it just means that probably you don't understand what's going on in their heart and in their mind because you've never been there you grew up in the world and you saw a good deal you took a good deal when you saw it by taking Jesus Christ and forgiveness of sins and eternal life and a relationship with the creator and you took it and now you can't understand why the kids don't want it or why it's not the same for them and for some it is and for some they just they take it and run with it for others they just they need to get beat around a little bit sadly but like I said

[39:30]  Thursday night when Chris gave his testimony the thing is you walk away from that lifestyle by the grace of God and get back into the word of God and into church and the one thing you learn is I don't want that anymore there's nothing absolutely nothing out there so we'll pick it up back next week back there and maybe have a little softer tone so let's be dismissed