[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfreda, Georgia. During this time, Pastor Gardner answers various questions.
[0:13] And we're going to have some questions, and I'll give you the first one before they give me a question. My wife said, are you going to tell the people how much money was taken up for Aaron Vance on Thursday night?
[0:25] And I'm going to tell you what I know, and I only know what I know. But as I understand, we took in around $800 in the offering, and I think some more came in after that. And then the missionaries also sent money, and so I don't know total what he ended up with that day, maybe $1,100 or $1,200.
[0:42] His deductible was $1,000, and so thank you. You made a major difference in a man's life, and I appreciate that. I hope that was an encouragement to him, and so thank you very much for your help on that.
[0:55] All right, that was question number one from the boss. Number two. What was the significance? Okay, here we go with our questions from last month. But I read the chapters. All right.
[1:06] Take your Bibles and go to Jeremiah chapter 28. These are all prepared from beforehand. Jeremiah 28, 16. I had a month to study these. Jeremiah chapter 28.
[1:17] What was the significance of Hananiah's death in Jeremiah? And I think it's pretty simple. Open your Bible. This is an important lesson for all of us, actually. The Bible says in 16 and 17.
[1:29] Jeremiah 28, 16 and 17. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, I will cast thee off from the face of the earth. This year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord.
[1:43] So Hananiah, the prophet, died the same year in the seventh month. Now, that's a wild story. But Hananiah was a prophet. And a prophet in Israel, they didn't have the word of God to be able to check out what was going on, what was being said.
[1:59] God had to back up what they said. And if what a prophet said didn't come true, he died. And in this story, Jeremiah starts off that chapter making this yoke of wood and telling them that they're going into captivity.
[2:14] And Hananiah, he's kind of like the other political party. And he comes out and he said, no, no, no, that's not true. And he breaks the yoke. So Jeremiah makes another yoke out of iron and says, let him break this one.
[2:27] And see if he can break this one. And then God says, you're dead. Don't tell people lies. Don't get people to not do what I say.
[2:37] Now, today, obviously, God doesn't kill every preacher that lies. If he did, we'd be having funerals a lot around the United States and around the world. But we ought to know this.
[2:48] Look at what he says. It's so important in verse 16. He said, I will cast thee off from the face of the earth. This year thou shalt die because you taught rebellion against the Lord.
[2:59] And I never, ever want to be guilty of that. I never, ever want to be guilty of getting people not to do what they ought to do. And I hope that you would never do that either. Don't mock God.
[3:09] Don't mock his word. Don't take lightly what he says. Next question. I think it's going to probably be number two. It's not on my, that's not the next one on my list. All right. Is it okay to lie to bring people to church?
[3:20] I saw that question, but I didn't study for it. No. Okay. You know, first off, you shouldn't have to. Why would you need to lie? I have no idea where the questions come from. But let me just say this.
[3:32] It's never right to lie to bring somebody to church. And I don't think you'd ever need to. I think you just flat out tell them. You say, well, I'm afraid that they know we're going to try to get them saved. They wouldn't come. They ought to already know you're trying to get them saved before you ever get them to come.
[3:44] You ought to be praying for them and telling them about Jesus. They ought to have an idea. That's who you are. So it shouldn't be a shock to them. You ought to witness to people. So no, you don't not lie to bring people to church. You ought to tell the truth.
[3:55] Jesus is the truth. Why would you lie about the truth? How about the next one? Can there's the next one? Jeremiah 29. Open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 29. Let's go through this question right quick.
[4:06] Can you explain the letter written by Shammai in Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 1? Now, these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah, the prophet sent from Jerusalem under the residue of the elders.
[4:16] So Jeremiah writes a letter and he sends a letter and he tells them, hey guys, go on over there. You're in captivity. Verse 4, I told you, I've caused you to be carried away. Verse 5, build you some houses.
[4:28] Verse 6, take wives. Verse 7, I have caused you to be carried away. Verse 8, don't you let anybody try to tell you what I'm telling you is true. It's not true. You're going to be over there 70 years.
[4:38] It says in verse 10 and then if you'll go all the way down to the end of the chapter, verse 31. Jeremiah chapter 29 verse 31. Send to all of them to captivity saying, thus saith the Lord concerning Shammai the Nehemiah, because Shammai hath prophesied unto you and I sent him not.
[4:58] He calls you to trust in a lie. This Shammai guy does the same thing the last guy did. He writes letters. He preaches. He teaches and he tells the people to believe a lie.
[5:11] And it says in verse 37, I will punish him. Nobody's going to stay alive in his family. Look at it. Verse 32, he shall not have a man to dwell among his people.
[5:22] The last part, he hath taught rebellion against the Lord. He writes a letter proclaiming himself to be God's man. He writes a letter and says, I'm God's man. Well, you ought not have to write a letter saying that yourself. People ought to recognize that about you.
[5:35] And God's answer is that he will punish him for teaching lies. Again, we don't want to be causing rebellion. We don't want to be causing people not to follow Jesus, not to worship Jesus and to do wrong.
[5:49] We want to always teach truth. By the way, some people abuse grace to the point that they give people the idea not to obey God. We ought not be guilty of that either. Say amen right there.
[6:00] You didn't, but you should. All right. Next question. Will the rapture take babies? I thought we did that one time and that wasn't on my list. But anyway, I have no idea. And so I can't answer that one.
[6:11] Will the rapture take babies? I have no idea. The Bible doesn't make a statement about that. And so that's the best answer I can give you. Next one. That one was on.
[6:21] That one's from about a while back. Lamentations 319 says, remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. And so they want to know what wormwood and gall meant.
[6:34] And so wormwood was a tree that yielded a bitter oil. It's a cinnamon of bitterness or bitterness of grief. I was asking Betty this day, if any of you know, how many of y'all know about a persimmon tree?
[6:45] Anybody in this room know what a persimmon tree is? You know, a persimmon tree looks like it's got a sweet fruit. But if you put it in your mouth, it's bitter. You will. They used to call it the persimmon pucker where I come from. It'll pucker your mouth up.
[6:57] It's a tree. And people used to think they were like wild muscadines or grapes. And we used to have fun with city people like you. That you would come to the country.
[7:08] And we'd say, man, check out that fruit. And you'd say, yeah, man, that looks good. And we'd say, it is. Grab one. And you'd grab it and you'd pucker and you'd spit it out and you'd holler. And so wormwood is just a word like that that the Bible is using.
[7:20] Mind affliction, wormwood. My misery, gall. Gall referred to poison like even a snake bite, bitterness, or cruelty. And so very clearly he's just using words to illustrate his point.
[7:34] Next. Well, I'll be through these questions. We'll go home early. How will the money for the church plant be used? So that is a new question. I didn't know about that one. I like that question. Well, let's see.
[7:46] There's several things that the money will be used for. Number one, we're going to have to rent a place to have the get-acquainting meetings and all the places that we'll meet. If it were to be Roswell, which I don't know that it is, Trent's found a place, an Indian, people from India, Indian theater, that we might could rent and have services in.
[8:08] They don't show movies in the morning, and they acted like they might be willing to help. We need a place that we can meet to start having church services. We need to be able to print, prepare and print thousands of handouts, door hangers, gospel tracks, John and Romans, and so on to saturate the area two or three times.
[8:29] We need whatever it takes to get all the setups, the sign, signs, advertisements to put out. So it'll all be used. It'll be used.
[8:40] It'll be, the money will be under the authority of our church. Our church money is very carefully guarded, so you won't have to worry about anybody running off with it, but it'll all be used for the advertising.
[8:51] Now, this church, we spent, we spent tens of thousands of dollars, just the chairs. Every chair you're sitting on was right at $50, $48, and Lord willing, we're not going to do that, so keep the cost down.
[9:04] We're not buying chairs, but I think, I think we may be spent, well, whatever 200 times 50 is, at $10,000 just on the chairs, and then we bought a whole bunch of other chairs.
[9:14] If you've been upstairs, read the places where the black ones are, those cost like $4, and I think we bought 400 of them, and then you got a pulpit, and you got a microphone, and you got a sound system, you got signs, you got a place that you rent, just all that.
[9:30] Then you got all the advertisement. With this church, we made over 80,000 phone calls, and mailed out hundreds of pieces of mail. I think we did a total of five mailings, and two phone calls to everybody, to try to round people up, and we didn't round up very many.
[9:48] This area just wasn't very open to that, and we may find that wherever we go, is not that open to it, but we're going to pray that God has people there, and so we'll be using the money that way.
[9:59] The Lord willing, we want to start the church. We want to start the church with, and try to get it going, so it's paying its own bills very quickly.
[10:10] There are all kind of miracles you could be praying for. Brother John Wilkerson, a pastor I just preached for in California, a couple of weeks ago, I was not here on a Thursday night. I left on Monday and got back on Saturday morning, around 2 o'clock in the morning, before church on Sunday, and Brother John started churches, and the Lord has just worked a big miracle in one of the places.
[10:30] They rented a warehouse for four, or a storefront for four years, and then somebody in the neighborhood of Methodist Church actually closed their doors, and sold them the property, and a payment they could make between their home church, and other people.
[10:44] They raised $30,000, got about an acre of land, a church auditorium, a fellowship hall. They have more room than we have. They have about a half acre of parking, and they'll make payments on it.
[10:58] And the church itself, the new church, is paying every bit of it. So the church that started them is already freed up. The only thing they're not paying is a pastor, because Brother Wilkerson happens to be preaching at both churches, which I may end up having to do.
[11:12] We'll just see if the Lord will raise us up somebody. So that's how the money's going to be used. We're going to start a church, try to get it going, and get them paying their bills. And I'll just be honest with you, I don't want this to be the only church.
[11:23] I'd like to see us start a whole lot of churches. Instead of having a big, having to have an extremely large building for us, or trying to be numbers conscious, we can help start other churches where people can have a church within 15 or 20 minutes of their house, and we can start them in different parts of, different parts of Fulton County.
[11:43] Somebody asked me why Fulton County, but Fulton County has 1,200,000 people. We can find about six independent Baptist churches, put it at 10 for any that we didn't find.
[11:55] And then it's even hard to find other Baptist churches. It's just an area where not much is being done. There was what was called white flight, and they all took off and flew out and left the place.
[12:08] 43% of Atlanta is, Fulton County is African-American, 43% is like white, and the rest of them are Hispanic or Asian. And so we're just asking God to help us do something amazing.
[12:21] Without any phone calls on my part, I got a phone call this week about trying to put me in contact with an African-American family that might be interested in helping. That would be great if God opened a door.
[12:32] That would be a different section we would be able to work in. And also to ask me about John and Romans and the possibility of helping us get John and Romans. So we need $10,000 to $20,000, which is actually on the very low side of what it'll probably cost.
[12:47] The men of our church will get detailed accounts, even of that money, and we'll use that to try to get a church started. Next question. Yeah, that's one of my questions.
[12:57] Jeremiah 51, 44. Glad you're throwing in some of them surprises. I like that. John 51, Jeremiah 51, 44. And you're not reading them. I don't know if the guys that are watching might be ready to shoot us.
[13:07] I think I answered this one, but I'm going to give you a much better answer because I had a chance to get a scripture to go with it. In Jeremiah 51, 44, God will punish Baal, the god of Babylon.
[13:19] How can God punish a god that was an idol? Was Baal an actual person? The verse says, And I will punish Baal in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up, and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him.
[13:34] Yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. And I just was thinking, What's the story? And you know this story. First off, by the way, whenever you talk about Israel, when Jonah was preparing messages for the summit, and when Jonah, in Jonah chapter 1, when he tells the sailors on the boat, they say, Who are you, and what are you doing on the boat?
[13:57] Because the ship's about to sink, and they're trying to figure out, and he said, I'm a Hebrew. They immediately knew who he was. Everybody knows the Hebrews worship Jehovah. Everybody knows that the Hebrews only have one God, and everybody knows about that God.
[14:11] And he looks at him and says, I serve the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth. And they immediately know about that. So Baal was a people's gods. And they, and by the way, one of the reasons Jonah probably ran, one of the reasons that Jonah runs from God, he says he's going to run from the presence of God, in a lot of their minds, it was like the Americans have a God, but he only is good while you're in the U.S.
[14:33] And when you get into Mexico, you got to change gods. So it's kind of like get a passport, change countries, change gods, but that's not the way it works. And so when he punishes Baal, he's punishing the God of Babylon.
[14:44] And here's a good example. First Samuel chapter five, verses three through seven. You should probably remember the story. I'll only read you one verse of it, and we'll talk about did he punish Baal.
[14:55] But look at verse four. Here's what happens. They get Dagon. And Dagon is placed before the ark of the Lord. It says in verse three, and when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord.
[15:12] They captured the ark. They put the ark in front of their God. Like, Hey, our God conquered your God. And they got up the next morning and they go in there and their God's fallen thought on his face. And so they reached down, they pick up their God.
[15:23] They set him back up on there, dust him off and say, sorry, God, that somehow you fell off during the night. We'll help you out a little bit better next time around. And they get up the next morning. In verse four, Dagon was fallen. And the Bible says in the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold and only the stump of Dagon was left to him.
[15:40] So God did punish old Dagon, cut his head off, cut his hands off, threw him on his face twice. And so, but he was punishing them. And in verse six, they say, the hand of the Lord, the hand of God, Jehovah is heavy upon them of Ashdod.
[15:55] And he destroyed them. And he sent emrods, hemorrhoids. He gave them all a bunch of hemorrhoids and whooped up on them real good. So yeah, he beat them up, beat their God up because they worship the wrong God.
[16:07] Pretty strong stuff. Your God is the God of the Bible. That's the last question I was warned about. So now we start on regular, throw questions at me. What we got? I was wondering, the cycle of apathy brought on by repeated disappointments in life and actively resumes to be God.
[16:27] Go with me to James, if you would. Let's go to the book of James. Let me see if I can find my passage right quick. And then we'll go from James. We're going to go also to the book of Philippians, to a verse you already know I'm going to ask you to look at, I'm sure.
[16:41] But let's go to James chapter 4, I believe it'll be. Go to James chapter 4 and verse 7.
[16:52] Now the question, how do you break apathy? How do you get up? Can you give me the question one more time? Just let me read it one more time before we go to the verse. How does one break the cycle of apathy brought on by repeated disappointments in life and actively resume seeking God?
[17:06] That's a great question. And I hope that you'll pay attention to this. Watch this, would you? You know why we're disappointed? Brother Ronald just preached about it.
[17:18] Brother Ronald just preached about it. When he moved all the furniture, when he picked up whole big trees, I didn't know people could pick those up, but he did. Picked up a whole tree and just moved it right up here. That was a joke.
[17:28] And didn't get one laugh out of you people. You people are dead. Okay, when I want to joke, somebody stand up and holler, joke, somebody laugh. But he showed us, you're hugging this one tree and not this other tree.
[17:39] And we had tree huggers at vision. That's another joke. Amen. Well, we're doing better. When I do this, y'all laugh. Shake that bush off, whatever that guy said that was here. All right. But watch this. How does one break a cycle of apathy?
[17:51] First off, you need to know the reason you're disappointed so much is you got the wrong goals. Your goal ought to be to please Jesus. Your goal ought to be to enjoy what he's doing in your life. And we're disappointed because we don't, we set our goals on the wrong thing.
[18:05] And I am so guilty of that. I just so much knew that I was going to get that. And when I didn't get it, it breaks my heart. So let me just give you how I think you would break the cycle. And if you would look with me in James 4, look at verse 7.
[18:20] Submit yourselves therefore to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you. All right. I'm going to read down. I'm going to read verse 8 also in a second. But watch this. What's the first thing? Submit yourselves to God.
[18:32] Did you realize that there is an all-powerful, all-powerful, all-consuming, great, tremendous, wonderful God in charge of everything? And here's the hard thing.
[18:43] Most of us are control freaks. I want to know what's going to happen in my life. I want to set my goals. I want to set my plans. I want to know what I'm going to do. And we make all these plans.
[18:55] And most of the time it's like, I got my plans. God don't mess with them. And here's where James says, James says, why don't you just submit to God? Why don't you just say, I'm going to let God work in my life.
[19:07] That doesn't mean you can't set goals. That doesn't mean you don't have things, but you're going to say, hey, that's why we even say, like we saw the other time, Lord willing. So the first thing I'd say is we, we, we go back to verse 7.
[19:18] We, we submit to the Lord. We submit to the Lord. Second thing we do is we resist the devil. Now here's what happens. Do you know, do you know if you're beat up tonight, if you're beat up and you're whipped and, and the devil's got you pinned and on the ground, you're all disappointed.
[19:33] You know, that didn't come from the father. Don't you? God's not in the discouraging business. The devil's in the discouraging business. John 10, 10 said, I, the thief comes up for to steal, to kill and to destroy.
[19:48] That's the devil. He's a stealer, a killer and a destroyer. He's a thief. He's a killer. And he's a destroyer that Jesus said, but I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.
[20:00] So he wants you to have life. How many, he wants you living on top of the mountain, knowing you got eternal life, knowing that your sins are forgiven, knowing that you're going to heaven. He wants you enjoying all the great things.
[20:11] So what's the devil do? The devil's the accuser of the brethren. He comes along all the time, makes you think like you're a failure. He comes along all the time, bringing up junk about your past, junk about every failure, always saying to you with just a little bit more, God would like you just a little bit more.
[20:26] God would like you. If you got an a, God really wanted an a plus. If you got a C, God was still wanting an a, and you never reach it. So you resist him.
[20:37] You resist him. And you just say, Satan, I'm not listening to that. I'm not thinking like that. You're going to learn to control your thoughts. I want you to do that in just a second. You're going to learn to control your thoughts. It is so easy to get discouraged because you don't measure up to what you're looking for.
[20:52] Submit to God, resist the devil. Number of James chapter four, verse eight, draw not a God, draw not a God, seek God, get close to God. What does that mean?
[21:03] Now, let me just tell you this. When I was a young kid, I, that meant a whole lot different than it means. Now it means now, you know, that we tend to hear those statements and we think, well, go to the altar, go to the altar and pray.
[21:14] And then you look for some oozy goozy feeling to come over you. And if you don't get Holy ghost goosebumps, God didn't come down. And if while you're preaching, you don't get a, you don't feel like something's happening to your body.
[21:26] God's not, that's not what drawing nigh is. Drawing nigh is focusing on him. It's focusing on him. Now, you don't, when you don't draw now, because it's not like he's way off over there.
[21:36] And I got to face Mecca. It's not like I've got to get in a certain position. It's not like I got to run to a certain place. The truth is he's right here right now, but I never think about him.
[21:47] That's what, that's the answer. The real problem is we don't think about him very much. When do you think about him? Amazing. I just studied all day long. Yes. I studied 12 hours in Jonah.
[21:57] So excuse me, if you get a little Jonah thrown in here, but you know, Jonah was a happy camper. And then God said, Jonah, go to Nineveh. And when God said, go to Nineveh, Jonah said, I'm out of here. I don't want to hear from you.
[22:08] I don't want to talk to you. I don't want you on my mind. And he got on a boat and he was so peaceful. He goes down to buy the boat and goes to sleep. The boat sinking and they have to wake him up. The boat is about to turn over.
[22:19] They've been throwing suitcases overboard and they have to wake him up. And when they wake up, he says, Oh my goodness. Well, I serve God. And, uh, you throw me overboard too.
[22:30] And, and, and Jonah was, was God was right there. He ran from God and God was waiting on him in a storm. God was waiting on him on a ship. God was waiting on him on a storm.
[22:40] God's got a fish waiting on him. And I mean, God's there. Jonah's the one's not there. He's here right now. God is here right now, working in your life, wanting to draw you closer, wanting to strengthen you, wanting to meet your needs, but you're not drawing nigh.
[22:54] I mean, he's standing here. It's like, I'm here. If you'll look at me and talk to me and get close to me, are you going to get any kind of goozy, oozy, woozy feeling? Probably not. See, that's another thing.
[23:05] We don't run on feelings. We run on what the Bible says. How do I draw nigh to him? Well, I would cleanse my hands and purify my heart. I'd quit being double-minded. I'd quit thinking about the other stuff.
[23:16] I quit getting these two trees up here that Ronald talked about. One is money and one is God. That's double-minded. When you got both in focus on Jesus, get the sin out of your heart and say, God, I want to serve you.
[23:27] Talk to him and think about him. So how do you break that cycle? You do all that. And the last verse, I'll show you. And then we'll go to the next thing. Look at Philippians chapter four, verse eight, Philippians chapter four, verse eight.
[23:38] This verse ought to be part of everything you think about all the time. It says this finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, lovely, of good report, virtue, praise, think on these things.
[23:57] Well, let me, let me explain. So guess where all of our, mess ups come from thinking, stinking, thinking leads to dirty living, stinking, thinking leads to dirty living.
[24:09] The more I think dirty thoughts, stinky thoughts. And by the way, you know, you, most of us in this room, we have a, we have very dirty minds. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't think about pornography. No, you don't. But you think about, you think about all kinds of attacks on our God.
[24:23] You think that God doesn't love you. You think that God's not taking care of you. You, you, you think that God's abandoned you. You think that you're in this poor life. Ain't turning out like it's supposed to. You're in this vicious cycle of, those are dirty thoughts.
[24:36] You're attacking God. Do you really believe that God doesn't love you? He loves you. He died for you. He gave Jesus for you.
[24:46] If he would give Jesus, what would he withhold from you? So who is it wants to make you think other thoughts? You know, uh, look at your children.
[24:58] Ronald's example was very good. Your kids can be brats and you just keep on loving them. Now, don't you? Your kids can whine and cry and throw things and fuss and fight. And you keep on loving them. You might even spank them, but you keep on loving them.
[25:10] It doesn't matter. Cause love goes past all of that. So here's the truth. God loves you far more than you could ever love a child.
[25:21] God loves you far more than you could ever dream of loving anybody. So every one of these thoughts, you know, he's never left you and he's not going to. On your darkest day, when you're completely alone, you won't be.
[25:34] And here's what you do. You control your thoughts. You focus your mind. You focus your mind. Uh, and when I'm doing a, when I'm doing a marriage retreat, I tell people, if you want to say sweet things about your spouse, you have to think sweet things about your spouse.
[25:55] You can't conjure this up. So in other words, if I'm looking in my mind and, and on purpose, I look at my wife and I think about my wife and I say, man, she's beautiful, man.
[26:06] She's sweet, man. She's kind. She's a great lady. And if I work at those thoughts and I keep those thoughts in my mind, whenever my mouth opens, that's going to come out. If I think negative thoughts, if I think I can't believe she didn't put enough salt on this food, I can't believe supper's not ready.
[26:24] I can't believe. And I, and I start thinking all these negative things, guess what's going to come out? Whatever's going to, what's in your head is going to come out. Why are you whining and complaining?
[26:35] Because in your head, you're rehearsing lies about our good God. And the devil's a master at getting us to lie. He doesn't come at us with a pitchfork and a tail and a red suit.
[26:48] He comes at us with real logical thoughts about why our God's not good to us, but they are lies. Don't listen to it. Next question, please, sir. The first is 1125.
[27:03] How often is, as often as, is this talking about the Lord's supper? It is talking about the Lord's supper. And it says, as often as you eat this bread or drink this cup, you do show forth his death and then do this remembrance and all that.
[27:17] And, uh, there's no answer for it. It just means as often as, and so as often as you take the Lord's supper, you ought to do that. Uh, some churches would take the Lord's supper. Some gospel preaching Baptist churches would take the Lord's supper, uh, even every Sunday.
[27:32] Uh, we don't tend to do that. We tend to be monthly or every two or three months, we'll end up taking the Lord's supper. And the Bible is not clear about the, how often that would be. And so there's no rule, uh, about how often it's supposed to be taken, but that's what it is referring to.
[27:52] A wizard. Well, here comes some parents going to get aggravated at me more like wizards or people that worship Satan.
[28:03] How's that? Uh, uh, more like wizards. I hate to tell you kids. I don't, you know, and I don't ever get on stuff and pick on stuff, but all these, uh, all these magicians, uh, I'm talking about on the TV shows where, and these people that are able to do stuff and turn and, uh, Mr.
[28:22] Potter and all these other people, you know, that's not a God thing. You know, and I, you've never heard, I don't go off on tirades about either, but I'll just tell you that their, their, their, their powers aren't from Jesus.
[28:34] And when they, uh, they're not from God and these wizards, uh, that can conjure up stuff and do stuff. That's, uh, that's, uh, actually a form of, uh, of a Satan worshiper.
[28:47] Now, how many of you met at me, but it's a fact. And so we like to play with it and we like to think, well, let me get a little stick and pretend. And, and, uh, you know, I, I, let me just say, I guess if you're playing as a kid, you're pretending, but Satan's not a wizard.
[29:02] Satan has real power. And the Bible's clear that he has real power. And you can, if you'll just read the Bible, you'll find that he had real power. He took Jesus up on a mountain. He took Jesus up on a mountain.
[29:14] He said, if you'll bow down to me, I'll give you the kingdoms, all the kingdoms of the world. I don't know if you ever noticed that Jesus didn't even say to him, you don't have the kingdoms. Jesus said, that's not the way I'm doing it because he does have the kingdoms of the world right now.
[29:26] He does have them. Uh, we gave them to him and Jesus died to buy us back. And soon he'll throw him in the bottomless pit. He'll chain him and throw him in a bottomless pit.
[29:36] And Jesus take back over. But right now, so I'll just say this to you. Uh, be real careful. Don't play with a lot of, a lot of magic stuff. Uh, uh, you know, I don't think that every Ouija board's got a devil in it and I'm not trying to say that about it at all.
[29:52] But if I were you as a child, I would learn this boy. Look, if you want to know about power, talk to Jesus. You can pray. Satan's not a wizard. Next question. And number 18, one, why do we last know of the burial and iniquity of the sanctuary?
[30:06] Um, show me, uh, numbers 18, one, if you would real quick. Um, you know, now this is one of those I would probably rather read around that and know more about it, but I'll give you a real quick answer.
[30:20] The Lord said unto Aaron, thou and thy sons and the father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary. Thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood. Well, let me just give you an off the cuff answer because that's all I can give you real quickly.
[30:34] And that is this, those priests represent the one and the one and only real true priest. And his name is Jesus. And Jesus, and Jesus bears the, the iniquity and the sins of all of us.
[30:47] And the only way we can come into the sanctuary is he is carrying our sins. These guys were going to offer sacrifices. These guys were going to sacrifice lambs and goats and bullocks and doves and flower or, yeah, flower offerings.
[31:02] And they were going to do all of that. And they, they, they, they dealt with the sins of the people and they took those sins and they sacrifice that lamb as a symbol of what our father does as he takes that.
[31:13] And so they were bearing the sin. And that way, every pitch, everything, listen, this, every old Testament picture is a picture of how great our God is. And what a wonderful picture of his loving grace and salvation.
[31:24] So in the old Testament, when those, when those, uh, when those, uh, priests take that lamb in there and cut his throat, uh, or when they, and when they shed his blood, when they do all that stuff, everybody, that's a picture of how our father put his son on the cross and his son shed his blood to pay all of our sin debt.
[31:42] So every bit of it was pointing to the same thing. And so I would say that they're bearing the sins in the same as a symbol, just like Jesus actually truly really did bear our sins on the cross of Calvary.
[31:54] You got one or two more. How should a Christian involve themselves in court affairs and politics in a productive manner, even though in the end, only God does what God does will matter.
[32:09] Uh, okay. Romans chapter 13. If you'll open your Bibles there right quickly, we are to respect the laws of our land. And, uh, uh, I think I could probably, if I had time show you plenty of verses, it would let us know that we ought to be good citizens.
[32:25] Um, Romans chapter 13. Um, we are to pray by the way, in first Peter, we're to pray for those in authority. Uh, and, uh, so how do we deal with court affairs and politics in a productive manner?
[32:39] Uh, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. There's no power, but of God, the powers that be ordained of God, whosoever, therefore resisteth the proud, resist of the ordinance of God.
[32:50] Uh, the power resist of the ordinance of God. They shall receive themselves damnation. Um, chapter 13, verse seven, render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due custom, whom custom fear or respect, whom respect is due and honor to whom honors do.
[33:10] So I'm going to tell you that, uh, I think that our church, uh, we as individuals ought to honor and respect, uh, the, the, the law of our land, unless it violates the scripture.
[33:23] And, uh, when I say violates the scripture there, I'm not talking about something, uh, you know, the splash tax is not a violation of scripture. The fact is we're lucky. Joseph hitting the, uh, uh, uh, we're lucky.
[33:35] Joseph hitting the, uh, next president. Cause he wouldn't have a nine, nine, nine plan. He'd have a 20, 2020 plan. He had, he took 20% first day. They put him in power. He took 20%.
[33:46] And then when they came back later and said, you know, we paid that 20%. Can we get our money back? He said, sell me your body, sell me your land, sell me everything you have. And when it was over, he owned everything. The Pharaoh owned everything.
[33:57] So maybe our government took lessons from there. I'm not sure, but, uh, uh, I'm going to say to you that we give tribute where tributes do go back to the question.
[34:07] Let me just finish it with this. Uh, I think that in every way you ought to be, be respectful and honest and obey the things. How, how much should you get involved in politics? I'll say this.
[34:17] If God has laid on your heart to be in politics and you're going to honor Jesus and be a man of character and your B level be full of Jesus and full of the Bible. And you're going to do that, right?
[34:28] I think you could do fine, but you ought to be an honest man, just like you are at work. I don't think you need to divide that. So, uh, court affairs. I'm not sure. I think you're talking about the, the, uh, like the Supreme court, the high court, the federal court, all those kinds of courts.
[34:42] If that's what you're talking about, honestly, I think we should respect them. And in politics, everything we ought to do would be, be men of character everywhere. We are, you know, by the way, in every business you have in every place you work, everybody ought to know that guy's a Christian.
[34:55] I asked the guys that work here the other day. Some of the guys that are here studying and they all work in different places. And I said, have your bosses noticed your Christians? And you know, I want to, I want, I wish that wherever you work, people say, man, that guy's a born again, Chris, you can trust him.
[35:09] He don't steal the money. He doesn't come late. He doesn't lie. He doesn't cheat. He's an honest man. That ought to be the way we handle it. And then we'll just leave to God, the results, do the best you can leave the rest of it to God.
[35:21] Next question. I believe that they, you know, again, you got a verse.
[35:38] I don't show me the verse. I don't think they built their own sanctuary. I think that they are. I think that they are offering. They're trying to get in a position.
[35:50] Okay. You got a whole story there. They're trying to take over and they're saying that God doesn't speak only through Moses and they rise up against Moses. And so I don't believe they set up another one. They're just jealous of the man that God placed in charge and they're trying to set it up.
[36:04] So I don't believe it's a different one. They're trying to usurp authority over the authority that God had placed in that church. Next question. How do they recognize God's direction for their lives and feelings about focus?
[36:16] How about Matthew 633?
[36:28] How about let's go there real quick. Ronald said, that's my favorite. If I can't answer a Bible with any other question, well, that's my verse. That's my fallback. That's my parachute. Matthew 633.
[36:38] Seek the kingdom. Let me tell you this. God leads and guides through desires and abilities. And in Philippians 2 13, it said it is God that both willeth and doeth in you of his good pleasure.
[36:50] And you are going to have to understand God made you and he made you just like you are. And you are well made. I don't care who you are. I don't care what personality you have. You're not as loud as the other person.
[37:01] You're, you're quiet. You're a businessman. You're an accountant or, or whatever. God made you and you are just right. God made you and you are just right. And we can trust that he did the right thing.
[37:13] And so God has already built into you desires and abilities. He's given you desires and abilities. And here's all I want to say to you. Romans 12, one and Matthew, and Matthew 633 would be the answer.
[37:24] Seek the kingdom, seek the kingdom and give your life to do whatever God wants you to do. And by the way, don't worry. Boy, everybody's a lot of the young people. You're too worried about what you're going to do 10 years from now.
[37:36] You don't know what you're going to do 10 years from now. Just serve God the best way you know how to do today. Today, get up tomorrow and honor Jesus. I mean, get up tomorrow and live it.
[37:46] Like you are really loving Jesus and serving him. And tomorrow you do that. And the next day you do that. And the next day you do that. And you're going to wake up one day and say, look where I am. He is a good God. He is not hard to figure out.
[37:58] He, uh, now you can't understand it, but I mean, to figure out where he wants you to go, believe me, he'll show you, take your time and quit trying to make that so hard. That's the best answer I got. Let me just tell you this. I've always loved what I'm doing.
[38:12] I mean, I love you. I literally love you. Think about you. Wake up in the middle of the night and pray for you by name. Think about, try to learn your names, try to pray for you every day. Added several of you this week to my prayer list.
[38:24] If you're a newer coming, you've been added to my list. And so I'm just, I pray for you. You know, I, let me just say this, quit acting like God's got his will hidden. Then he doesn't care about you. Serve him today.
[38:35] Serve him today. How are you going to know? Well, I tell you what, this is what the old country people say. You'll know, but I'll just say it this way. If you'll just love Jesus today, tomorrow, take care of itself. Matthew 6, 34, sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.
[38:49] So do right today. And God will take care of tomorrow. Next question. I think we're about through and time's ready. They're going to shoot me quick. If Christ began a thousand year reign after the tribulation, what happens to the last people who survived the tribulation?
[39:03] Do they have their lifespan extended for hundreds of years? Like those in the thousand year reign? Good question. Boy, that's a good one, isn't it? I think, I think so.
[39:14] I think that the, if you endure to the end, you'll be saved. I think that's referring to the elect God's people. And if they endure to the end, they'll be saved. They'll get into the, they'll get into the millennium and they will be allowed to serve God.
[39:28] That doesn't mean that means they won't be killed and that they will, they will enter into the, they will enter into the millennial kingdom, but I wouldn't argue or fight with any of you over that. Last question.
[39:40] What are your thoughts on common grace? Especially as it pertains to any good deeds, a non-Christian may do. Well, common grace is a theological term and it's not a Bible term. And so I'll just say this to you.
[39:53] I don't, you know, I don't mind the term common grace, as long as you understand what it means. And here's, here's what's happened. When there's been so much salt and so much light in a country like America, it puts a lot of grace everywhere because we have Christians, God's people, God's true people have been salt and they've been light.
[40:11] And they've been living a life that honors Jesus. And it's affected everything. Most of the good laws and the good things going on in our country has been because maybe not everybody was saved, but there were enough saved people that it flavored the world.
[40:26] And so, uh, the good deeds that non-Christians may do, a lot of that would have to do with the fact that they've seen an example. They've seen, I mean, how could you be around a godly family?
[40:37] Here's a man that loves his wife. You're going to learn that. Um, one of my favorite, uh, uh, movies of all time that I believe everybody ought to watch. I can't say this at church, but I'll say it tonight is, uh, it's a wonderful life.
[40:51] That's a good one. Don't shake your head. I love that one. But anyway, and that is the old movie of dumb, by the way. But you know, but you know, uh, I was watching that last night and, uh, it was amazing how, when, when the good guy in the movie is supposedly wasn't born, all the city turned really wicked.
[41:12] And there's no God in there. No Christian in there. It's nothing about Jesus. It's nothing for, except just for entertainment. But here's the whole point. Uh, the, there, there's purity and cleanliness because Christians live right and do right.
[41:25] That's all. And, uh, so I think that if you, if we do right and live right, God will affect our society. You don't have to have, you don't have to have a whole lot of salt to flavor and the lights don't have to be real big to be bright.
[41:38] And so you and I make a difference. And so that's God's common grace that extends to everybody. And, uh, uh, the only other use of that term, I think would be, uh, prevenient grace, which is what John Wesley talked about, which was God's grace that he gives to every man so that any man could accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
[41:58] But I'm assuming that you meant the earther. So let's have a word of prayer and we will have, uh, some announcements. Father, I love you. Now, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for your people. Thank you for the chance to be with them.
[42:10] I pray your richest blessings on every one of them in Jesus name. Amen. You have been listening to Austin Gardner, pastor of vision Baptist church for contact information, location, service times, or more audio and video recordings.
[42:26] Log on to www.visionbaptist.com.