SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Sharper Sword, the publication ministry of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Lemon Grove, California.
SPEAKER_00: Lighthouse believes that individuals can reach their potential for the Lord as they grow in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We want to hear our Lord say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00: Let's join Pastor Doug Fisher as he preaches another important biblical message from the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy chapter 12, please.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to go in the New Testament also in John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy 12 and John chapter number 4.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'll give a span of attention, we'll do something before the Lord tonight that I believe would honor him.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you the principle first, please.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy 12 and John chapter number 4.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, let's understand that the Old Testament is our ensemble.
SPEAKER_01: And what we're supposed to do is learn that as an example.
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes in the Old Testament, it shows the mind of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I want to say something to you.
SPEAKER_01: I have some sorrow for Christians who don't read their Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: I mean that.
SPEAKER_01: I have sorrow in my heart for Christians who don't spend time in the Old and the New.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the whole Bible is to be consumed.
SPEAKER_01: And somebody says, well, the old that's back then.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you, the old back then has the same of God of now.
SPEAKER_01: And he reveals things about himself in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Deuteronomy 12.
SPEAKER_01: What he asked them to do was important, and then you're holding your place in John 4.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou shalt come.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm going to choose a place from time to time, and I want you all to come there.
SPEAKER_01: And when you come there, in that place, verse 6, then you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, heave offerings, your hand and your vows, your free will offerings, the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we know by what he just described there, they would go to the place where the tabernacle was set up.
SPEAKER_01: And during the book of uh Joshua, if you would, and the end of uh the book of Moses, it was set up in Shiloh.
SPEAKER_01: And then it would move to Gibeon.
SPEAKER_01: But that was where they brought their offerings, if you would, in a place.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, When you bring them in that place, and you all show up there, look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: And ye shall say the word, rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to, you're gonna rejoice in all that you put your hand unto, ye and your households.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it, it says, the families.
SPEAKER_01: Not just the tribes, but the households, the families.
SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna come to that place, which I'm gonna choose.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna take your burnt offerings, your different offerings, your heave offerings, your uh uh offerings of your herds and your flocks, and you're gonna rejoice in what your hands have been doing.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, all of those offerings required the work of their hands.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know anything about farming, but it takes a lot of work to raise animals.
SPEAKER_01: You say, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: It takes a lot of labor to raise animals.
SPEAKER_01: I I at where I grew up, they had what was called 4H.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know what 4H is, there's 4H is the health and and the and the and the things that it stands for.
SPEAKER_01: But what it did basically, they raised, if you would, uh up uh uh things from the ground and things, if you would, from animals and made things, and then those would become those that would go into what was called uh future farmers of America.
SPEAKER_01: And you may look and laugh a little bit, but I want to tell you where I grew up in Ohio, they had they had the uh denim jackets, the blue jean jackets, and the blue jean jackets had a had a big uh big thing on the pat a patch on the back.
SPEAKER_01: And they were everybody who was a future farmer of America wore them.
SPEAKER_01: There's only two things you were in Ohio.
SPEAKER_01: Either you worked on cars and you went to shop and you went to mechanics and you worked on cars, or you were a future farmer of America and you wore your your denim jacket, if you would, or your blue jean jacket with the big patch on, and nobody thought it was funny.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody laughs but the farmers.
SPEAKER_01: The farmers were our economy.
SPEAKER_01: Are you still with me or not?
SPEAKER_01: I still have a high, high respect for the farmers.
SPEAKER_01: I worked with the farmers starting when I was 12 years old.
SPEAKER_01: My dad was already passed away, if you would, at 10.
SPEAKER_01: And at 12 years old, I went out and they hired me to work out in the fields.
SPEAKER_01: I remember working out with them.
SPEAKER_01: My my first job was hoeing soy beans and hoeing the thistles out of the soy bean patches.
SPEAKER_01: You say, how exciting is that?
SPEAKER_01: It builds character.
SPEAKER_01: You're out there by yourself and you're hoeing thistles out of the sowing bean patch, and the farmer's gonna come out and check.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want them scraped off, he wants the roots dug out.
SPEAKER_01: He wants them gone, and he's gonna check on you.
SPEAKER_01: Then we went into baleing hay and hanging tobacco and all the different stuff that I was hired to do.
SPEAKER_01: And I grew up for three years working on the farm and working with farmers, if you would, and I gained a healthy respect.
SPEAKER_01: I worked with pig farmers, I worked with cattle farmers, I worked with dairy farmers, and I gained a healthy respect for working with your hands.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell you something, they don't slack.
SPEAKER_01: They're up before the sun is up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, when the farmer's wife, if you would, has a meal, it's usually about 11 in the morning, and that's the main meal because you've already been working out there since six in the morning, and she puts on this big spread, and by four in the afternoon, you're dusted, you're wasted, you're you're you're completely done.
SPEAKER_01: And you got blisters, and you got, I mean, you're just covered with dirt and dust and all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to tell you, I look back now and think, what a wonderful way to grow up.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what a wonderful late way to learn some character.
SPEAKER_01: You say, What'd you get paid?
SPEAKER_01: Next to nothing.
SPEAKER_01: But next to nothing when you're 13 is a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't have a dad, and it's just your mom.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you, next to nothing is a wonderful thing when you get a paycheck.
SPEAKER_01: But I look back and I remember when I left Ohio at about 16 years old.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I really missed were those farmers.
SPEAKER_01: One of those things uh I really uh I really kind of longed for later.
SPEAKER_01: I went to college then, you know, and went in the Marine Corps, but I thought about those farmers.
SPEAKER_01: After I got saved, I went back to visit those farmers.
SPEAKER_01: I went back and drove onto their farmland.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, some of them I went back later and they weren't there anymore.
SPEAKER_01: They had passed away.
SPEAKER_01: Others of them that I grew up with, some of the men, if you would, that I, boys that I grew up with, had taken over the farms.
SPEAKER_01: I went back there to try to witness to some because I was concerned about them.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know something.
SPEAKER_01: Have a lot of respect for those that grow our food.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me or not?
SPEAKER_01: Have a lot of respect for where we get our milk and cheese from, if you would, and that type of thing.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord that uh we have places where we can grow food in our country.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to know something, brethren.
SPEAKER_01: These, with the work of their hands, it was an agriculture-based society.
SPEAKER_01: It was an animal husbandry-based society, and they work long and hard.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I want you to bring what you've grown, I want you to bring what you've raised in the place where I tell you to come, and every once in a while I want you to stop, eat there, and rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Now look what he says, stay with me.
SPEAKER_01: He says this in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hands into, ye and your households, plural.
SPEAKER_01: Now, watch this, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.
SPEAKER_01: Brother, I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: Farmers know if the rains don't come, the crops aren't blessed.
SPEAKER_01: They are dependent on the weather, and I want you to know there's a lot of farmers that are Christians and they pray about the weather.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you'd be surprised where they say, Boy, I'm just praying for the right time to plant, praying for the right time to harvest.
SPEAKER_01: You harvest too late if the rains and the winds come and it blows all your wheat out, or the rains come and knocks all your stocks down, or or oh, I hated baling hay after rain.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what a, what a uh, I won't even go into that.
SPEAKER_01: The idea was it was heavy, it was uh it was uh laborous and and trying to stack that up the way they wanted to.
SPEAKER_01: It took a lot of work.
SPEAKER_01: And may I say to you that what God said to them once in a while was stop.
SPEAKER_01: Eat where I'm telling you to eat, rejoice in the work of your hands, rejoice in your labors, and rejoice because I blessed your labors.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, it's still God giving the increase.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what he says a little further, stay with me.
SPEAKER_01: He says, verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10, when ye go over Jordan, when you go out of this wilderness, you go into the promised land, and you dwell in that land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit.
SPEAKER_01: When he hath given you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety.
SPEAKER_01: Brother, I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: We have a country where we dwell in relative safety.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, is that right?
SPEAKER_01: You look at other parts of the world, they're not dwelling in safety like we get to.
SPEAKER_01: I know there's shootings and all kinds of stuff that go on these days, but we still have relative safety.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna drive home tonight and not worry about a tank coming down the road.
SPEAKER_01: We're in relative safety.
SPEAKER_01: Then, then there in that promised land shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to call his name.
SPEAKER_01: For a while it was gonna be Shiloh, and then it was gonna be Gibeon, to dwell there.
SPEAKER_01: Thither shall ye bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithe, your heath offerings, uh, all that of your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what he said.
SPEAKER_01: All that you've raised with your hand, all that you've grown with your hand, all those animals you raised with your hand, and all your choice vows which you were, he said, I want you to come, verse 12, and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while, what God said was, Your labors that I've blessed, the work of your hand, I want you to come in the place that I've chosen, and I want you to stop for a moment, and I want you to eat there, and I want you to turn around and rejoice on what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to realize I'm giving the increase.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to realize that I've been blessing you.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to realize who brought you here, who gave you this promised land, who's making your crops grow.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, are you still with me?
SPEAKER_01: The idea is who's raising your your your your uh your animals and the grain that they get.
SPEAKER_01: I was uh working with a guy up north in Montana, and he was a manager of a of a of a of a huge ranch, and I was learning from him.
SPEAKER_01: And the ranch literally, this is no no no exaggeration.
SPEAKER_01: I said, How big is this ranch?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, he says, near as I can figure, from one end to the other, it's 40 miles.
SPEAKER_01: Let me let that sink in.
SPEAKER_01: 40 miles from one end of the ranch to the other.
SPEAKER_01: And they were growing, uh, they were growing huge cows.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they sold them and they they had calfing and and everything.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, uh uh, tell me about the business, tell me how it works.
SPEAKER_01: And he said this, well, you'd be surprised.
SPEAKER_01: I said, what is it?
SPEAKER_01: He said, well, it's all determined mainly by the weather and how we do with the animals and and how they calve.
SPEAKER_01: Because we make our money on the number of calves.
SPEAKER_01: And they had uh they had cowbies out there, cowboys out there, they were branding them, they were they were doing the whole bit.
SPEAKER_01: And I was watching, I got to go up there a few years and pick his brain a little bit, and he said, uh, honestly, it's all about the rains.
SPEAKER_01: If the rains come right, they feed and graze out there and they produce more offspring if the rains are right.
SPEAKER_01: If the rains bring up the crops the way they're supposed to, where they graze, they they they they uh have a bigger increase.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying, so it's all determined by the weather then, he said, that's right.
SPEAKER_01: So it's all determined by God then.
SPEAKER_01: He said, well, if we do everything else right with our hands, it's up to God whether we get blessed or not.
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, are you still with me?
SPEAKER_01: And the idea, brother, it's still up to God whether we get blessed or not.
SPEAKER_01: Whether we're growing harvest or whether we're growing animals or whether we're growing business or whether we're growing whatever you do in this city, in the military, it's still up to God to bless and give the increase.
SPEAKER_01: And once in a while, he said, I want you to come together in a place that I'll choose, that I'll put my name on.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to pause for a moment, I want you to rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to turn around and realize what I've been doing.
SPEAKER_01: Because, brethren, we can get so busy, and I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: We can get so much in the negative that once in a while God turns around, says to turn around and be exhilarated a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Be of good cheer a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice is a word that means exhilaration and a good countenance and not just thinking on the negatives, but turn around and see the positives of what God is doing.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you, in a church, a church that rejoices, will get past the backbiting and the envy and the negatives and what's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And may I say, God wants a church that once in a while you come to the place and you say, we're not thinking about negative tonight.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna think about God blessing our hand.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna think about what God's been doing for us.
SPEAKER_01: And praise the Lord, we got something to rejoice about.
SPEAKER_01: Look at John chapter 4, please.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's still all right tonight?
SPEAKER_01: Say amen.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter number four.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, we get the opportunity for this leadership conference coming up, and there's always gonna be problems and things to deal with, but praise the Lord we get to minister to some people.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 4, we are not doing it for our popularity.
SPEAKER_01: We're not doing it for our image.
SPEAKER_01: We're doing it to please the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We're doing it to encourage the encouragers.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: With what we just read in Deuteronomy 12, look at John chapter 4, verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 4, verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: Say ye not, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest.
SPEAKER_01: Harvest.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, look on the fields, for they are white already to what?
SPEAKER_01: Say it, harvest.
SPEAKER_01: You know what he's talking about?
SPEAKER_01: People.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, we're in harvest time still in America.
SPEAKER_01: We just talked about the harvest of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about the animal husbandry, we talked about the crops and the bumper crops.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're in a harvest, and and maybe you grow some things a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we don't grow them, if you would, to make a living off of them per se, but maybe you grow something.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was out visiting with one of our families the other day, and they give me a couple of carton of eggs that come off of their chickens, and I thought, that's good stuff, man.
SPEAKER_01: That I grew up with chicken, chicken farms and chicken ranches, and we had a chicken hen house out behind our our little uh place there, and we had an acre and a half of garden.
SPEAKER_01: You say, oh, that's a lot of garden.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you, I didn't like that garden.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have we everything was done with a hand push little wheel thing that you pushed.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't, my my dad had a tractor, and he's the only one that used that.
SPEAKER_01: It was a little push tractor thing that had wheels and and it it plowed a little bit, but he never let us use that.
SPEAKER_01: We always had to push ours and bake the rows, and if it wasn't done right, he'd say, do it over again.
SPEAKER_01: And we had to take care of the strawberries and pick strawberries.
SPEAKER_01: I barely came back with a quart of strawberries because they all went in my mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm serious.
SPEAKER_01: When I went out and picked strawberries for about an hour, two hours, my dad would say to me, Where's your where's I told you to go pick a quart?
SPEAKER_01: I said, I did.
SPEAKER_01: He said, It took you two hours.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, dad, you know, here's what you do if you don't know anything about strawberries.
SPEAKER_01: You look and you go, that's a juicy one right there.
SPEAKER_01: That that that one's gonna taste really special.
SPEAKER_01: Because they didn't all taste that way.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, and here's the deal, he said, don't eat them halfway.
SPEAKER_01: If you're out there, eat them, eat the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: And you kind of look and you kind of go, Oh, that's a good one.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna mm and I'd come back with strawberry all over my lips and all over my hands, and he'd say, Man, and he laugh, he'd laugh about it.
SPEAKER_01: My point being is we grew up in that kind of stuff and you grew it, but there was a lot of work growing it.
SPEAKER_01: We had snow back there, and we had to put the straw on the strawberries so they wouldn't freeze out if you would, and cover them with straw.
SPEAKER_01: And we called it banking the strawberries.
SPEAKER_01: You had to you had to cover them down a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of good wisdom in all that, but I want to say to you that now we are still in a harvest.
SPEAKER_01: It's a harvest of souls.
SPEAKER_01: Talk to me a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: You ought to say amen right there.
SPEAKER_01: Because what we do is we're supposed to rejoice because it says this, verse number 36.
SPEAKER_01: He that reapeth, uh he that reapeth receiveth wages and gather fruit unto life eternal.
SPEAKER_01: That both he that soweth and he that reapeth may, say the word, rejoice together.
SPEAKER_01: If we're not rejoicing when people are getting witness to and getting saved, we're missing something.
SPEAKER_01: If we're not turning around once in a while and rejoicing a little bit, we're missing something.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to rejoice like they were told to in the new in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And here is that saying that true, one soweth and another reapeth.
SPEAKER_01: And the idea is I sent you to reap, and that thereon you bestowed no labor.
SPEAKER_01: Other men labored, you entered into their labors.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, we put the word of God out, we put the gospel out.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we get to reap, but sometimes we're the planters, and then someone else gets to reap it.
SPEAKER_01: As long as we're part of the harvest, that's the main thing.
SPEAKER_01: Take your Bible one more time, if you would, to look at 1 Corinthians 4.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians, please.
SPEAKER_01: Please turn there.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with me, almost done.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians, please.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians, and in 1 Corinthians, I gave you four, chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: I remind you that God is still the one that gives the increase in the harvest.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what he says in verse number 9.
SPEAKER_01: For we are laborers together with God.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, we get to work with God.
SPEAKER_01: We're labors together with him.
SPEAKER_01: Ye are God's husbandry.
SPEAKER_01: Interesting, he said it that way.
SPEAKER_01: Ye are God's building.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what does it say before that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, we're supposed to plant, we're supposed to water, but verse 6, God gives the increase.
SPEAKER_01: Verse number 7, God giveth the increase.
SPEAKER_01: And then verse number 8, he that planteth and he that watereth are one, John 4.
SPEAKER_01: And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor there.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, please listen.
SPEAKER_01: In the Old Testament, God says, in the place that I tell you, where you bring your the work of your hands, that I've blessed, that I've given the increase.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to stop there, and I want you to eat there, and I want you to rejoice in what I've done for you.
SPEAKER_01: I say this to you.
SPEAKER_01: Once in a while in our church, we still need to stop at the place, at the local church where He gave us.
SPEAKER_01: And I understand you could do it in your homes, but tonight I'm gonna ask you to do it here at this place.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask you tonight to purposely rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna rejoice over?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I get text, if you would.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's the text, a couple of them of this last uh Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: Um, two new bus riders sign up today.
SPEAKER_01: Thank our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Someone text that uh so many out soul winning, two saved so far.
SPEAKER_01: That was one of our soul winning groups.
SPEAKER_01: Uh great day visiting, just got back, five people saved.
SPEAKER_01: Another one of our groups.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, are you still with me?
SPEAKER_01: You say I don't hear this all the time.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm turning around and telling you, we need to look at the work of our hands and see that God is still blessing.
SPEAKER_01: God is still giving the increase.
SPEAKER_01: I got this one today.
SPEAKER_01: Uh incredible outreach team.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we met Julius yesterday, picked him up this morning, uh, came to Sunday school, morning worship.
SPEAKER_01: Julius received the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Had his name written in the Lamb's Book of Life in the 11 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: service.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: It's not how many, it's who.
SPEAKER_01: I'm all for the how many, but it's also who.
SPEAKER_01: We got to hear uh Kevin Wynne talk about reaping souls down that we get to be a part of in Mexico.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying to you is, brethren, there ought to be some rejoicing once in a while.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you can just grudge it if you want and look at the negatives, but God expects us to turn around sometimes at the place where He designates himself to us and say, I want you to turn around and rejoice a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to Turn around and thank me a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to turn around and recognize what I've been doing for you a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I got a picture here of uh uh late last night.
SPEAKER_01: Uh somebody sent me a picture, and it's a picture, if you would.
SPEAKER_01: They're up at Cow's Mountain praying.
SPEAKER_01: And they show me a picture of the of our city.
SPEAKER_01: If you know where Cow's Mountain is, we go up there, it's mountain prayer, and uh, he just showed me a picture and he says, just up praying tonight, Pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Praying for the church, praying for leadership conference, and went on to talk about some of the things he's praying for.
SPEAKER_01: Brother, I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: If your hands are involved, there's something to rejoice about.
SPEAKER_01: If your hands are active, there's something to rejoice about.
SPEAKER_01: And once in a while, God wants us to turn around and rejoice in the work of our hands.
SPEAKER_01: We've been doing work around here this past weekend.
SPEAKER_01: We had the RU.
SPEAKER_01: We had a music night on Saturday night.
SPEAKER_01: We've had work going on here.
SPEAKER_01: Uh this week uh we have a funeral to do.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we have Thursday night service, we have Monday and Tuesday night Bible Institute, we have your RU Friday night, we have the men's meeting, we have a youth rally.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, brother, please look up here.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we're a little bit busy, but it's better to be busy than bored.
SPEAKER_01: It's better to be busy than having nothing to do and just finding fault with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Because if the church isn't doing something in the way of outreach and growth and plans and vision, we will turn on each other.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, do you hear what I said?
SPEAKER_01: We turn away, we turn away from each other and give each other the benefit of the doubt because we're concerned about people getting saved.
SPEAKER_01: We're concerned about ministering to people.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be a church that's stagnated, that all we do is look across the aisle and find fault in our minds.
SPEAKER_01: I'd rather you rejoice in what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: I'd rather you hear the report of someone getting saved.
SPEAKER_01: I'd rather you hear that uh we're we're we're gonna have that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so thrilled that we're gonna fill this platform with uh with different things you'll see coming up for leadership conference.
SPEAKER_01: We're planning on it right now.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna fill the platform and make it what God intended when we moved in here.
SPEAKER_01: It won't be completely done, but we're we're making progress.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things to be done.
SPEAKER_01: There's physical things to be done.
SPEAKER_01: Uh there's bus routes, if you would.
SPEAKER_01: There's junior churches, there's teaching, there's families, there's households, there's missions, there's things to do.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna ask you to give a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a busy few weeks, but may you may I say something to you?
SPEAKER_01: Please, please, please, may I hear no one say to me, we're just too busy.
SPEAKER_01: How can you be too busy?
SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me you don't have leisure time.
SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me you don't listen to the radio a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me you don't watch a little TV, some of y'all.
SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me you don't have some downtime.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, talk to me a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, brethren, I'd rather redeem the time in the moment that we have and be busy a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I'd rather go home tired at night.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, are you still with me?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not tired from playing golf, and nothing wrong with playing golf, but but I don't I don't have time to play golf.
SPEAKER_01: There's too many people to help, there's too many people to follow up on, there's too many people to reach out to, there's too many hospitals to visit, there's too many people that is hurting, if you would, that needs comfort.
SPEAKER_01: There's too much praying to do, there's too much studying to do, there's too much things to do just to be doing nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll go into the bottom of my house, and when I say the bottom, there's two stories, and I'll go to the bottom of my house and I won't come up for a while.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sleeping.
SPEAKER_01: I'm praying, I'm studying, I'm thinking, I'm texting, I'm talking.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to be busy.
SPEAKER_01: Look, I'm 62, I'm not looking to retire.
SPEAKER_01: There's too much to do, man.
SPEAKER_01: All these years, God has been prepping me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking and saying, this is the best years.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not saying I'm totally humble, but I'm not as proud as I used to be in my 20s.
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm not as proud as I was in my 30s, and I know I'm not as proud as I was in my 40s.
SPEAKER_01: And I know he's kind of rooted some things out in my 50s.
SPEAKER_01: I still got some pride, but I gotta tell you, the best years of your life was he when he's got through a lot of pride.
SPEAKER_01: When he's got a lot of that weeded out, you say you don't feel like you're proud.
SPEAKER_01: Look, look, I still got pride, but not like when I was in my 20s.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't look in myself in the mirror and go, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have full-length mirrors that I go, oh yeah, look at that baby right there.
SPEAKER_01: That's packing some punch.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's like it's not there anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Well, get it worked up.
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
SPEAKER_01: If I worked it up for about two weeks, it'd fall down about two days.
SPEAKER_01: My point of it is this, but the inner man is renewed and strengthened.
SPEAKER_01: And prayer is more important, and study and fellowship with him is more important, and ministering.
SPEAKER_01: And I hope you'll see tonight what I'm trying to say is once in a while we need to turn around and purposely rejoice in the place that he's given us to collectively meet.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, are you still with me tonight?
SPEAKER_01: I know you can do it in your household, but I'm saying God's given us a church house.
SPEAKER_01: And for us, this is our shiloh.
SPEAKER_01: For us, this is the place where we meet.
SPEAKER_01: You say, what are you gonna ask me to do tonight?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask you to come and rejoice a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: You say, what if I don't feel like it?
SPEAKER_01: Look at Acts, the book of Acts, real quick, and I'll be done.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Acts, uh, look at Acts chapter number five.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter number five.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody still all right tonight?
SPEAKER_01: Say amen.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter five.
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about what's coming up because I know the men and the women that are coming, and we've got new people coming, and again we get to minister to them a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter five.
SPEAKER_01: Here's an interesting thing.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, they were trying to turn around and rejoice in what God was doing.
SPEAKER_01: But look at Acts chapter 5, and notice verse 40.
SPEAKER_01: And to him they they agreed.
SPEAKER_01: And when they had called the apostles, verse 40, and beaten them.
SPEAKER_01: They commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.
SPEAKER_01: They're beaten up now, and when they say beaten, brethren, they they beat them purposely, their backs.
SPEAKER_01: Beating.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 41.
SPEAKER_01: And they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: That they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
SPEAKER_01: Now, look, they're humans like we are, and they're getting beaten because they're out preaching the gospel, but somehow they come back rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: And I got to thinking, why what are they rejoicing about?
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, uh, turn back if you would and look at Acts chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 4, stay with me.
SPEAKER_01: Acts chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: And look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Howbeit, many of them which heard the word believed.
SPEAKER_01: And the number of men was about 5,000.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, if 5,000 men got saved, I'd be rejoicing, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, uh, not only do they have that, but just uh a couple chapters earlier, I'll read in verse 41 of chapter 2, and there were added about 3,000 souls.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: There was so much momentum going on.
SPEAKER_01: There was so much work that God was doing.
SPEAKER_01: There was so much increase going on, there were so many miracles going on, there was so much transition going on, there were so many families changing.
SPEAKER_01: Think about 3,000 men getting saved and the effect on those households.
SPEAKER_01: Think about 5,000 men, Jewish men, getting saved and the effects on those households.
SPEAKER_01: A man comes home and he's saved.
SPEAKER_01: He's born again now.
SPEAKER_01: He's different now.
SPEAKER_01: It was changing that community, and they were involved in all that, seeing God do what we would call a revival.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, that stuff doesn't happen anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, we may not get 3,000 or 5,000, but hearing what God's doing in different places and seeing a few saved here, we ought to rejoice in that.
SPEAKER_01: And may I say to you, when they got beaten, they weren't focusing on that.
SPEAKER_01: They were focusing on what God was doing.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't feel like rejoicing.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Look up here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask you to stand in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna ask you to walk down a carpeted aisle.
SPEAKER_01: In a climate-controlled environment.
SPEAKER_01: Where we're sitting on nice, comfortable pews, even with lumbar support.
SPEAKER_01: We paid extra for that.
SPEAKER_01: It's climate control, no persecution that I know.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's out waiting us to check our Bibles when we come out.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to go underground.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying is, brother, we've got it maybe too cushy.
SPEAKER_01: Cushy.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe too easy.
SPEAKER_01: Because somebody says, boy, that's a sacrifice to walk all that way down there and have prayer and turn around and rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's putting a little bit too much on me.
SPEAKER_01: Really?
SPEAKER_01: Are we in that soft a society?
SPEAKER_01: Have we let ourselves grow that soft?
SPEAKER_01: Brother, we ought to be a church that once in a while, and I don't do it very often, when I say, let's stand and let's have an altar call.
SPEAKER_01: And just I say, hey, husband and wife, come, children come, maybe you and a friend come.
SPEAKER_01: And let's stop for a moment and let's do what he said in the Old Testament, and let's stop for a moment, turn around, and let's rejoice a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Let's rejoice in what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Let's rejoice in the work of our hands, let's rejoice in the increase.
SPEAKER_01: You say it's not going well.
SPEAKER_01: At least our backs aren't bloodied tonight.
SPEAKER_01: At least we just didn't get beaten by the council.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, they they were told not to preach the gospel, and after they beat them, they were more motivated than others.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: They were filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And they had seen God doing some things.
SPEAKER_01: Are you still listening to me tonight?
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying a few times this month leading up to the leadership conference, we're gonna pray and ask for God's help.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have the men's meeting, we're gonna have women's prayer.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be the all night uh preaching time and prayer time, if you would.
SPEAKER_01: But we need to come and make sure that we say thank you to God for Him blessing our hands.
SPEAKER_01: And if you think that you're doing it, it's not you because we're still in the nothing category.
SPEAKER_01: He still gives the increase, he still gives us the mind, he still gives us the ability, he still blesses us.
SPEAKER_01: Brethren, he's still paying for his church through his people.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, are you still with me tonight?
SPEAKER_01: We're still seeing things going on, and may I say you say, but I've got, I've just had a bad day.
SPEAKER_01: Take a bad day and turn around and say, you know what, old nature, you're not gonna stop me from doing what God wanted me to do.
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna stop me and get in my way by having a bad attitude because somebody didn't treat me right, or somebody asked me to do this, or somebody's talking about me, or somebody Facebook about me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you something, the council did not call us in to beat us today.
SPEAKER_01: And God is doing some wonderful things in our church.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm gonna ask you tonight, in the place where God set us, to take a few minutes and rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Would you do that with me?
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Our children need to see the adults do it.
SPEAKER_01: Our young adults, may I say to you, your young adult, whatever that is, teenagers, uh 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, whatever that age group is, I'm gonna tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: You need to hit the altar once in a while.
SPEAKER_01: Not like, oh, I'm going down to confess.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going down to rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going down to thank God that I have a church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go down and thank God that I have an education I'm being trained in.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go down and thank God that we have a uh a place to come to learn the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: I have a place to serve the word of God, I have a place to rejoice in what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Are you listening to me tonight?
SPEAKER_01: You say you're trying to inspire us.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to say we ought to turn around and do what God asked them to do in the Old Testament and what they did in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: Once in a while they gathered together and they'd have prayer in the place where God chose for them.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna ask you tonight, please, please, please, let's be mature.
SPEAKER_01: I mean that with all my heart.
SPEAKER_01: And let's turn around and thank God for the work of my hands.
SPEAKER_01: Now wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, it's not going so well right now.
SPEAKER_01: You're not beaten.
SPEAKER_01: We're not in jail.
SPEAKER_01: You say, but the bills, I know, but the bills will get paid.
SPEAKER_01: He's not let his seed beg bread.
SPEAKER_01: If we work the labor of our hands, God will bless us.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, is that right?
SPEAKER_01: And we still get to see what God's going to do, and we get to be involved in it.
SPEAKER_01: We get to hear testimonies and we get to rejoice a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: So tonight, would you all stand?
SPEAKER_01: Please, right now, just stand.
SPEAKER_01: You say, no, I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stand.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, now stretch for a moment and realize we serve a living God and we're born again and we're not on our way to hell.
SPEAKER_01: You say, wait a minute, why'd you say that?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the first thing we ought to rejoice over.
SPEAKER_01: His mercies endureth forever.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to this message by Pastor Doug Fisher of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Lemon Grove, California.
SPEAKER_00: To learn more about Lighthouse Baptist Church, visit our website at www.lighthousebaptist.com or call 619 461 5561.