Refuting the Social Gospel..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Matthew chapter 24, verse 1 through 14. This is the word of God.

Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

And Jesus answered them, See that no one leads you astray, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you up to death, and you will be hated by all the nations for my namesake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. Amen. That is the word of God. Now, brothers and sisters, indeed, we live in unprecedented times.

We live in times in which there is a virus, there is social crisis, there is economic crisis, there is uncertainty, there is social issues that are happening and that are taking place all throughout the world in a way that we have never seen in our lives and that is actually unprecedented times. And now, this is not surprising for the Christian or for those who know scripture because this is the result of sin. The wickedness of men and the wickedness of our nature simply is going to produce what we are seeing. Problems, confusion, uncertainty, difficulties in nations and problems and wars and all of this situation that is taking place. What it is surprising, it is that these things that are taking place in the hearts of sinful men and in a sinful society, in a sinful world, it's infiltrating the church.

What it is surprising and what it is difficult to see, it is that professing Christians and professing Christian churches are getting into all of these social matters and all of these difficulties of the world and are compromising the Gospel and the message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, for that reason, and for the many things that are taking place in society, not only in the world, but with the Church and with Christians, we've seen the necessity of addressing the things that are taking place, but more importantly than that, to meditate as a congregation on the truths of the Scripture, so that we will know what the Bible says positively, that it is what the Bible teaches, and that we might be established upon those teachings of scripture, that we may glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by knowing the truth and being established on the truth of his word. And more important, that we might be able to endure in that truth. Because brothers and sisters, in the passage that we have in front of us, independently of your understanding of the end times, and if this is something that happened in the past, or this is something that is gonna happen in the future, or if there is a mix of those two things, we can see a principle here in the things that the Lord Jesus Christ was saying to the disciples. And that is that before his second coming, Before glory arrives, the church is going to be in a world that is taken over by wickedness and by sin.

That the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is not a kingdom of this world, was going to be in the midst of a kingdom of a world that is wicked and righteous and sinful. And that is only until the point when the Lord Jesus Christ comes and he takes his church and his people the sin is going to be no more, the death will be no more, and then the church will be purified and there will be none of those unrighteousness and wickedness in the world. Until that point, the church is going to be wicked, unrighteous, sinful world. And not only that, brothers and sisters, that principle, we see it here in Matthew 24, and also we can see it in Thessalonians and throughout scripture, that before glory arrives, the church is going to be under or in this world or wickedness. But what is terrifying for me is to see the power of the effect decree and ordain and that influence upon the church.

It says, and then, in verse 10, and then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness or wickedness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. The love of many Christians will grow cold in the midst of all of this wickedness and righteousness that is increasing in the midst of false teaching in the midst of all of this persecution, the love of many who profess to be in Christ and in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their love will grow cold.

and just to say, I love you. But rather, this biblical love, as I tried to explain on Sunday from 2 Peter, is rather a comprehensive love that is built upon qualities, spiritual qualities that are rooted in the faith of the believer. That it is from faith to love growing and increasing through all of these qualities, all of these biblical love. weak. That means that by growing cold in love as Christians, as believers, can be translated into faith being weakened and virtue being decreased and knowledge decreasing and self-control decreasing and steadfastness decreasing, brotherly affection, godliness and love decreasing.

Because as I said to you, all of this is comprehensively attached by the divine power of the Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters, when we see churches compromising in the truth, and churches and Christians compromising in that which is the truth of the gospel, what we are seeing, it is a compromising in the spiritual substance of who we are in Christ. You see, to be right and to be wrong about the things of the scripture is not something that happens in the mind. It's something that happens inside impossible for humanity to comprehend the things of God. And if someone claims to know the things of God, that is because the spirit has illuminated the person.

So then if when light has been given and that light is turning into darkness, then that means that something beyond intellectual understanding is going on in the life of that person or in those churches. That is my burden for you, brothers and sisters, and for our church, that we might understand that when all of these things take place, you know, all of these social crisis and economic crisis and all of these viruses and all of these things that seem to be so uncertain for the future, and when we see the church of Jesus Christ, and I'm not speaking about the liberal church, I'm speaking perhaps one of those preachers that at some point we hold as someone that is of good reputation and that we may have listened to them. I'm speaking about conservative churches and Christians moving and turning into a gospel that is different to the gospel of scripture and adding elements to the gospel then what we're seeing is something very, very serious. Very, very serious. And our intention and what we should be focusing on is not so much in understanding and interpreting the schemes and the systems of men and the social constructs of society and trying to break down what they have put together, but rather what the church should be doing.

focusing on the Word of God and on Scripture. There is no better way for us to avoid error and to avoid to be taken away by these deceitful teachings and by doctrines of demons than to be established upon the truth of the Word of God. Because, brothers and sisters, all of these qualities that form this golden change of the Christian life, from faith to love, all of them are sustained by the Word of God. Faith is the first one. Love is the goal.

But faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Virtual, moral excellence is simply a glimpse of seeing Jesus Christ, the logos, the word of God, and making him our savior, our Lord, our Redeemer, our king and enthroning in our heart and ruling. So his moral excellence is ours. Knowledge that is illuminated by the spirit. It is in his word of God.

Word of the Lord. We cannot stop being conformed to the passions of our former ignorance, as Peter says in 1 Peter. But we cannot avoid to be conformed to this world, as Paul says in Romans chapter 12, if we don't have the Word of God within us. So self-control requires the presence of the Word of God, requires conforming to the locals, requires conformity to Jesus Christ, requires renewing our mind so that we are not conformed to this world. The Word of God is the basis and the sustainer of each one of those qualities that the Apostle Peter speaks of in 2 Peter that I try to communicate to you from faith to love.

Same thing we can say about perseverance. It's God that keeps us by his power, Peter says in 1 Peter 1, verse 5. Through our faith, it is the power of God, the one that preserves us, it is the gospel of God. From faith to faith, from faith given to faith in glory. It is the word of God, the one that preserves us, keep us, godliness, Christ-likeness, brotherly affection, having been purified, the apostle says.

by your obedience to the truth in the Spirit of God, for or unto an earnestly or eager love for one another, or broadly affection," he says in 1 Peter 1. Why? Because his obedience to the truth as he's given to us in the word of God, that we can have broadly affection and love. 1 Peter 1, verse 22. Love, it is rooted in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All of it, so our Christian life, brothers and sisters, depends entirely on us having this book, having this word, not only abiding in our minds, but actually being living in us, in our hearts. We have purified our souls by obedience to the truth, by the Holy Spirit, how it has been proclaimed in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. and sisters, we will not be able to endure until the end. We will not avoid to be carried away by deceitful teachings. We will not avoid the deceitful doctrines of men and the deceitful schemes of this world if we are not rooted and we have a great appreciation of the Word of God.

And this is one of those very difficult topics to preach on, because this has become one of those things that we take for granted in the mind. That every Christian just simply believes the words of God, and lives by the words of God. And sometimes those things that have been taken for granted, and then we just simply place them in the subconscious, in one place in our mind, are the things that sometimes we lack actually checking, and self-examining, and testing, because we just simply take them for granted. So I want to point you today to a couple of characteristics, two or three characteristics of the words of God. I'm going to take you to the book of Psalm.

This will be in verse 160. So this is the time in which we should not allow all the already granted assumptions that we have of the Word of God to simply take over our minds and our hearts, but rather with faith and by faith read the things that we're going to read and actually meditate upon the words that are going to be proclaimed from this book so that we might indeed not only apprehend these things that we have here and the ones that are going to be preached and communicated but actually examine ourselves and see if this I'm saying to you, brothers and sisters, that the fact that many churches and many Christians are growing cold in their love, in the abundance of wickedness and unrighteousness, it is necessarily rooted in a spiritual condition that can only be healed by the Word of God. So that means that our lives depend on how we relate to this book and the words that the Lord speaks to us. Our relationship to him and what he says and how we take it inside of us in our minds defines who we are in Jesus Christ, how we walk in Jesus Christ, and how we persevere until the end in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the psalmist says, perhaps David 160, 110, it says, the sum of your word This is 119 and 160, right?

Yeah. The sum of your word is truth. And every one of your righteous rules endures forever. The sum, the completeness, the entirety, the fullness, everything, 100% of your word is truth. and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

The Psalmist is not ashamed to conclude the fullness and the completeness of the perfections of the words of the Lord. He says that the sum of it, that it is that everything, brothers and sisters, everything that God says is truth. Every single word that comes out of his mouth is truth. And if it's truth, it's never to be questioned. If it's truth, it's never to be doubted.

If it's truth, that is to be apprehended and to be received. by the Christian, by the follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, all the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you may say, I do believe in the authority of the word of God. I do believe that all the word of God is truth, and that every single thing that he says is actually according to truth, is truth. Now, I'm just going to give you the warning on this day, until when the Lord takes you, when you continue to walk.

The moment that we as Christians, brothers and sisters, the moment that we open the door, and I've said this to some of you many times, the moment that we open the door to doubt, even in the minute, whatever it is, size, the word of God, of the Word of God, you have everything except faith. Faith is rooted in believing that everything that he says is truth. Our lives, beloved of Christ, our lives depend on actually believing that everything that he says and is revealed on this book and in this Bible is his Word. Now, believing that his words are truth is not only acknowledging, like we acknowledge that two plus two is four, but rather we acknowledge that it is God telling us something that needs to be not only intellectually concluded that it is right, but actually something that you want and strive to make it yours. because it is the Word of God.

But that Word of God is not only in fullness and in completeness, truth. I want you to see the second aspect. You know how the Psalms sometimes, especially the verses, they have a double line. This is the parallelism. And then they communicate a single truth from different angles, and here, of God is truth and the second statement every one of your righteous rules his word endures forever endures forever is a qualifier of truth and this is what makes brothers and sisters the truth of God different to any truth claim that a human can make forever.

What he says is truth forever. Actually, the word truth means that is firm, that is like a rock, that is like a stone, that is not going to be affected, that does not change, that the environment will not affect, that the weather will not affect, that man cannot change. That the word of the Lord is not only accurate and truth, but that truth is going to remain forever. What he says, imagine the knowledge that God has to have, which is all, for him to speak a word that is truth, and that independently of the changes, the circumstances, independently of the adversities, will remain as truth forever. I don't know, but this, you know, only just thinking, as I was thinking about this in the afternoon, it was not producing in me what is producing now.

Think about that, brothers and sisters. What he says remains exactly truth throughout the generations. Therefore, that means that if we believe something that he says today, we can have absolute confidence that we can endure believing that and that we are not going to be disappointed that his word is not going to change and that what he says for us and to us for the church about the world about the future about scripture about understanding about our difficulties about our controversies about persecution about everything that he says is truth. And the glorious thing is that God has not given us only instruction for the past and the present, but he has told us what is going to happen in the end, in the future. everything is held in his hands, and his word has put all of these things decreed from eternity past by his providence, working everything according to the counsel of his perfect and marvelous and high will, so that the saints may marvel at what he has done and what he has said.

All of it, all of his word, brothers and sisters, kids and teenagers, single, married, everything that is listed there. Never we should open the door to doubt not even one of his words. Every time pray for yourself that you may never doubt, that you may never doubt the word of God. You don't know the amount of Christians and prophets and Christians throughout the ages. have lived lives of believing the Word of God, and they reach a point in which they say, I don't believe the book anymore.

You see, believing these is not an attribute of humanity. We cannot arrive to the conclusion that the Word of God is truth, and that it will always be truth. We depend on the work of the Spirit on us to sustain that. Do not take it for granted. Do not take for granted the light that has been given to you about the truthfulness and the enduring of the Word of God.

Now, the third thing that I want you to see there, it is that this Word of God with incompleteness and in some, Totally is truth and that that truth is forever, but that is firm That is like a stone that is like a rock that it will not change that is not affected by the circumstances Is that this word is your word? namely the Lord's word, that it is God's word, that it is belongs to him, that it is the word as it comes out of his mouth, that is the word, that is this truth that endures forever as it proceeds from the holy lips of the divine being. You will say, what do you mean? It means that we can have an understanding of the Word, and we might think that we acknowledge the Word as truth, and we might think that we believe in the Word simply as something apart from the being of God. apart from the living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, apart from the living God who resurrected our Lord Jesus Christ, the Logos, we might take this simply as a written word that comes simply as statues or simply just as list of things or doctrines or theology put together, that we might just simply take it as a statement that indeed are true.

and that in our flesh we might delight just simply searching for the truth because this book is filled with wisdom. And the intellect of man can be captured just simply by breaking down how all of this works and finding pleasure in finding all of these doctrines and systems and all of that, disconnecting that from him calling it the word of God. but it's just simply a written code, just as unto the Pharisees, so that the Lord would say, do as they say, but don't do as they do. Because what they say corresponds to what is written. But what they do, it is opposite and it is contrary to what they say and to what is written in the book.

The word of God, which is in fullness, then He is the one that teaches us. He is the one that opens our eyes to see His Word. Go to the beginning of Psalm 119. If is His Word, He is the one that instructs us. He is the one that is going to make that word are ours.

Verse 17, it says, Deal bountifully with your servant that I may leave and keep your word. Open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth. High not your commandments from me. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.

Now, just stop there. Stop just simply there. My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. How light is going to be given to a man who does not come to God to ask, open my eyes that I can see wondrous things out of your love. And how is this man going to come to God to ask him to open his eyes so that he can see those things if he lacks longing, if there is no desire, if there is no affection for these statutes, if there is not a deep desire that consumes this man to come before the Lord and say, Lord, open my eyes that I can see wondrous things in your love.

How is that man going to be instructed by God? That man is going to be instructed by his mind. And what his mind actually gets word in his mouth, but the living word that God inks in the heart of flesh with his divine finger will be absent from the heart of that man because he's longing, desiring, coming to God. Brothers and sisters, this type of knowledge, this type of illumination is the one that keeps and preserves individually until the end and the church from growing cold and then falling the deceptions of this world. You see, it is the Word of God what sustains us, what keeps us from simply just following the streams, the winds of this world that just take us from one place to another.

It is the Word of God written in our hearts. Go to verse 97. In the same Psalm, Psalm 119. You see, Contemporary world says, how can I know, how can I preach the words of God? How can I instruct, how can I instruct the church?

Go to seminary and study this and buy these books and do all of those things. I'm not against seminary or any of those things or having books. But look what the word of God says about a person obtaining knowledge that is great knowledge about the word of God, verse 97. all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me."

Now, you want to have more understanding? Don't go to the seminar. Simply, I have more understanding than all my teachers. Why? For your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the H. The H is the wise. Why? For I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from evil way in order to keep your word.

This is the life-transforming, soul-sustaining, ever-enduring power of the Word of God in the life of the saint. This is what the Word of God does not only in the mind, but what it does in the heart, in the soul, How are we not going to be taken and carried away by the complicated and the difficulties of this world, as many professing Christians have been taking all around the world, and compromising in the Gospel, and compromising, preaching another Gospel. Not that the Gospel can be changed or stained, but they can preach another Gospel, as Paul says in Galatians chapter 1. Or preaching another Jesus, another spirit, another Gospel, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 4. preaching another Jesus, another message, another gospel, how are we going to avoid to be carried and taken by that brothers and sisters?

It is not only by the one that preach or things that say something, starting the war, but it's about Lord, living as a community, as a family, that it is rooted in the truth of the Lord, that it's rooted in the Word that meditates day and night. So it is like a tree that is planted in the stream of the waters. So just like the Word of God, that the flower withers and the grass is consumed by the burning sun, But the word of the Lord endures forever. Also, the man that is planted next to the river and the stream will give fruit in its season, and his leaf will not perish, will not wither. Same thing, why?

Because the man is planted there with the word of God that does not pass away, that continues and is established. We are not as strong as a church, but just simply being united in the flesh and loving one another and doing things and that. There may be a time in which people need to be scattered, just as it happened with us. But a person is sustained in the faith, not by the church that they belong to, but rather how much Christ has spoken to them into their hearts. Is Christ the one that preserves and keeps?

He's not the church. Is Christ, is God the one that sustains and matures and brings to conformity to him? Of course, he uses the church and the preaching of the word, the fellowship of the saints, the community, he uses that. You can have the church, you can have brothers and sisters, you can have everything that is Christian, you lack Christ, you lack everything. You lack love, Christian love, Christ-centered, empowered, Spirit-given love, you lack everything.

Christian love, not Christian in the sense of religion, but coming from Christ, then we lack everything. And that love is only produced by the Word of God. Now why is this my burden tonight, brothers and sisters? Because what we see in Matthew chapter 24 is in the wickedness of the world increasing, and increasing the unrighteousness of the world, and the love of many growing cold. That means that the world is somehow influencing or affecting the professing church, the professing Christians, while the Lord Jesus Christ taught something very important.

Go to Matthew chapter 5 here. Verse 13. Speaking to his disciples, the Lord says, You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket or in a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. You see, brothers and sisters, when sin entered into the world and through that sin death and death spread to all men because all men sinned and then we were all under the dominating power of sin and we were dead in our trespasses. All humanity, fallen humanity under the power of Satan and sin and the flesh, death was reigning.

The Lord could have simply just destroyed everything. Judgment, execute judgment. That was just for Him to do. When Adam and Eve sinned, He could have just executed judgment there, and that would have been the end of humanity. And He would have been just to do that.

However, He decided to continue with His plan of redemption, of course, according to His decree. And by letting and allowing the world and history to continue, he was also allowing that wickedness and righteousness and Satan and evil and sin and death will be in the world. And as he was working his marvelous plan of bringing everything to his glory and uniting in Jesus Christ everything that he was going to unite according to Ephesians chapter 1, as he was he decided to leave his people in the midst of this world of wickedness and unrighteousness. And he knew that the power of sin and the power of unrighteousness and wickedness in us was going to be at war against his workings and against his own spirit. That is what Pyrrhus says, that the passions of the flesh are making war within us.

Yet he left all of that continue, but in his mighty workings, and in his divine wisdom, and in what he decided, not only for the church, but for the world, he allowed all of that to happen until the end of the age, but he called the church, his people, his family, his redeemed one, to be the salt of the earth, to be the light of the world. That it is that the workings of God through those who have been divinely born again by the Holy Spirit, those who were dead in their trespasses and could not save themselves with works but have been given life that comes from on high, that those people will be the light of the world. That it is that instead of these people being influenced by the wickedness of the world, that the church and the people of God will be the salt of the world and the light of the world. That instead of darkness overcoming the light of the Christian, rather than the light of the Spirit of God within us with light and will be a testimony for the hidden, spiritually speaking, so that they will see the workings of the Spirit in us and they will glorify God. Brothers and sisters, yet we see that in the world, Darkness seems to be not only infiltrating churches, corrupting the message that they preach, but overtaking many of the things that we consider to be light.

This is fearful. This is fearful and this is a serious matter in which when the gospel starts to be compromised and when the message of the scripture starts to be compromised and when the authority of the scripture starts to be changed by the deceitful thoughts of men and by the wisdom of men, then we are in a serious, serious situation. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant to be the light of this world. It's meant to be the influencer of this world. You see, God, in His mercy towards the Church primarily and towards the people of God, He gave us restrainers of evil.

He gave us restrainers of the wickedness that is in the world. He gave us a God-given conscience. He gave us the ability to discern between that which is good and evil so that the conscience in men will accuse them, and they will point them to sin. He gave us marriage, husband and wife, and the family, so that children will be in obedience under this institution that was given by God, that father and mother, husband and wife might be the authority of the children, that the husband may be the head of the wife, so that evil and wickedness will be restrained in this world. The Lord gave us government so that the government will encourage good and then punish evil that will be a servant of God, that will be a servant of righteousness, so that evil and wickedness will be restrained.

At the same time, also establish the church in the midst of this world, that it will be aligned and it's going to change, it's going to harden their conscience, it's going to say that that voice which we have inside of us is to be reduced or suppressed and they do actually in unrighteousness suppress the truth that they have within them. The world is going to come and is going to question the authority or what marriage is between husband and wife and parents of her kids and that structure of the family. The world is going to come and is going to give to the government an unbiblical role so then that the government in many times and in many places will replace even the role of God. The church should never, brothers and sisters, be affected by the wickedness and the sinfulness and the unrighteousness of this world. How is the church continue to be light and salt to this world?

Only if each one of the members, each one of those who belong to the body, are rooted in one person, and that person is Jesus Christ. Those of you who profess to be in Christ, only those who belong to the church are given to Him. There's a time in which we might not have each other, that we might be on our own. So then the treasure that you keep inside of you, it is not how much money you have, or your house, or your studies, or your family, or your parents, or the things that might give you any type of security, but that you have the living words of God in your mind and in your heart. That is the best thing that can happen to a person and that we know that this is the best thing that we can give to our children.

There is no great inheritance that we can give to our children compared to knowing Jesus Christ. When our children are His, then He is the one that takes them and then they are His. So brothers and sisters, that we might not put the importance of the Word of God in just a dormant, I think is the word, place in your subconsciousness in which you say with your mouth that you do believe in the Word of God and that you believe in everything that He says, but rather that we are continually feeding the fire that is within us, depending on the Word of God, not opening a door. Please remember this, never open a door question anything at all of the Word of God. Doubt yourself, doubt your eyes, doubt your mind, doubt that you are healthy in your brain, but never doubt the Word of the Lord.

It is true, independently of what your mind says, or what your heart says, or what people said, or what even other churches may even question about the Word of God, or what a high theologian may say. in fullness, completeness. It is true, it will be true, and it is His Word. And because it is His Word, we are too long to decide His statutes, His commandments, to love it, and to come before Him, asking Him to open our eyes, that we might be fed by the divine proclamations that come out of His heart, make them ours, so that when we speak, we don't speak our words. When we think, we don't think our thoughts.

be done, but rather what the scripture says. This is how the love of the Christian and the love of a church does not grow cold. This is how we endure in fire, spiritual fire. This is how we persevere until the end, by depending entirely on the word of the Lord. The psalmist says in Psalm number one, meditate on it day and night.

Day and night. He does not speak that as something that is just abstract, romantic, something that could be, but rather something that should be. Something that our mind should be taking captured by the words of the Lord day and night Test your thoughts brother or sister Every time and give them to Christ that they may be taking captive in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ That may be Jesus Christ always in your mind in your heart when you wake up when you go And sleep when you're doing whatever you have to do in the house working and studying whatever that may be the Lord Jesus Christ, the one communicating to you, speaking to you through his word. When you do that for your soul, you're doing it for the church also. Because the church is not only about doing these things and coming from time to time together, and then just preaching a sermon.

The church is each one of us abiding in Christ, in fire, in the spirit of God, filled with his word, teaching one another, preaching the gospel with the lost, loving one another. Remember in Acts chapter four, daily, it says, daily, they preach the word. Daily, not on Sundays or during Bible study, but rather, daily, preaching the word of God. This should be the heart of each one of us. If you're single, then ask, what is the Bible requires of me?

How should I be giving my life to Christ as a single person? Am I a husband, a wife? How should I live my life according to what is written? through the Word of God. Are we a family?

How are we going to live according to the Word of God? Are we in the church? How are we going to do it based on the Word of God? Because when we are moved and dragged to do it in that particular way, that means that we are longing for his words. And that we're coming in humility before him to say, open my eyes and I can see wondrous things in the world.

And that the things of the world and the teaching of the world and the seedfulness and the things that are passing away are of no benefit for me, or I don't desire them, I don't long after those things at all, because Lord, you've captured my heart with your word. That may be the desire and the reality of our hearts, brothers and sisters. Amen?