Good evening, everybody. I cannot express to you how much it means to me that you're there in the viewing audience. I thank you. I really appreciate it.
Now, let's get into the Word of the Lord here this evening. We're just going to discuss some things as the Lord leads us to be honest with you. But before we get into the most important thing and that is the Word of all mighty God, let me invite you again this week to come by and visit us in our social media ministries. I guess you could say we're like about any other church in ministry.
We have a website and here it is onscreenforyouftministries.org. We're based in Atkins, Virginia. That's a little village right sort of in the center of the southwestern corner of the Commonwealth of Virginia where it exit 50, 50 miles up interstate from the Tennessee line. That gives you a little idea of where we are.
Nestled right there just a mile and a half off Interstate 81 exit 50. Come by the website. You can also join us on Facebook anytime at Freedom Tavern Aquamanistries, Atkins, Virginia. Lots of stuff for you there on Facebook.
All of the live stream services are archived there. We've been a heavy presence there on the Facebook page for several years. So there's lots of music, lots of things, lots of interesting things. Come by the website anytime and come by the Facebook page anytime.
Download the app. I've encouraged you to do that several times. So we'll be right there on your device anytime you'd like to spend time together. We have a daily podcast entitled The Signs of the Coming of Christ and the End of the World.
You have several episodes of that, other Bible studies available, information on the ministry, lots of things there at the app. So any app store you can get it and stay in constant touch with us there on the app. And I would appreciate that. And especially seeing you 10 minutes every day in the Word of Almighty God.
Then the book that we've recently come out with entitled Grace for Grief. If you know someone that's lost someone to COVID or is struggling with a calamity, trouble, trial, loss in their life, whatever that grief is that's in their mind and in their heart, God's grace is sufficient, is it not? So the book's entitled Grace for Grief. It's a picture of the cover.
And you can get your copy simply by asking for it, by mailing, using the mail, 442, Freedom Tavern Aco Lane, Atkins, Virginia. If you don't have anything to give, we will send you one. I promise you that and we're not worried about it. If you can give a $5 or $10 donation or whatever, every penny that comes in from this, like all things we do here in the ministry, goes right back into Freedom Tavern Aco Ministries.
I do pastor at church there, but we have an aggressive outreach ministry. We have a summer camp and a camp for kids throughout the year. Doss the house for young ladies who are struggling with addiction, recently released from jail, or there through recovery court in Smith County. It's just a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to reach out to folks with the gospel of the Son of God.
Freedom house there as well, food distribution, anytime people comes by, the food pantry has been in operation for decades for at-need situations. Lots of things go on there at camp freedom and Freedom Tavern Aco Ministries. You can find out all about it. And especially as we were believing God to get this extension, this huge 6,500 square feet, 9 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, house, totally purchased, God blessed us to where we got that house at 20 cents on the dollar.
Can you believe that? That's got to be God. $180,000, we've got probably 140,000 on hand right now, and we were hoping and praying to get it all done by around the 1st of June. Help us on that if you can, just pray about it.
We're not on here about that type of thing. We're just sharing with you how you can stay in touch with us, how we can better, closer, more intimately partner together in the great objective of carrying out the great commission. Now before we look into God's book, we are going to listen to a song that I've sung a few times through the years. Jesus, you're the best thing that ever happened to me.
Can you not agree with that if you're saved? The best thing that's ever happened to this old preacher was when Jesus reached down into the muck and mire and pulled me up, set me on a solid rock and established my goings. I believe Psalms, Lord, He says He picked me up out of a horrible pit out of that mirey clay. Set me on this rock and established my goings.
Hey, if you don't know the Lord yet, why don't you bow your head and find out to the deep of your heart the true reality of this song. You can join us in saying, Jesus, Lord, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Lord Jesus, you've been my friend for so long. You've been right.
Every time I've been wrong, I can never repay you for all the love of you. You've been my friend when no one cared when I was alone. You've always been there. Lord, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Glory, glory, glory, glory. Well, I would take my life. You'd have to be whatever happened to me. I believe you agree with that old dream.
All life's joy is you've given me when troubles come. You're always there to make me smile. You'll come once made. I will be done.
I love you, Jesus. God's only said, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Ain't no love. I'll take my life.
Make me one. You'd have me be. Hear this. I'm your child.
You're my father. I'll play. You're the part of Lord. You're the best thing.
You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Lord, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Glory, glory, glory, glory. Don't you wish everybody knew the Lord.
Oh, my. I don't care who they are, atheist, agnostic, infidel, call them whatever. The best thing that ever happened to me is Jesus. Let me tell some of you may be watching.
Maybe you're a little skeptical. Dude, he's been in church all his life. No, I was raised outside of the church. And I don't even want to talk about him.
I saw what alcohol does. I saw what sins of the flesh can do. I saw all of that. And I'm telling you, it's nothing but misery because the devil's a liar, but God is the truth.
I'm so glad not because of me, but because of him, I couldn't save myself. But Jesus saved me in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The wages of sin is death. How's it working out?
Can't you just think for a minute? You that have not been saved and perhaps you are in sin? It's getting worse, isn't it? I mean, you think it's going to get better?
You get all these promises and all these aspirations. Oh, I'm going to have fun. I'm going to do this. And then it just goes from bad to worse.
I'm going to tell you where you are right now. Jesus is reaching out. I'm peddling religion. I'm talking about the power of reality.
All have sinned. And yet God so loved us that he paid that sin debt for us. He conquered death, hell in the grave. He came out of that grave ascended to the pinnacle of authority where he ever lives to be our intercessor, our great high priest, our God, our Lord, our friend.
And he'll save the uttermost all that will come unto God by him. Hebrews chapter 2 teaches us that he brings sons and daughters into the family of God. When you like to be a member of this eternal family, you can be, you get born again right where you are right there by flinging open the door of your life, listening to that knock that you're hearing. That's the bleeding hand of Jesus.
He's seeking entrance. Revelation 3, 20, he said, I stand at the door knock. Be me man, here's my voice and opens the door. I will come into him and fellowship with him.
Allow Christ entry into your life. Dear fellow dear lady, dear whoever you are, I'm telling you God loves you. Just as you are where you are and Christ's arms are outstretched. His hands are bleeding.
His voice is pleading coming to me and I will save your soul and all the ends of the earth. And you'll say just like that, oh, son, Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me. What choice do you have? Well, I'm turning to John chapter 8.
I've got it open here. Verse 44, year of your father, the devil, and the lesson of your father, you'll do. He was a murderer from the beginning and a boat, not in the truth, because there's no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.
The Lord Jesus tells us that the devil here is a liar and he's a murderer. And in chapter 10 verse 10, he's a thief. Stop listening to him. Second Corinthians chapter number two, and then over in chapter 4, you'll discover that Paul said plainly that the devil is the God of this world.
And Jesus talks to the religious lost here in John 8 and said, you are of your father, the devil, and the lust of your father, you'll do. I remember a little thing I want to interject here with you just real quick when I was ordained years ago. And when old preacher asked me, he said, Mike, are we sinners because we sinned or do we sinned because we're sinners? Think about that just a minute.
The natural mind would typically respond, well, I'm a sinner because I sinned. But the scriptural, scripturally correct answer would be, I sinned because I am a sinner. And when we recognize our hopelessness, when we recognize and admit and confess, I am a sinner and therefore I'm hopeless to save myself, I need a Savior. Now, I know a lot of the college kids today and a lot of the progressive, politically correct people, they don't even like to talk about a Savior because that has the truth attached that if I need a Savior, then I'm a sinner and people really get tore up when you say, yeah, they're a sinner.
Well, here's one that doesn't get tore up about it because I know it's a truth. Did you ever stop to think why we get so agitated and troubled as a human creature driven by a human spirit inwardly that is severed from God because of the disobedience of the first Adam, it's because of the manipulation of the lying devil Satan. Do you think he wants you to know you need a Savior? Then how can he keep you from knowing you need a Savior?
Why, too? You can tell you you're not a sinner. We've all sinned, so we all need a Savior. So dear sinner, if you're not saved, please understand and know that the devil's lies are designed to keep you lost.
And then those of us who are saved now, just because we got saved, they didn't annihilate the devil did it. He remains a lying, stealing murderer. And once our souls are saved and secured in the salvation that Christ has brought to us, and even the salvation that Christ maintains for us as our great high priest, the devil's objective now is not to keep us lost because we're not lost, not to get us into hell because we're not going to hell, but to get us confused and to get us compromising our faith, to get us led off perhaps into religion to where we would start doing our thing and be confused instead of focused, be divided instead of united. We want to call our attention to Proverbs 12 and verse 22, lying lips are abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight.
The lying devil tries to infiltrate the lives of us Christians, and he tries to infiltrate the ministry even of our local churches. Why do you think if you've been saved a good number of years, why do a lot of local churches split and divide and why do so-called Christian people fuss and fight and bear tales and criticize and become proud and prayerless and seeking our own way instead of his way and not turning from our wicked ways, which is as far as referencing again the famous verse we all know, 2 Chronicles 7 and 14, the devil doesn't want revival in America, no more than he wants redemption in the lives of sinners, and he certainly doesn't want revival in our churches and our restoration in our nation as I said to him to go, and he will pull every punch, and he won't pull any punch, but he will strongly try to deliver every punch he can to stand against us. That's why, look at Ephesians 6, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. So we need to have on the whole armor of God, like Paul said in Ephesians 6, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the low and girdle of truth and balance, our feet shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace, praying always with all perseverance and supplication in the spirit, having the shield of faith in one hand, quenching all the fiery darts of the devil and the sword of the spirit in the other.
This double edged sword of the Lord that allows us to wield all power. Listen children of God, inside every one of us as a child of God, there is resurrection power. Look at Romans 8, and then the beginning verses of Colossians and Ephesians and others, that the creative God through his Holy Spirit dwells in us. So what was just said, creation power and resurrection power dwells within us, that we would so be liberated fully and completely by the truth, that in conjunction with Galatians 5, we would not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, but that we would be liberated, that we would be the light of the lights of this world, be in the light of the world, the salt of the earth, that we would be purveyors and preachers of the gospel, that is in reality the only hope that this world, the inhabitants thereof, that's the only hope they have is the gospel of the Son of God.
Why have we set around the last several decades and let the devil get this upper hand politically and morally and all of this stuff that's going on, the immoral filth, the arrogance of people that would mount God stand against God, they got preachers out of the press boxes of high school football games several years ago, they got Jesus out of the school systems in America, claiming it was unconstitutional. Jesus mentioned in school it was unconstitutional. What is that? That's a lie.
But the devil tells lies, takes ground, holds that ground, and now here we are. We as God's people need to know better than believing lies. On Turnover here in chapter 18 verse 2 says, a fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself. Hello preachers, brothers and sisters in Christ, we've got to get to the point of humility to where we can admit that maybe, just maybe, we've been pushing our own opinions.
Let me read that to you again. A fool hath no delight in understanding. While we've been doing our little foolish things, the devil's not been doing little simple things, he's been doing serious things. He wants to take over the lives of individuals, but he also wants to take over nations.
And eventually, his ultimate goal will be realized in Antichrist. And then from 1 John 4, the spirit of Antichrist already works. Look at the Pauline Past Oros, the mystery of iniquity, already works among human beings, ever since Cain killed Abel. And at times there have been evil days, and God's people have to withstand in evil days.
But if we're weak, if we're so inclined to think our own opinions are the truth of God, we need to remember the Word of God didn't come out from us, it came to us. So let's stop discovering our own thing, our own opinions, our own traditions, our own standards, our own scholarship. And while the world's been being taken over by the devil, our blessed country and children have been taken over by the devil, we've been divided because of our distinct zeal for our own traditional things that we boldly and proudly claim is the very word and work of Almighty God. Just from these verses alone.
We discover that we've been duped many times by the lie, and we have been displaced from the truth. Now Matthew chapter 5, it's Sermon on the Mount of course, and verse 37, but let your communication be yay, yay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil. Communication, you ever think about that word? That's a very interesting word.
That's communication between folks is the solidification of our fellowship. And the relationship that we as Christians have with God cannot be altered or severed by the devil, the world, the flesh, or society, or anything else. He's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day, and I need to guard against iniquity in my life. That is absolutely sure.
So the devil cannot alter or change my relationship. So what's his next best objective? And believe me, whatever else he can do, he's going to do. He's going to try to intervene in my fellowship with God and my fellowship with my fellow believers.
Do you think the devil wants you reading this book? Do you think the devil wants me reading this book? Because this is the pinnacle of my fellowship with my God, is when I read and study and apply his word to my life. And you thought you just got sleepy last night.
Sometimes we got to fight through that sleepiness and get in the word because if the devil can mess up my fellowship with God, then I begin instead of getting stronger in the faith and growing in the faith. I am not going to be even a candidate to be one of great faith, but I will be backsliding down into the ranks of those that either have little faith or the devil's objective, a person of no faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. That's in Romans 10, 17.
In Hebrews 11, we can only please God by faith. Then I can assume that it is absolute, accurate. If I'm not in my Bible, I'm not pleasing God. Because if I'm not in my Bible, I don't have faith.
Now watch this as we close this evening. First John chapter 5 down around verse 3, the victory that overcomes the world is our faith. So if the devil has severed our fellowship with God and he has divided our fellowship with one another, I've just showed you from the word of God then how our faith would be extremely limited. Now you wonder why the world is running rampant in sin.
Now do you wonder why they tell us 400 churches are closing every month in America? The victory over this world is not our traditional values of standards and scholarship or individual denominational dogma. Our victory over this world is our faith. Who's the author and finisher of our faith, Christ?
How do we get omnipotence from him by being obedient to him? So one of the key initial objectives that we as God's people need to just grab on to and collect right now is the increase of our faith. And walking away and understanding that we do not listen to the lives of the devil, but we listen to the truth of Almighty God. And then by this our faith can increase and our fellowship with one another can increase.
And you know what? The devil will be put to flight, I believe it. May God bless you richly. Then may he use you for his glory and to be a real blessing to someone else.
I have the privilege of pastoring and being the director of Freedom Tabernacle Baptist Church and Freedom Tabernacle Ministries in Atkins, Virginia. And we are going to get to know one another a lot better through the weeks and months to come. It's my prayer. But right now you can join us on our Facebook page, Freedom Tabernacle Ministries, Atkins, Virginia, or our YouTube channel, Focus of Freedom, Atkins, Virginia, our website, ftministries.org.
Or you can download our app, the Freedom Tabernacle App, download it for free from any app store and we can stay in contact that way. As we labor together with our Lord for his glory and for the advancement of his glorious Gospel of grace.