I wanna talk to you tonight about Psalm 119, 165. Psalm 119, 165. Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Years ago, maybe 25 or so years ago, we had a preacher come in here in a fellowship at Gospel Joined Up, His name was Wendell Heller, excuse me for a second. Wendell Heller. Wendell Heller had pastored Colonial Hill Baptist Church up in, started it from scratch up in Indianapolis on the northeast side of Indianapolis, and had started from scratch, the church prospered, school prospered, had a school about 350, church about 8, 900 on a regular basis in the end of his ministry. He had high blood pressure, out of control blood pressure, and other issues. He actually resigned and turned the church over to a guy named Bob Taylor, which is a tremendous guy, when he was 62 years old. That seems young. Seemed old at one time in my life, but now that seems young. And so he came down here to Florida, and he came to Gospel Baptist and joined up, was a member of Gospel Baptist until he Had to leave. He went up and lived up in a assisted living home, I believe it's called, up in Bradenton area. And now they're up in Indiana. They're both still alive. Both Wendell and Betty are still alive. They're in their 90s. I'm going to say 93. But Wendell, his mind is gone. His mind is gone. I'm not sure he'd recognize me or know who I was. But he was a guy that He was a guy that really came to me one day and said, now, you need to be unoffendable. If you're going to be the pastor of Gospel Baptist Church, you need to be unoffendable. I thought that was interesting. And the verse he used was Psalm 119, 165. Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. And so before him, and he didn't know this, Pastor McKinney I worked under for 11 and a half years was 60 years old when he came here. He had already helped pastor. He had pastored and helped struggling churches was his ministry. He'd helped seven churches get on their feet. I mean from like a group of 10 people down to up to a group of 100 where they were doing well again and then he would go and do it again. He did that seven times. Not many people. That's a very, very unique type of a ministry. Not many people do that or would do that. a wonderful man, a wonderful Christian man. He was my friend. He made a statement to me that moved me as a young man. He came to me and he said, whatever happens here at the church, he said, I want you and I to end as friends. Now, that's big. I'd really never had anybody I'd worked for say that. Most of the time, they didn't have that spirit. But he did. He said, we're going to end as friends. I thought, wow, that's big. I said, I'm for it. And so he got up one Sunday. He was always, he was an Irishman. He was a bartender that got born from above. And he got saved later in life, 30 some years old, 33, I believe, years old. And so he still had a few rough edges about him. That's what I love the guy. And he said in one sermon, he got up and he says, I'm unoffendable. I'm unoffendable. That's a big statement. That's a big statement. And it wasn't a week before he got offended. I mean, as soon as you make that statement, the old devil listens to that and goes, oh, really? Unaffendable, huh? But the Bible says, great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Being offended is a common problem among Fundamental Bible-believing local people or a local church who wants to serve God, do right. It's a common problem. It may be right up there in the top five problems that people struggle with as they get with a group of people, join a local church and begin to work with people, rub shoulders with people, work with people under different situations. It may be one of the top five problems that I've noticed in the time I've been able to do this. There are some easy things that God's asked us to do as a Christian. There's some easy things, easy things. You may not agree with me on this, but I believe there's at least six easy things that God asks us to do as a born again Christian. First of all, he asks us to read your Bible. Basically, he's asking you to spend about 72 hours, read or listen to. Faith come by hearing, hearing by the word of God. So you can listen to the Bible or read it either way. But he gave us the book, the Holy Spirit wrote the book. If I wrote you a six page letter, and it was very single line, six pages letter, pouring my heart out to you, and you only read one of them. I went to you a couple weeks or so later and said, how much of that did you read? I don't read one page, I got, put me to sleep. I'm not a good reader. And I said, well, man, I wrote you a real serious from my heart, six pages pouring out my heart to you. Could you possibly read that? And he said, well, I'm busy. You know there'd be no excuse for not reading it. You know there'd be no excuse. You're never gonna stand before the guy that wrote it and say, I didn't read it. And it's gonna be accepted. And how much more God in the Bible? The Holy Spirit wrote the Bible. If you're full of the Holy Spirit, and hopefully you should be for sure, you ought to be full of the Holy Spirit. If you're full of the Holy Spirit, that means you're going to want to read his book, his love letter, which is the Bible to God's people. You're going to want to be in it. And so, one of the major easy things, I call this the easy Christian life, read the Bible. Read or listen to the Bible. You can do it. You can't afford not to read the Bible. I'm just trying to be honest with you tonight. You can't afford not to read it. You can't afford not to listen to it. Listen or read. I mean, it was Brother Morris that told me years ago when he came to church here, I started talking to him about reading the Bible. He put it in his truck. He was working at Marco at the time. And that's an hour drive from here each way. And I think he listened through the Bible at least three times that year. He told me he listened to the Bible three times that year. Just riding the Marco on that. Now you can do a lot of things going to Marco, but that's one good thing you can do. I live 30 minutes away. That's an hour each day. And I can listen. I listen to my Bible and listen to my Bible back home. I make some phone calls sometimes of necessity. I have to make some phone calls. And so I'm not able to use that time, but that helps me to do it. Praying for God's people and for yourself and your family, that's another easy thing you can do. It's totally up to you to do. You can do it. Attend Bible preaching services. You can do it. It's totally up to you. My dad used to say this about things. He'd say, a man does what he wants to do. You can just take that to the bank. You do what you want to do. You want to go fishing? You're going to go fishing. You want to buy a boat? You're going to buy a boat. You want to do this? Most of the stuff, most. Don't go to the exception, but most of the stuff you want to do, if you want to do it, you'll do it. The fourth easy thing is go to Sunday school class. That's easy. Give God a tithe, a tenth of everything he prospers you with. That's just easy. That's just a matter of doing a little bit of math and writing a check or giving it online or whatever you want to do. To me, I've tithed. a tenth of everything God's given me since I've been 16 years old. Now, I'm not going back and adding it all up, because I think that's wrong to do that. But I've tithed quite a bit of money, more than I got saved in the bank now. Or is that true? Heaven's bank is doing better than my local bank. And so, the sixth thing easy to do is witness, be a witness. Just tell others that Jesus saved me, And he's the Lord and Savior. Just however, stumble through it, however you want to stumble through it, but give him the gospel. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and he loves you and wants to forgive you of your sin. I mean, you can do that. You can do that. You can give gospel tracts out. You can do lots of different ways. There's a lot of different ways. So those are six things that are easy. These six things are easy, but the thing I'm speaking about tonight is not easy. The thing I'm gonna talk about tonight is not easy. What I'm gonna talk about tonight is deep, deep and hard. It is not one of the easy areas of the Christian life. You say, well, Brother Bill, I'm only doing three out of the six. You're not doing the six easiest things that really nothing will stop you if you wanna do them. But if you say to me today, I am or want to be unoffendable, that's going to be a little tougher. Even if you really, really, really, really, really want to be unoffendable, that's going to be a battle. It's going to be uphill. Let me define some terms there in this verse. Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. The word offend means to stumble, to stumble or trip up, pretty much all through the Bible, the word offend. In other words, no matter what others do to you, no matter how they betray you or disappoint you, and they will, or cause you some displeasure, and people will. Just get that in your head. You're not going to stumble or be offended. The word offend means to stumble or trip up. You're not gonna get bitter at God. You're not gonna quit the things of God, because God never disappointed you and never will. God's people almost always will disappoint you. But I personally think your expectations for them are probably too high. And so let me talk about the basis for being offended. If a Christian loves the word of God and really believes it's true, how many here believe the word of God's true, say amen? Okay, to what degree you believe that, that is true, you'll not allow yourself to be offended. I hope that can sink in a little bit. Romans 8.28 says, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them that are called according to His purpose. Right? That's the verse. You love the Bible, believe it's true, and you believe that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose. Okay. So if you lose a job because somebody at work lied about you or set you up, or the economy slows down and you lose your job, or you break your leg or arm or something and you lose your job, whatever, you're not going to be offended. at God, because let's talk about that. Because when those things happen, what's the first place you want to go? Why did God allow that to happen? You know that's where you're going to go. Why did God, because God's control of all things ultimately, but let me say this, in His control, He has ordained free will, and He'll protect free will, and like Job of old, He may do something that will knock your socks off, knock your head off, you never saw coming, catch you, blindside you. What are you going to say? You're going to get offended? Did Job get offended? No, he didn't. What did he say? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil? Man, that is maturity. Man, that is deep. When bad things happened to Job, he lost his 10 kids. He lost all his finances. He lost his personal health. He lost his reputation because everybody thinks he did, all those three buddies of his thought he did something bad and he deserved to have it. He was just hiding. He was falsely accused by them, by the four of them, really. I mean, people will get, they'll go to God and say, I didn't deserve this. I don't deserve it. What did Job say? Life says we receive good at the hand of God, and we're happy about it. You understand you receive good at the hand of God, and you understand you're going to receive some bad at the hand of God, what you consider to be bad. But if you believe the Bible, like you said you did, all things work together for good. ultimately even something as crazy as what happened to Job. God may bring it into your life, some tragedy, some trouble into your life, to discipline you, to school you in faith, or possibly to punish some disobedience that you did that you were not willing or not willing to repent of or turn away from, and God will, in Hebrews chapter 12 is where I'm talking, God will use his methodologies. He's got a lot of ways to chastise or discipline us. He's got a lot of ways to do it. And so he's got a lot of choices he could use. So whatever he brings in, I always look at those things and say, Lord, is there something I've offended that you're taking me to task on? If so, of course, I repent of that. I want to turn from that. Or is this just to help my faith to be better? You just want me to trust you. In the middle of the darkness, you want me to say, God is light. Or is this just coming in my life to give me some true grit, as John Wayne said? Does God just want to toughen me up a little bit? There was a family here years ago who had a real sissy boy, had a sissy for a boy. How many know sissies? Don't raise your hand. Sissy boy, I mean a sissy boy. This boy was feminine, but he was a male, biological male, but he acted like, wanted to act like or talk with falsetto. Kids on the playground said, he talks normal, he's just doing that. So I got mom and dad in my office, as I'll do you if I find your kid doing the same thing. And I brought him in my office and said, I got a real problem with your son, he's acting like a girl, sissify. And I said, you need to take him out and make him rake the entire yard and make him mow the lawn without a lawnmower, make him dig a ditch without a shovel, and make that boy sweat, make that boy work, make that boy suffer, and masculinize him up. Yeah, masculinize him, that's the word. My dad used to say, God gave me to you to make you a man. That's what he used to say to me. Boy, he did his best. Mixing cement, mixing mud, calling me, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my boy, my boy. Then I'd mix it up and he'd say, that's a little bit too dry. The next bucket I mixed, it's a little bit too wet. I never made a good bucket of cement, but He used it every time I noticed. Toughen you up! You girls, you need to be feminine. God bless you. You need to be feminine. But the boys need to be masculine. God may bring something in your life to toughen you up some, female or male, spiritually, school you in faith, or maybe discipline you for some disobedience. So don't get offended. That means to fizzle, to slip, to stumble, to backslide. Why? Because you believe the Bible. You believe God's good. You're not going to believe the devil when he whispers on your shoulder, God's no good. He's not really looking out for your good. How could this be for your good? Well, when the devil whispers that in your ear, say, get behind me, Saint, in the name of Jesus, by his blood. Get behind me. Another reason that people get offended, they get offended the first reason because they don't understand what God's doing and they get offended. Second reason is they get offended because they got too high of an opinion of themselves. This is good. I can't tell you how bad pride is. I could not verbally describe to you how bad pride is. Pride is literally the sin of the devil himself. and it's something I'm easily full of. It comes by naturally. I can be very proud. Somebody can say something to me and it can injure. What does it injure me? How does it injure me? It injures my pride. But if I'm a humble person and I don't think too highly of myself and I don't have an overinflated opinion of myself, I'm just a junkyard dog saved by grace, it don't hurt me. I disagree with them. I believe you're right on that. But may you pray for me that God help me do better. Otherwise, you're going to be offended. a flaw, it's going to be a slip, because when the devil hears you get offended a little bit, that's a chink in your armor, he's going to attack you with 100% of his forces, try to take you out, try to take you out. I like what Paul said in Ephesians 3, he said, unto me who am less than the least of all the saints. We consider Paul one of the greatest Christians ever walked the planet. He said, no, no, no, no. My opinion of myself is I'm less than the least, the least of all the Gentiles. Now Gentiles to a Jew were something like saying a dirty low-down dog. And that's what we are to the Jews. They call us goy. Is that what they call us, goys? Anybody Jewish in here? I think they call us, they have a slang for us, goy. I say, amen. I'm just an old junkyard dog. My parents were moon worshipers, sun worshipers, creature worshipers, spirit worshipers, big spirit in the sky and all that other stuff. And if it weren't for the grace of God, I'd be going straight to hell tonight. But the grace of God has been made manifest to me and I get to be saved. But I'm still nothing without God, nothing. You've got to beat yourself up. John the Baptist, when John answered, Jesus wanted to be baptized, said, I indeed baptize you with water, but one miter that cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I'm not worthy to unloose. John the Baptist said, by the way, he was the greatest man born a woman, as far as Jesus said. I just believe what he said about John the Baptist. He said, oh, no, no, no, no. My opinion of myself is I'm not even worthy to bend down on the ground and unloose the latchet of Jesus. That's where I'm at. Don't think too highly of yourself. Luke chapter 15 verse 19 says, I love that old boy, the prodigal son. He said, I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of the hired servants. That boy got right with God. You know, I'm talking to a fairly, fairly well-educated crowd tonight, biblically. Otherwise I'd go through that for you. But if you're not familiar with it by watching the internet or something, Luke chapter 15, Read the Prodigal Son, you'll find out. I like Paul in Romans 8.18, it says, For I reckon the sufferings in this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Paul suffered horrifically, unbelievably, never got bitter at God. I mean, come on. Getting 39 stripes once would be all I want. Or even could bear, you wonder. but doing it three times, and then get beat with rods, and then be shippering all the other stuff. He mentions how to stand it. Could you? No, you couldn't, unless you were unoffendable. Paul was unoffendable. Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing, nothing shall offend them. I think in Luke chapter 17, verse 10, where basically Jesus' words said, when you've done everything you're supposed to do, call yourself, he actually says, refer to yourself as an unprofitable servant. Why? Because you've done just that which is your duty to do. You're not a hero. You're just a servant that's doing what he's supposed to do, and at best, Jesus said, you're an unprofitable, and that's what, you look it up. You look it up, Luke chapter 17, verse 10. He says, call yourself an unprofitable servant. That's me. Stop having a high opinion of yourself. We got a world out there that's teaching self-image, self-image, self-image, self-image. How are they doing? They're horrible. They're squealing. Wait till tomorrow if the ruling comes through. See how all them self-image people are doing. Ah, them girls that get out and squeal at the moon. It's like a werewolf thing, man, and some of them girls, they bother me. I feel like, is that a demon or is that them? I mean, maybe both. Who have you let offend you? Remember I said let. If you're unoffendable, great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. then if I get offended, then I've let somebody offend me. Why would I do that? Why would I let somebody offend me? I got another sermon called, No Man Shall Take Your Joy. You let somebody steal your joy. Why do you do that? When you get offended, you literally have allowed somebody to offend you. That makes you slip and stumble, mess up. Is it the preacher? Don't let it happen. I've seen all kinds of preachers. Don't let them offend you. Because Jesus never offended me. Is it a deacon? I've seen some mean deacons. I mean some mean deacons. I mean mean deacons. I mean mean deacons. We don't have any, but I've been around some. You gonna let them offend you? I'm not gonna let them offend me. Because Jesus never offended me. What about some church members? I've seen some mean church members. I mean some mean junkyard dog mean church members. I mean some critical, some unreasonable, irrational, crazy, confused, rattlesnake mean, sour as a lemon, prune faced, church members. I'm not going to let them offend me. I'm not going to let them. Why? The Bible's true. I believe it. I believe God raised them up to help me. Oh, that's good. Have you ever looked at somebody that's just getting your goat sent from God to help you? Oh, I could be. The Bible says that friends countenance sharpens another friend's countenance, like iron sharpeneth iron. Yeah. Yeah, that nemesis, you think, may be sent by God to help you, toughen you up a little bit, help you. Look at yourself. How about, oh, I'll probably stay away from this one. Have you ever let your spouse offend you? I have to say I've failed a hundred times in this area, but I stand here tonight unoffended by my spouse, not that I haven't been, because I've been weak. Hey, I've been weak in some of this. And you know why divorces happen? One or the other gets offended. they get offended, and then they get bitter, and then they won't forgive, and then they can't stand to be around the person, and then they divorce the person. It's a normal, natural progression. If you kill it at the beginning by saying, I'm unoffendable, thank you, honey, for calling me ugly. A wife will buy a new dress and come in and say, do you notice anything? God have mercy on her soul, she set that poor soul up. You're setting that poor boy up. He's thinking, okay, hair, makeup, shoes. I don't notice anything. Get your hair done, come in. Say, notice anything? Don't set your husband up for that. Don't do it. I've seen spouses that are rude, crude, and totally unacceptable. I've seen spouses that spend too much money, are nasty, betray you, abuse you, and use you, and confuse you. Don't let them offend you. Remember, you let them offend you, because great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. And don't let God offend you. I hate to say it, but I've seen many people going door to door, I've seen many people that won't darken the door of a church because they feel God has betrayed them, in some way disappointed them, basically put it down to what we're talking about tonight, they've been offended by God. I heard a woman. I was at a doctor's office, and one of the nurses, I was trying to get her to come to church, and she looked at me with the most bitter, angry spirit that you could get going, and she said, I hate God. I appreciated her honesty. I said, you hate God? And when she said it, she just shook. I just hate him. Why? He took my mother and death. I was thinking of something real unusual, horror. I said, well, how old was your mother? Oh, she was in her 60s. I said, she outlived a whole lot of people. I mean, if you go to the graveyard, a lot of people died in their 30s and 20s. And even if they do then, God don't owe you five days. God doesn't owe you that whole deal of presuming on God that he owes me a 70 year life. I'm 70. I'm on bonus points beyond belief. I mean, I can't even believe, I told my wife, how in the world did I ever get to be this old? This is amazing. I thought I was going to be dead long before this. But if he takes somebody Like in the case of Maxwell's daughter, at 50 years old, a medical doctor, a very unusual situation developed there where she went in a lake and drowned. And I mean, don't spend a bunch of time asking, why God, why? God's good and he does what's right to do. And don't you get offended him because great peace have they that love thy law and nothing. If you took all my kids, nothing will offend me. Or if you took all my wealth, nothing's gonna offend me. If you took all my health, nothing's gonna offend me. And let me tell you tonight, if you don't build yourself up in this area and you don't get strong in this area, because you WILL face those kinds of things, you think you're going to cruise through this thing and be the exception? I doubt it. I doubt it. I've had people tell me they hated God because He lets children starve to death. I was at Bob Jones years ago when I was a freshman, and pretty soon after being there about three, four months, I saw all the flaws they had and how I could correct them. Oh, yeah. And we had a senior, I was a freshman, I had a senior, and it was the prayer captain of the room, and I went to him and told him, you know, they don't do this right, and they should do this different, and they all do this different, and they all do this, and he said, You're majoring in, what's your major? I said, business. He said, when did it get to be college administration? I said, well, it's not a college administration. He said, you don't know anything about running a college. You know what's in between my fingers about running a college. And he said, here you are, given instructions, you're majoring in administration of a college, not in business. He said, if I was you, I'd go back to being a business student and let them do the college management. And I said, well, that's probably a good idea. And I just gave it up. I figured, well, by the way, when I was there, they'd been doing it for 70 years already. I had the ego. That's how big our ego is. How big is your ego? I'm a 18 year old with no experience in almost anything and I'm telling them how to do that. That's how big we are, that's how big we are inside here. Woo, I know stuff, I got supernatural, woo. Quit having a high opinion of yourself. It won't be easy to beat that boy back. No, you'll be fine in that. He said here in Romans 9.20, it says, Nay, but, O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? That's what you're doing when you go to God. Why did you allow my child to die? You can ask that, but He's not going to answer. He wants you to trust Him. Why did you let this happen? had a autistic child. And I preach a sermon around it called Embrace It, because that's what she told me. I said, how do you make it? Her name's Nikki. I said, Nikki, how do you make it? She said, Bill, to survive, I just had to embrace it. I just had to embrace it. It's from God. And by the way, that child will outlive her. Outlive her. I've seen God's Word offend folks. Consequently, they got a stumble and they fell. Does the Bible teaching on homosexuals offend you? Don't let it. Does the Bible teaching on modesty offend you? Don't let it. Does the Bible teaching on submission of the woman to her husband offend you? Don't let it. Does the Bible teaching on no divorce or remarriage offend you? Without sin? Does the Bible teaching on separation from disobedient brothers offend you? Don't let it. Does the Bible teaching on separation from the world, you know, dancing, drinking, smoking, acting ugly, and stuff like that, sensuality, does that bother you? Don't let it, don't let it. Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Father, help us tonight to be able to understand this, to let it soak into our soul, We love you. Lord God, if there be somebody with a fence tonight, may they realize, may the Holy Spirit communicate these words to them and may they be able to overcome it. And don't let anybody or anything offend you. Just trust God. In Jesus' name. If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you and God bless.