It's not a pleasant thought, judgment isn't, but God is into law and order. And there has to be judgment if there's authority given to somebody, then there's accountability, ultimately judgment. You must be judged for the things on your body. Whether you like it or whether you know it or whether you recognize it or don't recognize it, you've been given an unimaginable opportunity called life. life. Some of you have been able to live a long time. To whom much is given, much is required. Some people didn't live. I went to high school with some of my buddies. They died in the car wrecks, 17 years old. Some died earlier than that. Then Vietnam started and some died in Vietnam. I always wondered why they got to, why they got, why they died and I got to live. It's just God. It's a sovereign choice of God that I get to live and they die. I mean, if disease doesn't take you out and an accident on 41 or wherever you're driving doesn't take you out, there could be a war to take you out. I mean, or a meteorite fall on your head or something. Who knows? Life is not, it's volatile. Volatile. 150,000 people a year in the United States die from a heart attack with no prior symptom. Not one prior symptom. How do I know that? I hang around Dr. Bailey. He tells me about stuff. It's amazing. A heart attack, he said, will make you humble. He said, you think you figured it out and you haven't figured it out. For we, Paul's including himself as the judgment seat of Christians, unsaved and Christians, will not be judged together. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, the one who died for us. That everyone may receive the things done in his body, that's that opportunity thing called life, according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad. There's a lot of things I'd like to go back and undo. There is no undoing anything. But your future is bright, clean, and open. You can change the future. You can change the now. You can change the future, but you can't change the past. People I find in life sometimes pine away They pine away that something's happened to them in the past. How silly. They destroy their present, which then becomes their future, which then becomes their past. On something that happened, they have no more control, no more control over. When something happens in your life, as bad as it may seem or as good as it may seem, whatever it is, you gotta move on. You have to move on. You lost a child in death. You lost a spouse. Somebody betrays you. Just a hundred different things can happen. You just gotta move on. Do not let the past mess up the future or today. Amen? Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice. That's what Paul said, and he was in bed. If anybody could tell you to rejoice, and it was Paul in this particular case talking like that, and he talks a lot about rejoicing, I figure I can rejoice. If he could rejoice with all the stuff he went through, imagine how many aches and pains that old boy had every day from getting beat. Just beat, he just was beat. He was beaten up. He has scar tissue, nerve damage. He has something wrong with his eyes. Probably from getting whacked so much, getting stoned at Lystra. Who knows where it came from, but he couldn't hardly write. He'd write in real big letters. You know, they didn't have glasses. All the good stuff that we got. So with all that, what's Paul's attitude about life? It's up. because he saw past this life into what was coming. And for the born again believer that wants to follow Jesus, your future is bright. Your present may be dark, but your future is bright. But we're all gonna appear before judgment seat of Christ. That's a highlight in verse 11. Also knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade man. There's not, Like it or don't like it, a good motivator to be a witness is the doctrine of hell. The doctrine of hell is a good, some you persuade with compassion. Others you persuade with fear. Knowing the terror of the Lord, it's Hebrews chapter 10. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. I mean, it's just Bible. If you want to get a kind of sober up on who God is, read chapter 10 of the book of Hebrews, and see how that old boy views it, whoever that was. I know it was the Holy Spirit. But in the Holy Spirit we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also made manifest in your consciences. Now remember, the book of 2 Corinthians was preceded by, you guys are smart, 1 Corinthians. The first book was to correct all kinds of errors that they were having, divisiveness and division. Some Apollo, some of Paul, some of Cephas, they were following other than, he said, really, none of them boys saved you, Jesus saved you. He said, follow Jesus and treat each other right. And so they began to, and they had all kinds of immorality issues and they had disorderly issues. They were just, and all that we went over, the highlights that we went over in that book just about overwhelms you really. They were messing around with tongues and misusing it and abusing it. Women were out of place in the church. they were doing stuff they shouldn't have done, he corrected them all on that. Straight, you can read it for yourself, you don't have to believe me on any of that. And for the second, excuse me, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and chapter 14, then he said the best gift of everything, whether you guys are clamoring after gifts, how about clamoring after love? One of your finest definitions of agape love was found in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse four through six. One of the best definitions I found anywhere. Love suffers as long as it's kind. So it's just really good. I wish I was in a lot of ways better than I am. How about you? I wish I could demonstrate the love of Christ better than I do. Am I wife here tonight? No, thank God. My wife has been the recipient of a lot of my bad behavior. How about you men? I mean, she sees me at my worst, not my best. Oh, she may see me at my best, but she sees me most of the time at my worst. And love covers the multitude of what? Sin. That's how you stay married, forgiveness. You have to forgive each other. Don't carry it down the road, let it go. And there's nobody here tonight that won't, you know, let's say you won't forgive. Well, who are you not to forgive when you've been forgiven so much? Everybody here tonight's been forgiven. Forgiven, forgiven, forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. You have no, how, really the Bible says, how dare you not forgive when you've been forgiven so much? And your girl said, but you don't know what that old boy did to me, no? And if I did, I'd probably wanna whack him. But that's me. But God says, forgive him. Let it go by the grace of God. If you can, you gotta do it every day, day by day. The greatest motivator we see, chapter five, 2 Corinthians 5.14, for the love of Christ constraineth us. That's our motivator. Because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. And because all were dead, we can all be saved by the grace of God, by the life that he gave us. And so Christ is there for us. We're all lost. There's none righteous, no, not one. There's none to understand it. There's none to seek another God. They've all gone astray. Got the poison of ass under our tongues. I mean, there's nobody out there that walks in this old flesh, has anything brag about really. If they do break about it, then that's pride, which is also real bad. There'll be no pride in heaven. Well, that'd be something. I've never lived in an environment where there's been no pride. Neither have you. I mean, I got it in me. And I repeat, you have it. That's why I gotta be so careful to compliment your hairdos and look at your dress. Oh, that dress looks nice on you. I don't lie, and I'm not gonna say, well, I have lied. I don't habitually lie. But if you take me fishing, it pushes me right on the edge of it. But, oh brother. What I'm trying to say is I don't flatter. God hates flattery, by the way. The Bible's against flattery. He doesn't like flattery. Flattery's usually a tool to manipulate, and you don't want to use flattery. If somebody looks good and you think they look good, tell them they look good. It's honest. But if you think they look ugly, do not tell them they look pretty. because then you're kind of going into that area of flattery, you know, and you shouldn't really flatter somebody. It's better to say nothing than to flatter somebody. I've known people that were really good at manipulation, and they used flattery as one of their major tools, and they made you feel good to be alive. They'd come up to me and say, preacher, you're one of the most phenomenal, I've never been around a preacher as good as you, and all that kind of, you knew you were in trouble when you started. If you got any wisdom, You know, when somebody starts complimenting you like that, get ready. Get ready, because bad things are coming down the road. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, a well-known verse, many, many people memorize this. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation or creature. Old things are passed away. I put there for your sake and for my sake, the word errorist. It's in the errorist tense. You know, past, present, future. There's a lot of tenses in verbs and things. All things are passed away, that's the eros. That's a past happening with present results. I got saved, so all things are passed away. All things are passing away, passed away and passing away. But they've also, okay. What this verse is really trying to say is positionally, When we get saved and trust Christ, repent of our sin, trust Him as the only Savior, He's Christ, the Son of the living God. He died and was buried and rose again the third day. You got saved. All your sin is forgiven, past, present, and future. That's positionally. Practically speaking, you haven't even lived out there yet. But God knows who you are. God knows who you are. He knows who He saved. He knows who He died for. And so people have said to me in the past, preacher, I've sinned so badly, God could never forgive me. And I always tell them this, you think when he was dying on the cross, he didn't know what you were gonna do? You don't think he understood how bad the sin was he was dying for? There's no, I mean, this may sound crazy to you, but if Adolf Hitler had repented and trusted Christ, he could have been saved. He didn't, as far as we know. What I'm saying is that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. A-L-L is all is all. God wrote the vocabulary. So he said, behold, all things are become new. So positionally speaking, that was that eros tense there. It's talking about positionals. These old things have positionally become new. Now, practically speaking, why shouldn't you begin to be transformed into his image by your day-by-day walk and become more like Jesus? You know the song, more like Jesus would I be, more of his tender loving scene. Oh, I make up my words on that. Okay, don't correct me. More about Jesus when I sing. Almost every morning I have a song. Almost every morning I get a song. And my wife's entertained by that because I never have the words right. She's always like calling down the hallway, that's not right. We have a blast together, I'll tell you why. Our mission. This was the theme verse of Ambassador Baptist College, Ron Comfort. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God. What a verse. That's our theme verse of the whole college. When I go door to door, or pass out tracks, or do any kind of witnessing, this is what encourages me right here. I'm an ambassador, now I'm not much of an ambassador, but I am an ambassador. I'm a born again believer, I have the Holy Spirit, I'm willing to tell people about Jesus, I'm an ambassador. You're an ambassador. didn't say what kind of quality ambassador, we're ambassadors for Christ. And when you go knock on that door and tell them about Jesus, and I've said this a few times as I've been led to say it, few people sometimes they just get under my skin a little bit. And I don't mean to do it in the flesh, and I don't believe I did it in the flesh, but I was bold. I would say, do you realize that God has come by your house today. What's that say? As though God did beseech you by us. Be reconciled to God. An ambassador represents a country. We got an ambassador to one of those foreign countries. He represents the might and power of the United States of America. A very responsible position. And so you have been given a responsible position to represent the might and the power of God Almighty and tell them Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Now I don't know what happened to those people that I told that to, but through the years I've just been led to do that a few times. And I try to explain it, by the way, just so they don't think I'm some nut was standing on the front door thinking he's God. For he hath made him to be sin for us. This is a substitutionary death to Christ theologically. For he hath made him to be sin for us. There was an exchange. If you trust Christ your Savior, your sin went upon Jesus, who knew no sin. that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. His righteousness was given to us. Our sin was given to Him. It doesn't get better than that. That's a deal. All your sin laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness, because I'm not going to be righteous if he doesn't give me righteousness. Okay. If he doesn't give me righteousness, I'm not going to be righteous. I need his righteousness. That's why there's no flesh going to glory in his presence because there's not going to be anybody in heaven that's going to say, I had my own righteousness and I developed it and it was really good. And boy, I ended up doing well, didn't I? You're gonna be so humble when you go to heaven, you're gonna be kissing the gold streets quite a bit. I think we're gonna be on our face quite a bit when we originally go in there, you know. Woo! Wow. Makes you wanna just weep when you think about what Jesus did for us. How he became our sin. This is why Paul said in the Gospels, in the epistles, I am less than the least of all the Gentiles. Now Paul, a Jew, and especially being a pharisaical Jew, didn't have a high opinion of Gentiles originally. Gentiles were somewhere around dogs. Now you people have dogs, I'm sorry. But they're somewhere around dogs. Dogs are the lowest form of life in the Bible. And when you let them lick your ice cream cone, I want you to think about that. Sleep in the bed with you. I know you do it. I laid floor covering for 17 years. I had to move beds, take the sheets off the beds and have piles of hair at the bottom of the sheets. where the cats had slept in with the people and the dogs had slept in. We're going to the animals, people. Of course, I got to move all that hair on me, fleas jumping up on me. I just loved animals in the house. But anyways, what I'm trying to get at, I guess, trying to make a memory here. We're low. And he gives us his highness and we give him our lowness. Took upon him our sin. Now, how much should that motivate you to live for Christ? How much should that motivate you to throw away your petty, I don't wanna, or I don't feel comfortable, or it bothers me some. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. If the Holy Spirit hurts your feelings, then take it so. But I'm trying to motivate you while you have life, and while you have some of this thing called opportunity, that you'll use it while you have it. Because there'll be a day when you may wish that you would have used it, but you will not be able to. It'll be over, opportunity over. And when the opportunity shuts, it's shut. My dad was a good witness for Christ. When he died, his opportunity to be a witness is over. He can't do that anymore. And so we need to just stand on something. Chapter six, the challenge of the ministry. And we then as workers together with him, and I've mentioned, interestingly mentioned this on Sunday or maybe before, maybe last Sunday, maybe Sunday before. They all kind of run together on me. We then as workers together with him beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. The Calvinist says that God does everything for you, you don't have anything to do with it. That's not what the Bible says. They say it, but the Bible doesn't say it. God says, here's how much God's honored you. He's made you in his image. The animal kingdom's not in his image. None of the animal kingdoms in His image. The human being is so far above any animal. It's not even to be compared. You are literally made in His image. And that involves a lot of things, I understand. I'm not saying you look like God. but you have things that he has, like freedom of choice, they call it volition. You have freedom of choice and volition. Animals don't have, animals are a machine that's programmed. Animals are a robot. Animals have feelings only because they're programmed to have feelings. They don't mourn their dead like you think they do. They don't have anything like we do. Don't compare your animal with you. They're different. They're made on a different plane, and we're not supposed to abuse animals, not supposed to hurt animals, supposed to be kind to animals, and all that's all good, you know, I'm for all that. And if you're gonna shoot them, shoot them dead. And don't act like so righteous there. You probably ate some animal before you came tonight. Somebody's chicken, somebody's beef, Somebody's cow, somebody's bird. I've killed them all. I mean, I've skinned them, killed them, gutted them as you want to. Do not listen to my podcast though, because you have a completely different view of me. Especially if a couple more that are coming up here. I'm always explaining some of the crazy things that God's done with my wife and I, and how wonderful she is. She is a treasure beyond belief. She's a ruby. Amen? I don't have to wear rings. I got one. God needs us to complete the sacrifice of Christ by sharing it. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, that's Colossians 124. First time I ever heard this idea and interpretation was from Ian Paisley and Chapel of Bob Jones so many years ago, where he said, we make up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ. Woo-wee, we work together with him, giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed. That means you can give offense to the ministry, and it is gonna be blamed. There's no doubt that when you go door-to-door and you go, or you witness just casually, that you run into people that have known people that have said they were Christian and were hypocrites, right? They say, oh, I don't believe that stuff. I had a guy named John who was my security guy at my house. And John and I got to know each other some, and I got to witness to him by Jesus. And one day I said, John, man, you need to consider Christ before it's too late. He said, you know, I was raised an altar boy. And Michael, Michael appreciate, where's Mike at? Michael appreciate this. I was raised an altar boy, he said. And he said, Bill, I saw stuff go on between the priest and the nuns and this and that. And he started naming a whole list of hypocrisy things and things that offended him. And he said, I don't believe any of that. I said, don't you blame Jesus for what they did. Because Mike, you're going to stand before Jesus. You're going to have to answer. Don't, don't, don't. A week later, he died. of a heart attack. And I don't, I mean, I just got to say, unless he got to say, which I don't ever heard anything he did, he's in hell tonight. Why? Because some hypocrite in some degree, giving no offense to anything that the ministry be not blamed. Oh, dear one, you have a ministry. Your life is a ministry. You have a sphere, as I preach on Sunday, of influence, your power of your presence. That's your ministry. People around you are your parish. Tell them about Jesus, your neighbors. Jesus holds you and I responsible for our neighbors where it says, love your neighbors as yourself. So that's pretty high, amen? If you love your neighbor as yourself, you're not gonna steal from him, you're not gonna hurt him in any way. And surely you wanna tell him about Jesus and somehow get the gospel to him and give him the church some way to hear it. So 28 categories listed in a ministry experience. I think I got time to do this. I believe I got time to do this. Got your Bible, you may want to turn with me through that. It says it right there, 2 Corinthians chapter six. Chapter six verse four through 10 there. You know when you shake it's hard to turn pages. in your Bible. By the way, that's why I often put the verses up on the screen. It's not simply because I don't want to reread the Bible. It's simply I'm in struggle with turning pages in my Bible. 2 Corinthians 6, 4. But in all things approving ourselves as ministers of God, Now, I just wanted to read this list. In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in turmults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers yet true, as unknown and yet well-known, as dying, and behold, we live, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful, as always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich. Oh, it is fun to make people rich and having nothing. I believe it was A. W. Tozer in his book Pursuit of God, he does a chapter on Possessing nothing. It's the greatest place to be. Possess nothing. Give everything you got to God. Let him have it. Don't you keep trying to greedily possess it. Let God have it. He has a whole thought on that. And having nothing yet, possessing all things. Let me just move on to my next. So key to effective ministry is separation from the things that displease God. This is what we're gonna read next. Say in verse 14. So after he lists this whole, is that a list or what? He's talking about the ministry in context. He says, but be not, unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with five things? What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? The answer to all of those is none. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? None. For ye are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them. I will walk in them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Are you honored tonight? Born again believer, are you honored tonight? He said he wants to be with you, around you. in you. That's big. I don't even like myself that much. And he said, and they should be my people. Wherefore, here's what he asks, you get all this, If you'll come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Do those things which please God, and he will take care of you. And in chapter seven, verse one, by the way, the verse and chapter were added into the Bible. When the Bible was originally written, it was not written in chapter and verse. These were added in to help us navigate and find places in Scripture. They're not inspired, and here's a good example why they're not inspired, because verse one of chapter seven is the same thought we just finished in verse 18. They hook together, don't separate them. He says, having therefore these promises, what promises? The promises in verse 14 through 18, those phenomenal promises that I'll be your God and you'll be my son, I'll be in you and you'll be in me and we'll fellowship together, we'll walk together. That's where the songs come from about this. And he says, having therefore these promises, speaking of those who we just read, let us therefore cleanse ourselves, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That's our assignment. Stay clean from the things that displease God. There's a whole list of them. Love not the world. These are the things that are in the world. He's not talking about the trees, the birds. He's not talking about dogs, cats. He's talking about the lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life. These are offensive to God. And as a born again believer, if you begin to associate and intermingle with those things, you pollute yourself and he'll chastise you. Hebrews chapter 12. He scourgeth every son he receiveth. That's me. Thank God. Thank God I'm being scourged. It's good. And for my good. Because eternity is a long time. God may mess up your present, so that you'll have a good future. With the trials and scourgings and things that he has to do to us, don't be discouraged by it. Nobody loves you more than he does in doing all of that, and he'll make up for it, and even in this life. or he has, if God didn't give me anything in this life but peace, he's given me a phenomenal gift. Those people with billions of billions, I say billions of dollars, they lack peace. We have peace in this room. Humble group of people have peace that passes all the world's understanding. You can lay your head on your pillow tonight with a clear conscience, based not on some fantasy, but on the word of God itself and the testimony of the Holy Spirit himself, that you are clean in his eyes because of the blood of Christ that cleansed you. He that confesses, if you confess your sin and be faithful and just, forgive your sin, cleanse you from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1, 9. So you're not just making it up. It's not think positive stuff. It's think biblical, which is positive in many ways. But it's not that world where they just make stuff up, think it's gonna come to pass. Don't be fooled by that. So I'm gonna finish right here. Some of the things I put here specifically of staying away from the world, I know I used to smoke, I had to quit it. I used to do bad things in worldly entertainment, I quit them. I'm trying to quit the foul language. Central visual things looking at is an ongoing process, especially with the invention of leggings. One of the most sensual things I've seen in my life God forbid the woman that wears them, she's making life hard for me. Hidden things of darkness, that just covers a whole array of things. Whatsoever the Holy Spirit and the word of God convicts you about. We're gonna have a men's meeting with Harold Vaughn. We're gonna get honest about what we men have to face. And what the war is about you. The devil wants you. He wants to sift you as wheat. But Jesus has said, I've prayed for you. We can make it. Father, help us tonight. May the Spirit of God come and may He explain that which has not been explained well. 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.