And he was still at the VA hospital. Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 9. If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, Whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest. It is the duty of wise men to contend with the foolish, who stubbornly reject and despise the truth. I was once among the foolish, who mocked and raged against the claims of Christ and the gospel. How thankful I am personally for a wise man who persistently contended with me regardless of my reaction. His heart was set upon sharing the grace of God with a foolish sinner who was trapped in iniquity. My heart was set upon sin and wickedness. He labored and prayed. I resisted and dismissed. I had no rest, no peace, no joy, no salvation. My life turned out to be one miserable negation after another, yet I couldn't see it. God used a wise man who loved the Lord to faithfully witness to me of the saving power of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And despite all of my opposition in time, God broke me down by the power of His sovereign will. as obstinate as I was, as stubborn as I was, I could not resist the power of the Holy Spirit when He was determined to slay the enmity of my perverse, wicked will. God overcame my foolish will and desires and He conquered me by His sovereign grace. I was stubbornly trapped in my sins and God broke through every barrier, every objection and humbled me in the dust where I could only cry out, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? What a happy day it was when Brother Greg Rittenhouse saw God overwhelm me with his power and grace. Let us all remember how God dealt with us in grace as we deal with fools who are stubbornly clinging to their sins. It's one of the things that keeps me going. If you've witnessed to people for very long, for me it's been 39 years, you meet with a lot of rejection by people who really need the Lord, who raise a lot of foolish objections or dismiss you entirely. But you can't get discouraged. You got to keep sowing the seed. You've got to keep planting, watering, praying, depending upon God to save sinners. The amazing thing is, when God sets out to save somebody according to His sovereign purpose and plan, you are guaranteed that He's going to get them. He's going to run them down. No matter how far they may run, how fast they may run, how much hatred they have, how much opposition they have, God always gets His man. He apprehends them by grace. He overcomes them by grace. People say, well, don't you believe in free will? Yeah, I do. That's the reason why God has to overcome them. Their wills, they're so trapped in their sin, they think freedom is running away from God. Because they're in darkness, they don't understand. So God has to overcome their will and make them willing in the day of His power. And anybody that's been a notorious sinner, knows that's the case. I mean, I remember my gramps, I've told this story. He said, how in the, I can't, can you explain how you went from being one of the most wicked people I knew Now all you want to do is talk about Jesus Christ. All you do is talk about the gospel and the Bible. He said, there's no middle ground with you. He said, how did you go from one day being like this and now you're so changed? He said, did you turn over a new leaf? Did you read something? What happened? I said, God changed me. It's that simple. It was the power of God. Who overcame. All of my stubbornness. And sinfulness. And in reality, that's what happens to everybody that's saved. Some are worse. Than others. But anybody that's ever been saved is because God intervened in His power. Now this verse clearly reveals that the wise and the righteous should not expect the wicked and the foolish to embrace us or our message. Mark it down. They will laugh. They will rage. They will oppose. They will spew hatred. Our duty remains the same. Regardless of their reaction. Our duty remains the same. Preach the gospel to every creature. No matter what the response. Jesus faithfully contended with the foolish as He preached the Word and lived among those who hated and despised Him. Think about all the people that He interacted with and all the opposition that He encountered, all of the hatred, all of the plotting against His life. In fact, after His death, burial and resurrection, By the time you get to Acts chapter 1, there were still only 120 disciples that were gathered. So three and a half years of the most powerful witness of the grace of God, the one who is called the Word of God, the Living Word of God. After three and a half years, of faithfully contending with those that hated him, there weren't many that were converted. But his message was so strong, and they couldn't overcome it, so they had to bring false accusations against him. And they hated him so much for what He stood for, that they murdered Him. Here's what Jesus said His followers should expect as they contend with the foolish. He said, If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love His own. But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me." John chapter 15 verses 18 through 21. That's the real Jesus. That's not the long-haired effeminate Jesus of the pictures. This is the real Jesus who tells the truth as it is. He told that you talk about. He's got his disciples all in John 13 through 17. He has just the the original disciples there and those chapters he's specifically teaching them. And here he tells them, here's what's going to happen to you. Everybody's going to hate you. The world that at large, that is in opposition to God, to the Word of God, to the truth of God, to the righteousness of God, that world system is going to hate what you stand for. And they're going to hate it so much that it's very probable you're going to be persecuted. How many people do you think would sign up for that today? The Bible says, Paul the Apostle said in Timothy, Yea, and all they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. I heard Brother Spears preaching a week ago on Saturday and he made a statement that struck He said, the problem with preachers today is that none of them are being killed. I got to thinking, how much do we adapt what we say to not offend people? Now, don't get me wrong, I don't go out trying to court persecution. But are we even making enough of a stand for truth that it shocks people? I fear that much of Christianity is just going along to get along. Every one of the apostles Jesus was speaking to was persecuted. and or put to death by fools who despised the message of the gospel that they preached. Judas Iscariot was the lone exception, but he was not saved. He betrayed the Lord and committed suicide and has been in hell ever since. The rest of the apostles faced fierce persecution. as they faithfully contended with the foolish. I've never been imprisoned for my faith. Part of that's due, I live in the freest, greatest country in all the world, where enshrined in our Bill of Rights is the privilege The right, if you will, to free speech, the free exercise of religion. But we ought to remember the next time we get our little feelings hurt, when someone laughs or rages against us in the message that we preach, we ought to remember that the apostles were Those members of the first church, they were imprisoned. They were beaten. They were hated. They were mocked. We're not called to be loved and coddled by the world. We're not to water down or compromise the truth as it is in Jesus in order to gain the world's fickle favor and acceptance. We are called to preach the gospel to every creature until the day we die, even if our preaching is the cause of our death. I recently read a little article. There's a famous black preacher named T.D. Jakes, and he's an eloquent speaker. But one of the talk shows had him on, and asked him if he had changed his position on homosexual marriage, LGBTQP and so on, the alphabet things. And you know what he told him? He said, yes, my position is evolving. My position is not evolving. I'm in agreement with Jesus Christ who said God created male and female. So mine is not evolving at all. In fact, I don't care if the highest rated expert in science comes out and says that they have confirmation that there are 50 genders. I don't believe. I'm not going to take the words of men. over the Word of Jesus Christ. So my position is not evolving. My position on the grace of God and how to be saved, it is not evolving. There's only one way. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. All other Gospels than the one revealed in I Corinthians 15, 1-4, anything that deviates from that is false. False Gospel preachers are cursed by God no matter how popular they are among men. True gospel preachers must take their stand with the Apostle Paul and expect no rest, no approval, and no agreement from the world. Here's what he said, and this is my stand, my position. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." That means damned, condemned for all eternity. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men or God Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which I preached of me is not after men. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. I stand with that, with the truth. Now when you take that kind of a narrow view of the gospel and salvation, you are going to meet with opposition from not just the world, but the religious world. May God help us to stand. Even when the fools rage and laugh and mock, let's be true to our Lord. We're dismissed.