The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 48 · November 5, 2025
Transcript:
Let's get our Bible, go to Psalm 48. Psalm number 48 tonight. Our next installment in our study of the Psalms, getting close to the third, the third of the way through point. How do you call that? 33.333 percent. Alright, Psalm 48. We will We will read Psalm 48 together. I would like to draw your attention to something as we read it, because we're not going to spend a lot of time in the Psalm, in this particular Psalm. I want to kind of use it as part of a study. And so we won't spend a lot of time here. But while we go through it, I'd like you to pay attention to and try to find out as you read what the theme of the Psalm is. So what is the main subject matter that the psalmist is speaking of? And he repeats it over and over and over in different ways, because that's really a key thing to what I'd like us to study tonight regarding this Psalm. So Psalm 48, a song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. Verse 3 goes on, God is known in her palaces for a refuge. For lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it and so they marveled. They were troubled and hasted away. Fear took hold upon them there and pain as of a woman in travail. Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. God will establish it forever. We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth. Thy right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion rejoice. Let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion and go round about her. Tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces that you may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death. Amen. What's the theme? Did anybody notice a particular theme that's repeated over and over in the psalm? Zion. Zion. Zion. This psalm is mostly about Zion. So I want to look at that tonight and just look at it from, of course, the point of view of the psalmist, but also a point of view from our point of view as well. So let's pray together and then we'll get into our study. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity, Lord, for meeting together and studying your word. Thank you for the people of God. What a blessing it is to be with your people, to fellowship, to share good times together and to pray for one another and to see one another's face and study your word together. We know, Lord, that we will be with you in Zion for all of eternity, with one another, and be able to enjoy one another's fellowship forever without the burden and the hindrance of sin at all. We rejoice in that fact. Lord, we also rejoice that you protected Nathaniel and that you kept him, Lord, and you were watching over him. Thank you, Lord, that we have good news tonight. And Lord, we just pray that you bless our study now. We ask you to meet with us and teach us. In Jesus' name, amen. So this psalm is about Zion. And this is not the only one, but where the psalmist is really going on about, he talks about counting the towers and walking about, notice what he says in verse number 12, walk about Zion, go around it, walk around it, tell the towers thereof, and that's the count. And so the emphasis is on Zion. Now why is Zion so important that a psalmist would write a psalm about Israel? Now we know that, I'm sorry, write a psalm about Zion. Now we know there's an association with God because that's mentioned in verse number one, it's also mentioned in the last verse, and there's a connection between God and Zion. Now that's clear, we'll see that in a minute. But in the mind of the psalmist, Zion is an important place. It is an important place to the people of Israel. Now I want to look at a few verses and I want to kind of get a definition of what we're talking about when we're talking about Zion. Second Samuel, second Samuel chapter 5, second Samuel chapter 5, verse 7. This is of course when David will read verse 6, second Samuel chapter 5 verse 6. And the king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, which spake unto David, say, Except thou take away the blind and lame, thou shalt not come in hither, thinking David cannot come in hither. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion. This is the first mention of Zion as a place. And this is before Jerusalem was occupied by the Hebrews. And so this is the first mention of Zion. He took the stronghold of Zion the same as the city of David. Now before there was a temple, before there was a temple, the Solomon's temple, there was of course the city of Jerusalem already existed at the time of David. And David invaded the city of Jerusalem and took it. But the city of Jerusalem was not centered around the temple mount like it is today and like it was later. And so David took the stronghold of Zion, which actually if you look at a map, you have the city of Jerusalem is kind of like a square. And at the top right, mostly the top right, you have the temple mount, but that didn't exist. But you go south of that and there's a ridge that runs down. That ridge is where the city of David was. This was called the city of David to this day. It's called the city of David. And it's a particular section of Jerusalem because that was the original part that David conquered. There was a fortress there. But that was the original location of Zion. That the city of David, that place south of Jerusalem. Now look at look back in the psalm, psalm number nine, psalm number nine. Psalm nine verse 11 says this, Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion. Declare among the people his doings. So here God dwells in Zion. Look at Psalm 132, psalm 132. Psalm 132 verse 13. Psalm 132 verse 13. For the Lord hath chosen Zion. He hath desired it for his habitation. Now you remember in the history of Israel, there was a big thing. Remember even in the law, the Lord said to Moses, you remember in Deuteronomy and in Numbers, he said when you go into the land, paraphrasing, when you go into the land and I choose a place to set my name there. Do you remember that verse, those verses? There are several occurrences of it. The Lord said this is when they were outside of Canaan, before they had gone in with Joshua. The Lord says when you go into this land, I'm going to pick a place and I'm going to set my name there. That place that God picked was Jerusalem. That place that God picked was Zion. Because that's the place where God would dwell. That's the place where God would have his habitation with his people, which is a reference to the temple. Look at the next verse, verse 14. The Lord goes on, this is my rest forever. Will I dwell for I have desired it. So here's what, think about what God is saying here. God is choosing a physical and geographical location on the face of the planet that he will call his habitation. Everybody with me? This is, and of course we know that would later be the Tabernacle and then the temple once Solomon built it. And that would be the place where he would place his name there. And that is the place that God has chosen even to this day. Even to this day. The end of the history of Jerusalem has not happened yet. There is more to come about that city. That's why it's such a hot bed right now and has been for a long time. Look at Psalm 147. 147. You'll see a little bit of a nuance about Zion. We're looking at what is Zion. Psalm 147, look at verse 12. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. This is what's called a...
The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:24–28 · October 26, 2025
Transcript:
All right, thank you for being here. We will go right to Matthew 20, chapter 16 rather, Matthew 16 and verse number 24 tonight. Matthew 16 and verse 24. Matthew 16 and verse 24. All right, let's read verses 24 to 28. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Let's pray together. Our Lord, once again we come to your Word, Lord, with of course needy. We need you to teach us. We desire you to teach us. And Lord, we ask you to teach us. Lord, teach us these truths. And Lord, not only teach us the intellectual part and knowing the facts of Scripture, but also how we might apply them to our lives and see your presentation, to see your demands, and to see what it means to follow you and to be unashamed. Lord, help us to do that as we look at this chapter 16 and finish it up tonight. You'll help us and we just look to you. Lord, help us to learn more about you in Jesus' name. Amen. Now remember the context. Before we get to verse 24. Verse 24 is the tail end of a series or a conversation, a series of verses that really began in verse 13 in Caesarea Philippi when Jesus says, Who do men say, the I, the Son of Man, am? And in that context, the Lord, of course Peter answers, thou art the Christ, Son of the living God. And of course the Lord blesses him for that, blessed art thou. And then he says that he gives them authority over the keys of the kingdom of heaven. We saw that as well. And then he turns straight to that. And of course you had the issue with what we saw this morning with Peter, as the Lord begins to explain that he's going to go to the cross, Peter begins to rebuke him. And that's where the Lord says, Get thee behind me, Satan. And obviously the idea is Peter was not, Peter was, as I said this morning, Peter was interested in the glory, but definitely was not interested in the suffering of Christ. And you can't blame him from a human perspective, but that was the whole problem, is that it was a human perspective. It was a carnal perspective that was not most concerned with the things of God, but the things of men. All right, that's what we've seen already. But the Lord brings up suffering in verse 21, specifically not the suffering of the disciples, but the suffering of himself. When he says he would suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. So the Lord, as always, anytime the Lord brings up suffering, well, most of the time anyway, when you see that, he brings up himself to begin because our Lord is our example. There's nothing that our Lord Jesus calls us to do or endure that he has not first done and endured before us to set an example for us. And so we can always, that's why the Bible says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, our eyes should not be set upon our brothers and sisters to our right and to our left, but they should be set to our Lord. That is one of the keystones of the Christian life, is you have to keep your focus on the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Whether it be things that happen to you or suffering or persecution or interpersonal issues or whatever the case might be, we keep our eyes upon Christ and that's like the North Star and it keeps us going in the right direction because our eyes are upon him. Okay, so the Lord is the one that brings up suffering in verse 21, his own suffering. And then on the heels of that, not separate from that, but in the same context. And he begins in verse number 24 and he applies these same truths to the disciples. Notice what he says in verse 24. He says, then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now we're okay with the idea of coming after Christ, we're okay with the idea of denying ourselves to some degree anyway, but when we get to the word cross, that's like a bad word, especially when you know what that means. The word cross is a very dreadful word in scripture. To be honest with you, for me personally, I don't like the cross as far as the symbolism of the cross. I don't like that. I've told you a few of that in our kind of passing conversations. A part of that is having been a missionary and seeing people that venerate images and that kind of thing. And I've seen and heard of people doing that. They think there's power in the symbolism of the cross, like that down there. There's just none. It's just a piece of wood that's cut in a certain pattern. But the cross of Christ, of course, it reminds us of what our savior has done, but it's a dreadful symbol. It's a dreadful symbol of death. And the reason it's so dreadful is because it is what our sin required. So we understand what it means and that kind of thing, but the cross is a very dark period in history. And so when the Lord says the word cross in verse 24, especially to those who live under Roman rule, that's like a shutter. He's only ever said it one other time. Matthew 10, we saw it this morning. He says it here, right on the heels of what he said. Now, he doesn't say that he's gonna be killed by the cross in verse 21. Notice that? He just says he's gonna be killed. But verse 24, he hints that it's gonna be on a cross, because he says to follow him, take up his cross and follow Jesus. So again, in the context of suffering, Peter wants to, he's looking for the glory. He wants to avoid the pain and suffering, and he has a desire for glory. But just as with our Lord Jesus, just as it is with our Lord Jesus, suffering must come before glory. And that's a biblical principle that you see throughout the New Testament. Suffering must come before glory. It was true of the Lord Jesus, and it's true of us. Suffering is first. Romans 8, 18 says this, "'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time "'are not worthy to be compared with the glory "'which shall be revealed.'" 1 Peter 4, 13, "'But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers "'of Christ's sufferings, "'that when his glory shall be revealed, "'ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.'" And 2 Timothy 2, 12 says this, "'If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. "'If we deny him, he also will deny us.'" Now, if you keep that verse in your mind, we're gonna kind of circle around that verse a little bit, though not directly. And then also verse number 27 in our text here says this, "'For the Son of Man shall come in the glory "'of his Father with his angels, "'and then he shall reward every man according to his works. "'But there is no Son of Man coming in glory "'until the Son of Man first suffers and dies, "'and then rises, ascends back to his Father, "'and then he returns.'" So it's embedded through, the Lord Jesus is consistent throughout his ministry that it is necessary that he suffer first. We all know that. That's a New Testament truth. That's an Old Testament truth. And so that's the order. And this is why the Lord brings it up because he is shaking the disciples out of this idea that they're gonna somehow get glory without suffering because it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. Now notice what he says in verse 24. Now verse 24, we're gonna have a little hermeneutical lesson tonight. So if you follow me, maybe we can learn a little principle of hermeneutics. But this context, 24 thro...
The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:21–23 · October 26, 2025
Transcript:
Let's get our Bible, if you would, and go to the book of Matthew, chapter 16. The Lord helps us today. I'd love to finish Matthew 16. Seems like we've been in the book for a month or two, but we're going to try to get through 21 to 28 today, part of it this morning, part of it tonight. This morning we're going to look at verses 21 through 23, but the good part about going through it slowly like this is that, and this is a perfect example of that, is that when we get to a passage of Scripture, the context of the passage at hand is fresh in our mind because we've spent time in what's above it already, and that is especially important this morning. So verse 21, the Bible says this, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me, for thou savrest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Would you pray with me this morning? Our Lord, thank you first of all for your Word and the truths of Scripture. Lord, we're thankful for, especially for the real life of Peter. Lord, how often we see ourselves in his place. Just a regular man who had faith in Christ, who had little faith in a very powerful Christ. Help us, Lord, in our study of Scripture. Help me, Lord, to help your people and to say the things that they need to hear and guide my every word and thought and motivation, Lord, that your people might be strengthened. But Lord, we know that even outside of the things that I say, there might be other portions There might be other things going on in the hearts of each person here that you might use to speak to them and guide their steps and help them to draw close to you. There might be someone among us who has not yet put their faith in Christ and his gospel. Lord, if that's the case, prick the heart of that person. Do not let them leave in peace and comfort. I pray that you would just strengthen us, guide us, help us. Lord, we look to you. Lord, we look to the subject of this passage and we want to see the things that you'd have us to see from it. Be our teacher. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. You'll notice in verse number 21, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. We might assume that, especially knowing the whole story, the beginning from the end, as we do from Scripture, that the subject of Christ's suffering on the cross is a subject that would have been topics of his conversation from the very beginning, but it wasn't. But it was not. And the Lord waited until this point, Matthew chapter 16, until this point to begin, notice what it says, he began Jesus to show unto his disciples. He waited until this moment to begin to teach them something that they were not at all expecting. In fact, in the Jewish psyche, and we've seen it over and over in Matthew, in the Jewish mind the Messiah, the Christ, was someone who was primarily a political leader. In the salvation, when Jesus spoke of salvation, what they heard was not salvation of the soul, but deliverance from earthly powers that were oppressing them and those kinds of things. And we've seen that over and over and over. And that philosophy is also part of the disciples' thinking as well. But it is at this point that the Lord begins to rain on their parade and let them know that his end is not what they expect. It's interesting to me that he waits until this point because we've spent, again, in Matthew so much time building upon the foundation of, like we saw last Sunday, the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That has been something that's been driven home over and over and over, from the miracles to the healings to all the different teachings of Christ. Everything he did, it seems there's somebody that's saying, who is this guy? Who is this guy? And that's what we looked at last Sunday. But that's an important foundation to be laid because the truths of the cross mean nothing unless we first understand who it is that's on the cross. If Jesus is just a guy that's on the cross, even if he's a really good guy, like again last Sunday, that's not enough. He must be the very unique Son of God or else the cross means nothing. His identity is the foundation of that. And that's actually what, again, the context above this passage is what we saw, this establishing once and for all, this historical confession of Peter, of who Jesus Christ is. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But you know, many people ended up rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember the cross? And again, I know I'm repeating myself a little bit, but bear with me. You remember at the cross, there were people who walked by and wagged their heads and sneered at the Lord Jesus Christ and said specifically, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross and we'll believe you. Remember that? So the question of his identity was already there in their mind and to them, the Son of God, to them, let me say it like this, Jesus of Nazareth hanging on the cross was proof positive that he was not who he said he was, right? Which is ironic because it's actually the reverse. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus said the sign of the proof of his identity would be the fact that he died on the cross and was buried and rose again. That is the one great proof that Jesus would give of his identity. But as it is, the people walked by and mocked him because he was on the cross, and that very idea is a part of the disciples' thinking as well. But by this point, in contrast to the multitude who would walk by the cross and sneer at the Lord Jesus, at this point, as we saw in verse 17, or verse 16 rather, in the same chapter, the question of who Jesus is has been settled. Among the disciples at least. It's a settled question. And so he waits until that is a settled point. They get it. I know who this is. Now they don't know what's going to happen with Jesus in the future, but they are convinced of who he is. They are absolutely convinced of who he is. So whatever he does from this point on, they might not like it, they might not understand it, but they know it's right because of who he is, and that's something that has been settled among them. You see the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, his rejection by the elders of Israel and his being nailed to the tree was the cause for many to turn from him because he would not rule as they expected. And so right on the heels of this great confession is the Lord Jesus goes into the next kind of phase. Phase one, who am I? Settled. Phase two, here's what I'm about to do. Man, you look at verse number 21, Jesus began to show what he was going to do, how he was going to suffer and die on the cross, be killed, raised again the third day. And what's funny is when you look at the previous chapters to this point, you look at early part of Matthew, I do want to look at several of those, but when you look at it, it's not there. There are no clear passages of scripture where the Lord tells anything about what's going to happen to him prior to this. Let's look at a few. There are a couple of hints. I want to show you those. Matthew chapter two is where we'll begin and then we'll be at Luke for one passage and then back in Matthew. Matthew two, verse number 11. Now Matthew two is probably familiar to you because that's of course talking about Jesus' nativity, but in Matthew two it says this, verse 11, talking about the wise men. And when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Now we know from other passages of scripture that myrrh was a spice that was specifical...
Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · October 26, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, we are going, we're going to be in actually several passages of scripture today starting in Matthew chapter 18, so you can go ahead and turn there. I'll say a few things to introduce our subject here. We have, when we've gone through this Sunday School series about our church, we've looked at various angles, various issues, various matters. Most recently we've considered our church's music and why it is the way it is. Most recently we looked at our church's music and we examined that subject from a number of different directions. We've also considered, at the beginning we looked at corporate decision making and so we've looked at that. Some of what we'll say today and over the next couple of weeks we'll overlap that a little bit. We also looked at various aspects of our church regarding, you know, just sundry doctrines that are important to our church and there are still a few that are left that we want to cover. Maybe they're not a whole lesson but just part of a lesson. We've looked at church membership. We've looked at, let's try to think off the top of my head because I don't have my notes in front of me, but anyway, we've looked at a number of things and the majors, at least the majors, that are important questions as it regards our church, our particular local church. Now we understand that not all local churches have the same position and viewpoint on everything and this is exactly why what we're looking at today is so important. I know there's a tendency to look at other churches, you know, we might look at other churches or hear of other churches and think, why do they do that? And the liberating thing is we don't have to answer that question. We don't have to care, right? Now we all should care what's going on in our church but what's going on in other people's churches is their business and they will give an account to that for good or for bad, hopefully for good and that's their business. But as far as our church, this is where our focus is on. So we're not trying to be in the business of trying to be busybodies and criticize everything that's going on. I mean we might have a position and an opinion on it but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to try to put our oar in for that church when we have enough things to consider in our own church. So when I say these things, it is not to make it sound like that our way is the only way and there's no other way or anything like that. We want to hold scriptural positions but there are times when churches do things differently than us and it's still scriptural. That is a possible thing. Don't stare at me blankly. It is possible to hold a different position in some ways. I mean of course when you start getting into some things we'll talk about today then there might be issues but again this is honestly the paradigm and the way the Lord has described it in scripture that churches, individual local churches are answerable directly to God. This is the independence principle behind our church. We don't have a denomination that is dictating anything to us whatsoever either directly or indirectly and so with that comes liberty of course. We can do as the Lord directs us but with that also comes responsibility like everything And so what we're going to look at today is we're going to start to look at, don't worry, we're not going to go line upon line in the church constitution but we do want to look at the church constitution. Now the Bible says we should go line upon line in the scripture but we don't want to bore everybody with line upon line in the church constitution because it's not the same as the Bible. We do want to look at it and cover a couple of points, a couple of salient and important points regarding our church constitution because it is a significant doctrine regarding our church and why some things are there and some things aren't and why we even have it. That's what we're going to look at this morning. So let's pray and ask the Lord to guide us and help us in our study. Our Father we thank you for the chance to study your word once again. I thank you for those that have come out and thank you for the weather Lord. What a beautiful day. The leaves are changing and Lord we're just reminded of the beauty that you put in nature for our benefit, for our joy and Lord we do thank you for that. We thank you for the crisp weather but the warm weather later in the afternoon and we thank you for the opportunity to fellowship together with your people and to love one another and to encourage one another. Help us to do that this morning. I pray that as we meet together not only in Sunday school but also in the services that you would meet with us and you would help us to grow, you would help our hearts to be inclined to your word and to your will. Lord bless the kids' class as well as they learn the Scripture. Help them to learn it well and I pray that it will profit those kids also in their life as they grow. We ask these things all in Jesus' name. Amen. So the question I want to pose to everyone is this. Why if we have a Bible, one of the things we covered in our church is what is independent Baptist? What does that mean? And part of that is part of the Baptist part of that means that we have and accept only one rule for faith and practice. Where do we get what we believe and do? We get it from Scripture, the Bible and nothing else. So the question, the follow-up question to that and the logical question to that is if that's the case then why do we have a constitution at all? If we have a Bible, what's the need for a constitution? Is a church constitution necessary? Why don't we just use the Bible? And why do we have a church constitution if we do not see church constitutions in the New Testament? Right? That's a, that's a, I think a valid question. If the Bible is our basis for what we do in our church, why then do we have something and use something in our church that is not in the Bible? There are many things in our church that we use that are not in the Bible. The easiest and most handy of which is this. And these and those and these and these, a multitude of other things we use and we don't say boo about that but all of a sudden with some particulars we get a little bit ornery about it, do we not? And so, but these are, I think these are valid questions especially about our church constitution. Why is it necessary? So basically I have for this, I have three things. I have a, I want to show you a biblical basis, I want to show you practical reasons and then I want to look at just very briefly legal reasons. We won't get to the third one today. So I want to look at the biblical basis for a church constitution. Now you might, I just said I might have contradicted myself or you might think I contradicted myself which is this. If church constitutions are not in the Bible then how are we going to study the Bible to find out about church constitutions? And I admit there are no church constitutions in the Bible but there are principles of scripture that definitely allow and I would even say to some degree call for something similar to a church constitution. So let's just go through the New Testament starting in Matthew 18 verse 15 and just look at a few examples of how, what the Lord says and then how the New Testament churches operated to help us to get a better view of what is, I believe, a biblical basis for something like a church constitution, okay? Matthew 18 verse number 15. This might be a little bit familiar to you from last Sunday. It says this, moreover, if thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. So a witness is someone who knows the ...
The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 47 · October 29, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, let's go to Psalm 47. Psalm 47. I just want to look, basically, take a kind of a devotional view of Psalm 47 tonight. I'll kind of give you some background of the Psalm. It's a very brief Psalm, only nine verses, but we'll just look at basically one thing that's kind of a running theme throughout the Psalm and use it kind of as a devotion this evening. Psalm 47, the subtitle begins, The chief musician, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. O clap your hands, O all ye people, and shout unto God with the voice of triumph. For the Lord most high is terrible. He is a great king over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us and the nations under our feet. He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved, say la. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises unto our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth. Sing ye praises with understanding. God reigneth over the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness. The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong unto God. He is greatly exalted. Would you pray with me tonight? Our Father, we thank you for your word and the truths that your word constantly reminds us of. Lord, indeed we grow by the sustenance that your word gives us. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time in your word and you would help our hearts to be receptive and willing to hear and to see what your word says. Lord, help me to say what your people need tonight. Lord, we trust you. We look to you. Our eyes are upon thee. In Jesus' name, amen. So you have this you have this song, just so you know, verse number two, for the Lord most high is terrible. That sounds sounds terrible, doesn't it? The idea being the Lord strikes terror. He produces, incites terror in us. That's what the word terrible means. The thing I want to point out to you is I want you to see this this frequent mention. There's three times, maybe four, depending on how you count, of the mention of God as a king. Did you notice that? In verse number two, for the Lord most high is terrible, he is a great king over all the earth. In verse number six, sing praises unto sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises unto our king, sing praises. For God is the king of all the earth. Sing he praises with understanding. And then the fourth partial mention is God reigneth over the heathen, implying a kingdom, implying that God is a king. Now when you read this, you know, there's actually at least two different ways that you can view this psalm, that you can read it. Okay? The first way is just to look at the psalm in its context, written, you know, about a thousand years before Christ. So right around maybe the time of David, David's name is not on the psalm, but if we assume that it's written around the time of David, you're talking about a thousand years before Christ about. Now at that, let me ask you a question, I want you just to think think this through with me. At that time, there was basically one nation that recognized and acknowledged God as their king. Right? There was just one nation, and that was the nation of Israel. Now, obviously Israel was not the only nation on earth, so on earth there were many, probably thousands of nations at that time in various parts of the world then that that had their own gods and their own religion and their own faith and their own all of that that did not, some of them probably didn't even know about God, at least as he's revealed in scripture, but they definitely did not recognize or acknowledge God as king. Everybody understand what I'm saying? So the question I have for you is how then can the psalmist say in verse number three, or verse number two, he is a great king over all the earth? Or in verse number seven, for God is the king of all the earth. Because in the time in which this was written, there were many many places in the earth that did not acknowledge God as the king. So here's what I want you to, this is the first way to look at it. This psalm has a prophetic element to it. Right? It has a prophetic element to it. Like many of the psalms, like Psalm 22, Psalm 23, Psalm 24, definitely all have a prophetic element. In other words, there's a way that you can look at it in its time, thousand years BC, right? And then there's also, it speaks to that time, but it also has a broader meaning that speaks to a time in the future. Because when you take this psalm not devotionally like we're gonna do tonight, but when you take it literally, and I think there's grounds to do that, when you take it literally, there will actually be a time in which the Lord rules and reigns over the heathen. Not only that he rules and reigns over them, but they acknowledge and submit themselves to his rule. The scriptures are replete with different verses and passages that deal with that. That God is not just going to be the God of a small group of people like he is now, where we acknowledge him and worship him. Or in the Old Testament, like Israel acknowledged him and worshiped him, but no, he will rule over everyone. He will rule over everyone. Now that's one way to look at it, right? That's one way to look at it. So there's a prophetic view. In other words, it's pointing to something future, a greater, broader fulfillment. But there's another way to look at it, and this is where the theology kind of, your theology really matters. Because of course we hold a pre-millennial position. That means we take the scriptures literally in almost every case. And that means, and I say that not to say, well we hold the pre-millennial position and so because we hold the position it's right. No, no. The pre-millennial position is the position that seeks to, where possible, interpret scriptures literally in their grammatical and historical understanding. In their basic understanding. So that's the reason why we read this psalm in other places like it. We take it at face value. We don't spiritualize it automatically. But you can do that. You can read this in a way and draw from it principles, which we're going to do tonight. But these principles, the fact of this psalm tells us that even though this was not literally fulfilled at this time, yet there will be a time when it will be fulfilled. Where Christ will literally reign over this world. And I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to that day. I'm looking forward to that day. But sometimes people that that tend not to take the scriptures literally come to a psalm like this and find trouble. Because it says, God reigneth over the heathen, and there's a seeming contradiction. Because when you read it you know he doesn't. So what kind of the default reaction to that is to spiritualize it. And to say, well this is God's spiritual reign over the world. This is God's spiritual reign over the world. Now the truth is there are verses in scripture where you can see that. Where the Bible does say that indeed. That God rules and God reigns. I mean just because people do not acknowledge God, that doesn't mean he doesn't reign. It doesn't mean somehow that because I thumb my nose at God and ignore him that somehow he doesn't rule. No, he rules. But when we talk about God is king, the fullest expression of that is not only that he holds the position but that we acknowledge that. Right? That's where they go together. And one day again that will be fulfilled. That will come to fruition. But without a question, God is king now. God is king. There's never been a time that he's not been that. He's king by virtue of his reign, by virtue of his creation. And he does rule. He does rule from heaven over the sons of men. Whether people acknowledge it or don't acknowledge it. He does his will whether people...
The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:18–20 · October 26, 2025
Transcript:
Let's go back to Matthew chapter number 18. Matthew 18. Matthew 18, we are going to look, we're gonna continue in, Matthew 18, Matthew 16, I apologize, I was looking at the wrong number. Matthew 16, and we'll just begin, we'll just read back over our text here, we're gonna pick up in verse number 18, and kind of finish this out, and go into what I think are just really interesting, interesting truths that we don't often cover just because they're not super frequently mentioned in scripture, but we wanna look at them tonight. Verse number 13, the Bible says, when Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and some others Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto them, blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. It's interesting to note here that he uses all of the, basically all of the names of Peter in this passage. The only exception is the name Cephas, which is a different language, it's Aramaic, which actually he probably said Cephas when he actually spoke it, and then Matthew recorded it when he recorded it in Greek, which is the language of the New Testament. Then he put Peter because that's the Greek equivalent of the word Cephas, the name Cephas. But anyway, he uses all of the names in verse 17, and then he says, Simon, which is his Hebrew name, now this is his given name, Bar-Jona, which means Son of Jonah. And then he says in verse number 18, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. I will give unto thee the keys of my kingdom, the keys of God's kingdom, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be loosen and I will give unto thee the keys of my kingdom, The ourselves who renew theうん by God, and the things that we have made amint us. So we think let us pray in the Bible, let us ask there now, where they should put down the sand, Oh, how we need you, Lord. Every day, every moment, Lord, we need your help. As we meet together, as we study your word, Lord, we're ignorant. We really do need you to teach us. Lord, we need you to give us grace, not only to learn and to get knowledge, but also to act and live according to the knowledge you give us. So Lord, we just entrust this time to you. We ask you to work in our hearts in Jesus' name, amen. All right. What we want to do is look at verse number 18. And as I said, it says here, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now we saw this morning how the Lord uses a play on words. I don't think it, and you'll see in a minute, but I don't think this, I don't think at all that, and I'm going to mention Catholicism here several times because this is the primary go-to passage for basically, this is the foot in the door passage that swings the door open for every doctrine that has come to pass since the three or four hundreds until our day in Catholicism. So I'm going to mention it several times, but this passage is sometimes, basically, sometimes interpreted to say this. Jesus says to Peter, Peter, your name means rock, and you're the rock upon which I'm going to build my church. And then he goes on from there. But that's not what he says. The Lord says, thou art Peter, and we saw this morning, scripturally speaking, that the name means stone. We saw that in John chapter 1, verse 42. And then playing off of that name, which remember, that name was given to Simon by the Lord. In other words, the Lord surname him Peter. Peter was not a name given to him by his friends or family. It was given to him by Jesus, probably, my guess, for this purpose right here. Because he's going to bring it up and use the name to tell a truth. And that truth is this rock, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now notice, we saw some things about the church this morning, but there's a couple more things I want to point out to you about the church. The first thing I want you to see, and these are just good practical reminders to remember about the Church of Christ. And I don't mean the denomination. I mean the Church of Jesus Christ. Number one, the church belongs to Christ. He calls it my church. My church. The Church of Christ is his possession alone. It's not my church. It's not your church. I know we call it that colloquially. We say my church. At my church we sing this. My church we do that. But in all truth, in the absolute sense, the church belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and anyone who touches it will give an account to him. It is his special possession. And there is no pastor. There's no spiritual leader that owns the Church of Christ. Right? The spiritual leaders are only overseers, are only guides, and serve only as examples. But the church itself belongs to Jesus Christ. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 1, listen to this verse. And you're very familiar with this, I know. Peter is speaking to the elders, to the spiritual leaders of the church. Here's what he says. The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. To the elders now he says, feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Here's the key. Neither, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. Neither as being lords over God's heritage. A lord is an owner. That's the one who holds the deed. And it says, neither being lords over God's heritage, but in samples to the flock. A heritage is your property. Right? That's what your heritage is, scripturally. I know that's not how we necessarily use it. But that's what the word means. It's a heritage. It's the same word as lot, referring to a parcel of the land. So this is God's heritage. The Church of God is God's heritage. Now I just say that just to reiterate. Listen. Spiritual leaders in churches, and this includes myself, have limits on what they're allowed to do. Right? We do not have a blank check. No spiritual leader, not a deacon, not a pastor, or any member for that matter. I mean, no person in a church has a blank check to do with the church whatever that person wishes. There are limits to it. And those limits are imposed by the Lord Jesus himself. So we all must keep that in mind. In everything we do, it's about we must ask the question, Lord, this is your church. What do you want? Right? This is your church. We are mere stewards of what the Lord has given us. The second thing I want you to see is this. The building of the church, he said, I will build my church. The building of the church, and by this, I don't mean this building made of brick and two by fours. I'm not talking about that. And I'm not even really talking about this particular local church, which again, we saw this morning, is a local, visible manifestation of the body of Christ. But the building of this church, which is the body of Christ, is the responsibility not of us, but is the responsibility of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. I will build my church. So it is not our responsibility to build the church. Let me say that...
The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:13–18 · October 26, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, let's get our Bible and go to the book of Matthew. We're picking up from our study in Matthew, and we're in chapter 16 this morning. Matthew 16 will begin in verse number 13. I have to admit this passage, verses 13 through 20 is where we'll be this morning, is one of those famous passages in scripture. It is just extremely significant in the whole of the book of Matthew. It could be called, it could even be called the theme verse, some of these verses in this passage. And so as I come to them, I feel like I need something more substantial to say to you guys that's equal to the importance of this verse. But we're going to go at it. We're going to see what the Lord shows us anyway. Verse 13 of Matthew 16, the Bible says this, When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. Would you pray with me this morning? Lord, we come to you as a needy people. Lord, we know that we have needs sometimes, and other times you know that we have needs that we're even unaware of. We certainly need your word. If we're going to grow as your people, Lord, we're going to have to grow by the word of God. And that's what we come out to look at this morning. We come to your word. Lord, open our eyes and our heart that we might behold wondrous things out of thy law. Give us understanding, Lord, and teach us by your Spirit these truths. Guide me, Lord, to say the things to help and strengthen your people in their faith, in the truth, in the Scripture. But not only that, Lord, help us not to just go away with more knowledge or a knowledge that's been strengthened, but Lord, that we might apply the word of God and use it to help us to live uprightly and to walk before you unto all pleasing. So Lord, we just acknowledge we need your help in every way in Jesus' name. Amen. Now you've seen in the book of Matthew as we've gone through it, I do want to look at several verses starting in Matthew chapter 1. We'll just take a brief, very brief walk through various verses in Matthew. We've seen a recurring theme that's recurred and has been brought up a number of times in Matthew. And the theme is, who is this Jesus? Who is this Jesus? And that we've seen it over and over. The identity, the question of the identity of the Lord Jesus is a major theme in the book of Matthew, is a major theme in the book of Matthew. Now to you and to me, that question might seem like a settled issue. But if you peer beyond Greenville, South Carolina, you know, because we do get kind of a small world mentality, we do, we think everybody thinks like us and has the same beliefs as us, and that's just not true. When you leave even this area and you go to another part of the country, or especially when you leave this country and go to another part of the world, there are literally billions upon billions of people that have not settled this question. Who is this Jesus? Many, many people, you might be surprised to know that most people in the world have heard of Jesus. So I know we go to Romans 15 about, you know, striving to preach the gospel where Christ is not named, right? But there are actually few places on earth where the name of Christ has not at least arrived in some form or fashion, where people know the name of Jesus. Now I have met, as a missionary, I have met people who had never heard of Jesus, had no idea who Jesus was at all. So they exist, but by and large, even in Cambodia, which is definitely kind of on the fringes of that, most people are familiar with Pré-Jesu, they know who Jesus is, at least in broad terms. But the question of his identity is still an open question. And that's true in most of the world. And in Matthew it's true. When Jesus arrived on the scene, if you put yourself in that place, in that time period among those people, that's an open question. Here you see a man who is just a regular man, a regular Jew, no doubt, just an average guy by all accounts. He hath no form nor comeliness. There's no beauty in him that we should desire him, is what the scripture says. Probably a short man based upon the heights of the skeletal remains of people in the first century, probably about five foot three, just in all ways average. And so there's a lot of reason for questions regarding who he is to be in people's minds. Look at Matthew 1, even going all the way back to his birth, verse 20. But while he thought on these things, this is Joseph now, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. What is this angel Gabriel telling Joseph? He's telling him who this baby is. That's what he's doing. He's addressing the identity question. Right? Now let me say this, and we'll see it in just a minute, but the identity question regarding Jesus Christ is still a question in our day. And the identity question is, if you want to boil down the body of Christian doctrine, you want to boil down eternal life even, it is based upon this first kind of initial question. There's probably another one about who made the world, you know, where we come from. That's probably even more basic and elemental. But on top of that, the question of who Jesus is, is a foundational question. It's the foundation of the cross and the resurrection, because you can't properly understand the gospel unless you understand who this person is. You have to know his identity before you can understand who's on the cross and why that's so significant. It is foundational. You know, a Jehovah's Witness can believe that Jesus died on the cross for his sins, and because he has his identity wrong, it is ineffectual. He has the wrong Jesus. Right? He has a man parading around as Jesus with a mask that looks like Jesus, but it is not Jesus. No more than if a man put on a Donald Trump mask, like you probably will be seeing at some point in the next several days. You'll probably see some people with Donald Trump masks knocking on your door, ringing your doorbell. That doesn't mean they're Donald Trump. Say amen. That's right. That doesn't mean they're Donald Trump. So this identity question is very important. Let's look at Matthew chapter 3, as we just take a stroll through Matthew, chapter 3, verse 11. John the Baptist is speaking here. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Right? This is, who is this one? And of course, we know later John the Baptist will say, behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away to the sin of the world. But again, even John the Baptist had questions. Who is this? How will I know him? This one who is sent from God. Look at chapter number 3, verse 17. And lo, as John baptizes our Lord, and lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is the testimony o...
Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · October 26, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, let's get our Bible and go back to Romans chapter number 12. Romans chapter 12. What we're going to do this morning is I'm going to make every effort to finish up this study on our church's music today. We are going to kind of circle back around to something that I covered two weeks ago. And to kind of go over that a little bit more from a different angle because I think the principle is important. And then we're going to cover one more thing to kind of conclude our church's this topic of our church's music. Now, we have already covered the idea of the we've examined the concert atmosphere. And so we've looked at that and how that affects the difference between spectating and participating. And we've looked at the use of our hymnal and how that involves participation and not to not to denigrate or downplay the importance of people who are skilled playing and singing special music. That's, of course, that's allowed and seen in scripture. But seeing that the church of the living God is primarily a participation sport, not a spectator sport. And so as much as we can do to promote that rather than the other, that's what we're going to try to do. And so we're trying to as a matter of principle, we're trying to avoid we want to avoid a concert atmosphere in the church. That's not what we were going for. So that's done that's done on purpose. It's not like, you know, well, we can't find anybody that can play the drums or the guitar or run the smoke machine or the you know, it's not like that. It's it's we are intentionally choosing to do what we do. OK, so and that's that all has to do with with kind of a combination of principles that come together. Then we looked at Romans 12, too, which is what we're going to go back to this morning. But before we do, let's pray and just ask our Lord to meet with us and and be our guide and teacher as we look through the scriptures today. Our father, thank you for the opportunity to meet together in the in the Church of God and Sunday School. Thank you for the people that have come and the hearts that are ready to hear Lord work in us and teach us, help us to understand your truth, not only that, but to apply it honestly and truthfully, both in our personal lives, but also in the church. And, Lord, we just want to follow the scriptural principles and examine them with a sincere heart. So help us to do that today and give us understanding and wisdom that your people might be edified because we look to you, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen. Romans 12, one and two. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies of living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We looked at verse two as it relates to music. It is not is not very often that verse two, specifically the part that refers to conforming to this world, It is not very frequently that you see this verse applied to music, but there's definitely really anything, this is just totally and universally applicable to any matter in which we would take our cues from the world in our worldview, in our way of thinking, in our value system, in our actions, in our words, and of course in our music, in our entertainment. We could go on and on, conforming to the world. In other words, molding ourselves after the pattern they have set, okay, the pattern they have set. But before we can really get into that, I have found in the experiences that I've had on this subject, specifically on the subject of the world, or we might say worldliness. That's kind of a charged word, has a lot of emotional response to the concept of worldliness, but it is a scriptural truth, right? It is a scriptural truth, absolutely, and we'll see it. But sometimes one thing that gets a little confusing is what is the world? What things are considered worldly? In Scripture, there's an example in which the temple is actually called a worldly sanctuary. I think it's in the book of Hebrews, it might be Colossians, or it might be 2 Corinthians, one of the three perhaps. The worldly sanctuary, and that doesn't have the negative connotation, it's just one that exists on earth rather than in heaven. But when we talk about worldly, the question automatically comes up, especially when we're talking about entertainment, or things in very practical matters, perhaps dress, perhaps music, perhaps places we visit, our philosophies. What defines worldly? Worldly is obviously in Scripture negative, it's not a positive thing. And the reason that is, is because the world is viewed negative in Scripture. That's what I want you to see. So I'm not going to try to define that for you. What we're going to try to do is we're going to try to look through the Scripture at what the Lord says about the world, and let you, with an honest heart, examine and evaluate what the Scripture says on the matter. And then each one of us, and this is true of our church, and it's true of you and your life personally, each one of us must take these principles of Scripture and sincerely and honestly apply them to every area of our life. We must do that. Because we talk about the world, well let's just get into it here. Look, if you would, we're going to look at, to start with three passages. Look at John 11 and Matthew 16. John 11 and Matthew 16. John 11 and Matthew 16. So when the Bible refers to the world, it has several definitions, and they're all related, they're all related, but there's several kind of emphases that we see that it's a little bit different, a little bit nuanced, and it's important for us to understand that. Not everything in the world is evil. In other words, the sun and the moon and the stars in God's created world, that's not evil, right? The plants, that kind of plant is evil, but the plants that God made are, well technically he made those too in as much as, but anyway. But those things are not evil, but they're of the world. So obviously there's different facets to this term. John 11 verse 9, look at what it says if you would, it says this, Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleeth not, because he seeth the light of this world. What's the Lord talking about when he says the light of this world? Well in this case he's using an example, talking about men stumbling, he's referring to the sun, right? Which lights the earth, right? So in this case the world just refers to his created, his material creation, alright? Now we know that has been tainted by sin, we get that, but in and of itself is not necessarily evil, okay? So that's one way you can look at what the word world means. Look at Matthew 16 now. Matthew 16, another definition is found in this verse, verse 26. Matthew 16 verse 26, For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? In this case the word world is also a reference to God's creation in some facet or way, but it's specifically referring to possessions, alright? He gained the whole world, everything that is to be possessed in the world, that's what he's referring to. So the world in that case refers to material possessions. That's not really what we're looking at for our study in Romans 12. Alright, look at a couple more passages. Look at John chapter 3 and Mark chapter 16. We'll look at Mark first, John chapter 3 and Mark chapter 16. And this definition or this facet of the word world is the one we're going to be looking at today. Mark 16 verse number 15, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. In this case the word world refers to all of humanity, okay? All people, humanity. John 3, you're famili...
Joseph Aguilar · Psalm 1 · October 22, 2025
Transcript:
Let's go ahead and pray. Heavenly Father, thank you Lord for the opportunity to be together, to be in your Word, in your house. Lord, we pray that you would give us something from you that you would open your people's eyes to your scripture. Lord, nothing that I have to say but that your Word would not come back void. So Lord, we pray that you would be with those that hear and be with your Word as it goes forth. We pray also for Pastor who's away preaching your Word. Lord, we thank you for him. We pray for the many prayer requests and those who wish they could be here but aren't able to. So Lord, we thank you just for your blessing us, blessing us with your Word because the opening of your Word giveth life and light. And so Lord, we thank you for just being with us and being so good to us and we pray that you would guide and direct everything that happens tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. So if you would turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm chapter one, Psalm one, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water who bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So for the sake of alliteration I've used a couple of Tencent words, they're biblical words, but I wanted to point out first of all blessed is the man blessed in his eschewing. So eschewing is a wonderful word that the Lord used with Satan and Job when he said, you know, one that feareth God and escheweth evil just means to put it away. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. So again blessed in his eschewing. So first of all blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. He talks about the walk here and I've subtitled this the path of convenience. Walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. It's easy to do wrong. It's often harder at least in the short run to do right. And so when you have the the world's way is the path of convenience, the easy way, the way the accepted way, the way in which you are not weird or strange or ridiculed. It's what is comfortable. So it feels right. It's conflict avoidance. It amazes me every day. There are so many people who go so far and work so hard not to have a conflict. They'll go around and I look at them. I say, you've done all this work not to just say no. Sometimes that's true. But it amazes me the propensity towards conflict avoidance which ends is just delayed conflict. You know the conflicts don't show up but they're just delaying it. The worldly wisdom I used to have I was being explained in I believe it was one of my ethics courses in school that a pension for police department is determined on the last it's an average of the last years that you would have and what people would do is they would get their others to call out so that they could work overtime so that their last few years would be the highest grossing years which their pension would be figured out. Of course that's dishonest but that's worldly wisdom right. Jesus said the children of this generation are in their the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light and sometimes that's what people do. It's the easy way. It's the way of convenience. Satan always comes along with a flashy convenient alternative for a genuine human need usually right before the Lord has something for you. And so if you're walking not in the Council of the ungodly you're not going to be susceptible to that. You're not going to accept what Satan brings to you as an alternative for God's will. And you're a judge things by the Bible. What does the Lord say about the situation not what do I feel and what do my peers say. What is easy. So walking not in the Council of the ungodly. The Lord has has a plan. He brings bring forth his fruit in his season in Ecclesiastes 311. He says he's made all things beautiful in his time and then he is the one that brings the good gifts. Turn with me quickly first to Matthew 6 31. I thought I had my Bible in the car and turns out I didn't. So I'm using Robert's Bible. So bear with me as I find it here. The Lord says take the note therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewith all shall we be clothed for after all these things to the Gentiles see. Here's the key for your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all these things. God's not surprised that you need something to eat today. God's not surprised that you need something to wear. God's not indifferent to our human frailties and needs. Remember he was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. And so every good gift and every perfect gift James Chapter 1 16 17 do not air my beloved brethren every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above from the father of lights with whom is no variable and neither shadow of turning. And so the option that is presented to you that is easier that seems like it's the more convenient that seems like it's the conflict free option yet requires you to compromise that's walking in the council of the ungodly. So blessed in his eschewing is blessed that he doesn't walk in the council of the ungodly the path of convenience nor standeth in the way of sinners sinners. And I'm calling this the point of curiosity standing the way of sinners lingering loitering loitering lusting falling. So if we were to say that the path of convenience walketh not in the council of the ungodly were the lust of the flesh you need these things your father knoweth that you have need of them. Point of curiosity is less the eyes. What's going on here. Hey that's interesting. I've never seen that before. The original temptation I want to know right has to know I have to know the Lord would have a simple concerning evil. I would get up but what would I have you wise into that which is good but simple concerning evil. Romans 6.19 I like to say when somebody asked me a question that I'm pop cultural illiterate I don't know the mutant the movies the music the current theme of the world. I just don't know it. I also tell them I'm full of useless information which is also usually true. But I am pop culture illiterate because I don't need to know what the world has to know. I'm not going to stand in the way of sinners. So when you're standing in the way of sinners I mean there's even more peer pressure as soon as you stop and stand as soon as you allow for the possibility that you are going to engage in what they want you to do. That's where the pressure is going to be brought to bear. If you're just if you're stopping and standing then they think that they can get you to fall. It says wherein they think that it is strange that you run not with them to the same excessive riot speaking evil of you. First Peter 4.4. We used to have my brother and I when we used to work as regular officers we used to have they would do things they would stuff our lockers full of bad material so that we'd open them so they could make fun of us and all sorts of things which was very fun then when I became promoted because it all stopped. But they used to do these things and they would they would ridicule hey your brother said he was coming to the club with me if you would. You know that's not happening. But they would do those things there's all that peer pressure. I remember somebody stopped and said to ...
Samson Harris · Psalm 23; John 10 · October 19, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, well we're going to be in two different passages this morning primarily. If you would, open to Psalm 23, Psalm 23, and then we're going to be in John 10, John chapter 10. Can anybody hear me okay? I can't, okay. Psalm 23 and John chapter 10. Of course this is a very famous, probably the most popular Psalm in all of the book of Psalms. A lot of people quote it for a lot of different reasons, mostly a lot of times during funerals and things like that, which is obviously totally appropriate. I just wanted to dig a little bit deeper into the Psalm and kind of expose some of the ideas that David was referring to when he wrote this Psalm. Of course David, we know, was a shepherd of his father's sheep in Israel. He's of all people probably the most, the best person to write this Psalm. But I kind of want to dig into it a little bit more and kind of open it up, maybe some of these ideas you've never heard about. And I want to just use John 10 to kind of build on that as well. So again, we'll be in John chapter 10 and then Psalm 23. We're going to start with the first phrase in Psalm 23 is, the Lord is my shepherd. We think of that, we're very familiar with this passage, but what I want us to think about is the relationship between a sheep and a shepherd. Why is it significant? Of course, there's a lot of shepherds. The Bible talks about a lot of different shepherds in scripture, but it's so significant that this Psalm is the relationship between the Lord and a Christian and a believer, one of his sheep. And Jesus is not an ordinary shepherd. Jesus is not somebody who is just kind of a higher link like the Bible talks about. He really does care for the sheep. And I want us to turn to John 10, John chapter 10 verse 12 and 13. John chapter 10 verse 12 and 13. So I'm just going to read the passage here, starting in, I'll just start I guess in verse 7. It says, then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am calm that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is in higher link and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The higher link fleeeth because he is in higher link and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. I'll just end there. I want to focus on just the fact that, like again, the Bible talks about in higher links. Higher links are inferior. They are obviously paid to do a job, but they don't care for the sheep. They don't have the intimate, they didn't pay for the sheep. They didn't go to the market and inspect the sheep. They didn't, they don't care for it on a day-to-day basis. They are just there to do a part-time job kind of thing. The Bible says in Jeremiah, just quickly I'll talk about this, Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah I notice talks a lot about shepherds. Basically God, Jehovah is reprimanding the shepherds, the previous shepherds of Israel. He says, Well be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people. Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them. Behold I will visit upon you the evil of your doing, saith the Lord. Of course there are other passages there, but basically also in verse Jeremiah 10-21 it says, For the pastors are become brutish and have not sought the Lord. Therefore they shall not prosper and all their flocks shall be scattered. It says in John chapter 10 verse 8, it says, All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not hear them. Jesus is the good shepherd. He cares for the sheep. He knows them and they know his voice. That's the important part. Of course a hireling will do his job temporarily. He'll have to fill in, but they don't really recognize the voice of the shepherd. He can feed them and all that, but he doesn't walk among the sheep. The sheep don't hear his voice. They don't recognize him. That's one of the attributes that makes the Lord being your shepherd so much different. If you're one of God's sheep, you will actually hear his voice. If you don't hear his voice, then God says that you're not one of his. Jesus is a good shepherd. He calls them all by name. Middle Eastern shepherds would actually do this. They would call their sheep one by one individually. Each sheep had an individual name a lot of times. They would call them out. That's how intimately they knew their sheep. It wasn't just a whole flock of sheep. They knew each one. That's amazing. It says in John 10, he leads them out. He brings them in. He's the door of the sheepfold, but he will also lead them back out to the pastures. Just one quick note on the door is that the Bible says, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. Jesus is the door of the sheep. If you don't come through the door, then you haven't come to Christ. You have to come through the door. Of course, we have people in church. There's a lot of people in church, not necessarily here today, but just that a lot of people have religion. They think they're a sheep, but if you haven't come through the door, which is Jesus Christ, you are not one of his. You need to make sure that you come through the door. The Bible says in John 10, it says he lays down his life for the sheep. This is the kind of shepherd that he is. That's why the Lord being a shepherd is so much different. No other shepherd will lay down his life for the sheep. That's just one thing that I wanted to highlight. Also being a sheep, we think about this, we don't like to think of ourselves as sheep because we're independent, especially as Americans. We want to be independent. We want to do things for ourselves. We don't want to have people telling us what to do or that kind of thing. We think we can make it on our own. If we say the Lord is my shepherd, that means we have to assume the role of a sheep. We have to be that sheep, which means that we have to recognize God as our owner, as our manager, as our leader. We can't just have our own way on things. We belong to Christ, not only because he created us, but because he bought us. Just with the shepherd, he goes to the market and buys a sheep. We are bought with a price, the Bible says. We have that specific relationship. It's not just going to the pig pen. We don't live in a pig pen. We're sheep. We live amongst the flock. We have a sheep fold, but we get led out and actually into a lot of freedom. We get to walk around and we get to be led by our shepherd everywhere we go. That's the picture that's being presented here. To be one of Christ's sheep is to belong to a flock, the most exclusive, well-loved, well-taken-care-of group of creatures in the entire world. We're so much different. We're not better than other people, but we have exclusive access to the Lord God Almighty. We are one of his sheep. That's just a really amazing thought. I want to go to the second part of that verse. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, which means to lack. It doesn't mean not wanting anything like I don't desire anything. It doesn't mean that God will give us everything we want or could wish for, but it just means that we won't lack anything that the Lord ...
The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 46 · October 15, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, Psalm 46, what we're gonna do tonight is, is we'll read the Psalm, and we're gonna do something a little bit different than probably what we normally do in the Psalms that we've covered. We're gonna spend a lot of time turning different verses. I say a lot of time, we're just gonna turn to different verses and say less, but I wanna show you some things because of the nature of this particular Psalm. And so let's read it to begin. Verse number one, the subtitle reads, To the chief musician for the sons of Korah, a song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Say la. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most high. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Say la. Come, behold the works of the Lord. What desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder. He burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Would you pray with me tonight? Our Lord, thank you for this Psalm. The reminders, Lord, that we have here to be still and know that you are God and to trust you and to rely upon your great power. And Lord, help us as we look through this Psalm, especially this particular viewpoint of it. We pray that you'd give us understanding and wisdom and broaden our perspectives on your word because Lord, we know that your word has so many layers of truth and we could spend all of our time just digging through them and recognizing them. And so Lord, help us tonight in our study. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Now, as I said, we're gonna do something a little bit different. Normally when you come to this Psalm, most often what you would do is you would look at verse number one primarily and you would look at verse number 10 because those are kind of the go-to verses and they're good. They're good verses for us to remember to trust in God and not fret, right? To be still. And there are absolutely times that we just need to stop trying to do things. And as they say, let go and let God and that has its limits. But the idea being that there are absolutely times when the Lord doesn't want us to do anything but to trust him to do something, right? And that's kind of what's being described here, especially in, you'll know once we get through it, you'll see the context especially is true of that principle. And then of course in verse one, we see that God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble. And the best example, recent example of that is when Peter was sinking in the water. Jesus was present, he was not only present, he was very present. And when trouble came and he started to sink, the Lord Jesus was there to help him. And you gotta remember that even in the midst of trouble, that it's not a matter of timing. Like you're in trouble and you're calling out to God, there's not a time delay when the Lord sends help, help's already on the way before you start asking. And there's scripture for that in Daniel in particular. Excuse me. But that's not what I wanna look at tonight because what those things are, are actually applications of verse one and verse 10. Those are actually applications. Like we do with all scripture verses, we look at it and to apply a verse means that we use it. We use it in a practical way. And so we take a verse, we take a truth understood in this particular context and we use it for ourselves to encourage ourselves to understand some truth about the Lord even though that's not directly what it's written about. For instance, as an example, you take something as simple as Noah's Ark. The story of Noah's Ark was not about us, it was about Noah, obviously. But you take the truths in Noah's Ark, they can be related to judgment, they can be related to salvation, they can be related to God's deliverance, all kinds of different truths and you can apply them to yourself. That's the difference between interpreting the Bible, knowing what its meaning, intended meaning is from the author in its context and using it. Because you can use the Bible in all kinds of ways as long as you're faithful to the truth of scripture. What we often do with this psalm though is we use the application of it and we never really understand the interpretation of it. What I wanna look at tonight is the interpretation of it. What I think this psalm means. Now, as I was reading a commentary that I sometimes read with the psalms, what I noticed is there's a strong tendency and a strong pull to just not mention, not ask what is this talking about? It talks about there is a river, what river? What river are we talking about? How many of you have read this psalm and thought what river is this talking about? Yeah, exactly. I know when different times you read parts of the Bible and you just kinda keep reading because you don't even know where to begin to look. It's just, you don't know what the interpretation is exactly talking about. So what do you do? You get what you can and you just keep moving. And that's okay, that's okay. But I wanna look at the interpretation of it. This psalm is divided into three parts. Verses one to three, verses four to seven, and verses eight to 11, each of which ends with the pausing word, say la. Verse one to three say this, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Who is the speaker? The our, God is our refuge and strength. Now I know when you read it, right? I know when you read it as a Christian, and this is perfectly fine, you read it and you see our and you think me, right? And that's good. That's a devotional view of the Bible. And it's okay to do that so long as you don't go off, you know, over the edge in some unscriptural thing, which happens sometimes. But the our in this case is not referring to me and you. In context, it's referring to Israel, right? Because first of all, it's because it's a psalm, but there's several indicators through this. He talks about the tabernacles, the Lord of hosts, the God of Jacob indicating that this is all talking about Israel. All right, with that in mind, let's keep reading. But what I'm trying to present to you is I think this psalm is prophetic in nature. I think it's prophetic. Let's read verses one through three, and I'll show you what I mean. God is our refuge and strength, the very presence of help and trouble. Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Now those are quite the event. Now we can look, I'll be honest with you, we can look at verses two and three and the mountains being removed and the earth trembling and shaking and the waters swelling and all of these things. We can look at that and we can say, devotionally as a Christian, we can say, when there's trouble in my life. Okay, and that's okay. But it's also kind of weak if you consider what it's saying. Because what it's saying is very, very much more significant than we got a flat tire at work or on the way to work or we have a financial need or we're sick or something like that. We're talking about the earth trembling, waves of the ocean, r...
The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:6, 12 · October 12, 2025
Transcript:
All right, let's go and return back to Matthew chapter 16. This evening we're gonna look just at two verses as our main text tonight. And I'd like you to also look at Matthew chapter 13 as well. So we're gonna be mostly in Matthew 16, although we're gonna go a few other places as well. But to begin we'll be in Matthew 16 and also we'll take a peek at Matthew 13 as well. So let's go to 16. And we will begin reading verse number six. And we read of course this passage this morning but we're gonna look at something different in the passage. Matthew 16 verse number six. The Bible says this, and then Jesus said unto them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves saying, it is because we have taken no bread, which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, oh ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember, the five loaves of the 5,000 and how many baskets ye took up, neither the seven loaves of the 4,000 and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread that ye should be aware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Verse 12, so we're looking at verse six tonight and verse 12. Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. All right, let's pray together and then we'll look at Matthew 13. Thank you Lord for the opportunity to meet again together and for the assurance that where two or three are gathered together, there you will be in the midst. And Lord, we trust you, though we know that now you are invisible to us. One day you will come, we will see you visibly. But now we trust in your promise that you are here present with us, not only in us but among us, as we meet together as the saints of God. We once again want to commit the time to you where we are studying your word and let it be profitable to us. Help us to grow by it as we look at the scriptures and see what you have spoken in Jesus' name, amen. All right, Matthew 13. The reason I wanna read Matthew 13 is that what we're covering tonight, we covered not too very long ago, actually in, let's see, July 13th. We had an afternoon service. I look back in the record and July 13th, we covered this same passage in the Matthew 13. But I wanna go ahead and read it again because it is actually just one verse. It's in the midst of the parables, of course, and it overlaps a little bit with what we want to talk about tonight, but not entirely. So I wanna kind of build off of what I said in Matthew 13 in verse number 33. Another parable spake he unto them. The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leaven. Now you'll remember that when we looked at this verse, we kind of paired it with the parable of the, I just lost my train of thought here, the parable in verse 31 and 32, which is the mustard seed. And the idea here is that the lump, that is the dough, is unleavened because of course that's the picture, that's the symbology from the Old Testament. Of course the Jews had developed or had developed a negative view of leaven due to the fact that during the feast of unleavened bread and Passover, they would have put it out. So it was considered to be, not that they couldn't eat bread that was leavened, but it had a negative connotation as far as in prophecy and things like that and their laws. And so we saw that in this parable, the woman took the leaven and the Bible says she hid it in three measures of meal. And then of course that leaven spread. And we saw how that the leaven represents a certain kind of evil, that it starts small and then it spreads throughout the lump and it corrupts the entire thing, though it starts small. And so we saw that. So go back if you would to Matthew 16 and we're gonna build off of that because we did talk about the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees in July. And we also referenced chapter 16, which is what we're looking at in detail, more detail tonight. So Matthew 13 has the first mention of leaven in the New Testament and the first mention in Matthew. And then what we're looking at tonight is the second mention of leaven in the Bible. So you have this idea of leaven, or rather in Matthew. You have this idea of leaven is symbolic of corruption. And the lump refers to the people of God and the idea is corruption is spreading through the people of God. And we looked at all kinds of references, especially in the epistles where Paul talks about and he foretells that as we approach the coming of the Lord, so Christianity, we saw it in scripture where Christianity will become more and more corrupted with false teachers and false doctrine. And so that's what the Lord tells us is going to happen within the church. I hate that term, but you know what I mean when I say that, within Christendom. And that's actually what we observe happening. And so here though, there's a little bit more detail and I wanna look at a few other verses based upon this. Look at verse number six again. The Bible says, and Jesus said unto them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So notice there are two groups mentioned here. You have the Pharisees, the leaven of the Pharisees, and you also have the leaven of the Sadducees. Then in verse 12, then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So you got two categories, but when we refer to leaven, we're talking about doctrine. Now don't misunderstand. Doctrine, although it includes the things that are written on a doctrinal statement, that is not the sum total of doctrine. Doctrine includes a body of faith that we believe, truths that we hold as scripturally accurate, yes. But doctrine also includes any kind of teaching. It's just a word that means teaching. It's sometimes translated the same way, teaching and doctrine. The idea is something that someone teaches. And so what you have here is you kinda wanna pull back the Lord is referring to the characteristic elements and features that were taught by the Pharisees and that were taught by the Sadducees. And there's one other group. So I wanna put forth to you that there's three categories of leaven. Now we did cover this in July, but we're gonna dig a little bit deeper. There are three categories of leaven in scripture used in this symbolic way, this corruption, this false or erroneous doctrine. The first one, if you would look at Luke chapter 12, it's already, it's here as well, but Luke 12 gives us a little bit more information. This is a parallel passage to our text here tonight. Luke 12 verse one. Look at Luke 12, if you would, and verse one. The first one we're gonna look at is the leaven of the Pharisees. Verse one says this, in the meantime, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trod one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples, first of all, notice he's speaking to his disciples here and also in Matthew 16. He's speaking to his disciples. At the end, I'm gonna come back to that, okay? But just keep that in mind. Here's what he says, the Lord says, beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees. Now notice, he doesn't mention Sadducees, he doesn't mention anything else. He only mentions Pharisees and he defines it, which is hypocrisy. So when the Lord said, going back to Matthew 16, when the Lord says beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, he's referring to a specific thing about the Pharisees. Here's what you have to understand. The Pharisees on paper were doctrinally sound. They would have checked all the...
The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 15:32–39; 16:5–12 · October 12, 2025
Transcript:
Alright, let's get our Bible, go to the book of Matthew chapter 15. This morning we'll be in Matthew 15 and Matthew 16. We'll start in Matthew 15 verse number 29. Matthew 15 verse 29. Matthew 15 verse number 29. The Bible says this, and Jesus departed from thence and came nigh into the city, the sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain and sat down there. And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others. And cast them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them. Notice the word cast. I don't know about you, but when I was reading that I kind of picked up on that word and thought to myself, man, how violent. Because it doesn't say set them down or laid them down, it says cast them down, which is what you do with a rock. Just threw them down at Jesus' feet. Not exactly compassionate, I would say. Verse 31, in so much that the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb to speak and maimed, to behold, the lame to walk and the blind to see, and they glorified the God of Israel. You know yesterday when we were out at the Fall for Greenville, one person, I can't remember who it was, had a conversation with someone, I think it was Ben, if I'm not mistaken, with an atheist type who said that he liked Jesus, and what he meant by that is he liked the humanitarian part of Jesus' ministry, and everybody loves that. Everybody loves the blind to be healed and the lame to walk and the dumb to speak and all of that. Everybody loves that. That's the part, Jesus giving us the things we want to make our life better is the part, and we all enjoy that. I'm not knocking that at all, but really the part that people are not so much interested in is when he starts talking, because that's when there's usually it rubs a little bit. Everybody wants to be healed and everybody wants to be successful and have a bunch of stuff, but when Jesus starts talking is when people start to find other things to do sometimes. Verse 32, And his disciples say unto him, Does that sound familiar to you, to our study in Matthew? Verse 34, And they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full, and they that did eat were four thousand men beside women and children. And he sent away the multitude and took ship and came into the coast of Magdala. Would you pray with me this morning? And he said unto them, And he sent away the multitude and took ship and came into the coast of Magdala. Would you pray with me this morning? Our Father, we just come to you and want to just once again offer our service to you this morning. Offer the word that we've read here and will read further in just a minute. We just want to offer it to you, Lord, that you would bless even as the bread that was given by the disciples to you, and you blessed it and gave it back. So Lord, we want to offer the bread, the word of God to you. We ask for your blessing as we take it back from your hand that it might help us and bless us, Lord. We need your help and grace this morning. Help us to grow this morning. Help us to know you better. Help us to learn to fellowship and trust you more. As we look at these passages of scripture, Help us, I pray, to see ourselves and our patterns in the disciples that are so clearly spelled out in Matthew here. So Lord, would you guide our study this morning? We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Now this should sound very familiar to all of us. This is the story of the feeding of the 4,000. And the feeding of the 4,000, it's difficult to pin down exactly how much time had elapsed between the feeding of the 4,000 here and the feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew chapter 14. What we do know, we do know some events that occurred between the two. In Matthew 14, after Jesus fed the 5,000, he crossed the Sea of Galilee, and then he heals a man. And then later he has a conversation with the scribes and Pharisees regarding tradition. We covered that pretty recently in our study. And then after that there was this Canaanite woman that has a daughter who is healed from a devil. And then we just read verse 29 through verse 31 where Jesus healed people, and the time is not clearly given. But what we do know is it hasn't been that long. Well Jesus' ministry was only a few years to begin with. But we're talking by a rough estimate, maybe one month to three months period of time. They crossed the Sea of Galilee a few times, going here, going there, teaching. And some of that time, it takes time to do that kind of thing and to teach and such. And so from one feeding of the 5,000 to the feeding of the 4,000, which has only been a couple of months probably, and the feeding of the 4,000 is when you read verses 33 down to verse number 37, 38, it's almost exactly the same. The words are almost the same. The activity, the process is exactly the same. The difference is there were 5,000 beside women and children. Now there's 4,000 beside women and children. Before there were five loaves and two fish, and they took up 12 baskets full of leftovers. Here there's seven loaves and some fish, and they take up seven baskets full. But the fact that Jesus had them sit on the ground was the same. The fact that he took it from them, gave thanks, break it, and then gave it to the disciples who then gave it to the multitude is the same. They were all filled exactly the same. They didn't let anything go to waste exactly the same. And when I come across passages of Scripture in my own personal Bible study that say the same thing twice, and I know these are two different events, and therefore it's recorded twice, and it's two very significant miracles. But when I see that twice and the Lord just puts the same thing again, it makes me wonder, why did you tell us this again? That's what I ask myself. And I think the reason is found in chapter 16. So let's start in chapter 16, verse number 1. The Pharisees also with the desadducees came, tempting him, desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven. And he answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning it will be foul weather, for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, can ye discern the face of the sky, but can ye not discern the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of the prophet, Jonas. This is again another portion that is repeated in Matthew 12, from Matthew chapter 12. And he left them and departed, verse 5. And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the desadducees. Now the reason he says this in verse number 6 is because they had just come out of a conversation with those two same groups, the Pharisees and the desadducees. So that conversation had just happened, and so that was fresh on their minds. And so when they got back to private, got back private and they got to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, that's when Jesus brought it up. Because he's still thinking about it. He's still thinking about the fact that these Pharisees and desadducees had asked this tempting question, which was a question with poor motives, but we'll look at that later. Verse 7. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. Which, when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Now pause a second. If there is anything that the disciples should understand at this moment, given the recent past, is that lack of bread is not a problem. There were 12 and 7, 19 baskets left over beside the 9,000, not counting women and children, that had eaten the bread and the fish. There were 19 baskets f...
Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · October 12, 2025
Transcript:
We are going to, we're gonna be looking at, I don't know how far we'll get, I'm hoping maybe we can finish this section on our church regarding our music. So the title of what, this is part six, six weeks, we've been looking at our church's music. And in this section, I'm hoping, as I said, to finish this section, and what we've been trying to do, for those of you that are visiting or are new, we've been going through, kind of methodically, going through different aspects of our church and why the things are the way they are. And we've been looking at different categories or different aspects of our church. And right now we're looking at music. And so last week we talked about Ephesians 519 and Colossians 316, which both are the main go-to verses in the New Testament regarding songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, and we looked at that in some detail. We also examined how those things, the use of music is related to being filled with the Spirit of God. And we also took some time to examine what it means to be a, when a song is a spiritual song. And we saw that a spiritual song is set in contrast to a carnal song. It's not, the Lord is not giving us a genre of music, he's describing a kind of song, which is a spiritual song, which relates back to Galatians chapter five and the fruit of the Spirit versus the works of the flesh. And so that's one way we can judge music. And that's one way that we, in our church, judge our music. So these things kind of overlap, that overlaps with our personal music, as well as the music that we use in our church. So we also examined and looked at our hymn book, and we examined why we use the hymn book, and why we have chosen to use it. And we saw how that hymns in a hymn book are generally speaking, rich in doctrine. And we saw also in Colossians how the songs are supposed to be, include the word of Christ, which is designed to admonish us and to teach us in song. And so that's where the hymns need to be substantial, and they need to affirm our faith and strengthen our faith. Not only that, but we also saw how the hymns, because of, primarily because of their age, provide a vital connection with the past work of God to generations gone by. And that's, I know it was definitely true in my generation, but the generation after me, like my kids' generation, there is definitely an element that seeks to dismiss prior generations and the wisdom, the accumulated wisdom, as if we just came here and everything was, we did it all. Our generation was the first one that ever was born on the earth. And so what the hymn book does is, and this goes along with church history. One of the reasons that church history is so important is because it provides that connection. We did not start this thing called Christianity. We did not start it. It was started by Christ. Well, you can even go further back than that with the Old Testament, but it was started by Christ, and then those who believed carried it on through the generations, and that's why we're here. We're here because of the word of God that was carried to us. So we're not islands. We owe a great debt to those who came before us, and we can't just simply wave our hand to dismiss that. And part of the hymn book is that the hymn book and specifically the songs in it provide that connection. When you can read a song that's 300 years old, or in some cases 500 years old, and it's saying the same thing that you believe from the word of God, that's significant. That's not something that's minor. The other thing we talked about, again, we're just looking at practical matters, is, looks like I got my notes mixed up here. We looked at the practical use of the notes in a hymn book, and why that's important, because it enables the congregation to sing as a congregation in parts with greater skill. That's why we have, that's why the hymn books are written in four-part harmony, that's why. They're designed to be sung as a congregation, and that's why they have them. So that's not something we're gonna get rid of, that's not something we're gonna change. I would like to see us move more in that direction of using that and singing with skill to the Lord as a congregation. And so that leads us to the question of congregational singing, congregational singing. So let's pray, and then I would like you to turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 15. 1 Chronicles chapter 15 is where we're going to begin this morning. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together as your people. Thank you for your people that have gathered here today. Lord, there's beautiful weather outside, crisp mornings and warm in the afternoon, and we're just so thankful for that. And thank you for the opportunity to share the gospel with people yesterday. And all the people that got witnessed to, got tracked, and we were able to speak to, and even just be counted to be present, Lord, but we know it's not by our own goodness or power, we're just weak, but the grace of God is what enabled us to give out the gospel, Lord. And as we go into Sunday School now and our service to follow, where we try to meet together and give you praise, we pray that you would oversee everything that's done, that Lord, we offer this time to you and ask for your guidance and your help. Lord, I ask for that directly from me, that I might be able to help your people, and also for your people, that we all might receive the word of God in great meekness. For we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so while we're talking about hymn books, we're talking about congregational singing, which is the primary purpose of having a hymn book. And so, 1 Chronicles 15, verse number 16, and I could go to a number of passages. I'm not trying to be exhaustive with this, so you know, you could, of course, you can, when you have opportunity, you can look up the different references regarding this, but in the Old Testament, David, being a man who was a musical man, he was a man who was skilled with instruments, so skilled, in fact, that he was actually called to go play music in the king's court. I mean, so he wasn't an average music player. He was skilled in the harp, and so he was a musician himself, and so it's no wonder that once he rose to the throne and was established, those things were in his heart to do, and you know what he did? He established skilled musicians among the Levites to sing praise to God for the people of Israel, and he did it, and I mean, if you think about it, this was, a lot of things that David did were things that came straight out of his heart to God, just this overflow of his love for God, and this is one of them. And so he organized the Levites, because by the time you get to David's reign, about 1,000 years before Christ, by the time you get there, the Levites are, there's many, many Levites. They have courses, because there's so many. They have different jobs they're doing at different times of the year, because they multiply. Same thing with the priests. And so because of that, he organized them into musicians and singers. Look at chapter 15 of First Chronicles, verse number 16. The Bible says, and David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of music, sultries and harps and cymbals, sounding by lifting up the voice with joy. And so that's what they did. So what I'm trying to establish here is there is a clear precedent in scripture for having skilled musicians, not what I am, but a skilled musician to lead the praise and the singing of God's people. And that's what you have here. There were skilled musicians who were appointed for that purpose. You might say it's a choir. You might say it's an ensemble. However you wanna put it to kinda translate it into our day, but you do see it in scripture. So that is a clear precedent. These were people of skill who could play inst...
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