At least as far as the last few studies, I think it's been since before Christmas that we're into this. But after Paul's first missionary journey, the question arose about the nature of the gospel. Paul's taking the gospel to predominantly Gentile areas, though there are some Jews being saved. The churches that Paul was starting were predominantly Gentile. And there was a question, do the Gentiles have to keep the law in order to be saved? Is the gospel faith alone or is it faith and works? And so there was a meeting of the church at Jerusalem and Paul and Barnabas were there and others and they gathered together to discuss the matter, to consider the matter. And of course the matter was settled as far as God was concerned, but they looking at it, trying to determine what does God say? And so They met and they rightly concluded, and ultimately based upon what the Word of God said, that salvation was by faith in Christ apart from works. So after the Jerusalem Council, after the church met, Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch. And they were there for a brief period of time. And then Paul and Barnabas decided to take another missionary journey. Paul said to Barnabas, let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they do. Verse 36 of chapter 14. And Barnabas agreed. But Barnabas was determined to take John Mark and Paul wouldn't have it because John Mark had deserted them in the first journey. And the disagreement was so strong that they parted company. Barnabas took John Mark and went to Cyprus and we don't hear any more about him in the Book of Acts. He's mentioned other times in the New Testament, but no more in the Book of Acts. But Paul chose Silas to accompany him on his second journey. Silas had been a representative of the Jerusalem church When Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch and they're bringing news of the decision the church had made, the church sent Judas and Silas along with them to confirm the decision that they had made. And so Paul chose Silas to go with him on a second missionary journey. Silas was also a Roman citizen, which was a plus. And he also had the gift of prophecy. Chapter 14 and verse 32 tells us that he was also a prophet. And so he was gifted in preaching the word of God. And so a able helper, companion of Paul in his journey. So before, as Paul and Silas begin their journey, which would be the second missionary journey of Paul, they revisited the area that he and Barnabas had covered on the first journey. And let's remind ourselves tonight just briefly about Paul's first journey. He left in Syrian Antioch, traveled 16 miles, I think it was, down to the coast town of Seleucia, got on board a ship, traveled 90 miles southwest to the island of Cyprus, landed at Salamis, preached the gospel there, crossed the island and came to Paphos and preached the gospel there. And a man named Sergius Paulus received Christ there. A man by the name of Eliamus the sorcerer tried to oppose Paul and Barnabas and their ministry there and turned Sergius Paulus away from the gospel, but nonetheless, he got saved. Paul prayed down blindness on Eliamus. And Sergius Paulus got saved. But they left there, traveled northwest, again about 90 miles to the mainland, to Perga, and then went from there to Pisidian Antioch, preached the gospel there. Some Jews and Gentiles got saved. They were run out of Pisidian Antioch. They went to Iconium, preached the gospel there. Jews and Gentiles got saved. They were run out of Iconium and went to Lystra. And same thing happened there, and again at Derbe. And I'm trying to remember, I'm trying to draw this from memory. I believe it was at Derby, no, it was at Lystra, okay, that Paul was stoned and left for dead. But he got up, went back into the city of Lystra, and then the next day made his way to Derby, they preached the gospel there, and then they turned around and went back. and they went back to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch, then down to the coast and set sail back to Antioch where they had begun their journey. And so now Paul is intent upon going back over that area, those territories, before he begins his getting into new territory. But I want to notice tonight, as we think about that, and Paul ministering in going back over that area, if you notice in verse 40 of chapter 14, it tells us that Paul chose Silas and he departed being recommended by the brethren under the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches, and then he came to Derbe and Lystra. And behold, a certain disciple was there named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewish and believed, but his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him. And he took and circumcised him because of the Jews, which were in those quarters, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were ordained to the apostles and elders, which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the face and increased in number daily. Tonight as we look at this, I want to focus on just really on two verses. We're not going to get into Timothy tonight, but I want you to notice again in verse 41 of chapter 14, he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. And at verse five, the churches were established. Paul was concerned. He started these churches, they're full of new believers, and he wanted to ensure their stability. He wanted to ensure that the believers there didn't turn away from Christ and go back into their former life. He wanted to ensure that they indeed understood the gospel message, that they weren't taken away from the truth of the gospel, embracing another gospel other than the true gospel of salvation by faith in Christ alone. He wanted to ensure that their lives were established in godly Christian living. And so he's confirming these churches and establishing these churches. The word confirm is an intensive word. It means to render more firm, to strengthen or support. And the word established, it comes from the same word that confirm comes from, the root word, it means to make solid or firm. So there's this, again, there's this concern that these churches are well-grounded in the faith and established for God. By the way, Paul and Barnabas had already done this once. If you go back to chapter 14, oh, I've been saying chapter 14 when I'm meaning chapter 15. Yeah, sorry about that. But in chapter 14, in verse 20, it talks about the fact that they went to Derby. And verse 21, when they had preached the gospel there, they returned again to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. And again, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must do much tribulation to enter into the kingdom of God. So they went back over those areas doing the same thing that now Paul and Silas are going to do as they begin this second journey. Paul didn't want them to turn away from Christ. He didn't want them to embrace doctrinal error. And that's what I want to focus in on tonight, is just thinking about the fact that the church must be constantly confirmed and established. And I want to drive home this truth this evening. in various ways, but just to focus on the fact that the church must be constantly confirmed and established, strengthened, reminded. We'll come back to this on Sunday morning. I didn't plan this, but we'll come back to this on Sunday morning when we talk about, we're going to go back to 2 Peter and chapter one, and Peter talks about reminding the believers that he's writing to about things that he had taught them that they know and yet he's gonna tell them again? And that's kind of the idea of establishing and confirming these churches. Paul's going back and he's reminding them and reaffirming the things that he's taught already. Ronald Reagan, back in a speech that he gave in 1967, his inaugural address as he became governor of California. But he said this, he said, freedom is a fragile thing. and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance. It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people, and those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. As I was thinking about that, I thought, you know, truth, Reagan said freedom is a fragile thing. Truth is not fragile. In one sense, God's not gonna allow it to die. But there is a sense in which we could say that truth is fragile in regard to every church and every society. God is not gonna allow truth to die out, but there's no guarantee that any individual church might abandon the truth. or that a society that's had the truth would abandon it. It really is never more than one generation away from extinction within a church or within a society. Not in the world as a whole, but within a given church or society, it is just one generation from extinction, and it must be constantly defended. And that is a task of the church. We must restate and defend the truth in every generation. Paul wrote to Timothy that the church is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And Jude wrote in his letter, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Jude said, I started out intending just to write to you about salvation in general, just some general things about the Christian life, but he said, I realized I needed to exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Jude is recognizing the fact that truth is under attack. and that it needs to be defended, it needs to be contended for. As you think about church history, there have been many theological battles throughout the history of the church. There's been a battle for the pure gospel. That's from the very beginning. Is the gospel faith alone or faith in works? And Paul fought that battle. It's been fought in generations since then. The battle for the deity of Christ, one of the early church heresies that arose was over the deity of Christ, the person of Christ. Was Christ indeed God come in the flesh? There were some that taught that Jesus was just a man, that Christ came on him at his baptism and left him just before his crucifixion, and Jesus the man died. But Christ did not. So there was these heresies about the person of Christ. There's always been a battle for the inspiration and the inerrancy of the Bible, or for the meaning of the nature of the atonement. What is the atonement about? What is the atonement? Why did Christ die, in other words? Did he die as an example? Or did he die as a substitute? And of course, the truth is he died in our place as our substitute. But there are those that have taught, and some even today, that would teach that Christ's death was just an example, that he was a good man, and that he was a martyr for the cause, and he left us an example in that, and that's what his death was all about. Just an example for us to give ourselves so devotedly to truth that we would die for it. So there've been these battles and many of those battles need to be fought repeatedly. There are always those that teach another gospel. I mean, today in America, there are churches that if you sit in those churches week after week and you hear the message preached from the pulpit and you're going to be told, you know, if you want to get to heaven, they may not say it exactly like this, but this is what they're saying. If you want to get to heaven, you know, yes, Christ died for you and you got to believe on Christ and live a good life and you'll go to heaven when you die. Faith and works. That's going on today, that we have to constantly reaffirm that the gospel is not faith and works, it is faith apart from works. And even in our Bible-believing churches, we may have people that come out of a church like that, come to our church, and they thought they knew the truth. but they were taught that faith and works gospel and they need to hear it again because they haven't actually heard the pure gospel and they need to hear it so that they might have an opportunity to be saved. There has always been, you know, often been a battle for the inspiration and the inerrancy of the Bible. I have a, um, a book in my library by W.A. Criswell, and it says, Why I Preach that the Bible is Literally True. That's the title, and that's based on the opening message, and I think the whole book is basically about the inspiration and the errancy of the scripture. That book was published back in 1969. That was back in the days when there was a great battle in the Southern Baptist Convention between the liberals and the conservatives, who was going to win out, and the inerrancy of the Bible was being questioned, the truth of the word of God. Were there miracles? Did miracles actually happen? Was Jesus Christ God? I mean, what does the Bible say? And it was interesting that back in 1927, another Southern Baptist pastor that is familiar, his name's familiar, R.G. Lee, who pastored the, what's the name of the church, up in Memphis. Bellevue Baptist Church, where Adrian Rogers was. R.G. Lee pastored that church back in the early 1900s, but in 1927, he published a book entitled Lord, I Believe, and the title came from the first sermon in the book, which deals with the miraculous in the Bible. The whole message is, you know, the miracles actually happened. So even back in 1920s, They're fighting these battles about the inerrancy of scripture, the inspiration of scripture. In the 1960s, it was being fought. These battles have been fought in our lifetime over these things. So there are these battles that just, they recur over and over again. The truth must be constantly confirmed and established in the church, lest it be lost. And there are new battles that have to be fought in every generation. Today, we have to reaffirm God's view of morality. Because there are those even within the church that would say, you know, if you wanna live together apart from marriage, that's okay. God doesn't care. Or want to affirm homosexuality, that's okay, that God created you that way and it's okay to be that way. That's who you are, be who you are. So we have to reaffirm God's view of morality, God's view of gender and the roles of men and women. There are those today, I was reading something this week talking about sexuality and gender and distinguishing between the two, basically stating that sex is biological objective. You're born with one sex or the other, but gender is subjective. It's not how you were born, but what you feel like inside. And that's why today they're coming up with, you know, all this gender stuff and how there can be all these different genders because gender is based on how you feel. And so if today you're a man, but you feel like a woman, then that's your gender identity today. And it could be a lifetime identity or it could be a momentary identity or, you know, a day or whatever. So you can change based on how you feel inside. And so there, you know, we have to fight these battles again. What does God say about gender and about the roles of men and women? What about the sufficiency of the scripture versus the need for secular humanistic philosophies and psychology? Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1 and verse 3 that God's divine power hath given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Either God has given us everything we need to understand and live this life or he hasn't. Which is it? Do we need the Word of God and humanistic philosophies or we just need the Word of God? Well, the answer is we just need the Word of God. Because the humanistic philosophies begin with the basic premise that man can solve his own problems, that he's okay, that he's good at heart, and we just have to find the right situation, man can deal with his own. But the Bible says, no, the whole problem is man's a sinner. And everything, all the problems that he has in life grows out of the fact that he is a sinner. And therefore, the answer to every problem in life goes back to addressing the sin issue in a person's life. But so we have to fight that battle today because, again, it's not just that the world, or in our case as we're in America, a church in America, it's not just that our American society is embracing these things, but many within the church are buying into this stuff. What about being separate from the world? Not isolating ourselves from the world. We're not talking about where we just go, you know, completely withdraw from the world and have no influence in the world, but we are not to be conformed to this world, Paul wrote to the church at Rome. We're to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We are to be not like the world, but different from the world. But today, the church in America, is becoming more and more like the world. You go into the average church today and you go in average church, maybe average is not the right term because maybe that's too broad, but you go in many churches today. You could go into the church on Sunday morning, you could go to the rock concert on Saturday night, which one is which, you can't really tell because the atmosphere is the same. Matter of fact, in many, even in many churches today, they are using secular rock music as part of the worship service because that's what people want. Is that right? Well, I mean, that's, many in the church, I mean, that's their idea, that's okay. What about the character of God? Is God just a loving and merciful God who will never judge anybody? You can do whatever you want, it doesn't matter. Or is God holy and just as well as loving and merciful? What about God's purpose for our life? There's the prosperity gospel. God wants everybody to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Well, God wants you to be wise. He may want you to be healthy, but he may want you to be sick. He may want you to be wealthy, but He may want you to be poor. Peter wrote that, let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him, and well-doing is unto a faithful creator. There are many today that are teaching that God doesn't want you to ever have any badness in your life, nothing bad or nothing Nothing hard, that God wants you to just be constantly blessed and everything's great. And if you've got problems, it's a lack of faith. And that's not what God wants for you. God just wants you to be so blessed and just have such a happy, prosperous life and everybody to be wealthy and healthy and that's it. But that's not what the Bible teaches. What is the purpose of the church? Is it to reform society or to seek society's regeneration, salvation? I mean, these are things that have to be addressed because these are issues that we are facing today in American society. The church, the world is saying something and then the church is following along. There was a Christian periodical that, just let me read you a quote from this, an article about this idea. It says this, and this was written back in the 90s, 1990s, but it says, some evangelicals will have to learn to function as a small minority in a society that is non-Christian and often anti-Christian. It's talking about American society, primarily. Understanding that as our society becomes more secular, the question is, are we going to try and become like the world so that we can keep our churches large and get people in, be offering them something they want, even though it's worldly? Are we going to accept the fact that we're becoming increasingly a small minority? It went on to say, worldwide, evangelicals are increasing faster than the general population, but American Christians are going to have to adjust to an evangelical community whose center lies outside America in the southern hemisphere. In other words, we're not going to be the leading nation when it comes to the church. Because we're becoming more secular, the church in America is declining. You go to Great Britain today, Great Britain used to have these great churches. back in the 1800s, early 1900s. Today, we're sending missionaries to Great Britain. Well, in the 1900s, throughout the 1900s, America had great churches. They're dying out. And pretty soon, and I know it's already happening, but the day will come when other nations will be sending missionaries to America, just like we send missionaries today over to Great Britain. Inevitably, this article goes on to say, evangelicalism will be penetrated by the outside world's values and viewpoints. It's interesting, again, this was written in the 90s and we're seeing this happen today. The church is becoming more like the world. It will be subject to constant drain as evangelical faith is compromised and accommodated with Christians attempting to bridge the unbridgeable by making Christianity into something that is more acceptable to the non-evangelical world. Evangelicals must be careful lest in their zeal to battle against abortion, pornography, euthanasia, and environmental disaster, they forget the gospel. And some are coming dangerously close to doing so, which serves as a very basis of their social concerns. But I thought it was interesting that he said that the evangelical faith is going to be compromised and accommodated with Christians attempting to bridge the unbridgeable by making Christianity into something more acceptable to the non-evangelical world. That's one of the reasons why we're fighting many of these battles, because there are many in the church that want to be accepted by the world. And so we're going to rewrite the Bible, essentially, is what we're doing, or reinterpret the Bible, so that we can make it more palatable to the world and we can draw the world in. I read another article by a man named Jason Allen. He listed the seven battles the church faces today, and I won't give you all seven of them. Some of them we've already talked about, but one of the things he said is the church needs to recover the exclusivity of the gospel. He said, the evangelical church persists in a state of evangelistic slumber. He said, in my own denomination, which I think is Southern Baptist, baptism and giving permissions continue to slump. What is even more concerning is our collective lack of concern over these declines. The statistics are not just numbers, they're people in need of Christ. You know, it should concern us that we're not concerned more about lost. You should also concern us that the lost are not more concerned about the fact that they're lost. Because that's an indication that the church has lost its power. When the spirit of God is no longer convicting unbelievers of their sin, because the church is so worldly, the unbelievers don't see a whole lot of difference. Another thing he said, the church needs to nurture an experiential Christianity. The best truth is applied truth. The church must nurture that kind of Christianity. Getting away from just, you know, you make a profession of faith, and you never live any differently, and it doesn't matter, and you're accepted, and you're saved, and it's okay, and it doesn't matter how you live, or, you know, if you never even, there's never any fruit, but hey, you're saved. And he said, we've got to get back to the point where people actually live out their faith. He said also the church must rediscover its eschatological hope. I think Reformed theology, though not all Calvinists are soft on end times, eschatology, but there are many that their view of the end times is skewed and it is causing people to be more concerned about now and less concerned about the coming of Christ. And the coming of Christ should be a constant, you know, we're to be constantly looking for the coming of Christ. We don't know when he's coming, but we know he could come for the church at any moment and we're to be ready at every moment. The church must also recover a regenerate church membership, church members who are indeed born again. When churches populate their roles with those who show no signs of conversion, no signs that they're saved, and then leave them on their roles with no concern, they undermine the integrity and witness of their church, they hinder the testimony and integrity of the congregation, and they limit God's glory through the congregation to the community. So let me go back through that. When we allow people to continue to be church members, but they don't show any indication that they've actually been born again. Number one, it affects the witness of the church because what we're basically saying is you can be a Christian, live however you want. It doesn't matter. And it limits God's glory, you know, not only within the church, Does it hinder holiness? But outside the church, it limits our witness. Well, I see how he lives and he's a member of that church down there. That's the way Christians are. What, why should I get saved? He goes on to add an unsaved church membership undermines the integrity of congregationalism as a form of church government. We, we, um, we vote on things. You know, we have business meetings and we present recommendations to the church and we vote on things. Well, when we're voting on those things, essentially we're voting on the will of God. Well, how can a church make spiritual decisions if a lot of the people that are voting aren't even saved? Back in 1987, Erwin Lutzer published a book entitled Pastor to Pastor. In a chapter entitled, The Church and the World, Who is Influencing Whom, Lutzer made this observation. He said, within the evangelical camp, there's a growing trend toward accommodation. selecting what we like from the Bible and leaving the rest. We've been so caught up in the spirit of the age that we change colors like a chameleon to blind in with the latest worldly hue. When gay rights activists argue that homosexuality is but an alternate sexual preference, we find evangelicals writing books agreeing that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality. They say the Old Testament passages that condemn homosexuality are a part of the law that doesn't apply today, and that Paul was only condemning those who turned to homosexuality, not those who grew up that way. When the feminists pressed their demands for equality, some preachers restudied the New Testament and discovered that Paul didn't really mean what he wrote. They conclude that the husband is not the head of the wife, that women do have the right to be ordained. Even more frightening is one evangelical's conclusion that Paul's view of women was just plain wrong. When a socialist mood sweeps the country, we have Christians who advocate the application of a Marxist theory for the distribution of wealth. And when the peace movement gains momentum, some evangelicals jump on that bandwagon, too. In other words, we just, whatever the world is saying, we reinterpret the Bible to fit with the world's theory, that's what we say. He has another chapter entitled Christian Humanism, Old or New, and in that chapter, he quotes from Robert Shuler's book Self-Esteem, The New Reformation, which was published back in 1982. Schuller said, what we need is a theology of salvation that begins and ends with a recognition of every person's hunger for glory. He also said, sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem. You understand he's defining sin as anything that makes you feel bad? And he goes on to say, the gospel message, this is a quote, the gospel message is not only faulty, but potentially dangerous if it has to put a person down before it attempts to lift him up. If we have to tell men that they're sinners before they can be saved, we have a faulty gospel. That's what Schuller said. But you understand that even that, now there's a, that's a, you know, Schuller's in the dead today, and that book was written almost 40 years ago now. Actually, it wasn't 40 years ago. Wow, man, time's getting away. But anyway, but people are listening to that. And they're buying into that. And even people in evangelical churches, probably not so much in fundamental churches, but in evangelical churches, they're buying into this stuff and they're embracing this many times. And the fundamental churches are not far behind them. It's kind of frightening when you think about it. And so the church has to constantly confirm and establish truth and establish and confirm the people in the truth. I thought it was interesting as I was thinking about this in Paul's letters, he addressed specific issues that each church faced to confirm them in the faith. He wrote to the Corinthian church about worldliness and carnality because that was a problem and they needed to be confirmed and established in holiness and separation from the world and walking in the spirit and not in the flesh. So he writes two letters to them about these issues. In Galatians, Paul had to reaffirm the truth of the gospel. What is the gospel? Faith and works or faith alone? To the church at Philippi, there was disunity there that Paul had to address. There weren't doctrinal issues there, but there was disunity. And God wants his church to be unified. In Colossians, Paul had to address humanistic philosophies and legalism and asceticism. We become holy by separating from the world, not in the right sense, but just don't eat, don't touch, don't taste, don't handle. We can be holy if we just don't allow ourselves to do all this, this, that, and the other, instead of becoming holy through the spirit of God. In Thessalonians, he wrote about the rapture of the church and the second coming of Christ, because that was a concern. They weren't grounded in that truth. In 1 Timothy, he wrote about the doctrine and worship of the church, because that was a problem at Ephesus. In Titus, he wrote about doctrinal purity and practical Christian living. Paul's addressing issues that the church needed to be reminded of and established in and confirmed in these truths. And so we have to keep going back over and over and over these things, because if we don't, we'll lose them. And then lastly, as the church is grounded, when it is confirmed and established, it grows. Notice again, verse five of chapter 16 of Acts, when so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. And again, you know, as has been noted and said, I've said it and these other writers that I've quoted have said it, so much of the drift in the church today in America is intended to make the faith more acceptable to the world so that the church can grow. Well, the Bible says when they settle the truth and were established on the truth, the church grew. Not when they compromised truth and accommodated truth to the spirit of the age the church grew. No, the church grew when it was committed to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. When it contended for the faith, affirmed the faith, believed the faith, lived the faith, that's when the church grew. And I know sometimes when churches are accommodating, they're worldly, and they're teaching some of these philosophies, these ideas that are intended to make the church more acceptable to the world, sometimes they do grow numerically, but are they growing spiritually? And I will deny that occasionally somebody genuinely gets born again in these churches. Even that doesn't make it right. You know, that's pragmatism. Well, people get saved, so it's okay. Well, and it's not okay if we're not doing right. It doesn't matter what the result is. If we're doing wrong, it's wrong. And Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 2.14 that the natural man, that is the unsaved man, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. He doesn't have any heart for truth. Matter of fact, when you preach truth, When you actually stand up for truth, the world doesn't want to hear it. But it's the only way that people are going to be genuinely born again is by preaching the truth and affirming the truth. And the drift, as has happened in other places and is happening in America today, the drift has weakened the church and really is hastening its demise in America. Major denominations that embraced liberalism and worldliness are in decline. And again, the evangelical church and the fundamental church, in many cases, is falling right behind them. And in an effort to be relevant, we're reinterpreting many things in the word of God to try and make Christianity acceptable to the world. And all it does is kills the church. Because it says the Church has established that it genuinely grows. It grows by the Spirit of God and through the Word of God. So we have to constantly guard against drifting into doctrinal error and worldliness. And we're to encourage one another. In Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, it says, let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, to provoke unto love and good works. Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching. Again, we'll say more about this Sunday morning in our message, but we have a responsibility to one another to keep encouraging one another. Hey, don't drift. And not only don't drift into error, but don't drift into apathy. Because that kills the church as well. We need to be stirring one another up to love and good works. Let's stand together for prayer. Father, thank you that there were generations of preachers and godly Christian lay people that loved your word, loved the truth, and would not embrace error would not compromise, even though it just increased their hatred by the world. And in many cases, Father, we know that even other Christians looked down upon them, but yet they stood for truth. And we thank you for that because we heard the gospel in its purity and believed on Christ. And Lord, help us even here at Faith Baptist Church never to think that we would never compromise, that we would never be accommodating of the world. Lord, it can happen to us. It's happened to better churches than ours. And so Lord, help us to be committed to reaffirming constantly the truths that we believe, that we might not lose them. Help us to be willing to stand upon truth, even if it means the world hates us, and even if it means other Christians despise us. Lord, may we be committed to the truth. And we pray, Lord, that churches throughout America, those that are still preaching your word, won't compromise, that they'll stand true. Lord, maybe even some of those that have drifted, Lord, it's not beyond you to bring them back. And we pray that again for revival in America and our reaffirming of the fundamental truths of your word. And so Lord bless this message to our hearts tonight. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.