 Looking down at 2 Timothy chapter 3 in verse 16, the Bible says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. Really, all these points can be underneath the first couple points that I'm going to make, but I first want to point out that Baptist churches have always existed. Since the time of Christ, there's been Baptist churches. And you may not have found a Baptist church in the time of the apostles that's called something Baptist church. But what actually happened was when the Catholic church was formed, the Roman Empire formed with pagan Christianity and heretical Christianity. They instituted a doctrine of infant baptism and that's when the true Christians, they didn't come to the table on that stuff. And that was one of the reasons, but they didn't come to the table. And that's when you started hearing this term called out called the Anabaptist. And that was the people that were rebaptizing people. So they were basically not acknowledging the baptizing of babies like the Catholic, the Roman Catholic church was doing, and they became known as the Anabaptist. But before that, you know, there was basically people that held these doctrines that I'm going to list for you tonight. They've always existed back to the time of Christ. I often thought about when I was a kid, I grew up Lutheran. And in the small town, I think the town I grew up in was about 2000 people. In that small town, there was I think three or four Lutheran churches. There was a Catholic church. There's a Presbyterian church. There was I think there was a Baptist church. There was probably 10 or more Christian churches in that town. And I often thought to myself, even about the Lutheran church, you know, how do we know that we're the right one? You know, what church would Jesus go to if he came into this town? And that's, you know, one of the odds that this sect of the Lutheran church is the right Lutheran church is what I would think. And obviously, I was way off base. But I want to give you the doctrines that basically you could go back to and you could identify a Baptist church at any point in history. Okay. And don't ever let anyone call you a Protestant because a Baptist is not a Protestant. The Protestants broke off from the Catholic church during the the Reformation. And the Baptists were never part of the Roman Catholic church. So we weren't we're not protesting anything. We're holding the line as we've been holding since the time of Christ and the time of the apostles. So I want to walk you through these these points. Each of these points could be its own sermon. But I just want to kind of give you a primer about what it means to be Baptist, why the sign will say Baptist and why the sign is always going to say Baptist here, no matter what, you know, the name of this church becomes in in two years or three years or whatever. So the first point I want to make is that the first Baptist distinctive that you can you can see a Baptist church is that its head and founder is Christ. Period. Turn to Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one. While you're in Colossians chapter one, I'll read for you Ephesians chapter five. In Ephesians chapter five, in verse 22, the Bible reads, wives submit to your submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, he is the savior of the body. And if you're in Colossians chapter one, in verse 18, the Bible reads, and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. So Christ is the head of the church. There's no popes here. There's no cardinals here. It's Christ is the head of this body. It's a great model that he uses in Ephesians five that, you know, wives are to submit to themselves to their own husbands. The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. It's a model. It's a model that's where we'll talk about that a little bit more. But there's no popes here. There's no other authority in this church but Christ. He's the head. He's the founder. He created the church. Number two. And like I said, all of these points can really fall underneath these first two points. But the second point I want to make tonight, turn to second, well you're already in 2 Timothy chapter three, just stay there. It's only rule of faith and practice is the Bible, period. In 2 Timothy chapter two, we can reread verse number 14, the Bible reads, but continue thou in the things which thou has learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them, and that from a child thou has known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Now I will often tell people out soul winning because we go to people and either they're Catholic or they're not anything or whatever, I will often make the statement to people that, you know, we're Baptist. And if you understand what it means to be, do you know what it means to be Baptist? Basically what it means to be Baptist is we just believe this book, nothing more, nothing less. So I'll give that, I'll give that statement to certain people out soul winning if they seem confused, because there's a lot of confusion to people today. There's a lot of false, you know, heretics walking around the streets as well. You know, how do they know that we're not, you know, trying to tell them, hey, we're not one of these people. We're not Mormons, we're not Jehovah's Witnesses. We only believe the King James Bible, nothing more, nothing less. And if you really look at what's happened in, you know, Christianity in America, and I put that in quotes, it really has to do with that fact. Either these churches have added to the word of God, or they have taken away from the word of God. It's one of those two things, turned to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22. You know, you have your obvious ones, the Mormons, the Catholics, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they've added to the word of God. They've just added things that aren't in the Bible to the word of God. And it's unfortunate that most, more people don't understand and know what the word of God actually says, because a lot less, a lot fewer people would fall into these heresies. But if you look at Revelation chapter 22, but what God thinks about adding to or taking away from his word, the Bible says in Revelation 22, 18, for I testify under every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. If any man shall take away from the words of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. So God takes it pretty seriously when people either add to or take away from his word. Right? Now how many of you heard, I've heard this from people, oh that's just talking about the book of Revelation. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4. Well let's just see if we can find a concept in the Bible that God does not like people changing his word. Deuteronomy chapter 4, beginning of first few books of the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse number 2, the Bible reads, ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it. So don't add from it and don't take away from it is what he's saying. So there it is that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. So God doesn't want people changing his word. So plenty of people have added to his word and if you look at liberal Christianity today, which we're going to talk about in a few weeks in detail, what they have actually done is they have diminished from the word of God. So there's certain things that they just won't say that are in the Bible. You listen to them and it's hard to pick out what they're saying is that it's wrong because they're saying the things that are in the Bible, some of the things that are in the Bible. But let me ask you a question. If I knew a story and I left out important parts of the story and I told you this story over and over again, but I never told you the whole story, am I a truth teller? Am I somebody that tells the truth? I mean I consider it lying. If you preach certain parts of the Bible, but not other parts of the Bible and I believe God considers it lying as well. They're taking away from the word of God. So the Baptist, its only rule of faith in practice is the Bible, period. That's the second Baptist distinction and of course everything can come from that. But if we look at number three, its name, church or churches, turn to Revelation 22, you're still there hopefully. Revelation 22 and verse 16. The Bible reads, I Jesus have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and offspring of David. Once again there's the root and offspring of David that we've been talking about so many times in the last few days and the bright and morning star. There is no universal church. It does not exist in the Bible. It is a way for heretics to try to take ownership of God's churches. The Bible talks about specific churches or a church at Jerusalem, for example. We talked about that a couple days ago. There's no universal church. Now why did God do this? Have you ever thought about that? Why did God design it to where there's no universal church, where there's no one guy in charge of everything? Because think about it, think about large corporations that failed. Think about Enron, think about these big massive corporations that have fallen into bankruptcy. It was the one or two guys at the top that destroyed the whole thing. So God's plan is independent churches. You can see this plan when you think about God's design for the family. Think about God's design for the family. You're to be the leader of your family. You're to love your wife. If you're the husband, your wife is supposed to submit unto her husband. Now if you read those parts in Ephesians 5 where the Bible talks about the wife's responsibility and then the husband's responsibility, those are independent responsibilities. You are never going to see anything in the Bible that says, wives do this as long as your husband does this. It's an independent responsibility. That way you don't end up in these gang wars where oh you know I'm not respecting him and submitting to him because he's not doing this and this back and forth. No, you are to do your responsibility as a husband regardless of whether or not your wife does her responsibility towards you. It's that simple. It's a perfect design of these independent responsibilities much so the church is designed to be independent. So this is an, well this itself is not an independent church but this will hopefully, Lord willing, become an independent church. There are plenty of corrupted churches out there and unfortunately there's plenty of corrupted Baptist churches out there but they cannot corrupt other independent churches. That's the beauty of this design. So the idea here is that we're a satellite of Verity Baptist Sacramento. Hopefully, you know Lord willing we will become an independent church and we will be independent here regardless of what happens to other churches. If God takes some man down who's leading another independent church, which will happen, it will happen. Men will fall. Men are men. They will let you down. If some church goes, you know, goes into false doctrine that does not affect the independent church. It's a beautiful safe design and it's one of the things God has put in place to make sure that the gates of hell do not prevail against this church. Number four, its members are saved people. Church is for the saved in the Bible. You will not see gatherings of unbelievers called a church in the Bible. In 1 Peter you don't have to turn there. 1 Peter chapter 2 the Bible says, you also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Now this right here is the main difference between liberal Christianity and a true biblical church. Now I'm not saying that there's never going to be unsafe people that walk in here. Obviously, we want people to come here to church but that's going to be the exception, not the rule. People are going to come here and then if they're not saved, we're going to give them the gospel and get them saved but what you're not going to see is massive amounts of unsaved people coming to church here for a year because the preaching of the Bible and the preaching of us giving them the gospel is either going to get them saved or they're not going to feel comfortable here and they're going to get out and that's the way the church is supposed to be designed. That's why I'm not going to sit here and feed you the gospel every single Sunday morning because you're all saved, I'm assuming. You're all saved. We need to grow and learn the Bible here. So church is for the saved. That is a Baptist distinctive and you're going to find out when you go soul winning in this community you're going to find out that most of these churches are filled with unsaved people. I mean some Baptist churches are going to be filled with unsaved people. I mean it's unfortunate but that's where we're at today. Item number five, it's ordinances. Believers' baptism followed by the Lord's Supper. So believers' baptism and the Lord's Supper. Turn to Matthew chapter 26. Let's look at the Lord's Supper. Let's look at the Lord's Supper. In Matthew chapter 26 in verse, well let's start in verse 26. The Bible reads, as they were eating Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples and said take, eat. This is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins. Now does that say that taking the Lord's Supper forgives sins? Is that what that says? That's what I was taught my whole life was that taking the Lord's Supper was a sacrament and it actually forgives sins. It grants you grace. It's a means of grace. That's garbage. It's not in the Bible. If we look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Flip over there real quick. Practicing the Lord's Supper does not forgive sins. It's a command by the Lord Jesus Christ. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, if you look at verse 24, the Bible reads, and when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Underline that in your Bible. Verse 25, in the same manner also he took the cup when he had supp, saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as ye drink it in what? Remembrance of me. So that's why we're going to do the Lord's Supper here once a year, typically before Easter in a Baptist church, and we do it to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. We do it too in remembrance of Jesus. That's why we do it. We don't do it for salvation. It's crazy. It's not in the Bible. Believers' baptism. Notice how I said believers' baptism. In Acts chapter 8, I'm sure you're all familiar with it. Acts chapter 8, you can go ahead and turn there in verse 36. Basically, you have, Philip has just preached the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch. He's just gotten him saved, and the eunuch asked Philip in verse 36, and as they went on their way, they came unto certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? In verse 37 is removed from many Bible versions. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. It's a picture. In Romans, one of the, my wife was the lady's attendant for baptism at Verity Baptist Church, and she would go through before people got baptized at Verity Baptist Church. She will do the same here. She will talk to people before they get baptized, make sure that they know what baptism means, that it's a picture of us and identifies us with our fellow believers. And in Romans 6 verses 3 and 4 is one of the verses she will take people to before they get baptized, because in Romans 6 and verses 3 and 4 the Bible reads, Know ye not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death. Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death. That's a picture of you dunking under the water that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so also we should walk into newness of life. Coming out of the water pictures the resurrection, and then it pictures us walking in that newness of life that we should walk in. This is the biblical baptism. And you ask, you know, why was it called, why were Baptists called Baptists? Why were they called Anabaptists? It's one part of the doctrine that we believe in. And it's not even really, you know, salvation or part of the gospel or anything like that. It's a command of God. It's a command that we're supposed to do after we get saved. The reason just happened to be that it was one of the first battles that, you know, Christians fought against major heresy. And when the Catholic Church brought in the practice of the Roman Catholic Church, I should always say that, brought in the practice of infant baptism, really that was an attack on the gospel. You say, what's the big deal? What the big deal is that they were adding works to salvation. And so that's why so many Baptists throughout history, many Baptists have been killed over this one doctrine of infant baptism versus believers baptism. So the martyrs thought it was a big deal. You know, the people that died throughout history thought it was a big deal when they were burned, when they were tortured, when they were killed. It's a big deal. We believe in believers baptism. It identifies you with the gospel. It identifies you with a local assembly of believers. And it identifies you mainly with Christ. Okay. Now, item number six, it's officers are pastors and deacons. This is what the Bible teaches. In 1 Timothy chapter three, you can go ahead and turn there. In 1 Timothy chapter three, we see the qualifications of pastors and deacons. In the Bible, a pastor and a bishop are used interchangeably. Those two words are the same thing. And in 1 Timothy chapter three, in verse number one, the Bible says, this is a true saying. If a man desired the office of a bishop, he desired the good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy liquor, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleeth well his own house, having his children of subjection with all gravity. For if a man not know how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without, lest he fall into reproach in the snare of the devil. Likewise, must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not too much wine, not greedy of filthy liquor, many of the same qualifications for the deacons, holding the mystery of faith in pure conscience. Let those also be first proved, then let them use the office of deacons being found blameless, even so their wives be grave, not slanderer, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own house as well. So you have the pastor of the church, and then you have deacons which were established in Acts chapter 6 to be help meets to the pastor of the church. Some pastors have deacons, some don't, but those are the only two offices described that are to be in the church. And you'll notice that a lot of these qualifications for the bishop or the pastor, same thing, are qualifications that you can get qualified for. They're things that, you know, you cannot, if you're a novice now in the Bible, you can get to be not a novice by learning the Bible, by studying, by reading, things like that. If you are, you know, given to wine or you're, you know, all those types of things, you can, you can get those things out of your life. You can become qualified in these areas. Some qualifications you can't if you've been married several times. You know, there are things that disqualify you from being a pastor or a deacon. All right. So those are the two offices of the church. It's a Baptist distinctive. Number seven, it's work. We talked about this week ago. What is the first work? What's the work of this church? The work of this church is getting people saved. First of all, it's preaching the gospel and this is going to lead into a few of the other Baptist distinctives that I want to list for you tonight. It's getting people saved. It's baptizing them with a biblical baptism and then it's discipling them in the Christian life, you know, to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. You know, in Revelation chapter two, remember the first works when Jesus was talking to the church at Ephesus. These are the first works that are Baptist distinctives. So these are the works that we will do here and we will continue to do here and that's how you know that this is a Baptist church. Number eight, it's financial plan according to the Bible. Something that we're probably not going to talk a lot about here, but just, you know, just so you know, you know, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter nine. The Bible does talk about this. The Bible does talk about this. In 1 Corinthians chapter nine, the Bible talks about a pastor being paid, a pastor being, you know, financially taken care of. And in 1 Corinthians chapter nine, the Bible reads, do you not know, do you not know that they which minister about holy things live the things of the temple and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar. Even so, at the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. So a pastor should be paid. So the pastor of your church, this church, pastor Jimenez, should be paid and he is paid and it's biblical. It's very biblical. Now everyone, you know, everyone thinks things are free today. You know, things cost money and you know, the satellite model of this church actually is that we will part of that model is that we will become financially independent. And then that will show, you know, that we can become an independent church. That's one of the things that is being looked at, just so you know. And now tithing, tithing and offerings is that biblical. Look at Malachi chapter three. Let's take a look at that for a minute. In Malachi, if you, it's the last book of the Old Testament. So go to Matthew and then just flip one book backwards. In Malachi chapter three, in verse number eight, the Bible reads, will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me, but you say wherein we have robbed thee in tithes and offerings. You say, well that's the Old Testament. Tithing is an Old Testament thing. Okay, I'm glad you brought that up. Turn to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. Jesus is, once again, he's rebuking. In Luke chapter 11, he's rebuking the Pharisees. And Jesus in verse number 42 of Luke chapter 11, he says, but woe unto you Pharisees, for ye tithe, mint and rue and all manner of herbs and Passover judgment, and the love of God, these ought ye to have done. So he's saying, these things that you should have done, you're doing the tithing and not to leave the other undone. So they're leaving certain things undone, but the tithing, he says, that's what you're supposed to do. And if you don't tithe, which is 10% of the first fruits of your labor, you're robbing God. So I personally don't want to rob God. So I tithe. Things cost, it makes sense for God to set up that model. Things aren't free. I think about the blessing of this building all the time, how we found this building. It was cheaper than anything we looked at. It's large enough for us to have, but these things cost money. So we need to be thinking about that. It's in the Bible. We need to do those things as well. So that is the financial plan of the church. It's through tithes and offerings. Number nine, it's weapons of warfare. It's weapons of warfare, a Baptist's distinctive. Our weapons of warfare are spiritual, not carnal. Sorry to disappoint. In Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12, you should turn there. I'll read for you 2 Corinthians in chapter 10 verse 4. In 2 Corinthians, the Bible reads, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. In Ephesians chapter 6 and verse number 12, the Bible reads, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood. There you have it, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Now this is one thing that personally angers me a lot. If you look through Baptist history, and you look back from the time of Christ, and you look at the history of the churches that hold to these doctrines, I don't care what you call their names, the Waldencians, the Donates, whatever you want to call them, if they held to these doctrines there, those are Baptist's distinctive. If you look at those churches, and you look at the persecution that those churches went through, what you will never see is someone raising an army and trying to raise an army against, fighting against the Catholic Church, and when some Christian, some Baptist is put on trial because of his views on baptism, you're never going to see him going out and raising, starting a militia and all this kind of stuff. You know what he does? He preaches the gospel, he keeps preaching, and he keeps preaching until he's dead, until he goes to glory. That's what he does. So don't, we may speak a lot of things that the government in this country should be doing, which is biblical, and we're going to speak those things, but when people write news articles and things that say, oh we're inciting people to violence, that's a bunch of garbage, because as soon as things get bad, and as soon as persecution starts, as soon as tribulation starts in this world, the first people that they come for is going to be us, and we're going to do nothing but preach the gospel, and we're going to keep preaching, and the Bible says that the Holy Ghost will give us the words to say in those times, and that's the truth of it, and we have history to back us up. So to say that, you know, it angers me greatly when people write lies like that, because our, the Bible clearly tells us, and it's a Baptist distinctive that our weapons are spiritual, and you know what? It's the most powerful weapon, is this sword right here. It's the most powerful, because it will cut through, it will cut through the hearts of men, and that's why we need to use it. Now, it's independence. The last point that I have tonight, the last Baptist distinction that I have for you tonight, or the last distinction of the Baptist church is its independence, the separation of church and state that the Baptist stands for. Turn to Matthew chapter two, Matthew chapter two. In a lot of people, I don't think a lot of people actually know this, but the Baptist has always stood for religious freedom. In Matthew chapter two in verse 21, the Bible says, they say unto him, they say unto him Caesar's, then sayeth him unto them, render therefore unto Caesar. Jesus had just asked them, let's go back, let's go back a couple verses. Let me, Matthew chapter two in verse 21. So they're trying to catch Jesus like they always do, and they're asking him, you know, they're trying to get him to say that he doesn't want to pay taxes. They're trying to turn Jesus into a tax protester, okay? And in verse number 20, Matthew chapter two, where am I going wrong here? Matthew two verse 21, am I not right there? Anyway, let me just, I've got the chapter wrong here, but they say unto him Caesar's, they said, you know, what he says, whose name is on the coin? They said, should you pay taxes? He said, whose name is on the coin? And they said unto him Caesar's, then sayeth he unto them, render therefore the things that are Caesar's, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. So he said, give, let him have his money. So to be a Christian tax protester is idiotic. Jesus was never, was never for it. He said, you know, he said, go get a fish and get the coin out of the fish's mouth and just pay the stupid tax and let's get on with the ministry. That's what he said, all right? So look, Baptists have always stood on the side of religious liberty for all. And many people don't know this, but if it wasn't for the Baptists in this country, we would not have the First Amendment. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was heavily influenced by Baptists to write the First Amendment of the Constitution. What happened was just to, let me summarize the story for you. There were men like Patrick Henry, have you heard of Patrick Henry, who were trying to push for a religious tax? And what they were doing was they wanted to have a religious tax and they brought in the Baptists and they said, hey, we're going to have a religious tax so people can pay a tax and it can go to the denomination of their choice. And there was like four or five denominations that they had picked, you know, the congregationalists, the Presbyterians, all these. And they're, they told the Baptists, they're like, hey, we'll make you one of them. We'll make you one of them. For once, you're not going to be persecuted. We'll bring you to the table. The Baptists said we don't want any part of it. We don't want any part of it. And they convinced James Madison to write the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. And the Baptists has always, throughout history, starting with the Catholic Church, pressed for religious freedom. Why? Why is this? We talked about this a week ago. The design of salvation can't be forced. So you can't force salvation with the sword. So they've always needed people because the Baptists has always been out preaching the Gospel. He's always been out trying to convince people to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ because that is salvation. It's by faith alone. You can't force that with the sword. So the Baptists has always been vehemently against any kind of state intrusion into religion. And because of the Baptists in this country, we have religious liberty. We have the First Amendment. You know, the First Amendment basically says Congress shall make no law respecting, there's two clauses. The establishment of religion, which is called the establishment clause, and also prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So we have that because of the Baptists in America, the early Baptists in the 1780s. So thank you, because I think that we're actually going to need that in the coming years in this country. We're going to need it because right now we can go out and we can exercise our religion however we want, which means we can decide who comes into this church and who's a part of this church and who's not for any reason. That's pretty important in the country we're living in. I think the Baptists, throughout history, we're probably thinking about religious liberty and religious freedom in the sense of preaching the gospel, which is great, but I think we're going to need it for some other reasons, because we're going to need to keep certain people out of this church, and right now the Constitution of the United States protects that. So thank God for the Baptists throughout history, especially the Baptists formation in this country, because things were heading in a very different direction. Things were headed right down the direction that they were before. That's why the Baptists was not part of the Roman Empire marrying itself with whatever that church was called. The Baptists said we don't want any part of it. Christ is our head, not some man. The Bible is our only source of doctrine. That's it. We don't want anything to do with the state, anytime, anywhere. And because of that, we have that. So we're independent. We're independent from the government. So let me just recap this for you. Baptists' distinctives. Why the sign will always say Baptist? Our founder is Christ. Our only rule of faith in practice is the Bible. Its name is church or churches, the church in Fresno, or the independent churches across this country. Its members are saved people, are the members of this church. If you're saved, you can be a member of this church in Fresno, California, this church. Its ordinances, believers' baptism, followed by the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is to remember the sacrifice of Christ. There is nothing in the Bible talking about it being a sacrament or anything weird like that and complicated like that. It is to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as He bears our sins in His own body. That's what it's for. Believers' baptism, it's a command from Jesus once you're believed to identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And a local group of believers in this church. It's work. Getting folks saved, baptizing them and growing them as disciples. That's what we need to do here. We're going to go out, we're going to get people saved, we're going to bring them here, we're going to get them baptized and then hopefully, God willing, we're going to disciple them and grow them into soul winners and grow them into faithful, saved members of this church where we can see them grow and get other people saved. It's a beautiful model and it's exponential if it works correctly. Its financial plan, ties and offerings. It's the ties and offerings. It's the first 10% of the fruits of your labor. That's what the Bible teaches. Its weapons of warfare are to be spiritual and not carnal. And I mean, that is so clear in the Bible. People that say other things, they're just lying. And it's independence. Finally, it's independence. These things, they all work together. One last note on independence. When people bring up all the problem in this country started in 1970, when they took the Bible out of school and all this kind of stuff. To me, I don't want the Bible in school. I don't want the government school system reading the Bible to my kids, which aren't there in the first place anyway. But the last thing you want is the public education system today teaching the Bible to any kids. I'll tell you that right now. And the problem in this country started with the development and the acceptance of the population of America in the idea that the government is to educate your kids in the first place. That was the problem. That the government, that there should be a public education system to begin with is where it all began. And when people gave up, gave up this responsibility to raise their own kids to the government, that's where it all went wrong. It wasn't with the Bible being in or out of school. That's irrelevant. It's like gay marriage. I mean, call it whatever you want. It's not marriage. I can tell you I'm an elephant up here. That doesn't make me an elephant. I mean, it's stupid. Anyway, those are the nine Baptist distinctives. That's why our sign will always say Baptist. That's what, these could all be a sermon. I just kind of touched on the, but I want you to know that these churches have always existed throughout history. There's always been a Baptist church somewhere. The gates of hell have not prevailed against the church that Jesus created. They haven't prevailed. You can find it all throughout history. A great book, if you want to read a book on it, it's more of a booklet. It's about 80 pages long. It's called The Trail of Blood. It's a great book. It's by a man named James Carroll. And it just documents how there's always been people that hold to these doctrines throughout history. A great DVD is the documentary that Verity Baptist Church made on being Baptist. That's a great DVD to give people out soul winning after they get saved, especially, hey, this is what it means to be Baptist. And then they're going to watch that DVD and they're going to be like, okay, to be Baptist basically means you just believe the Bible. All those things come from this, the Bible. That's our gospel. That's our rules of faith and practice. It's why we do things the way we do as far as baptism, the Lord's supper, everything. It's just because of the Bible. So when you're out soul winning, if people are confused, just tell them, hey, we believe this book, nothing less, nothing more. Okay? With power heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this church. We thank you for these people that came tonight. Now Lord, we thank you for your Bible and we thank you for the doctrines contained in this Bible. We also thank you for the churches, Lord, that have gone through the ages from the time of your Son Jesus until now that have been an example for us, that we can keep moving forward, Lord, that we can keep this church of yours alive on this earth, this church in Fresno, that we can follow these doctrines and that we can keep this charge and do the first works, Lord. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.