Pilgrim Baptist Church

📖 Proverbs 6:1-5 — Solomon spends five verses warning his son never to co-sign another man's debt. Then God does exactly that. There's a better suretyship — and it was signed in blood. This family integrated church sermon opens with one of the most practically searchable questions in biblical financial wisdom — should a Christian co-sign a loan? — and works verse-by-verse through Proverbs 6:1-5 before making a pivot nobody in a financial sermon expects. Solomon warns against suretyship because the cost is too high and the risk too great. Then Hebrews 7:22 lands: Jesus Christ became the surety of a better testament. He signed your debt in his own blood. If you've been searching for biblical wisdom on co-signing, finances, or what it means to be trapped by your own words, this message delivers both the practical answer and the gospel it points to. The bird doesn't negotiate with the fowler. The roe doesn't stop to reason with the hunter. When the trap is sprung, Solomon says one thing: run. But first — and this is the sermon's turning point — he shows you what it looks like when someone greater absorbs the trap you already walked into. The creditor was paid. The checkbook is balanced. And the bird cut free from the net was made for the sky. This verse-by-verse exposition of Proverbs 6:1-5 walks through Solomon's warning on co-signing, explaining: • What suretyship is and why the trap closes before the verse is finished • Why the creditor is a stranger — and why he's not required to care about your friendship • What it means that your mouth is the trap — you weren't ambushed, your own words ensnared you

📖 John 9:1-7 — The Holy Ghost spent more ink on one unnamed blind beggar than on the entire creation account. Heaven doesn't count the way we count. And God is not done with the dark season you're sitting in. This expository preaching series through John takes one of the most detailed miracle accounts in the New Testament and opens it from the ground up — connecting the pool of Siloam to the Emmanuel prophecy in Isaiah 7-8, the mud on the blind man's face to the dust of Genesis 1, and the disciples' wrong question to the wrong question every suffering person is still asking today. If you're in a dark season and asking who sinned, this verse-by-verse message through John 9:1-7 was preached for you. The disciples looked at a blind man and asked a theology question. Jesus looked at the same man and saw a canvas. His dark wasn't a dead end. It was a preparation. And the question was never who sinned — it was always what is God about to do? This sermon walks through exactly how the light of the world came looking for a man who never asked to be found, and what that means for every person sitting in darkness right now. This verse-by-verse exposition of John 9:1-7 walks through the opening miracle, explaining: • Why the Holy Ghost spent more verses on one blind beggar than on all of creation • How heaven counts — and why one man in the dark outweighs a galaxy • Why the disciples turned a suffering man into a theology test • What "his dark is nobody's paycheck" means — and why Jesus answered "neither" • Why the light of the world came looking for a man who never cried out • How the mud and clay connect John 9 to the creation account in Genesis 1

📖 1 John 4:7-12 — "God is love" is the most quoted three words in the Bible. It's also the most abused. John wasn't done writing when the world closed the book. Everyone knows "God is love." It's on coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and in the mouth of every person who wants to shut down a conversation about sin. But they quoted half a verse — and John was in the middle of a breath. This topical-doctrinal expository sermon through 1 John 4:7-12 does what the culture refuses to do: it finishes the verse. And when you finish it, you find a word the world cut out entirely — propitiation. That word is why a God of love still needed a cross. If you've been handed a soft, harmless, grandfather-in-the-sky version of God who's all love and no holiness, this message is for you. Because a God like that has no need of a cross. And a God with no cross can't save you. This verse-by-verse message through 1 John 4:7-12 walks through one of the most beautiful — and most misunderstood — passages in the New Testament, showing: • Why "God is love" is not the same as "love is God" — and what happens when you flip it • Where love actually comes from (and why it wasn't in your heart before salvation) • What "manifested" means — and why love is not a mood, a feeling, or a Sunday morning emotion • The first time love appears in the Bible: Genesis 22, a father, an only son, and a mountain • Why a God who is only love has no need of a cross • What propitiation actually means and why it's the word the coffee mug crowd skips • How the wrath of God and the love of God didn't cancel each other out at the cross — they met there • How to love difficult people

📖 John 8:54-59 — They asked if Jesus was greater than Abraham. He gave an answer that didn't claim more — it refused the scale entirely: "Before Abraham was, I AM." 📚 Part of our verse-by-verse expository series through the Gospel of John This expository preaching message through John 8:54-59 walks straight into the courtroom the religious leaders built around Jesus — and watches Him turn their own weapon in their hands. When they swung Abraham at Him, Jesus answered outside of time, claiming the covenant name of God: "Before Abraham was, I AM." If you've ever wrestled with who Jesus actually claimed to be, this verse-by-verse exposition on the deity of Christ is for you. This is not a sermon about a religious teacher who was a little higher on the scale than everyone else. Jesus didn't get on the scale at all. He made it. This message takes you from the temple courtroom to Mount Moriah to Calvary, and shows you that the same I AM who climbed the mountain with Abraham is the same Lamb who climbed the hill for you. Through deep, cross-referenced exposition, this teaching connects Genesis 22, Luke 1, Galatians 3, Hebrews 11, and Exodus 3 to show how Abraham "rejoiced to see my day" — and how the whole Bible has been pointing to one seed: Christ. This expository sermon walks through the text, explaining: • Why Jesus answers "My Father," not "your God" — relationship over title • The difference between knowing about God and knowing Him • A direct word to fathers: lead from the front, don't drive from behind • How Abraham saw Christ's day on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22) • "God will provide Himself a lamb" — the ram, the thicket, and the substitution

📖 Proverbs 5:20-23 — Sin isn't a rule you break. It's a rope that binds you — and the harder you pull to get free, the tighter it pulls back. This verse-by-verse exposition of Proverbs 5:20-23 confronts the bondage of sin head-on. If you've been asking why you can't break free from a sin you keep going back to — the screen, the bottle, lust, the habit you swore you'd quit — this sermon shows you what's really wrong with it. It isn't a list of rules. It's a rope. And freedom from sin doesn't come from pulling harder. The chapter ends with four movements: a question, an eye, a cord, and a grave. A heartbroken father doesn't ask his son "how" — he asks "why." Why trade a fountain at home for a puddle in the dark? And then the warning lands: the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord. There is no private sin. The same hand you reach out to embrace it with becomes the hand it binds. This message traces how a man becomes "holden with the cords of his sins" — active in his own ruin, but powerless in his own rescue — and then turns to the only One who can cut a cord no blade can break. Christ reached for the verbs that belong to us: we should have been taken, bound, swept away to die. They took Him. They bound Him. He bore the rope we braided. And He walked out of the grave. This expository sermon walks through the text, explaining: • Why the father asks "why," not "how" — heartbreak, not confusion (v.20) • "Trading a fountain for a puddle": contentment poisoned by a counterfeit • The eyes of the Lord that weigh the motive under the motion (Hebrews 4:12) • Why there is no such thing as private sin (Mark 4:22)

📖 1 John 4:4-6 — You don't become an overcomer by trying harder. You already are one — past tense, done deal — because of who lives inside you. Now live like it. This verse-by-verse expository message through 1 John 4:4-6 makes a claim most Christians struggle to believe: you have already overcome. Not someday, not if you perform well enough — past tense, settled, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. If you've been fighting spiritual warfare by your feelings and willpower and losing, this exposition shows you where the power actually lives — and it isn't in you, it's in the One who lives in you. John doesn't hand these "little children" a battle plan. He hands them their identity: you are of God, and you have overcome the flesh, the world, the devil, the false prophets, and the spirit of antichrist — all of it, past tense. Your feelings don't determine your position. Your Father does. Satan can circle the property all he wants. He cannot claim the deed. The chapter then turns to discernment. Verse 5 traces a three-link chain in the false teacher — their origin, their message, and their audience — and verse 6 gives the test: not "did it move me" or "did it draw a crowd," but does it line up with the faith once delivered? This is a sermon about being an overcomer and about discerning the spirit of truth from the spirit of error. This expository sermon walks through the text, explaining: - Why you "have overcome" is past tense — victory declared before it's explained (v.4) - The overcomer doesn't earn the position — he inherits a Person - Two beings, two indwellings: the Holy Spirit and the god of this world

📖 Proverbs 5:18–19 — If you are dissatisfied with your wife, God is not just offering you help. He is issuing you a command — and calling your dissatisfaction what it is. This biblical marriage sermon from Proverbs 5:18–19 is for the husband who has started drifting. The man who has been staring down the road. The man whose eyes have been trained by a screen culture that was engineered — on purpose — to make him perpetually dissatisfied with the wife God gave him. This family integrated church message from Proverbs 5 makes the case that chronic dissatisfaction with your wife is not a personality type or a rough patch. It is disobedience. And it has a remedy. If you are struggling with pornography and marriage, if you feel like the joy you once had for your wife is buried under years of difficulty and distance, Solomon wrote this passage for you. God did not give you a wife to tolerate. He gave you a fountain to tend — and He commanded you to be ravished with her love. Not when she is at her best. Always. Solomon pulls from Psalm 128, Malachi 2:14, Ecclesiastes 9:9, and Song of Solomon 8 to build a case that the world offers kindling and God offers coals. Kindling blazes for a moment and leaves ash. What God kindles in a marriage only deepens. The beauty that has been built through hard seasons, raised children, and kept vows is not less than what the world is selling. It is more. And the man with eyes to see it will always have more to look at — not less. A full man is a protected man. That is what this sermon is about. This expository preaching message through Proverbs 5:18–19 walks through the text and explains: Why God calls your wife a fountain

📖 2 Peter 2:4 — Satan didn't fall alone. A third of heaven went with him. Some of those angels are in chains right now. Some are not. This Bible study explains the difference — and why it matters today. 📚 Part of our verse-by-verse study on the Seven Judgments of God This fallen angels Bible study from 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6 lays out one of the most important and most misunderstood distinctions in Scripture: there are two groups of fallen angels, and they are not both doing the same thing right now. One group is already bound in chains in darkness, reserved for the great day of judgment. The other group is active — and they are the principalities, powers, and rulers of darkness that Ephesians 6 says you are already wrestling against whether you know it or not. If you have questions about the sons of God in Genesis 6, the Nephilim, why God commanded the destruction of entire races in Canaan, or what Daniel 2:43 means when it says they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men — this is the lesson that connects those texts and shows you why they fit together without contradiction. Satan has always been in the recruitment business. He is still recruiting. You say you're saved — and that's exactly why he wants you. Go witness publicly this week and see how fast you find out. This fallen angels study from Genesis 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 is not a rabbit trail. It is armor. And Ephesians 6 says you need it. This Bible study on fallen angels and spiritual warfare walks through the texts and explains: • Revelation 12 — Satan as the accuser of the brethren, still with access to the throne of God right now

📖 John 8:48–53 — They called Him a Samaritan. They called Him a devil. They thought name-calling would end the argument. They had no idea who they were standing in front of. This expository preaching message through John 8:48–53 traces one thread through the entire chapter — the I Am declaration of Jesus Christ — and builds to the most explosive claim in the passage: before Abraham was, I am. If you have ever wondered whether right doctrine is enough to save you, this verse-by-verse exposition of John 8 will answer that question with more force than you are expecting. If you are afraid to die — or if you have been carrying a form of religion that has never confronted the living Word — this message is for you. The same crowd who knew their theology, honored their bloodline, and claimed Abraham as their father stood in front of the I Am and completely missed Him. The preacher says plainly: you can carry the right doctrine and still die in your sins. This sermon explains why — and what the one saying is that makes the difference. The text moves through four distinct moments: Jesus absorbing two accusations without flinching, the difference between defending your reputation and honoring the Father, the Jews changing one word of the promise because they already expected to be swallowed by death, and the final declaration that silences every name they could bring forward. Abraham is dead. The prophets are dead. Every name ends at the grave — except one. And that one says: he that keepeth my saying shall never see death. This verse-by-verse John sermon walks through the passage and explains: • Why the Jews dropped the word argument and went straight for personal attack

1 John 4:1–4 • God gave the church a test for false prophets. Most Christians have never used it. Nobody gets deceived by a wolf that looks like a wolf. They get deceived by a wolf that has learned to bleat like a sheep. The devil isn't sending drunkards into pulpits — he's sending preachers. Right words. Right tone. Right tears. Wrong doctrine. Wrong spirit. In this verse-by-verse exposition of 1 John 4:1–4, Pastor Fortunato walks through the exact test the Apostle John gave the early church for identifying false prophets — and shows why feelings, crowds, signs, and wonders are not the test. The doctrine of the incarnation is. Every cult, every counterfeit gospel, every false Christ fails at the same point: who is Jesus Christ? Did God actually enter human flesh, or didn't he? From Genesis 3 to Deuteronomy 13 to 2 Peter 1, the Bible builds a consistent warning: the spirit of Antichrist doesn't come breathing fire. It comes breathing Scripture. And if you can't identify it by doctrine, you will not identify it at all. This verse-by-verse exposition walks through 1 John 4:1–4 and connected passages, explaining: • Why "believe not every spirit" is a command for every church member, not just discernment specialists • Why feelings, crowds, and signs and wonders cannot be your test for a true man of God • What Deuteronomy 13 says about prophets whose signs actually come to pass — but whose doctrine is wrong • Why the written Word of God outranks even the audible voice Peter heard on the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:18–19) • What it means that Jesus Christ "is come" in the flesh — and why the present tense matters for the resurrection