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"The Importance Of The Right Church" - Pastor Edwin Anderson - May 11. 2024
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"The Importance Of The Right Church" - Pastor Edw…
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Praise the Lord. Thank you pastors. Pastor Craig, Pastor Jenny. Praise the Lord. Thank you congregation. Like my wife said, for just showing up tonight, coming out on a Saturday night, it's, it's a thrill for us to be here. We, we love your pastors. Like Pastor Craig said, when we met, there was just a connection and we've been building on that for many, many years. And, and we're just starting. We have a, Until Jesus comes back, we're going to have a high time together. Yes. And we love them and for, you know, just for who they are, their personalities, they're open, they're warm, they're, they're people that, like I said, that think you don't need to just be around people that think like you do. But it is refreshing when you think maybe you're a little off, you know, that you find somebody that you think it's pretty, got it together and, and they kind of have an idea that you have. You think, well, that redeems me, you know, But I want you to know that they are top. And you already know this, but they are top, top shelf, top quality. They have taken care of us. And the same thing is not anything new. When we were here, the last time to preach was in 2015. And they always take care of their guests with the most excellence and that is just a reflection of their heart. It's a reflection of your church and what is in your church because the excellence that your pastor has permeates throughout a church and we can see it everywhere. And we're just so thrilled to be here. We really are. And thank you again pastors, for having us. You can be seated. Praise the Lord. We love you. Take me a minute here to get my gadgets up and running. Well, glory to God. You know, your pastor was talking about the message of faith and the move of the spirit is so important. And you know this. I know you've read Brother Hagin's dad Hagin, we called him his life story and heard other people talking. I know you've had Reverend Greer here, one of our just most high ranking friends and associates and we're just honored to know him. You've heard him preach, I'm sure along the same line and say these kinds of things. But you know, when Jesus appeared to his mother, when she was carrying him before he was born, he tells this story in the book I believe in visions, but he only tells part of the story and he tells that his mother was walking toward her house and she saw this cloud and there was nothing there. Was no other clouds in the sky. And she felt wind blowing. There were no other trees, but she saw this little cloud, tiny cloud coming down. And as it came down, it got bigger, and then it got just over her. And I might not say it exactly like, but Jesus was there on the cloud. And he came down and he started talking to his mother, dad Hagin's mother, and said, you know, fear not. The Lord will be born and will be, you know, good, because she was having problems with her pregnancy. And he tells a little bit about it, but he doesn't tell everything about it. And in 2001, for the first time, after over 50 years of never saying anything about this, some people can't keep a secret for 50 minutes, let alone 50 years. And in 2001 at Campmeeting, he, for the first time publicly, and he had told some people privately, but not very many people knew the rest of the story. But he told it at campmeeting in 2001. He said what the Lord Jesus said to. To his mother about him was that the thing that he left out of the book was that he would have a part to play in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ getting the church ready. And he said that he will go in the spirit of John the Baptist. And like John the Baptist, was a forerunner of the first coming of Christ, Kenneth Hagin, in a measure, would be the forerunner or a forerunner of the second coming of Christ. And he told his mother to name him John, but she didn't. She named him Kenneth. And so when the Lord showed him this and told him about it, because his mother didn't tell him, the Lord told him about it, I think in 1950, if I'm right. Yeah. And told him the rest of the story. And his mother had never told him that part. So the next week when he saw her, he said, this is what Jesus told me. And of course, she confirmed that what Jesus said was what happened. And he said that, you know, he didn't tell it for all of those years because he knew it would be misunderstood. I knew dad Hagin a little bit personally. We went to Rhema Bible training center in 1979, went for one year and graduated. And so I followed his ministry since the early 70s. And as you know, about dad Hagin, he was always very. The most humble man. He never wanted to promote himself. He always wanted to promote Jesus. In fact, he would never let Pastor Craig introduce him like he did to me tonight, did for me tonight, because he never wanted anybody to say anything about him. And People would try to say, well, you know, he's a great man of God. And he would always say, no, I'm just an ordinary man with a great God. And he said, you know, that really what Jesus was saying was that not just. Not just the person in John the Baptist, that forerunner was encapsulated or embodied in one person, in a man. But in Kenneth Hagin's case, the forerunner, that forerunner ministry is embodied in the ministry that he had. And he went on to say, you are all part of it. All of you rhema graduates and all of you preachers and all of you lay people that have taken this message of faith authority and the move of the Holy Spirit are part of this. Of this ministry. And so what your pastor said about the importance of having a church where doctrine is good and it's. And it's the word of faith, the word of faith is so important. I came from a classical Pentecostal denomination, and I was backslidden for a few years in my teenage years. And when I was 20, I got back into fellowship with the Lord. And we had all of these inconsistencies, doctrine. We believed one thing, but it didn't come to pass. And then people would make excuses. We always were making excuses for why somebody didn't get healed and why somebody died young and why misfortune fell to some people and other people seemed to be blessed. So we had all of these little excuses, and I could never make things fit. And when I was introduced to the ministry of Kenneth Hagin, that message of faith, the authority of the believer, who we are in Christ, all of the benefit package that goes with our new creation, what a revelation. If any man is in Christ, he's the work of a new creation. Old things are dead, gone, buried, never coming back. And all things are new. Glory to God. Well, that, that message, it connected the dots because I knew my Bible fairly well because I was a. I was. I was drugged when I was a kid, I was drugged to church. So I didn't have any choice. I had to go to church. And most of the time I enjoyed it until I became a teenager. And. But, you know, I learned a lot. I was in Sunday school every Sunday all of my life, except the few times we were on vacation. And so I sat in a lot of church services and heard a lot of ministry, but things didn't connect. The message of faith is the most important message for our generation because it is the message that equips the church to be the church that we're supposed to be. That we must be in order for Jesus to return and catch us away. And it's the message of faith and the move of the Holy Spirit. And dad Hagin lived and demonstrated both of those. And so that's why it's so important God raises up churches like this. Who will take the pure, unadulterated, non ashamed, unashamed gospel of total faith in victory and who we are in Christ and everything that belongs to us without any reservation, without trying to explain anything away. If there's any failure, it's on our part. It's not on God's part. So I so thank God for this, that I was privileged sometimes. Almost every day, almost every day in my prayer time, almost every day. I will just give thanks to God and I will start with my lineage. I'm grateful for my heritage in the church that I grew up, and I'm thankful for my parents. When my grandmother got saved in 1918 and was filled with the Holy Ghost, she was the first person in her family when. Well, excuse me, her brothers, who would be my great uncles, they got saved before she. They were all orphans and they got saved. Her two brothers got saved. And then they invited her to a brush arbor meeting. You've heard about those. Well, that was. It was just a little covering out in the woods in a wooded community, just some post in the ground. And they put a thatched roof over it with palm branches and stuff. And they sometimes would throw some sawdust down on the floor if they could get. Some other times they wouldn't, or on the ground and they'd have church there. It was called a brush arbor. She went to a brush arbor meeting and she was 19 years old and she got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. And when she got filled with the Holy Spirit, when she went home, she couldn't speak in English. And so that was where my heritage started. And so I give thanks to the Lord for my grandmother and then my parents, not only my dad's side, but on my mom's side, they came into Pentecost very early on. And so my parents and then being raised in that church and the wonderful things that I learned. Though I didn't have all the dots connected, I still had a lot of truth. But then I get around to 1972 when someone put a book by Kenneth Hagin in my hand, it just completely rocked my world. I'd never read any, and I thought, that's why it doesn't work. We've not been believing, we've not been speaking, we've not Been acting in faith. And all of the things that I learned so transformed my life. I give thanks to God all the time about it. I mean, I do. I'm so thankful. And so I'm thankful to be here tonight. I believe the Lord has some things for us that'll help us. Amen. So why don't we pray, then we'll get into the word. Father, we thank you tonight for your goodness and your blessing in our lives. We thank you Father, for your faithfulness, your unfailing faithfulness. You've been so faithful and so good. And we're grateful, Father. We're thankful, Father, for the opportunity to have the Word of God to hold it in our hands and be able to read it and get it down into our spirits. And we're so grateful for revelation, knowledge, the understanding and the quickening of the Spirit, the enlightenment that rises up on our on the inside of us and our spirit man and brings light and revelation and shows us the way and shows us the answer. We thank you Father, that that's done by the work of your precious Spirit who lives on the inside of us. So tonight, Father, as we look to the Word, going to discuss some things tonight that will be helpful. But Father, I look to you and all of us look to you and we look to the greater one, the Holy Spirit who lives on the inside to take the things that are said. Take my. My mouth and my ability and superimpose your ability on top of that. Enable me to say what you want to say me to say in the way you want me to say it. And then give all of us hearing ears, open hearts, receptive hearts, Father, so that we will hear what the Spirit is saying to the church tonight. That we might hear it, understand it, do it, act on it, and be blessed and receive the benefit. Father, we thank you for every good thing that will be done in Jesus name. Amen. Would you turn with me please tonight to Romans chapter 10? Romans chapter 10. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Romans chapter 10. And we're going to read verse number 17. Romans 10. 17. So then faith comes by hearing, or you could say it comes from hearing. It comes through the activity, the action of hearing, but not just hearing, not just any kind of hearing and hearing through the Word of God. So then faith comes from hearing and hearing through hearing the Word of God. Amen. Now I want you to turn with me, if you would, to Mark's Gospel and look at the fourth chapter, Mark's Gospel, chapter four. In verse 24. Then he Jesus, Mark 4, 24. Then he said to them, take heed what you hear. Take heed what you hear. Keep a watchful eye. One translation says, keep a watchful eye on what you hear. You know, you ought to be judging everything you hear by the Bible. It doesn't matter whether someone's intentions are good or not. They help, I guess. But the important thing is it in line with the word of God. He said, take heed what you hear. Or you could say, give heed to what you hear with the same measure you use. It will be measured to you and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has to him more will be given. But whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. Now you think, well, how in the world can that be? How can you take something away from someone that doesn't have it? Well, you have to qualify what he meant in verse 25 by verse 24. Whoever has this is the person who takes heed to the word that he hears. The person who takes heed to the word that he hears. The same measure that he uses in heeding the word is what is used in measured back and being measured back to him. So the person that he says who does not have this is not someone who hasn't heard. This is someone who has heard, but who did not take heed to what he heard. And so because he didn't take heed to it, that same measure of not taking heed, giving heed to what he heard was. Was multiplied back to him, which was a minus. Took away the little that he had because he didn't act on. Doesn't do any good to come to church and hear the preacher preach if you're not going to act on it. Listen, I like Amens. I like an enthusiastic congregation. It's helpful. I love it. But it really doesn't do anyone any good if we don't take what we hear and act on it. We should be changed every time we hear the word of God. We ought to have. We ought to walk away with something that helps us, that gives a little more light, a little more understanding, a little more even refreshing and just encouragement and blessing. But we have to act on what we know. Amen. Praise the Lord. So I want to talk to you a little bit tonight about the importance of the right church. The importance of the right church. And I want to ask the question rhetorically, does it really matter which church you go to? Does it really matter? Does it really matter? Well, you know, the prevailing view in the church world is that it doesn't really matter. I said, the prevailing attitude most Christians have is that it doesn't really matter as long as you go somewhere. Now, the world side of that is it doesn't really matter what God you believe in or what you believe or who you believe, as long as you believe in something. Before I got back into fellowship with the Lord, you know, as a teenager, I got very Away from the Lord and the gang that I was running with, I'd gotten out of church and the gang that I was running with, none of. I separated myself from all my church friends that I grew up with, didn't have any fellowship with any of them because they brought me under condemnation. And so all my new friends, the friends that I had, I didn't want anybody in school to know that I went to that kind of church, you know, So I found friends that didn't go to church at all. And all of the friends that I had as a young man, none of them went to church. Their families, their back, their parents didn't go to church that I knew of, had no evidence of any godly influence. And, you know, I remember after I got back into fellowship with the Lord, I was driving down the street one day and I passed an old friend's house, and he lived on kind of a busy road. And there were four or five of my old buddies. And it hadn't been that long since I'd gotten saved or, you know, back into fellowship with the Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit. It'd been a year or so, and I had my young son with me. He was about three, I think. And I drove. I stopped and turned around and went over. Of course, you know, I knew all of them and hadn't. Hadn't been that long since we had talked and, hey, how you doing? I'm doing fine, you know, good to see you, man. All that stuff, you know, and where you been? Hadn't talked to you. I said, well, I met Jesus. Oh, boy, the eyes start rolling. So you found Jesus, did you? Well, good for you. I said, listen, I'm telling you, he's changed my life. He's totally changed my life. And I remember this one particular guy, his name was Donald. And he said very patronizingly, he said, edwin. He said, I think it's great that you found something to believe in. I think everybody should have something to believe in. I'm glad you found what is good for you. Then he said, but he said, I give you three years. He said, this will pass. Now, he's a sage now he's a wise man. He said, I'm telling you it will pass. And this is just a phase you're going through. I don't mean to reverse your bubble, but you know, well, years later I'm pastoring probably. I'd been pastoring 35 years maybe, when a woman starts coming to my church that I grew up with in Jacksonville, Florida, and I live in the central part of the state where we grew up on the coast. And she brought her mother and her mother was. She passed away about two, three years ago. Her mother was kind of a contemporary with my mother, that age group, you know, and everybody knew each other. So this lady that started coming to church, a woman my age, and brought her mother, her sister that I also grew up with, is an attorney's legal secretary in Jacksonville. And Donald is an attorney now, I think he's retired in the last year or so and close the business down. But he was an attorney. And I said, oh, really, o' Donnell is your boss, is he? Oh, yeah. And she said, I told him that I was going to your church. He said, to tell you hello. I said, well, I have something to tell him. And I said, you. And I told her the story. I said, I remember it vividly. I don't know if he does or not, but if he doesn't, I'll remind him. You said, I give you three years tops. I said, I've. That was in 1973. So I made it past three years. And I don't know if she told him that. I guess she did. But it thrilled me to know that God has carried me all of these years. And I've never been disillusioned. I've never wanted anything else. I've never been sorry. I've never met a Christian yet that says, you know what? Yeah, I've been saved, but really hadn't been all that great. I wish I'd found some other religion. I've never known of a Christian that has said that. So the prevailing view among the world is it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe. Well, there's a lot of people in the church, they believe as long as you go to church, it really doesn't matter where you go. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. Fact is, you might be hopefully pointed to heaven from a lot of different churches. Now there's some churches you won't even be pointed to heaven. So called churches, church in name only. And I'm so thankful when I got back in fellowship with the Lord, when I left that local church 17 years old. I was very angry, very rebellious. And I won't go into all the detail. It's not as simple as this, but in a sense, I got thrown out of that church. I mean, they. They embarrassed us. I left on my own, but was what they did to my wife and me. And I said in my heart, I'll never. I'll never walk through those doors again. I guarantee you when I leave here. And I won't tell you everything else, I said, when I got back into fellowship, Lord, guess where the Lord sent me. And the thing is, I've marveled all these years because I really didn't have any ties. I mean, I had old friends, but I didn't have anything compelling me to go back because I wasn't in contact with those friends. And I could have gone anywhere. The church world was really open. I grew up Pentecostal, so I'm sure I would have chosen a Pentecostal church, but it probably wouldn't have been the one that I grew up in. Could have been. I grew up in the Church of God. And I would. I might. Could have gone to an assembly of God or some other. A charismatic. I didn't even know anything about the. I didn't know there was a charismatic move. I was. I was. When I came back to. When the Lord sent me back to that church, he told me to go back to the church that I said I would never go back to. And the marvelous thing about it is there was no struggle. I don't even remember challenging the Lord or even questioning all that. I just knew I had to go back to church, and that's the church I should go to. And, you know, I had hair on my shoulders. You know, the 60s was a noisy generation with an entire group of people dressed up like Indians, you know, and had the headband and the feathers and the beads, all that stuff. The sandals, you know, the tie dyed. I mean, I had all that gear on, you know, and I get there and there's these other hippies in the church that look just like me. And I found out there had. There had been a Jesus movement. Not where I was. The people that I. The druggie people that I was hanging around with. There was no Jesus movement that I knew. And I walked in and there it was. And. But I look back and it's astonishing now. And I didn't even know. I wasn't even astonished at the time because it was just so perfect. This Lord said, go back to church. And he showed me that Church and I went back and immediately fell in love with everybody. All of those people that turned their nose up to me and did hateful things. If I told you, you would not. You would agree it was ridiculous what was done. I love them. They loved me and the rest of my kind. And they would. The old men would come up, you know, we called them straights now that means something different now. But back then. Back then, we were hippies and everybody else were straights, you know, and these men would come up, you know, middle aged men, older men, they'd put their arms around us and they'd hug us real tight and say, oh, we're so glad to see you, but next week I'm bringing my scissors. You know that. And we would laugh and have a great time and. And it was just. And then I found out later that that comes from. From first John, that if, you know, you have eternal life because you love the brethren. There was just a love for these corny, square people that I had. I didn't think I had anything in common with. But we love Jesus. And so it was so important that I go back to that church. I could have gone anywhere on my own. I was there one week, maybe two, maybe two weeks. And an old friend from high school who was so burned out on drugs, the other. The other druggies made fun of him because his brain was kind of, you know, and he's in that church. I looked up, said, man, what you doing here? I got saved, brother. He gave me my first Kenneth Hagin book. I had been in that church a week or two. What if I had gone somewhere else? What if I. Almost any other church in town that I knew anything about wouldn't have found that it matters what church you go to. Your future, your present and your future and future generations, should Jesus tarry, is absolutely dependent upon where we go to church. God puts us where we need to be, and it's not to be trifled with. Amen. While it's true that you can be pointed to heaven from a lot of churches, the same cannot be said about a life of victory. In a lot of churches, you won't be pointed to a life of victory. You can't receive healing just any church. My son, who. My wife and I founded the church in 1980, and we turned it over to him in 2023, just a few weeks. About six weeks short of 43 years pastoring that church. My son's a pastor now, and about three years ago he told me he had gone to a. I don't know if it was a high school reunion or he just met this guy somewhere, someone that he had gone to school with growing up. When he was in high school, they struck up a conversation and my son probably asked him because he likes to witness, you know, like I do. And he probably asked him, well, what are you doing, man? You know who. What's going on? Are you going to church anywhere? That's probably how that came up. He said, oh, yeah, I used to. I've been going to such and such a church, but we've left there. My son asked the obvious question, well, why did you leave? Well, he left this church. It was a Baptist church. I'm not being critical of Baptist, it just was. It's just a fact. But it was kind of an independent, sort of independent Baptist church. And the pastor had some life. I wouldn't say he was spirit filled, but he was open to some things. And that didn't sit well with everybody. This man, this friend of my son's. Now my son is 48. 49. 49, yeah, this year. This was a few years ago, maybe five years ago. His friend's the same age. So, you know, mid-40s. This man said, yeah, I left there and here's the reason why he didn't. I guess he didn't know what kind of church my son was pastoring. He said, a man got healed, a child got healed in our church, and I just can't go back there. The parents brought a child, I think it was a child, and they wanted prayer. Well, in that group they don't. They'll pray for people, you know, turn in their prayer requests. So and so's in hospital, but they don't really know whether it's the will of God to heal. So, you know, it's no faith. But to actually have the parents come down and pray for the child, like laying on. I don't know if they laid on hands on them, but it was, it was more than just turning in a prayer request. It was an event in the church. God supernaturally healed that child. And this guy said, I can't go to a church where that goes on. And my son asked him, well, why not? He said, I just, I just don't believe in that. And so my son Greg said, well, didn't you say the kid got healed? He said, oh, yeah, he got healed. And my son said, well, do you think God did that or the devil? I mean, how do you. He said, oh, I know it was God. Now listen to this. I know it was God. And my son's looking at him like, are you crazy? He said, so you're telling me, you know, it's God? You know, God healed your. You know, God healed this child, but you don't want to go there because you don't like healing? He said, yeah, I just. I'm le. I've left. I'm not going back. That's how twisted people's thinking can be. You go to the wrong church, you can get very messed up. I mean it. I can't overemphasize how important the right church is. You can't get healed in every church. You won't be introduced to Jehovah Jireh in every church. You won't be told that all of your needs can be met and that you can prosper supernaturally even beyond what your talents are capable of producing. You won't receive that just anywhere. You'll not discover a life of victory and triumph at just every church. And the reason you want. Because it's not on the menu. It's not on the menu. Can you find lobster in every restaurant? You know why it's not on the menu? They don't have any in the freezer. Or lobster wouldn't be in the freezer, I guess. But they don't have any lobster in the. Don't have a lobster tank. It's not on the menu. In. We've looked at Acts, Romans 10. Let's go back there. Romans 10 again. Praise the Lord. Is this okay? Romans 10. We've read verse 17. Let's look at verse 14. How then shall they call on him and whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless the deacons let them? No, they have. God sends people to preach the word of God, but a lot of places won't let you preach the Word. And so they don't offer the things that are important for a life of victory. God not only has. And you know this. This isn't news for anybody, but the salvation package is greater than just having our card punched for heaven. Now, thank God. If that's all it was. If that's all it was, if. If God just saved us and said, I'll see you one day, bud. Between now and then, you're on your own. You know, if. If. If we had the assurance of heaven, it. It. How miserable life could be. Would be worth it in the end if we went to heaven. But Jesus said, I'm not Leaving you orphans. I'm not leaving you on your own. I'm sending a helper. Glory to God. He's given us his word, he's given us his spirit. And these are things that millions of people are needing, but they won't ever receive it because they don't go to the right church. I'm not talking about lost people. I'm talking about saved people. There are millions of millions of people who will die this year around the world who ought to be healed, but they won't be healed. And the reason they won't be healed is they're in the wrong church. It's really serious. Where a person goes to church will have serious consequences. It literally can make the difference between life and death. Now obviously, obviously it can make the difference between heaven and hell. I'm talking about life and death here. Can literally make the difference. The devil has tried to kill me four times. He's tried to take my life one time when through an accident that my wife. Now this wouldn't have been, wouldn't have killed me, but it would ruin my life. My wife was in an accident when she and I were both backslidden. Then I won't go into all the details, but she should have been dead. And there's only one way to explain her not crashing over and going into that deep of water. And she doesn't swim about a 40 foot drop down to the water. This was in 1971. No one wore seat belts back then. She didn't have a seat belt. A little Volkswagen Beetle. If she'd have survived the impact, which would have been unlikely, she would have drowned, I think what would have happened to me, alone, with a baby, take care, no telling. It would have destroyed my life. And then three other times he's actually physically saved my life. That comes because I knew to take a stand. I knew how to take a stand. That came from being in the right church where I was given the right information and then following up on that, staying in the right church. I stayed in that flow until God called me to go away to Bible school. I went to the right Bible school. I learned the truth. It made all the difference like it has in your life. It's the difference of sickness or health, victory or defeat. Amen. Abundance or lack. I remember very young, in our walk in faith, we would read brother Hagin's books. We learned what he learned about prosperity. He said he drove down the highway, you know, with four bald tires. One would sing, you know, and then the next one would pick up the Chorus, and then there'd be a trio, and then they had a quartet singing, you know, what was this? What are you going to do now? What are you going to do now? He said he preached prosperity. He didn't have a dime in his pocket, didn't have money hardly to get to the next meeting, but he kept preaching it. And he said that the Lord told him, if you'll follow my spirit, if you'll be led by the Holy Spirit, he said, I'll make you rich. And as young men, we read that and we believed it. We said, well, if he'd make Brother Hagin rich, he'll make me rich. If I follow the word of God and learn to be led by the Spirit, he'll make me rich. And, you know, you believe things and you grow in things, and you don't always see the fruit right away, but we believed it. We didn't. We didn't see it. We didn't have much. I had a good job and did okay. But not rich. Are you kidding? Rich. I didn't have a path to being rich. God's so faithful. God's so faithful. We've been. We've been on the other side of poverty for so long now. I mean, on the. On the flip side, we've been prosperous. You know, my wife and I were talking about this. Just, you know, he has made us rich. We're millionaires. I'm not talking about figuratively. He's made us millionaires. We're really rich. We. We don't even have to preach. I mean, I have to preach because God called me to preach. I have to obey God. But we could. We could just walk away, retire, and our income would be a handsome income for the rest of our lives. Wouldn't have to do a thing. God is faithful. God, I said, God is faithful to his word. Young people, stay connected. Keep speaking the truth. Keep living the life. Keep basing all of your decisions on the word of God. Follow your elders. Follow those who are. Who are examples to you, whom God has set before you to teach you and to. And to encourage you and to exhort you. Listen. As young men, we would go to that church and we would listen. We would sit and just. And just listen to the stories we wanted to know. I remember Doc Horton. You remember Brother Doc? He would come to our church and hold a revival every few years because our pastor knew him. At the time. I think he was a state overseer in Georgia, but my pastor knew him, so he would invite Doc to come. And Doc. Doc knew Kenneth Hagin. And we would. This man personally knows Kenneth Hagin, you know, the fellow that gave me the book, you know, sometime after that in the local church, we were talking one day and he said. He said, kenneth Hagin is a prophet of God. Literally, my. He's a prophet of God. We were so, so taken. And somebody would come to our church that actually knew Kenneth Hagin. And we would follow him around. We would just follow him. And after church, we would just follow him around, ask him questions, you know, Doc. I'm talking about Doc. And my wife at this time wouldn't come to church yet. She was a little slower getting back into fellowship with the Lord. A lot slower, actually. She said, so she wasn't in church. You know, she would come occasionally, but she wasn't. She would only come to socialize with former friends that she had been reintroduced to because I was going back. She wouldn't have gone back to church, but it made her look bad for me to be going to church and bringing our son and her under the ministry of the Comforter. Bedroom Baptist, you know. So she came to church because it made her look bad, but she didn't come very often. And so she wasn't in fellowship with the Lord. And I've got a call of God on my life. And Doc was there one meeting, and I said, this friend of mine, of mine, and we were talking to Doc, I said, doc, I said, I need some advice. I said, I really feel like I'm called into the meeting ministry. I feel like there's a call of God on my life. That's great, you know. Gravelly voice, you know, that's great, you know. And I said, here's the deal. I said, my wife is backslidden, and I don't know what to do because she's not even interested in church, let alone going into ministry. He said, aw, son, you don't worry about here. You just. About her. You just obey God. She'll follow you. He tried and walked off. And my friend said, he doesn't know Angela does. He. Didn't know Angela, that's for sure. But, you know, my. In my family, I came from a good lineage, good Pentecostal people, and I was fortunate to grow up in a. In a. In a strong local church. They didn't have the message of faith, but the salvation message was genuine. Holy living was genuine. Fundamentals of the Christian faith were there. And we were taught that God performs miracles. We just didn't know how to get them to happen every time. And so there was A lot of good truth there. And in my family was considered not to put any other family down. There were a lot of. It was a large church for the 1950s and 60s. To have a Pentecostal church running five to 800 people was a big church, a Pentecostal church. They just almost didn't exist. And so a lot of families in the church and my family, my dad in particular, was considered a very godly man. He's one of the most respected men. He wasn't in the ministry, but he was Sunday school superintendent. And in our church, the first generation had the fire of God. That was my grandmother's generation. They entered into Pentecost, you know, back at the. Just after the turn of the century, in the 1920s, at the very least, they saw the fire of God. They saw the demonstration of the spirit. The next generation, my parents generation, had all of the right doctrine, but they'd not really seen the fire. We had moves of God in our church, but not like the old timer Saul, this one of these uncles of mine. This story will drive some people crazy. He was known. I found this out a few years ago. This great uncle of mine was known for speaking in tongues, which when I was coming up, you didn't speak in tongues in the Pentecost church until you felt the right. Right, the wave of glory, you know, when you got hit by it, you know, glory, you'd utter a few identical syllables that you uttered the previous 100 times. That sha. Not Hyundai, Shandai. Shandai. Take a ride in a Hyundai, you know. Roy Hicks. Roy Hicks, he said he could listen to Pentecostals speak in tongues and tell them what part of the country they were from. Because people get stuck in a rut saying the same thing. Anyway, what was I saying? Anyway, my uncle, this great uncle, he was known for praying in tongues, speaking in tongues all the time, which was foreign to the next generation, my parents generation. You don't do that. He went out to eat one time. My aunts and uncles told me this just a few years ago. They went to a restaurant and my uncle was just sitting there, just praying in tongues. Just praying in tongues. The server came and he just kept talking in tongues. Server took the orders and went back to the kitchen, came back and brought food out and set some food in front of my uncle and every stable. What do you do? He said, well, the man ordered it. He said in tongues. He gave the name of a dish, a food. And this guy, whatever language he was speaking, understood that it was an earthly language. And he Said, well, the man ordered it. Said what he ordered, and he brought this food out. Now you tell me that won't drive Baptist completely insane. That's awesome. Ordered his food in tongues. But the next generation, not so hot. Devoted. Devoted, but not as hot. The third generation, boy, it gets dicey. When my wife and I and the generation that I came, when we left the church, almost all of our generation left the church. Church. We graduated from high school. We had a large high school class, you know, 450. And so our youth group at the church was quite large. It was 10 or 12 or 15. I don't remember now how many of us that graduated that year. Almost everybody left. Left. Just left the church. And most of them haven't returned. Well, a lot of them haven't returned. You know, if you don't have the answers for the hour, young people are not going to hoe the road however you want to say that. They're not going to hold onto it if there's not reality, if there's not truth, if there isn't. If there aren't answers that are. That resonate and make sense. I told my mother when I was a teenager. I was about 15. I'd seen so much death. My dad had been killed. A godly man, but he didn't know his authority in Christ. He was 42 years old. I was 11 years old. He was killed. Everybody said God took him. Then my grandparents get sick, and then different ones, cousins, aunts and uncles dying of cancer. And I finally told my mother one day, I think I was about 15. I said, you know what? If this is how God treats his own children, I don't want anything to do with your God. And I wasn't trying to be mean, but I was angry. And if you don't have. If we don't have truth. If we don't have the truth, we're living in an hour and a time when only this message, this message is the only answer for this world. There isn't any other answer. There isn't any other truth. Because this is the pure gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not watered down. Thank God for it. Praise the Lord. Glory to God. Well, hallelujah. Where you go to church is more important than where you work. It's more important. It's more than important. It's more important than your job. It's more important than where you live. It's more important than where you go to college. Oh, but Pastor, you don't understand my child. He's real smart. And he got accepted. You know, we've got an application into a really great university. He'll have a great future, really. Is there a word of faith church there? Is there a church that flows in the word, in the spirit? You're going to send your child off to another city so he can go to the university, and there's not even a church to go to that teaches and preaches what you know to be the only truth, the only thing that will. That will hold up in the day of adversity. And you're going to send your kid to go to four to six years to a cop? It's not worth it. It is not worth it. I've seen people leave our church, not many over the years. A few took a job, had a job opportunity, upward mobility. An opportunity came up and they jumped. Life's never been the same, and we've had people leave and get better jobs and go out with our blessing because they went to a good church. And I'm all for that. But the things of God have to be first, because there aren't churches like this every city. There may be Pentecostal. There may be even what you would call a quasi word of faith. They have some of the word, they have the cliches, but they compromise. When there's compromise in the pulpit and in the leadership, it gets down into the people, and then someone loses their life over it. Amen. How do you choose a church? Well, you don't choose the one where Grandma went. It's fine if Grandma's here. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you don't just choose a church because that's where your family went. I had to leave that church that I loved. The people that I had fallen in love with, who welcomed me back with open arms. I one day had to leave because God called me out, because I had to go to a church that had the right message, the full message. You don't go. You know, you'd be surprised how many people choose. Their choice of church comes down to which one's closest to their house. You take surveys, you'll find out a lot of people are in. They're in number one. The number one connection people have, if you do, if you study the surveys, the number one connection is where their grandparents went and their parents. That's the number one thing. Secondly, it's the church that's closest to them. Well, you know, I go across town to eat. I don't just eat in my neighborhood. What a dull culinary life. That would Be. No, no, no. You don't know where I live. You're talking about greasy spoon. You don't go to the church that has the nicest looking building. Nice looking buildings are fine, but they don't carry. That doesn't carry a candle to what's going on inside. Amen. No. Where can I receive the whole counsel of God? Where can I go that I will hear the pure word of God and all of it? You know, not, not everything is a shout. Now everything if, if lived will result in a shouting. But it's not always shouting when you hear it. Sometimes you have to hear a strong word. Sometimes you have to have correction. Sometimes you have to. You have to hear the other side of the issue. You know, there, there's a side of victory. The other side of victory is suffering. Now listen to me. Not suffering sickness, not suffering lack. Not suffering from any. Anything that's under the curse. That's not what I'm talking about. But there is a price to pay to move forward in the things of God. And you, Peter said, after you have suffered a while, the Lord will complete you and make you strong. We are where we are today because of the word and because of the truth. But we're also where we are today because we suffered some things. It strengthened us. It made us drill down and reach down and decide what am I going. Am I going to actually live this life or am I going to throw in the towel? And those times can be difficult. They can be hard. But thank God for them. Brother Hagin told, used to tell the story of the church he had. And there was a woman there that just was just a terrible, you know, thing for him. A terrible person to have to pastor. She's griped all the time. I don't just difficult. So they had a prayer meeting one night and they were giving testimonies and different people testifying about people that, you know, that they loved. And he said, I want to testify. I want to thank God for sister so and so and everybody. I guess she wasn't there. Hopefully she wasn't there. And everybody looked at him and said, sister so and so, how could she be? He said, I thank God for sister so and so because she's kept me on my knees more than anybody else in this church. I've got a few of those. Your pastor said, I've had a few of those, brother. I know what you mean. Where will my children best flourish? I mean really flourish in God, in our little church. We're in a small town in the middle North Central part of Florida. When we moved there in 1980, we had three traffic lights. In the 90s, they took one of them away. True. That's not a good sign. I think it was a total population about 3,500, 4,000 people. And I think in the 43 years we've been there, 44 years now, it's probably about 6,000. Just in the city limits, just, you know, in the city. It's a small little town. It's got one main street that's about, you know, the main street that's got the shops on both sides. You know, it's about 200ft long. Would you guess? 200ft? 300 maybe. Maybe 300ft long. It's a little town. Yeah. In our little town all of now, I'm not. This is just my opinion. For me, we weren't led to homeschool our kids and we did not promote homeschooling, though. My son, my oldest son, he has homeschooled his kids. And by the way, both of my have two sons. Both of them are saved. Their kids are in church. Both of my families, the third generation, I'm a third generation Pentecostal. You know, my grandparents, my parents, me. The fourth generations, my kids in the fifth generation also. There we go. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Angela's twitching. Thank you, brother. She wouldn't have been able to pay attention the rest of the night. Glory to God. Five generations, all of them serving God. But I, I've seen churches that, where it didn't survive the third generation, most of the time it doesn't. Most of the time the third generation leaves or just goes to church nominally, just. There's no life in them. Just go. Because it's the right thing to do. Our church, we've pastored. We founded the church in 1980. In June of 1980, we turned it over to our son, who's our youngest son, who was. He's 40. He was 47 last year we did that. He's 48. 48 and yeah, and he'll be 49 this year. And we've had, in our, in our little church, we've had six or seven public school valedictorians from our little, our little, our little church. You know, we're about a 220 member congregation and we haven't been that always. My son, my oldest son was the first valedictorian from our church. And we've had, like I said, we've had six or seven. And, you know, God has blessed us in this Small place. I never wanted to live in a small town. I never wanted to pastor, period, let alone a little church. Because I come up in a, you know, big church. Fancy stuff. We had the best musicians. I mean, our Pentecostal church, we were jooking and jiving. I mean, we had the best pianist, organist, band, you know. But God called us to a place, and he has provided for us all of these years. And our kids are on fire for God. Our grandkids are on fire for God. They're serving in places all through the church. You can't buy that with money. You can't buy it. I remember when I left the denomination I'd been raised up in. I'll try to close here in a second. My mother, she was very loyal to that denomination. It just broke her heart that we were leaving. And she said, well, if you don't care about yourselves, please think about the children. I didn't tell her, but I knew in my heart that's the reason I was leaving. Because I knew if I stayed in that church that my kids would grow up as rebellious as I had been. Only by the grace of God did I make it back. Because my dad prayed for me before he died all the time. And my mom kept it up all of my days until I got back into fellowship with the Lord. But most parents won't do that. You do know that most people that say they're praying for you aren't. I think we all know that. But I had praying parents. It's the only thing. But I've seen so many kids go wrong, and I didn't want that for my. I didn't want my children to suffer the things that I suffered. If you want your children to turn out right, stay in the right church. And that's this church. We all know that's this church. But if you're here and you're not completely sure, you better think about it, because you need to know this. Just being a pew warmer is dangerous if you just come to church. Because I just want to go to church and feel like I'm in church. I'm doing my part. Usually the Saturday night crowd is not that crowd, but could be. Most people think it's only important for the benefit of the pastor that they get involved. That's completely wrong. It's more important for you to be involved for your benefit than it is for your pastor's benefit. Because if you're in a good church, Satan is trying to get you out of it. He will try. And he said, well, I don't think he's trying right now. He's got plans, he's scheming. The devil will try to separate you from your church. And if you're not, if you're not plugged in, I mean sold out to God's plan for this church, if you're not sold out to it, you're an easy prey. The devil is walking around seeking and the people who aren't committed are the people who are open prey. Four deceptions that'll separate you from your church. Number one, lack of commitment. That's an invitation to distraction. There's so many distractions. The flesh, Leisure, family, other churches visiting here and there, that lack of commitment. And it's in every church. I don't know anybody, so I can just talk freely. But in my church we have people that aren't committed, have people that, you know they're going to be out of church during the warm months because they're just going to go to the beach when they want to and you know, well, but I see that their, their children aren't turning out so well. Lack of commitment will separate you from your church. Lack of participation. You know, you can be here all the time, but if you don't participate, if you don't, if you don't really get involved, find something, some place to put your hand to the wheel of this church. If you don't know where, find somebody that works in the church and volunteer. And if it's, and if it's a position that has to have pastoral appointment and approval, then go to them and just say, listen, I just, I want to be a blessing and I'll serve anywhere you want me to serve. I never felt called to children ministry. I never felt called to janitorial stuff. I never, when I got back into fellowship with the Lord and started feeding on the word of God, I just know I want to preach the gospel. Had that burning desire in me. But the first thing to do was to teach Sunday school class. Junior boys. I think they were about 9 or 10 years old. I had no clue how to teach junior boys. I had a class of nine year olds. I taught out of E.W. kenyon. I'm not kidding you. I'm not kidding you. That's awesome. I could not stomach the Sunday school literature and I'm feeding on EW Kenyans. I just come in there on Sunday morning loaded for bear. Who we are in Christ. You know, the Pauline revelation. These kids are sitting at me like, can I find my airplane? I can throw at somebody. I didn't last there long, but God, I was looking for a place to serve, and that's where they put me. I didn't say, well, I don't want to do that. I said, I'll just give it my best, you know, But God moves. When we started pastoring, the good thing about my wife and I, we, between the two of us, we've done just about everything that can be done in a local church. Just about every kind of ministry that people do in the helps ministry, one of us have done it. She's cared for the babies and worked in the nursery and. And I used to go and help the pastor as a layman, not on staff or anything. I would just volunteer to get off work if there was some project going on at the church, go down, meet with my pastor when they were repaving the parking lot to meet with the paving company. You know, just. I would just do whatever I could. I've done just about everything in the park between my wife and I, we have. But make yourself available. Get involved. Amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. I said there were four deceptions, and I'll close with this. That will separate Lack of commitment, lack of participation, desire for other things. Desire for other things. That's one of the things that Jesus said will choke the word. It's one thing that will separate you from your church is the desire for other things. And I've already touched on the desire for more money, better job, better status, a better whatever. God wants you to have the best, but it starts in being in the right church. That's where the best comes from. Amen. Both of our sons have gone to college free on scholarships. And my. And my grandsons and granddaughter are smarter than all of us. I mean, my youngest grandson just scored a 400. I mean a 1440 on his. On his SAT. Pretty good 1440, I think. Real good. And he has invitations and he's putting in applications a lot of places, but he knows where he's going to go. He's going to stay in town where he stay in church. Praise the Lord. Number four, trivial disputes. Oh, boy, do we even have time for that? Teach us Trivial disputes. Well, the pastor didn't call me. I've been out for three weeks. The pastor didn't call me. Nobody called me. You know, when I've heard those complaints from people almost every time, Almost every time I checked into it and just started, you know, paying attention because people that are offended will keep getting offended. So I just watched them. You know, these things would reoccurrence But I noticed when other people were out, they never called anybody. They never called anybody. This one person I'm thinking of, somebody in his family died. And, you know, it was not somebody in our church, but a relative of his that was close to him. And he was. He had his pouts on because, you know, nobody reached out to him, you know, about the loss of his. Well, the lady didn't go to our church. She was a grown man. This was his grown sister, didn't go to our church. Well, you know, people aren't. And so I just asked him. I said, you know, when sister. This other lady in our church, you know, when her brother passed away, I went to his funeral. I didn't see you there. You know, you reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. And so people get. Well, nobody called me. Well, you know, did you call anybody? Nobody spoke to me. Now, my mother, bless her heart, she's in heaven and she's laughing right now while I'm preaching. But she was a pistol. She would get so mad and she would just sit there. And I said, what's wrong, Mama? So and so walks right past me. Just walked right up to me and didn't speak. And I knew this would get under because I was backslidden. But even backslidden, I knew that was dumb. And I said, well, Mama, did you speak? Well. Well, no. Nobody asked me to sing, teach. Well, how about asking somebody else what you can do instead of waiting on somebody to roll out the red carpet for you? Well, I can get involved, but I don't like the way you do things at this church. I had this family, this woman that used to say that all the time, well, this is not the way we did it at our church. Said, well, you know, you're not at your old church. We're not at that church. We're at this church. Praise the Lord. She tried to serve, but she couldn't. She wouldn't last because she kept everybody in the department. They didn't do things the way she wanted done. Well, you're not the department directors, honey. People will receive tremendous blessings and victories through their church and walk. Turn around and walk away over the silliest things. Seen it for decades. Some of the dumbest things. I'm talking about where they've had miracles they've received, where the church has stood by them when they were in crisis and helped them and prayed for them. And the least little thing, just turn and get mad and leave. I've noticed this, that people will Suffer some of the greatest indignities, if that's the right word at work, and be treated. Treated really bad. And they'll come to church and say, you know, my boss did this. And co workers, they stay because the pay's good. And yet they receive their children raised from the dead, basically. And then somebody says something about the new, about their hat, and I want to leave church. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Well, why don't we stand? Why don't we stand? Well, you know, I'm trying to learn, you know, as a pastor, it was always next week. Hallelujah. But we have two more services. Praise the Lord. Let's just lift our hands and thank God. I have one more service. My wife just told me I have one. I was just informed that I have one more service. And I better watch it or I might not have that. Thank you, Father. Glory to God. You're so good to us. You're so faithful. You're so faithful. You've been so faithful. Oh, Father, you're so faithful. You've been so good. You're so good to us, Father. We worship you, Lord. We worship you, Lord. We worship you, Lord. We worship you, Lord. We worship you, Lord. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God, Father. Everything we have of value, if there's any good in our life, and there's a lot of good, it's all from your hand because you've been faithful. You said that you would keep the things we committed to you. We've committed, many of us, our lives, and you've kept it. You've kept your promises. You've done in us and through us and with us. Just in exactly what we dreamed about when we were 20 years old and in our 30s. And we were just plowing in, just. Just laying foundation on top of foundation, on top of foundation, just sowing. Believing that we had received, believing that we were prosperous, believing that we were victorious, believing that we would be successful, believing that we would have a place and just doing what our hand found to do. Father, you've done everything you said you would do. You're so faithful. You're so faithful. You're so faithful. Glory to God. Hallelujah. If you're. If you're discouraged right now, if you are feeling like, you know, I've given my all, I've done. Done what I. What I. You're not, you know, you're not perfect. But you'd say, I. I know I've tried, and it just doesn't seem like it does any good. It just doesn't seem like I get ahead. It just doesn't seem like I have the same victory that others have that I don't. My prayers aren't answered like other people's. What's wrong with me? I'm telling you, nothing is wrong just on the basis of that. You may have areas that you miss it, but who doesn't? There's not anybody in here who hasn't missed it. There's not anybody in here who hasn't fallen short from time to time. You keep being faithful. Do not throw in the towel. Do not throw in the towel because there is a day of reaping and in your life that will surpass. You'll look back one day and you'll go, oh, yeah, I'm so glad. I just. It looked dark. It looked. It looked dark at that time. I'm so glad I didn't throw in the towel. I'm so glad I didn't quit. Look at these babies that are around me. Look at the. Look at the blessings that I have in my life. Don't quit on your marriage. I said, don't quit on your marriage. Don't quit on your marriage. Now, there can be some exceptions to that, but most of the time Christians just throw in the towel because of the flesh. Don't quit. Don't give up. Don't give up on that child. Don't give up on that wayward son or a daughter or grandchild. It looked 100% like I would never come back to God. Now, I wasn't out that long. I was 20 when I got back to. And fellowship with the Lord. So, you know, but it. It didn't look like I would ever come back. When I got back into fellowship with the Lord, I was in a hotel room trying to prove to myself that. That Jesus was not the son of God. I'd gotten my Bible out because I knew my way through the scriptures. And I was going to prove that the. That the Bible was a lie, that it was inconsistent, that it had all these, these contradictions. And I was gonna. That's what my. That's what I was doing. I was out to get Christ and the memory of him out of my mind and my life. But my mom was praying for me. He who sits in the heavens was laughing, sitting in that hotel room, dealing drugs in a small town where I didn't know anybody, which is about as dangerous a thing as you can do when you don't know the local narcotic situation. You don't know the local police. I'm in my. It was. Excuse me, it was not a hotel room. It was a motel. There's a big difference. You'd have seen this place. You'd have. Yeah, that's a motel, bro. I got my Bible out to finally get God out of my life. Jesus walked right into that room, just. I started reading my Bible just to start picking the places where I was going to fight. And Jesus just rose up right out of those scriptures and just walked into my life. I'm sitting in the floor just squalling, crying. Oh, Jesus, this is true. This is. Listen, don't ever give up. I don't care what it looks like, don't ever give up. Praise the Lord. Never. Never, never, never. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Glory to God. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.