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Old Paths Christian History Conference

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• Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23, before Brother Cliff comes up. I hope I'm not stealing some fire from him. Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23.

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• Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law." I'd like to look at this word "longsuffering" just for a moment.

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• Now to us, no matter who we are or what we're doing, the word "suffer" is automatically equated with pain. Suffering equals hurt, pain. No matter how we slice it, the word is ingrained into us. But in Scripture, Christ said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." It was not to, say, pain the little children or hurt them to come unto me, but rather to allow the children to come to our Lord. So longsuffering in the context of Scripture, within the Old English, ought not mean long pain or long hurting, but rather, perhaps, long allowing—allowing ourselves to be inconvenienced for the sake of another, a brother or a sister. Long-allowing. It's allowing for patience to have her perfect work, even when we are perhaps mildly wronged in some way. Not necessarily sinned against, but just mildly wronged. We are to be long-suffering. We can allow with love. Long-suffering is a pillar of biblical community. If not, the community will not last. Folks will instantly be at each other's throats, and it will disband, dissolve, and there will be no bond without proper biblical long-suffering. And again, it's a fruit of the Spirit. We just saw it, and we're called to be long-suffering anyway.

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• Whether the discussion today is community or not, we are to be a people that is long-suffering with one another. But community then becomes another way to fulfill Scripture in our lives, as well as, as I said before, enjoy the blessing that follows. So let's look at a real-life example. If we talk about being close, as I was with Brother Chuck earlier, let's use Brother Stan. I know Brother Stan has a son, a fine young man. But let's say Brother Stan and my properties literally joined.

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• And our two lawns were on the property line. And his son gets on his zero-turn, and because of the terrain and a tree that's there, with the embankment the way a zero-turn is, in order to make that property line, he needs to actually swing onto my yard for a couple of feet in order to get around that tree, and then he gets right back into Brother Stan's yard and continues mowing. Well, in fact, he's crossed the line. He's in my yard for a few feet, and he's mowed my grass. And do you know why he goes around that tree?

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• Because if he didn't, he'd have to use a hand trimmer. So his son over there, he's lazy. I know he is. And he takes that zero-turn and he makes a swoop around that tree into my land to mow that grass just so he doesn't have to use a trimmer.

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• Now you can see I'm having to conjure up an offense to it. I'm being blessed. He's mowing my grass for free as he swoops in. I'm having to create, I'm having to pretend I'm hurt in some way, that I'm so offended that his son would use their zero-turn to mow my grass. Well, let's change it up. Let's say his grass is on the property line.

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• But I've got an acre garden of beans that have come in so beautifully this year. And in making that swooping pass, he kills three of my bean plants. I've got 3,000 bean plants in that acre. And Brother Weaver will preach to you, there's violations here in Scripture. There's trespass. And now that he's killed my beans, there's theft. That boy stole my beans, and I'm so offended. Or can I be long-suffering? It's obvious he's not malicious.

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• He needs to make that cut into the land because of the way the tree is, the way the bank is. He means no harm. What's the cost of the three bean plants? It's nothing. I'm really not being offended unless I make it that I'm so hurt. So I can be long-suffering with a fine young man who is obeying his father in the first place. When his dad tells him to mow the lawn, he obeys. I can be long-suffering, seeing that it's easier just to come around that tree than to make him go around the other way. And so I can be long-suffering, or else I can let this fester. And guess what? I'm not going to him one-on-one. I'm telling everybody else I see first about what his boy did, and I can cut the community into pieces. I can cut the church up into pieces, and we can all get to fighting over a couple of feet of lawn or a couple of bean plants. Or else just say, it's no problem.

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• Brother, be blessed in coming into my yard. Take your swoop. Take out a couple of plants. No problem. There's no offense here. There was, in fact, loss of beans. But that's love. That's charity. That's mercy. It's long-suffering. But these are the things. If we live that close, we'll find anything to pick each other apart. As soon as we do, it's the sin nature within us. Jealousies, envying, strife. But a fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering. So we can allow in love.

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• Or we can blow it up. We can ruin our relationship, ruin a church. Scripture cries out, the scriptural principle cries out, forbearance. Long-suffering. Not just the once, but for the rest of Stan Clough's life, for the rest of our relationship, for the rest of my relationship with his son. I can long-forbear, long-suffer, long-allow that minor inconvenience. This is necessary. It's a fruit of the Spirit. You're called to it anyway. We must see long-suffering. If we are to make this work, to work hand-in-hand, to walk hand-in-hand, to work side-by-side, must be long-suffering.

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• If we've got to remove stones out of a pasture, and we're carrying them one by one, and whoever's helping me, any brother here who's helping me, and I'm carrying more rocks than you did that day, because you weren't going quick enough. Can I just love you that much to say we've each toiled and we're each going to enjoy the harvest of this labor? Or do I get to pick and to count rocks, how many you got versus how many I got?

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• Any little thing, it must be long-suffering within the community of God. If you would, Brother Cliff, come forward. All right. Good afternoon. Good to see everybody. I want to thank you ladies for that good food. Some of us are going to suffer for that right now. Yeah, I told Brother Weaver I'd put you all to sleep and get you rested up for him. So I got the easy job, right?

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• It was a tremendously delicious meal. We thank you for it and certainly realize there's a lot of work in all of this. Appreciate the work of this church and all you've done. And I'm a little bit jealous and envious that you all got a pastor that can preach and sing. Our church never got blessed like that. We're still looking for one that can do either one. And so we're thankful. We've enjoyed the services and thank the Lord for it. With a conference like this, may I use this water? Yes, please. It's all you. With a conference like this, we're bound to step on each other's toes a little bit as far as overlapping in our thoughts.

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• Brother Allen was gracious enough to steal my opening text, Psalm 133, so we're going to go back there. Stan started getting into my message a little bit. But that's alright. It's not mine. It's not my fire either. It's God's, right? Amen. We are glad to be here. Psalm 133, look at verse 1. It says, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity!"

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• You know what it said? It said unity, didn't it? Unity is not uniformity. It doesn't say we have to all look alike, walk alike, talk alike. It's unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

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• Father, thank you again for this time. Thank you for the labor this church has put forth to bring this blessing about, we ask, and we're thankful for the men who've preached already and for the Weaver that will come following me. We ask grace for him. And Lord, we ask now that as we look to your word that you would encourage us, strengthen us, and help us to be reminded of the precious truths we hear quite often.

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• And may you receive honor and glory in Jesus' name, amen. Now, as we think about this subject, my topic has been "Independent Churches, United in Dominion." Independent churches united in dominion. One of the things that the enemy has successfully done in America today is created division. And we all understand that as a tactic of war. You know, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," is the mindset.

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• So the thing is, if I can create a problem among those around me and get them fighting each other rather than fighting me, why, I've won, right? And so that's what Satan has done in many ways. He's caused many of us in a whole lot of different arenas to basically just fight each other. And we all get into this difficult situation. And I think a lot of that has to do with the way we have drifted theologically, obviously, politically, and I don't think you can separate those two.

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• Everything about us is theological. Our cultures, our religion externalized. So with that thought, my mind went over to Judges 10. Judges 10. If you'd like to turn there. We are in a very difficult time, to say the least. You don't need me to stand here and remind you of that. The time is getting more and more difficult as we go. And it's like that proverbial snowball going down the hill. It's moving faster and getting larger every moment. And it's hard to imagine where it is.

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• Now, I'm just going to use this text to illustrate a few things. And I may come back to it, but I am going to end up in Ephesians 4, God willing. Judges 10 verses 1 through 5 and then over back over to chapter 12 verses 8 through 15 are like two book holders holding up a story in between of Jephthah. Jephthah was a man that was born of a harlot, the Gileadite, that was used to conquer the Ammonites even though he was cast out and even though his father's natural children had nothing to do with him. He was thrown to the side, so to speak, but he was a mighty and valiant man. And when Israel was threatened, they called upon him to come and take care of the enemy, and he did. He did. He won. But the thought I had here is this, is that what we see throughout much of the Book of Judges is a drift toward humanistic kingship.

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• And again, you might think this is moving more politically, but I suggest to you that it is moved religiously, or at least in the churches throughout our land. In other words, our churches have not become independent anymore, they're more denominational. They're filled with hierarchies and various things. And I realize we are not individuals that adhere to a convention or a group. We are independent. But I want to tell you, those groups are all over America, and they're part of the problem. They're part of the problem. Many professing Christians in this land are truly part of the problem, not the solution. I don't suggest that that's their desire, that's their motive or what they want to do. I suggest that many have just drifted into this in more ways than one.

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• And so in Judges we see a drift toward humanistic kingship. We understand what happened in 1 Samuel 8 when they desired a king. Samuel was told of God to let him know what that king was going to do, what that king was going to be. And what happened? That king was going to take, take, take, take. And that's exactly what the federal government does to us today. They take, take, take. But that's also what denominations do to many churches today. They take, take, take, and then dictate what they're going to do and say. And so instead of being independent voices across this land and men and women to stand on their own two feet, stand upon the Word of God, we are so—we're more worried about what's happening in the big picture and—

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• Then we stop and we run with that assumption that somebody else is saying something, somebody else is doing something, and somebody else died a long time ago. It's a shame. Now, these are the minor judges' verses, chapter 10, verse 1: "And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir. And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years. And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth Jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jair died, and was buried in..."

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• I looked away and missed it. Buried in... Come on.

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• Now, as we think about this, you go back over to chapter 12, you're going to see the other end of that bookend, so to speak, and verse 8: "And after him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years. Then died Ibzan, and was buried at Bethlehem. And after him Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years. And Elon the Zebulunite died, and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun."

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• "And after him Abdon the son of Hillel, a Pirathonite, judged Israel. And he had forty sons and thirty nephews that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight years. And Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died, and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the mount of the Amalekites."

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• Now, these minor judges, so to speak, I think were very important in many ways, but over the years of church history, we can look at the book of Judges as being something that served God's people in many ways, and I think many great ways. I think that was some of the inspiration among the Reformation. And boy, do we need a Reformation today in more ways than one. At least men with the same kind of grit of the Reformation.

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• We lack that in America. One of the problems we have in our nation is the lack of manhood. We've lost it in many cases. And that is a plague in more ways than one. The time of Reformation was an age of mounting tyranny, and Roman Catholicism had married a state claiming absolutism, along with many of the monarchs who made claims to divine rights. And as we read the book of Judges, it provided answers and ammunition against those kind of trends.

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• And three things proved to be a tremendous influence during those times. The book of Judges revealed their problems as moral and spiritual. It was a moral and spiritual disloyalty to Christ. And therefore they stressed that unless the Levites, the preachers, got busy and reformed the church, social conditions would only go from bad to worse. And listen, many of the preachers in our land today are doing nothing but lullabying the people to sleep. The pipers are leading them on a broad road to destruction in more ways than one. As has already been said today, there is more caring about filling the pews up and the offering plates so that we can take care of their little corporations rather than standing on the one true and living God, the words of the one true and living God.

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• So they also found, number two, they found that the Bible was opposed to centralized statism. Huh. The ideal Christian republic was decentralized and it was localized. Hence strong community, strong local community. It involved free men under the law of God, just like it is today. The lust for political power is quite dangerous. And certainly we've seen that both in history as well as in our day today. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt, nine out of ten, if not ten out of ten of our politicians today only become Christians on an election year.

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• And most of them probably can't spell the word. We hear the same talking points, election cycle after election cycle. It's all a bunch of nonsense. The only way this nation will ever be repaired or be able to stand up again is if we fix it from the bottom up. It has to come with our families. It has to come from these children sitting here and parents that will raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

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• Number three, we found also in Judges that God sometimes blesses resistance movements. When? It is really the righteous throwing off a genuine tyrant. Tyranny comes in many places, in many ways. Tyranny can be found in a home, it can be found in a church, it can be found in a state, and in a federal government. But you will quickly notice upon reading this that the trend toward monarchy, which began with Gideon, continues on here in this story of Jephthah in between these minor judges I've just read. But you'll notice also Jephthah failed to wait on God.

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• He desired to set up his own dynasty, and this is what his demise was. But bracketing this story at the beginning and the end is the brief mention of these minor judges. And it's interesting to me. Why in the world were we told that these men died and were buried? Every one of them were told that. I mean, isn't it quite obvious they're not here now? Why did they die and were buried? Because they were temporary. And it reminds us of how temporary they truly are.

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• The true Deliverer, the true Judge was Jesus Christ. He's the Deliverer. He's the one that's going to bring salvation to all of us. By calling attention to the deaths of these men, the scripture is teaching us simply that the deliverances brought by these men were only temporal. And it's funny, today we're looking for deliverance and we're looking for deliverance from a man. You know, it blows my mind how many people have bowed down and worshipped Donald Trump and various others. Do you really think those men are out for your best interest? We've been lied to and lied to for so long, most of us don't even recognize the truth when it's coming out of one of their mouths. It's a reality today that we have got to raise the generation that is going to help deliver us from where we are. It will be by the hands of God and by the mercy of God, but it will come from God's people. Here we're also going to notice God's social system.

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• Exodus 18 lays it out for us, and it has two aspects. And I'm not going to take the time to read it all, but I'll say this: you have the ministry of the Levites, ministry of the men of God, the preachers. It's our duty to teach the whole counsel of God. And too often we want to just, as I said earlier, just entertain, not offend anybody. And as one of the brethren, I think it was Stan, had already said, we don't ever seek out to just offend somebody personally.

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• Well, you know, why would you do that? It's counterproductive. But if the Word of God offends you, then that's not me. That's not my problem. That becomes your problem with God, right? That's a reality. If the shoe fits, wear it. That's how I look at it. If it doesn't, don't worry about it. Don't get bothered by it. But if it's hitting you, even if it's making you mad, that's a good thing, because it's letting you know there's something to think about, there's something wrong, there's something I need to ponder, to meditate on, to talk to God about.

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• The system, we also see it here in God's social system. The second aspect of it is the system of judges and courts of appeals. Judges and courts of appeals. You see, the Levites were to train the people in the law of God so they would be able to mature in self-government.

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• Now, you may ask yourself, what does that have to do with independent churches? I think it has a lot to do with independent churches, because we're doing in our churches just like we're doing in our government system. We're sitting back, and we're trying to enjoy the high life, just resting out, and let the preachers take care of it. Let the deacons take care of it. Or let the local officials take care of it. Let the president take care of it. Let the congress take care of it. No, you and I have a personal responsibility to take care of things, especially things which pertain to us and that are within the sphere of our dominion. And today, we have raised a generation of individuals who not only don't recognize dominion and their sphere of dominion, but have no care about doing God's business in it. Excuse me. That is killing us. And until we stop, until we understand the importance of our responsibility, things won't change. Excuse me.

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• You see, there was a strong government over the whole nation in one sense. Yet this strong government had very little to do with the day-to-day affairs of the citizens. The strong government over the nation was just simply a final court of appeals. A final court of appeals. They were to be mature enough to handle their problems. That maturity came from a thorough teaching of God's law, and then an application of God's law in their life. But when we can't learn God's law and then apply it, the next thing is we run to somebody to try to fix our problems for us, when most of the problems we face can be fixed by the heads of the home in this nation. They can be fixed if we just step up, man up, and take care of our responsibilities.

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• Rather than that, instead we'd rather pass them on to someone else. The whole thrust of this system, though, was local. Immediate day-to-day decisions would be made by the local elders. We don't give back to some of those things. We're done. As has been pointed out in this conference already, it's about community. In Matthew 18, tell your brother face to face. If he won't listen, take two or three witnesses. And if he won't hear them, tell it to the church.

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• There's nobody outside this place that even needs to know about it. Right? Nobody outside needs to know about it. 1 Corinthians makes that very clear. So, and yet, in today's society, 'Well, we don't want to offend anybody,' becomes the excuse. 'Well, I don't want to offend anybody.' Well, neither do I. It's hard to confront people. It's difficult. It's not pleasant. No one likes it. But sometimes it's necessary.

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• And by the way, when we do, oftentimes we remove a lot of misunderstandings, because many times that's all difficulties and disagreements are, is misunderstandings. Misunderstanding one's expectations, misunderstanding what one may have said or done. But unfortunately, it is sinful man that desires a reverse of all this. Instead of local churches with courts of appeal, we get top-heavy denominational structures that tend to invade and consume local ministries. Instead of local government, we get national government, universal conscription, heavy national taxation. That's where we are.

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• Certainly, we can understand the importance of preachers and teachers of the Word to remain true to the Scriptures and faithfully teach them. Certainly, we can see that. Or would we just be more concerned about developing as many programs as we can get and hope that our people can stay so active in our churches that the programs will keep them going and we can just fail to teach God's Word? That's in the description of most of the churches in America today. Pastors are not teachers of the Word, they're administrators of all the programs. We've got to get back just a simple Word of God and confidence in that being able to fix our problem. And brother, you were talking about the situation there in Joshua, you know, one of the ways I made application to this—I don't disagree with anything Stan said; he really broke my heart.

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• Because he reminded me of how much I miss my sons and grandchildren in his message, but I'll tell you this: I thought about that on many occasions because I grew up—I didn't grow up, but after I was saved as an adult, I was a part of a ministry that kept you busy as fleas on a hound dog's back. I mean, you were always doing something. And in the process of all that, I'm a newly saved young man, and I'm ready to jump in with both feet. I'm praising God. I'm thankful.

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• I want to serve the Lord. I'll do whatever you want, preacher. And the preacher said he can help me build his kingdom. He didn't use those words, but that's what it really tends to be. And so, sometime later, the Lord began showing me and opened my eyes to the realities of these things. Pastor Weaver's actually been one that's helped me a lot in that. But I began to realize how much in ministry we're neglecting our families. How many pastors are neglecting their families for the sake of the ministry?

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• I hope most of you probably don't know him because he was an Arminian. I don't even know if he was saved. He may have been. I don't know. Jack Hyles. Everybody ever hear of him? Mr. Arminian in my book. I read a letter his daughter wrote to the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. It broke my heart. It broke my heart. There were so many things that went on in that life and that home and that family that was so unbiblical and wrong.

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• And he would tell his children, "Just keep quiet for the sake of the ministry. For the sake of the ministry." They worshiped him. He would not be a part of the song service. This is as I'm told. I've never been a part of it, never seen it, so if I'm wrong, you can correct me later. But I'm told he would never be a part of the song service.

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• He'd wait until it was time for him to preach and he'd step out and they'd start yelling, "Preach! Preach! Preach!" What does that sound like? Sounds like they're worshiping somebody. And there's no substance there. A bunch of fluff. And yet these personalities can fill buildings up and do great things to the average fleshly mind. But where's the fruit? Where's the fruit? Look at our nation. It's going to hell in a handbasket. And yet many of the professing mainstream churches around this country, every week with money rolling out of their bank accounts, everything seems to be going on right in it, if you want to look at it from their perspective. And yet we are morally and spiritually declining every day at a rapid pace. Something

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• must be wrong. Men need to quit trying to organize and patronize and get back to simply expounding the Word of God. You know, when my... I thought about judges. I got off track a little bit there, but I thought about Joshua, and I thought to myself, in application, Joshua and those men were conquering, man. They were conquering. They were doing great things. And I liken that to ministry. They were doing the work of God, right? Does the work of God ever require you to neglect the responsibilities that God gives you? No. In other words, if you're a pastor of the church, God does not expect you to be the pastor of the church and neglect your home, because your home is your first ministry.

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• And we can take that as far as you want to take it, you understand. But in my mind, in my peanut brain application, I can see the men of Joshua's day fighting those battles, winning those wars, and doing a great work for God. And maybe I wasn't there, I don't know, but maybe neglecting that ministry at home for some reason. One generation later, they're worshiping Baal, and that didn't happen by accident. So I look at it like this.

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• You can be so full of your Christianity, so to speak, and you can be that person that seems the most spiritual in the church and neglect every responsibility you have at all and fail God, fail your family, and so on. Because in today's society, we want professionals to take care of everything, right? We need a doctor to heal us. We need a preacher to teach our children. We need a teacher to teach our children. We need this, we need that. We need the politicians to make our laws.

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• When in reality, it's up to us. And it should start with us. And when the Word of God is taught and done properly, we can enjoy the rich diversity of local color and still find unity because of the Word of God. And all of this is without it being imposed by tyrannical forces. I've got a dear brother in Jamaica, and great preacher, great expositor, very intelligent man.

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• But he's not there now; he's in the Virgin Islands now. He's a native Jamaican, and I've been over to their church four or five times, and they're up in the mountains, and he doesn't have any of these nice instruments. He'll get up there with that tambourine, and he'll get that tambourine going, man, they'll get out, they'll start, and I mean, they don't sing 'Victory in Jesus' like we do. 'Victory in Jesus.' I mean, they're talking about victory. I mean, they're getting into it.

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• And I'm sitting there, you know, I'm the only white guy in there. And they're looking at me, 'Come on, preach that!' And I'm like, 'Did you notice I'm white? I don't have any rhythm.' You know, we're laughing about it, it's not a big deal. I said, 'I don't have any rhythm. I'm one of those guys, when it comes to the clapping thing, I'm just, ah, heck with it, I'm just not doing it. I can't do it.' I know some of you have rhythm, so I know not all white people are like me. But nonetheless, I'd sit there and watch them, and you know, they don't do it like I do it.

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• But he was preaching from the Word. And when he went to the Word, he brought substance out of it. And we had unity. We didn't have uniformity. I'm not going to use the tambourine. I'll tell you all, forget about it. You're not going to catch me leading the music with a tambourine. It's not happening. I enjoyed it. They didn't have to be exactly like me. But something needs to come out of this. Something needs—and did.

  #56 | 35:08 to 35:36 | cleaned

• So what a blessing it is. You know, when men refuse God's ways, they can only impose their will over a large area by using the implements of force and violence. And in order to get a uniform culture, which is what we really want in many ways—many people do, I should say. And remember, culture is religion externalized. And the only way to make that uniform, they have to impose it from above, which only works to nullify all local diversity.

  #57 | 35:37 to 36:05 | cleaned

• So what are the denominations doing now? They're trying to impose on preachers to marry gay couples. No. Cold day where the boogeyman lives. We don't do that. But they're imposing it. You see, that is called uniformity. It's not unity. And it is an unbiblical uniformity. But here we have a nation that's falling to pieces spiritually, and a lot of it is being done by the people who call themselves men of God. That's right.

  #58 | 36:06 to 36:42 | cleaned

• Biblically, a larger government sets only general policy and serves as a court of appeal. But in a humanistic state, the larger government sets all policy, whether it's in a church or it's in a state government. Thus, it destroys local diversity and has no court of appeal. In essence, all local courts merely become the manifestations of the central courts. And that's where we have been, politically and religiously, in America in more ways than one.

  #59 | 36:42 to 37:09 | cleaned

• So, all of this is due to the fact that in Pelagian Humanism, it is man, not God, who is king. Man and not God. You know, I refer back to my earlier days and I felt like I was built in the man's kingdom and not God's kingdom. And it's, I can tell you this, there's a lot of freedom when you let all that go. A lot of liberty. A lot more joy in your service to the Lord in all that you do. A whole lot more. So, when Christ is King once again in His churches and the Levites, you know, the pastors and preachers are doing their job and the people are obeying the Word of God, that kind of tyranny will be gone.

  #60 | 37:10 to 38:00 | cleaned

• Look in your Bibles in Ephesians 4. Our churches need to be independent. But we're still codependent on each other. We need each other. There are strengths and weaknesses among this group that, when it's put together, makes a powerful force. There really is. As you've heard me say already, I can't carry a tune in a bucket. I can't play an instrument. I can barely play the radio. There's a whole lot of other people that fill that gap up in here. You don't need me to do it.

  #61 | 38:01 to 38:38 | cleaned

• There may be something I can do. But the reality is this, is that when we work together and we learn how to apply those things together, we are a force to be reckoned with. We really are. But we have taken our independence too far. We've not really leaned on one another like we should. And I think there are many reasons for it. But let's look at Ephesians 4.

  #62 | 38:39 to 39:08 | cleaned

• I don't want to drag you out. I'm already putting some of you to sleep. I told one brother I'm going to throw a psalm book. Where's he at? I've got to see if I can reach him before he's there. Paul says here in Ephesians 4 verse 1, "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." You know, I illustrate that word forbearing, meaning put up with.

  #63 | 39:08 to 39:37 | cleaned

• I had several families that stayed in our home in 2009 because power went out over a bad ice storm, and I used this as a devotion, and I talked about putting up with. They said, is that what you're doing, putting up with us? No, that's not what I meant. But now that you mention it. They were joking, of course. Verse three, "Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." You see, really, without the peace of Christ in you, that bond that holds all that together, there never will be unity.

  #64 | 39:38 to 40:12 | cleaned

• In other words, we have to be thinking alike. It doesn't mean we're thinking exactly alike in the sense that we're clones of one another, but we are thinking biblically. Spiritually minded and enjoying that bond of peace goes on in verse 4: "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Why we agree on

  #65 | 40:13 to 40:40 | cleaned

• All that we've already got somewhere, haven't we? We have. "But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men."

  #66 | 40:40 to 40:56 | cleaned

• "Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; Why? For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

  #67 | 40:57 to 41:22 | cleaned

• How long is that supposed to take place? "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."

  #68 | 41:22 to 42:04 | cleaned

• You see what I'm saying? We're coming together and what God has gifted you with and blessed you with has made this body stronger, better, and useful. Verse 17: "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who"

  #69 | 42:04 to 42:31 | cleaned

• "being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour."

  #70 | 42:31 to 43:04 | cleaned

• "For we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers."

  #71 | 43:04 to 43:33 | cleaned

• And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.

  #72 | 43:34 to 43:55 | cleaned

• Now the word unity is only mentioned three times in the Bible. We just read two of them. The first one I opened with in Psalm 133. This is a textbook on unity, so to speak. You want unity? Dive into this chapter in this book and begin studying it and applying it. And by the way, you can't just pick parts of it out. You've got to take it all and apply it all.

  #73 | 43:55 to 44:23 | cleaned

• You know, I once watched a video not long ago that made me laugh. But after I got done laughing, I got to thinking, oh, this is real. Galatians 5, go back a few pages. Verse 14 of Galatians 5, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one another." You bite and devour one another. Now, that took me to that video. I saw a video. It was hilarious. I showed it to our church when I first saw it, and I used it as this illustration. But in that video, there's a dog lying on a couch. And that dog's stretched out, and he's got a bone in his mouth. He's just enjoying that bone.

  #74 | 44:24 to 45:29 | cleaned

• And you think I'm making this up. This dog had to be retarded or something. I don't know what was going on. But his back leg starts creeping up toward that bone. And that dog just turns and starts growling at his own leg. And I'm thinking something's wrong with him. I mean, he's chased too many car tires and caught them. I guarantee it. He's going back and forth constantly. He's growling at that foot. That foot's creeping up toward that bone. And it's funny how it kind of looks like he's sneaking it up. He's really going at it. He's going to chew his own foot off. And you want to smack him in the head and say, that's your own foot. But that's what it's like.

  #75 | 45:30 to 46:13 | cleaned

• That's how dumb we look, how foolish we look, and how useless we are when we bite and devour one another. We're destroying ourselves. We are literally hurting our ministry, our testimonies. We're hurting the cause of Christ. We're losing forward momentum. I can't tell you how many times we've been feeling the Spirit of God moving in our churches and moving forward in some stupid thing like that. Just quench the Spirit. Make you feel like you've just fell back three miles after you had so much gained. And brethren, I appreciate the spirit of the conference and what's trying to be accomplished here, and I hope it will be. We've got to learn that it's our duty under God to take dominion of our sphere of influence.

  #76 | 46:13 to 47:12 | cleaned

• And if every one of us takes that responsibility seriously, and we give our best effort, this place can change. And it can change rapidly. And it can change with a small group of people. We don't need millions. If Christ is before us, who can be against us? Who? Us and God are the majority. So, you know, we've got to stop thinking in this worldly method. We've got to quit looking at the world and seeing it so large.

  #77 | 47:13 to 47:49 | cleaned

• Remember, it's our Lord's footstool. It's nothing. What we need to do is get back to just simply obeying Him, taking on our responsibilities and owning them. Yeah, we'll make mistakes along the way. Own those too. I told my men, my crew leads, I said, part of your job is to make leaders. Make leaders. Teach people what you know. Be willing to step out. I've got enough individuals that just want to collect a paycheck. I need leaders. People are much like horses in many ways. A horse doesn't want a friend, it wants a leader. And listen, we need leaders in this day and age. You've got something you're raising, raise them to be leaders. It doesn't mean we're going to be having our name in the marquee. It doesn't mean that we're going to move great mountains. But we need to be leaders in the sphere God puts us in, and biblical leaders. And all of that, when it comes together, is a great force to be reckoned with.

  #78 | 47:49 to 49:11 | cleaned

• And if we will learn that importance, the importance of our churches coming together in unity, enjoying each other, helping one another. Brother Stan needs help. I hope and pray to God he knows he can call me and I'd do whatever I could to help. I'd rally our church, do whatever we could to help. And I trust that he would do the same. Brother Peacock, Brother Weaver, that's what we need.

  #79 | 49:12 to 49:34 | cleaned

• But you know, we don't do that much anymore. Sometimes it's because we're too proud. Sometimes we're afraid it's a sign of weakness when in reality it's not. It gives us an opportunity to exercise the gift that God has given us for the furtherance of the kingdom of God and for His glory. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time we've had. We thank you for Brother Peacock hosting this conference and the work he's done in this church. Thank you, Lord, for Brother Campbell and all he has been doing for this brother and this ministry. We thank you, Lord, that we can all say we're here for you. We're here for you. Imperfectly, but we're here for you. And we thank you for loving us in spite of us. We thank you, Lord, for your grace, your mercy, your longsuffering.

  #80 | 49:35 to 50:28 | cleaned

• And if we just ponder your longsuffering toward us, we certainly should be able to have more toward others, as we certainly don't deserve the good things you bestow upon our lives. We love you and we thank you for this time to be here in Jesus' name. Amen. Get out your pens and papers. Get out your pen and papers. I would ask you to write two things down.

  #81 | 50:29 to 50:53 | cleaned

• You can Google search them however you want to do it. Write two things down. The one being the term theonomy. Theonomy, T-H-E-O, Theos God, T-H-E-O, Nomi, N-O-M-Y, Law. Theonomy, the application of God's law today, that is to say, Old Testament law. There is a grand portion of Christianity today that rejects theonomy, that would reject the application of God's law, Old Testament, to society today. So if you would, if you're not familiar with the term, theonomy, what would unite us? What would unite these particular churches, independent though we be, is a doctrine of theonomy.

  #82 | 50:53 to 52:01 | cleaned

• Both from Brother Allen, Brother Cliff, Brother Stan, and Brother Weaver. You could ask around the county, Ben Hill, Coffey, wherever you have friends in churches, if they'd be a theonomic-minded pastor or congregation. Some might not even have heard the term. Don't blame them for that. But understand that many and most churches reject the law of God in our lives. After all, we live under grace. We're under grace, not under law, is the common line.

  #83 | 52:02 to 52:43 | cleaned

• So if you want to know what unites us and helps bring us together, it is the doctrine, the understanding of theonomy. The second thing I would ask you to write down, to look up, on theonomy, Greg Bahnsen. If you've heard of the author, he's passed away, Greg Bahnsen. B-A-H-N-S-E-N. Thank you. S-E-N. B-A-H-N-S-E-N. Greg Bahnsen.

  #84 | 52:43 to 53:15 | cleaned

• I've bought his books off of Amazon. Look them up. Greg Bahnsen on theonomy and the second term, Christian Reconstruction. That is to say, how to reconstruct. We heard about reconstruction after the war between the states, not necessarily in a good way. But we would understand we need to reconstruct society to be in line with the principles of Scripture. Christian Reconstruction. We get an understanding of the Word of God through the ministry of R.J. Rushdoony. If you have not purchased books by R.J. Rushdoony, see your pastor. See Brother Weaver on which titles of the books to get, so that you can read them to understand Christian Reconstruction. Each one of these pastors and these churches understand, and we come together knowing we need to rebuild society as it's being torn down.

  #85 | 53:15 to 54:21 | cleaned

• What if we had a revival, but didn't know how to keep it? We need to understand how to restructure society by the Word of God that we can see it go generations, or else we'll just lose it in a generation. So your homework from today is theonomy and Christian reconstruction. Wonderful.

  #86 | 54:22 to 54:45 | cleaned

• Now, we are in October and I was planning on having another wonderful day like this next October, which we probably still will. But seeing the times being troubled as they are, we are going to plan another day just like today with the food, with the speakers for January 20th. Saturday, January 20th. By all means, please put that on your calendar. The discussion points by the brothers who will be sharing. Here's a book, and there's many books like this. This is a book entitled, Rural Home Defense.

  #87 | 54:46 to 55:27 | cleaned

• This is a former law enforcement, and he talks about if we get into a lawless society, the electricity goes away, any number of things, how to defend your home against marauders, thieves, and this sort of thing. And so this man has written this book, Rural Home Defense. Now in the title, Rural Home Defense, they've already got something right. This is not suburban home defense, that is tract homes, how to garden and be self-sufficient in a tract home, but rather rural home defense. So suburban is better even than urban. Can you imagine urban home defense? That's your apartment complex. Making sure you've got water put by or canned goods. In an apartment complex, you cannot defend yourself in an urban scenario. You can't. Suburban, that's worse. It's just as bad. Rural home defense. A lot of good things.

  #88 | 55:27 to 56:25 | cleaned

• Property lines, fences, how to deal with people who are looking to steal what you have. What we're looking for, January 20th, as the titles of the messages come together, biblical home defense. How to understand? We understand from Brother Weaver's teaching for the last 25 years, self-defense, when it's my life on the line. But what about our homes, our property, our gardens, which will feed our families unless these thieves come in just to steal and pillage? How do we defend our homes biblically?

  #89 | 56:26 to 57:04 | cleaned

• What are the principles involved there? And I'm either going to shock you and you'll never speak to me again or otherwise. I don't know what I'm about to do. Jesse, come up here. This is my friend, Jesse. Jesse is 12. All right. This is Jesse. Imagine chaos. Society's gone. It's a terrible day. Jesse is hungry. He has a family who's hungry and he has a 10/22, a weapon, a gun, a rifle. And he, with his family who's hurt in the bushes, can't see them, but he stumbles out of the bushes into our yard, near our garden, on our farm, and he's got a gun. And he sees Jenna, my wife, carrying vegetables from the garden, trying to get back to the house.

  #90 | 57:05 to 58:03 | cleaned

• And he starts taking pot shots to kill the woman he sees with the food. Now, unfortunately, he's a bad shot. I see from across the yard dirt kicking up. And I'm saying, son, whoever you are, kid, stop shooting. Stop. You're trying to kill my wife. Now, if I have a weapon and he is trying to kill my wife and he hears me yelling, so he turns to me, starts taking pot shots at me with this .22.

  #91 | 58:04 to 58:35 | cleaned

• What do I have to do? Many people don't want to think about the answer to this question. What do I do? Many people were just like, that is so hard. I don't want to think about it. You know, we're in 2023. We're getting into 2024. Life will go on just as we know it. There's no need for this kind of chaos, these ideas of apocalypse, or something like that.

  #92 | 58:38 to 59:04 | cleaned

• If you can't bear the thought of preparing your mind, of having a theology ready, to say, this young man, young as he be, is a threat to my life. He has attempted to kill her and by God's grace he's failed. But I need to stop him. And I'm across the yard. I can't tackle him. He's now shooting at me. What do I do as a man of God? I've got to kill him. I've got to stop him. I don't know him. He's come as the thief. He's come as a murderer. And he's 12 years old. And I have to stop him. And if I wasn't already ready in my mind to do it, I might stop. I might be in analysis paralysis. What do I do? But the theology that I already know, my heart's prepared.

  #93 | 59:05 to 1:00:12 | cleaned

• I mean him no malice. But I've got to stop him. And I'm going to have to shoot, and I'm going to have to kill a 12-year-old boy because he's seeking to murder my wife, murder myself, and the rest of my children.

  #94 | 1:00:12 to 1:00:28 | cleaned

• Now that is a reasonable scenario when the bad times come. Think of any war in Iraq. Over in the Middle East, terrible things happen in war. And yet theology would give us a clear, crystal answer, as unpleasant as it might be. And we would pray that day never comes. But are you ready? Are you aware that decisions will need to be made? Decisions will need to be made based on the principles of the Word of God you have to already ingrain.

  #95 | 1:00:29 to 1:01:11 | cleaned

• in your mind and in your heart. Or else you might be facing and say, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I've got to go read some more." Wrong time to go reading. Wrong time to look for the CDs and the DVDs. That time has passed. So we are looking, January 20th, biblical home defense. And all the thought that goes around with that, we'll have the men prepare some messages, Brother Weaver, and that sort of thing. So just before Brother Weber comes, a few words on the wonderful facility we have. Brother Allen talked about it earlier.

  #96 | 1:01:11 to 1:01:48 | cleaned

• Here at Douglas Gospel Assembly, we have both the sanctuary, we have the fellowship hall. If anyone has a class to teach, if someone has a skill, bring it forward. The facility would be made available. This is for the Lord's glory and for kingdom use. So for ladies, I know you've had cooking classes or meat canning classes. Whatever it might be. The Youth Conference will be held here next year, by God's grace. Wonderful thing.

  #97 | 1:01:49 to 1:02:19 | cleaned

• So see Brother Allen if you have any questions for that. And ladies, let's say you wanted to have a canning class or a bread-making class. Well, I'd encourage you to bring some theology into that as well. As the Bible says, "Man shall not live by bread alone." So before you get to the kitchen to do all the cooking, perhaps gather around the piano. Have Sister Wanda play for you.

  #98 | 1:02:19 to 1:02:43 | cleaned

• There's wonderful hymns having to do with these things. We all grew up with "Canning Up the Peas" to the tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves." "Canning in the morning, washing mason jars up. We shall come rejoicing, canning up the peas." Right? You can get into it. I didn't grow up in Georgia, but even we sang "Crock of Peaches." "Crock of peaches, let them steam. They're for pie and ice cream." And you can get into it.

  #99 | 1:02:43 to 1:03:16 | cleaned

• Now let me just share a testimony with you. Brother Weaver and I had a chance to sing that for some folks here a couple months ago. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Laughing or crying, I don't know, but those people got emotional. We sang the duet, and it came out four-part harmony. It was the Lord stopped by to help us out. That's what I'm saying. Thank God. Brother Weaver, if you would, come forward. Well, not everybody's going to understand what I'm about to say, but I will just tell Warren Luke. It would do him no good to shoot at Jesse because Jesse just slides right under it. Those of you who've seen the video, you understand what I'm talking about. All right. Well, it's been a blessing today and I'm thankful for the opportunity to be here. I thank for Brother Peacock. I just, I was thinking, I think it was '92 that we met. I don't remember, it's a long time ago, but Alice and I were reading a paper, you had an ad in it, there was a speaker here, and we were just flabbergasted that someone would have a speaker that we knew.

  #100 | 1:03:16 to 1:04:30 | cleaned

• And we came and we've been friends ever since. And I could not help but laugh too. Brother Stan mentioned the Christian school. Because two of our grandchildren were here, Renee and Casey, and they were kindergartners. And Royce Lee, I don't remember what grade you were in. You were junior high, something like that, but I never will forget. Renee said she thought it was funny that somebody that big and old was still in kindergarten.

  #101 | 1:04:30 to 1:05:10 | cleaned

• And she called him Rosalee. She never could say Rosalee. Rosalee. So anyhow, that was a long time ago, that's for sure. And Brother Stan, I got to thinking too, you know, I met your dad before I met you. He pastored at Patterson. And I met him there because he was a friend of Brother McCurry, and Brother McCurry told me when I was in Jessup, and I went to meet him when he was in Patterson.

  #102 | 1:05:14 to 1:05:40 | cleaned

• Did he ever preach at Central Baptist Church in Waycross? All right. So, Brother Gordon, there's your answer. Brother Gordon knew him as well. So that's good. Well, amen. Well, if you would open your Bibles, if you would please, to the book of Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.

  #103 | 1:05:41 to 1:05:59 | cleaned

• Now, I want to just try to tie together a number of things that's been said today. And since this has been really on community, I'm going to be dealing with a community that will work. So if you look in Acts chapter 2, beginning there with verse 41, and let me just read these, Acts 2 verse 41. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

  #104 | 1:05:59 to 1:06:24 | cleaned

• And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. Notice, if you would please, when Brother Peacock spoke first thing this morning, he was actually dealing with how the Lord has worked in this church and in this community. And then, of course, Brother Stan dealt with the families in community. And then, of course, our dear Brother Cliff has dealt also with dominion and church to church and what's going on. Let me point out to begin with, communities are no better than the individuals and the families in them.

  #105 | 1:06:25 to 1:07:32 | cleaned

• And if you do not have individuals that are right and families that are right, you're not going to have a right community, that is for sure. I want to just mention very quickly by way of introduction some of the failed communities. I'm not going to spend much time upon these. Many of these you have never heard about and probably are not even interested in hearing about them.

  #106 | 1:07:32 to 1:07:58 | cleaned

• But they are valuable in the sense that you know what will fail and what will not work. In fact, most of these were just pure socialistic experiments. Some of them were out-and-out communism. A fool's dream in socialism is this: They know that socialism does not work, that it's going to fail. But the fool's dream is, well, they just haven't tried my brand of socialism. And mine is going to work where everyone else's fails.

  #107 | 1:07:59 to 1:08:27 | cleaned

• I never will forget when I was in college in Greenville, South Carolina. I forget exactly how many, but around 25 or 30 bank robberies happened while I was in school. And no, it wasn't me. About 25 or 30 of them happened, and not one ever got out of the city limits of Greenville, South Carolina. Not one robber ever made it out of the city limits. Why in the world would anyone continue to rob a bank when they have that kind of record, when nobody ever got out of the city limits?

  #108 | 1:08:27 to 1:09:01 | cleaned

• Because every criminal thought the other criminals were stupid, but they had it right, and they're not going to get caught. They're exceptions. Well, that's the way socialism works as well. So near the mid-19th century, there were dozens of men and women in North America and in Europe who were trying these communities with what they call looking for social progress. One of those communities was Brook Farm, started by George Ripley. He was a humanist.

  #109 | 1:09:01 to 1:09:30 | cleaned

• He was a humanitarian, so to speak. But he was also a member of the Transcendentalist Club. And so he began this transcendental community. And one of the leading principles of the Transcendentalists was mind over matter. They thought the supremacy of the mind was that which really... He began this little community in 1841 on 200 acres near Boston, Massachusetts. And the truth of the matter is, it was a failure because one of their leading principles was this—I'm reading from the Articles of Association—was to substitute a system of brotherly cooperation for one of selfish competition.

  #110 | 1:09:31 to 1:10:17 | cleaned

• So what they're saying is we're not going to be independent workers. We're not going to do it. We're just going to work together. And everybody's going to get a little bit of whatever we do. Guess what? If I want to get a little bit of everything that everybody else does, why should I really exert myself at all? Why should I not just sit back and let you exert yourself? You see, the truth of the matter is socialism does not work. And this group just happened to exist for a few years.

  #111 | 1:10:17 to 1:10:44 | cleaned

• There was also an equality colony, which was an attempt to create a socialistic utopia in Washington State. It began in 1897, and by 1907, it was extinct. Socialism always fails. There was the New Harmony community, also a utopian community started by Robert Owen. He began it in 1824, and by 1829, it was over, lasted five years. And then Fruitlands. Fruitlands, you talk about a fruit group. This was a group. They were a weird community.

  #112 | 1:10:45 to 1:11:24 | cleaned

• They were a vegetarian settlement, and they were anarchists. They banned the eating of meat and using of animal products whatsoever. In fact, they could not even use animals in their farm work. And they were reduced to planting anything, or let me say this again, they were reduced to planting only those things which would not disturb the earthworms. Consequently, the winter of 1843 did not sit well with them because they didn't have enough to eat. And so it didn't last a year.

  #113 | 1:11:24 to 1:12:02 | cleaned

• They just simply left the plantation, so to speak. Warren Luke had lived for years in Cahuilla, California. Cahuilla was begun as a socialistic experiment, and of course it was begun in the 1880s, and by 1892 it was over. Now the town Cahuilla continues to exist, but the socialistic colony disappeared, because socialism just simply does not work.

  #114 | 1:12:02 to 1:12:27 | cleaned

• Now, I mentioned one word already. In fact, I mentioned both words. And I want to just stop and give you a good definition. Because you hear people talk about a socialistic utopia or a communistic utopia. Let me just say this very bluntly. There's no such thing as a utopia. Okay? The word utopia, our English word, comes from two Greek words, ou topos. Ou topos is where we get our word utopia.

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• Ou happens to be a negative, it means no. Topos is the word that means place. The word utopia means no place. In other words, it doesn't exist. It's a figment of the imagination. It's only in the dreams of man. It is God who determines reality and not man. And so anytime you hear the word utopia, you just got to remember that's a figment of someone's imagination. The second word you've heard me use, and everybody else has used today, is the word community. We use that word very loosely. We think we understand what it means, but in reality we probably do not.

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• Let me give you a good definition. Here it is. A social group of any size, whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

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• Now, when you stop and think about this, you and I can comprehend a group of people. We can comprehend them residing in a specific locality. We can even comprehend them sharing government. But let me tell you something, just because you live in a specific locality and just because you share government and just because you have people around you does not mean that you are a community. Because oftentimes we overlook this latter part: and have a common cultural and historical heritage.

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• Now let me say something, you're going to hear me say this several times. Where there is no commonality, there is no community.

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• Now here's another definition of community, I want you to listen carefully. A group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule. Well, I hope you understand exactly what Warren Lusk was talking about when we were talking about God's law. Because God's law is the rule for our life. It is our standard. And if we're living in a Christian community—and by the way, you do not have to be on the same property to have a real Christian community. You can be neighbors. You can have individual property rights, that is for sure. But even in a church, a church is supposed to be a Christian community. When you talk about a community, think, if you would please, about Israel. Israel was divided into 12 tribes. But not only those 12 tribes, they were also divided into families and they were also divided into clans. And so you had one group and they were not necessarily living right next to each other. Every tribe had its individual property.

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• But they all cooperated and worked together. So, you can have people grouped in a specific locality, you can have people sharing government, but if they do not have a common faith, if they do not have a common culture, if they do not have a common heritage, there's not going to be any real community. And that is a fact that most people have never really understood this principle. Because you cannot have a community unless people begin to think and believe alike.

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• So what we have today is this. We have a conglomeration of churches, a conglomeration of cultures, faiths, heritages, ethnicities, ideologies, and all of these things determine our political, religious, and economic views. There cannot possibly be any real community today with such major divisions. What is happening, Brother Cliff has already touched upon, there is separation and division happening everywhere. You look at the Muslims that have come into this country. The Muslims are now pushing as hard as they can for Sharia law. Guess what? The atheists are pushing as hard as they can to kick God and any Christianity out of life.

  #122 | 1:16:25 to 1:17:12 | cleaned

• And then, of course, then there are Christians who are fighting each other because they want their little specific denomination or their little specific sect to be predominant. And by the way, I could have used the word preeminent. Did you know that the word preeminence only occurs twice in the New Testament? Did you know that? The first time it occurs is found in the Book of Colossians chapter 1 in reference to Jesus Christ, that in all things he might have the preeminence. The second time it's used is in 3 John, when he's talking about Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence, and he won't let people in the church.

  #123 | 1:17:13 to 1:17:55 | cleaned

• And he kicks the apostles out. In other words, he would take the place of Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what is happening today. In other words, if it's not going to benefit me, if it's not going to benefit my church, if it's not going to benefit my ministry, then I'm not interested in it. That's the attitude. And that's not ministry at all. That's not ministry at all.

  #124 | 1:17:55 to 1:18:19 | cleaned

• So the truth of the matter is there is a community that actually works. And that community, of course, is given to us as an example, the church. The Church of Jesus Christ is to be a community of the saints. Likewise, our physical communities must also hold to and possess the biblical principles of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because really and truly only God can give community. Only God can give us a commonality of faith. And only God has given us a commonality in heritage and culture as well.

  #125 | 1:18:20 to 1:19:00 | cleaned

• Now in Acts chapter 2 and verse 42 is where I want to begin. How would you look at it? The Bible said that they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. So I'm going to give you several important points. And here's the very first one. The first important truth concerning community, whether it is a church or a community of individuals, is doctrine. Is doctrine. Notice if you would, how they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. In other words, they continued in the doctrine, in the teaching that the apostles taught, who received their teaching from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Why in the world is doctrine so important? Well, let me give you several reasons. First of all, doctrine determines our duty. Do you realize it's impossible to know your duty without doctrine? You do not even know how to act without duty. Our duty is based upon our doctrine. How do we know how to live? How do we know how to work? How do we know how to help?

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• How do we know how to get along with each other? How in the world do we need and know how to love each other without doctrine? Doctrine teaches us that which is right, that which is agreeable with God, that which pleases God, and that which honors God. You cannot know your duty without doctrine. The Bible says in the book of Micah, chapter 6 and verse 8, "He has shown thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." The word of God tells you in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 13, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man." If you don't know God's law, if you don't know God's word, if you don't know doctrine, you have no idea what your duty is. You can't perform it. In the book of Romans chapter 15 and verse 27, the Apostle Paul wrote, "It hath pleased them verily, and their debtors they are.

  #127 | 1:20:19 to 1:21:33 | cleaned

• For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is to minister them in material or earthly things." Notice if you would, duty is based upon doctrine. It is impossible to live right unless you believe right. It is impossible to do your duty or even know your duty without doctrine. You remember what the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 23 and verse 7 in regards to man? "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 4 verse 23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." And then our Lord said it like this in the book of Matthew chapter 15 and verse 19, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Everything that we do comes out of the heart. And the heart in Scripture is the mind. You cannot move, you cannot act without thinking. And our Lord said, if our thinking is wrong, then our actions are going to be wrong.

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• If our actions are going to be right, that means our thinking must be right, our doctrine must be right, so that we will know how to act. Let me show you. I want you to look in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15. And let's read the first eight verses. Look at this passage. Romans 15. Just to show you that doctrine determines our duty. What's this? He said in Romans 15 in verse 1, "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification.

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• For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, 'The reproaches of them that reproach thee fell on me.' For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope."

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• Now the God of patience and consolation grant you, watch this, to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.

  #131 | 1:23:55 to 1:24:27 | cleaned

• Now, note if you would please, in order to do your duty in life according to this passage, you must understand what it means not to please yourself. You must understand what it means to edify one another. You must understand what it means to be like-minded. You must understand what it means to think the same thing and to say the same thing. And you must understand what it means to receive one another, even as Christ received us. In other words, this passage basically teaches us as Christians that we're to have one mind, that is the mind of Jesus Christ. We're to have one mouth, that is we're to say the same thing. We're to have one motive, and that is we're to glorify God the Father. And we're to have one mission, and that is to confirm the promises that God has given according to the person and work of Jesus Christ and what he has accomplished.

  #132 | 1:24:27 to 1:25:24 | cleaned

• So, a common doctrine does not mean that everyone must agree on everything in detail. However, it does mean that everyone does agree on the fundamentals of Scripture, and we hold the Word of God to be the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. We hold to the fact and reality that Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is salvation. So we not only believe in the inspiration and authority and infallibility of the Scripture, we also believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we must also have and possess a teachable spirit. So the believers then in the early church, they received the doctrine of the apostles. They retained it. They believed it. They understood it. They applied it.

  #133 | 1:25:25 to 1:26:25 | cleaned

• So you're not going to have a community without having, basically, a common faith. Now, the truth of the matter is this. When you have a common faith, it's going to lead you, secondly, to a common fellowship. If you look back in Acts chapter 2 and verse 42, look at what the Scripture says again. "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship." Now the word fellowship is the Greek word koinonia, and it literally means community. It means fellowship. It means an association for religious or spiritual purposes. It refers to a commonality in a community.

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• Now let me tell you, one can be civil and kind to unbelievers. And one can be civil and kind to those who believe differently, yet there's no real fellowship. The only real fellowship is going to be those who have the like mind.

  #135 | 1:27:21 to 1:27:48 | cleaned

• Now this truth can be clearly seen in the rest of the verse, because the doctrine that led to duty, and that duty led to their fellowship, and that fellowship included the breaking of bread and prayers. Now the breaking of bread could refer to the love feast, which many times they had before partaking of the Lord's Supper, or you could just simply refer to the Lord's Supper. But no one is going to be intimately associated with any individuals whom they cannot get along with and whom they cannot fellowship with by eating with them and praying with them. I mean, it's just not going to happen.

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• Now, I certainly have no intimate desire to associate with those who deny the dignity of Jesus Christ, or deny the inspiration of the Bible, or someone who is so confused that it is impossible to discuss spiritual truths with him when he really and truly will not even listen. Why? Because there's no commonality. And where there is no commonality, there is no community. And where there is no community, it's because there's no doctrinal unity.

  #137 | 1:28:33 to 1:29:06 | cleaned

• Fellowship is based upon doctrine. Being able to pray together is based upon doctrine. If one did not believe that God was sovereign, and if he did not believe that God would hear and answer prayer, why would I waste my time praying with him? If he doesn't believe that Jesus Christ is God, why would I pray with him? I'm just simply pointing out the fact. The Bible says in Acts 2:44, "And all that believed were together." And all that believed were together.

  #138 | 1:29:06 to 1:29:46 | cleaned

• So let me put it to you like this. Doctrine brings community. A lack of doctrine breeds contempt for others and issues in disunity. Getting back to what Brother Christman preached, one of the reasons that our churches and communities are so divided and so distant from each other is there's no doctrine. There's no doctrine. How in the world can you have fellowship when there is no doctrine? It's impossible.

  #139 | 1:29:46 to 1:30:25 | cleaned

• Now, before I leave this point, I want to correct a misunderstanding. I want you to look in your Bibles again to Acts chapter 2 and notice, if you would, just beginning there with verse, oh, let's say verse 44. "And all that believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need." Someone has said, and I've heard it over and over, this is early communism. No, it is not. Neither is it a Christian communism. The Bible does not teach communism. The Bible does not teach socialism.

  #140 | 1:30:27 to 1:31:16 | cleaned

• All this means is that they were willing to share, they were willing to help, they were willing to sacrifice, and they were willing to take care of each other. So look, if you would, at verses 44 and 45 again. "And all that believed were together and had all things in common." Now watch. "And sold their possessions and goods and imparted them to all men as every man had need." Now, wait a minute. As every man had need? If there was no need, there was no parting.

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• You kept that which belonged to you. Now, if you'll look in your Bibles, Acts chapter 4, we'll see this again. Acts chapter 4, and let's begin reading there with verse 32. Acts 4:32: "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul, neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common," that is, they were willing to share.

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• And with great power gave the apostles witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked. Why? Because they were willing to share. For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. Now hang on. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which being interpreted, the son of consolation, a Levite and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

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• So here are some people that did own the property. They did sell it and they brought the money and gave it to the apostles and said, just distribute it as everybody has need.

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• Now, that doesn't mean that these people ended themselves. It does not mean that they sold everything. They just had certain property that they sold.

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• Now, to show you that this was not mandatory, it was not demanded, I want you to look in Acts chapter 5 and let's begin reading there in verse 1. Watch. But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. Now, before I go any further, go back to verse 36 of chapter 4. So evidently, Barnabas now received some type of applause or recognition spiritually from the apostles, and so Ananias and Sapphira said, man, it'd be good, it'd be nice if we were looked upon as being generous and kind just like Barnabas. So they had certain land and they sold it, and in verse 2 they kept back part of it. Look in verse 3. But Peter said to Ananias, chapter 5, verse 3, Why has Satan

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• filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the land.

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• Now watch what he says. While it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? In other words, you didn't have to sell the land. And the very fact that you sold it, once you got the money, you didn't have to give any of it. It was yours. What? While it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias, hearing those words, fell down and gave up the ghost.

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• And great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young man arose, wound him up, carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. Peter answered her, Tell me whether you sold the land for so much? And she said, Yes, for so much. Then Peter said to her, How is it that you've agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband is at the door.

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• They shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost. And the young men came in and found her dead and carried her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things. So you see, when you look at Acts chapter 2, when you look at Acts chapter 4, these people didn't have to sell their houses or lands.

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• They did it because they wanted to do so. And they wanted to be generous. They wanted to be kind. Probably they were not divesting themselves of everything, but they certainly had some things. And like Peter said, when you had this land, was it not yours? You didn't have to sell it. And when you did sell it, you didn't have to give a dime. The sin was not in selling the land. The sin was not in keeping the money. The sin was in lying to the Holy Ghost and pretending like they had given everything to God when in reality they had not.

  #151 | 1:36:12 to 1:36:46 | cleaned

• Now, let me tell you something. There is a vast difference between being willing to help and wanting to help and being forced to help. That's right. That's right. In Jesus Christ, we are made willing to help. In Jesus Christ, we have a desire to help. In socialism and in communism, one is forced to help. Force is used to make, coerce, and strong-arm one into giving, even in that which he does not believe in or desire to support.

  #152 | 1:36:46 to 1:37:23 | cleaned

• Now, let me ask you a question. Do you live under socialism? The answer is yes. Are you forced to support that which you hate and in that which you don't believe? You say, I'm not. Oh, yes, you are. When you pay taxes, that's exactly what you're doing. I could ask you, do you support governmental education or indoctrination? I do not. None of my children ever went to one day of a government school in their entire life. My wife and I sacrificed and we sent ours to a Christian school. I taught in the school. I'm just simply pointing out the fact none of my children ever went one day to a public school or a government school. I don't believe in it. But yet I am forced to pay for a governmental education to children that I do not even know. That's right. And I do not believe in the education. That's right. And in property taxes, about 90 percent of it goes to the government schools. That's right. I'm just simply pointing out the fact that is socialism.

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• Thomas Jefferson said it like this: to compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. That's Thomas Jefferson. And I agree. It is socialism. It is communism. It is tyranny. There is no socialism and there is no communism in the early church. It was simply fellowship and a willingness to share that which God had bestowed.

  #154 | 1:38:55 to 1:39:32 | cleaned

• I want you to understand something. Your doctrine leads to your duty. Your duty leads to fellowship. Hang on. Doctrine determines conduct. Doctrine determines conduct. So here we go. Our doctrine leads to our duty. Our duty leads to our fellowship. And our duty and our fellowship then leads to our conduct and teaches us exactly how we are to conduct our lives. Let me ask you a question. How do we get along with others? What will keep us from invading and violating the sanctity of lives and homes and the families of others?

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• Well, what will give one what you and I would call common sense and the knowledge to act? And the answer is doctrine. We must know, we must believe, and we must apply.

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• Now, if we are going to live in close proximity with each other, whether we're living on the same land or side by side on private land, if we're going to live in close proximity to each other and see each other regularly, how do we live together without creating strife, ill will, hard feelings and even hatred? There's a verse in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 25:17.

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• "Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house, lest he grow weary of thee and so hate thee." Wow. "Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house, lest he grow weary of thee and so hate thee." Christian conduct is governed by biblical truth and biblical truth is doctrine. It is Christian conduct that respects the rights, the time, the home, and the lives of others. Christian conduct respects privacy. Christian conduct keeps one from intruding upon and violating the privacy, the time, and the rights of others.

  #158 | 1:41:22 to 1:42:05 | cleaned

• There's a vast difference between being a help and being a hindrance. Let me say this very gladly. Just because you have nothing to do, does not mean your neighbor has nothing to do. Amen. I've been a pastor for a long time. I've preached all over this country. I have company on a regular basis. And my company usually comes to fellowship. Sometimes it's the classes they are coming to.

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• But Steve can tell you. Steve and Lorraine come up on a regular basis. But I tell my company, if they're staying in the house, I said, look, I have chores that I have to do. If you'd like to continue fellowshipping, come ride with me while I do the chores. If you don't want to ride with me, just stay calm. I'll be back as soon as I can. Isn't that so true, Steve? I'm just simply saying, there are things that I have to do. There are things that everybody has to do.

  #160 | 1:43:02 to 1:43:33 | cleaned

• And sometimes you have to do them at certain times. So if I have four or five hours free, that doesn't mean that Brother Allen has four or five hours free. That doesn't mean that Brother Stan has four or five hours free. I mean, not everybody can get to lie around at the beach all week. We tease Brother Cliff. He works hard all week long. We always say he's going to the beach.

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• You understand what I'm saying? Christian conduct is that which is going to determine how we live and how we interact. You know, it's the same thing. I've always wanted to do this. I've never done it, but I've always wanted to do it. Brother Stan, I've always wanted one Sunday morning just to stay in bed, let everybody gather at church, "Where's the pastor? Where's the preacher?" And when they call to find out, I say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I have company coming today and I just can't make it to church." No, if I have company on Sunday, they either go with me to church or they stay home and wait for me to come back. I'm just simply saying that you understand Christian conduct.

  #162 | 1:44:04 to 1:45:06 | cleaned

• Now, please listen to this. I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Galatians chapter 6. Look in Galatians chapter 6. One of the greatest truths that must be learned and should be learned is what is known as a biblical work ethic. I tell everyone that I understand this principle that everyone appreciates help. I mean real help. And I got news for you. The older I get, the more I appreciate help. And the more I appreciate younger men with strength. I'm just simply saying everybody appreciates help.

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• But as I've aged, I found out there's a lot of things I can no longer do that I used to do. But there are some things that I can still do. And I do not expect anyone to help me to do that which I know I can do. So look at it in Galatians chapter 6. Here's the biblical principle. Let's begin reading there with verse 2. He says, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

  #164 | 1:45:54 to 1:46:29 | cleaned

• "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden." So let me tell you something, if there is something pressing and I can't do it, or at least I can't do it alone, I don't mind calling Brother Cliff. I don't mind calling Brother Stan. I don't mind calling Brother Pete the Pop. But if it's something I can do, I'm not bothering them.

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• I have a duty, I have a responsibility to help my brothers and to help those that need help. But I also have a duty, I also have a responsibility to bear my own burdens and do what I can do. I'm just simply pointing out, this is Christian conduct. We have to learn how to work together, how to help each other, how not to upset each other, how not to bother each other.

  #166 | 1:47:12 to 1:47:38 | cleaned

• I could give you illustration after illustration. I get phone calls from all over this country. And Alice can tell you a lot of times I'm back at my desk, I'm studying, I'm preparing a message, and all of a sudden I get a call from someone who wants to talk about an hour and a half. And they want to tell me what I already know. In fact, sometimes they will tell me what they heard me say in a message. And I'm chomping at the bit to try to get back to my studying.

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• And then it hits me. This is ministry. Just be patient. They're happy that they've learned and they're happy that they know certain things. And so I sit patiently and I listen. But I found out the Lord always makes up for it. You know, He gives double help and double mercy. So I'm thankful. But I'm just simply pointing out, you know, if we can do something ourselves, that's what we need to do. If we need help, that's, of course, of a different color.

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• But laziness, slothfulness, indolence, and indifference will destroy any church or any community. Doctrine always leads us to duty. Duty always leads us to fellowship. Fellowship always brings us into the conduct that will continue that fellowship and not disturb it. Here's the fourth thing. Doctrine teaches us patience. I would immediately, when I think of this subject, think of the doctrine of illumination. I'm going to explain why I said that just a moment earlier.

  #169 | 1:49:02 to 1:49:50 | cleaned

• But let me ask a few questions first. Have you ever been frustrated with children and young teenagers that do not understand and will not perform in the way that you think they should perform? What usually happens is when that reality occurs, we berate them. We scold them. We're upset with them. And why are we upset? Why do we berate? Why do we scold? And here's the answer.

  #170 | 1:49:51 to 1:50:36 | cleaned

• Because we expect them to act like an adult when they're not an adult. They don't have the mentality of an adult. I've often said that I can absolutely prove that light travels faster than sound. Because the counsel and advice I gave my children as teenagers, they never heard until they reached 40. Here's my point. I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 John chapter 2. First John chapter 2. And I want you to think about this in church. I want you to think about this in community. I want you to think about this putting up with each other. Okay? Watch this. First John chapter 2.

  #171 | 1:50:37 to 1:51:36 | cleaned

• Notice if you would, verse 12. First John 2, verse 12. John says, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one." Now, I don't know if you noticed, as I read that passage, that the Apostle John speaks about little children, young men, and fathers. So we automatically know just from this passage there are three stages in the Christian's life. In reality, there's a fourth one. It comes before the little children.

  #172 | 1:51:36 to 1:52:50 | cleaned

• It's found in 1 Peter 2:2, when Peter writes, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." So when you're talking about the Christian life, you're talking about babes, little children, young men, and fathers. So there's some little children here today. In fact, we had a little girl here today, and she was not a year old or just a year old.

  #173 | 1:52:52 to 1:53:25 | cleaned

• Well, let me ask you a question. Would you talk to that one little one-year-old girl like you talk to Jesse, who's 12? Would you expect that little one-year-old girl to eat the same things that Jesse eats? To do the same thing that Jesse does? To have the same abilities? To have the same understanding? The answer is no. Well, let me ask you this. Would you expect Jesse, at being 12, to have the understanding of Steve, who's much older than I am? No, he's not. He's younger. But 75, 75. Do you expect a 12-year-old boy to have the understanding of a 75-year-old man? No.

  #174 | 1:53:27 to 1:54:23 | cleaned

• You're not that far off mentally. You know better than that. But you know, isn't it strange? And we don't make that distinction when it comes to church. We don't make that distinction when it comes to community. We don't make that distinction when it comes to Christianity. We don't understand sometimes that here's a babe or here's a little child or here's a young man. And we expect that young man or we expect that little child to have the same understanding and the same mentality that we do. And we try to speak to them on the same level. It's impossible. And then we get frustrated and we get bent out of shape because they don't understand what we're trying to say. So if you're going to be living around a diverse group of Christians, whether it's in a church or in a community, you've got to understand that there are babes in Christ, there are little children in Christ, there are young men in Christ, and there are fathers in Christ.

  #175 | 1:54:24 to 1:55:23 | cleaned

• Now, I said that in dealing with this, I immediately thought of the doctrine of illumination. Why? Because the answer is God does not illuminate the minds of all people at the same time, neither does He illuminate the minds with the same amount of truth at the same time. There are principles in the Bible that will lead to greater understanding, that is for sure. But you know what the Bible says in Mark chapter 4 and verse 33, listen to this, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ.

  #176 | 1:55:24 to 1:55:55 | cleaned

• "And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it." I got news for you, a one-year-old child or a two-year-old child is not able to understand everything that I'm saying today. Probably a 12-year-old may not be able to understand everything that I'm saying today. I hope a teenager can, but the point I'm trying to make is if God does not turn the lights on, if God does not open our eyes, if God does not give us light, we're never ever going to see. Wow.

  #177 | 1:55:56 to 1:56:29 | cleaned

• That means there must be patience and dignity with each other. What is going to give us patience? Doctrine. Because we understand then that everyone must be dealt with on their level of understanding. You know, even the apostle there in the book of Hebrews, he said in chapter 5, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it." So there's certainly the milk of the word and there's the meat of the word as well. The Bible says in Proverbs 2:6, "For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:7, he said, "Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things." In other words, understanding is the gift of God. God has to open our eyes. The word means, when Paul said, "Consider," it means to ponder. It means to think upon. It means to meditate. And while you're thinking upon and meditating upon the word, ask the Lord for illumination.

  #178 | 1:56:36 to 1:57:46 | cleaned

• That's what he said. Consider what I say to the Lord. Give the understanding in all things. Illumination is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, whereby he guides us to understand previously revealed truth. Let me point that out. There is no understanding apart from the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Illumination is when God turns a light on for us. Illumination is when we see things in the Scripture that we had not seen previously, we had not understood previously. Now, memorizing Scripture is not illumination. I think you should memorize Scripture, but it's not illumination. I mean, studying Scripture is necessary too, but then that's not illumination.

  #179 | 1:57:46 to 1:58:33 | cleaned

• If it was midnight and all these lights were turned off, it'd be totally dark in here. And once you flip the switch, the room is illuminated. And that's what God does in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He turns the switch on and opens our eyes that we might see certain things. I've been around other pastors, and I have seen things, and I get so excited, and I try to tell them, look at this, listen to this, and they sit there like, so? So?

  #180 | 1:58:35 to 1:59:12 | cleaned

• I don't care how educated you are. I don't care how many degrees you have behind your name. If God the Holy Spirit does not turn the light on in your mind, you will never understand the Word of God. So here's the application. Why should I get upset at the baby in Christ? Or the little child in Christ? Or the young man in Christ? When he doesn't understand what I understand.

  #181 | 1:59:17 to 1:59:50 | cleaned

• I used to, a long time ago, I would get bent out of shape if folks didn't grasp everything that I taught on Sunday. And then one day it hit me. I'm expecting them to grasp and understand in one hour what it's taken me 40 to study out. And then it hit me, if God doesn't turn the light on, I could preach on it for 400 years and they would still never see it. So why in the world should I get upset with you if you don't see what I see? If God is the one who illumines our mind. If God is the one who gives us understanding. That should lead me to be patient with you and try to teach you and share with you and pray with you until God does indeed open your eyes.

  #182 | 1:59:50 to 2:00:45 | cleaned

• This should be a transforming thought for you. We are so often so impatient with each other. Doctrinally speaking. Doctrinally speaking. We're so impatient. Let me ask you this question. How long did it take for God to bring you now where you are and from where you were? Did it happen in a minute? Did it happen in a week? Did it happen in a month? A year? No. It took a lifetime.

  #183 | 2:00:49 to 2:01:35 | cleaned

• I've got a pastor friend. He and I laugh oftentimes. We've been preaching about the same amount of time, 59 years. And we give the same response. Someone will say, wow, what a message. How long did it take you to work up that message? We smile and say 59 years. And that's true. Because every message is a compilation of everything that we've known and been taught and understood by the Holy Spirit for all those years.

  #184 | 2:01:35 to 2:02:11 | cleaned

• So I'm just pointing out the fact, listen, if we understand doctrine, it's going to lead us to our duty. It's going to lead us to fellowship. It's going to lead us to proper conduct. It's going to lead us to be patient with each other so we won't be fussing and fighting and feuding. Here's the last one. Doctrine teaches us to defend ourselves and others. Now, I'm not going to preach the two messages that I have on the biblical doctrine of self-defense. I think you should listen to them if you've not heard them. But I am going to set forth a principle that's connected with those messages. The Bible teaches very clearly that we are one body, but different members of that body. But when one member suffers, so does the body.

  #185 | 2:02:11 to 2:03:22 | cleaned

• You say, "I don't believe that." Well, I'll tell you what you do. Take your hammer and hit your thumb as hard as you can. And you'll find your other hand will grab that thumb. That thumb will go straight to your mouth. I mean, your whole body's in sympathy with that thumb. The Bible says in Hebrews 13, verse 3, are you listening? "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." So he says we've got to suffer with others. If they're in bonds, we're bound with them. Let me ask you, I've had people say, "Well, I'm willing to defend my brother in Christ." Really? Well, are you willing to help him when he needs help?

  #186 | 2:03:25 to 2:04:30 | cleaned

• You see, the truth of the matter is this. We need each other, we need community. We may not be on the same property. But when one brother needs help, or one church needs help, or one family needs help, we need to be there. Do you realize this is how our forefathers lived? When the Indians or the outlaws attacked one family, then the community came to defend and help that family because they understood this one principle: whatever the enemy can do to one family, it can do to the rest of us. Amen. Wow.

  #187 | 2:04:33 to 2:05:21 | cleaned

• We're living in desperate times. Our economy is crashing. We're being invaded by hordes of illegal immigrants. And our government is complicit in all of this. And our borders are filled with cartels and those that push drugs. I just saw this week where there's an island right off of Texas. A hundred and something acres. And the cartels have taken over that island. Set up sniper nests. And our government was fixing to go in and take the island back.

  #188 | 2:05:24 to 2:05:58 | cleaned

• You think I'm making this up? You can check it out. There's even videos of it. There's pictures of these illegal alien soldiers coming across with weapons out front. We're living in desperate times. So, just like Warren Lucas asked this question, if your family or if your homestead was attacked by a gang of outlaws, dopeheads or illegals seeking to murder you and take whatever you possess, would you want your neighbors to help? I don't know about you, but I think I'd appreciate all the help that I can get. If you would want your neighbors to help, here's my next question. Are you willing to help your neighbors in such an instance? Which brings me to the next question. Are you able? Are you capable? Are you trained to help your neighbors in such an instance? Are you listening? This lawyer asked our Lord Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment?"

  #189 | 2:06:00 to 2:07:19 | cleaned

• He never quoted from any of the Ten. He actually quoted from Deuteronomy 6. He said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might." And the second is likened to it, help me out, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If you would protect and defend yourself, and you love your neighbor as yourself, that means you would protect and defend them as well.

  #190 | 2:07:21 to 2:07:53 | cleaned

• It has not been all that long ago since I was a boy, but I can assure you back then there was real community. There was a commonality of faith. You know, even the unsaved folks usually back then would at least acknowledge God and acknowledge His commandments. They would not run off and... Times were just different. And communities took care of each other. If a barn burned down or if a house caught fire, guess what? The neighbors would come together and help rebuild and take care of it. If a neighbor died, all the other neighbors would come and bring food and sit with the widow or the widower and even do the chores until their mourning period was over. That was just community.

  #191 | 2:07:57 to 2:09:00 | cleaned

• On one occasion, I remember when I was seven years old, there was a rabid fox in our community. One night, I don't know why this sticks in my mind, but there was one night we had 20 to 25 men on our front porch all with loaded weapons waiting for that fox. You wouldn't find that today. No. When there was a drought in our community, the people would get together and pray. They would invite every believer around to pray. Some of you who are older might remember 1954. I was 10 years old. We had a drought.

  #192 | 2:09:01 to 2:09:52 | cleaned

• We had a neighbor that was a drunkard and an unbeliever. And my father was going around getting men together to pray for rain. And out of courtesy, Dad knew that he was unsaved, knew that he's a drunkard, but Dad invited him anyhow. You know what the man did? He laughed in my father's face. God sent rain in answer to those men's prayers. I saw this as a 10-year-old boy. The fence line that separated our property, it rained on our side and did not rain on the neighbor's side.

  #193 | 2:09:56 to 2:10:43 | cleaned

• But there was still community. When there were special meetings like this, or whatever, or what the world would call a revival, there'd always be cottage prayer meetings usually two weeks before. And I've seen as many as 50 folks at a time praying just for God's blessing upon the meeting. There was community in those days. You know why? Because there was a common faith, there was a common doctrine, and there was a common desire to help. There was a conduct.

  #194 | 2:10:47 to 2:11:22 | cleaned

• I want to ask you one more question. And I want you to turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 11, because I want you to see this. You probably wouldn't believe me if I just told you, if I just quoted it. But I want you to see this. With all the turmoil that we're experiencing in this land, all the frustration, all the crime, all the wickedness, here's the question. Would you like to see a little heaven on earth? Would that be enjoyable? Would you desire that? Well, look at it. Deuteronomy 11, beginning with verse 13.

  #195 | 2:11:22 to 2:12:22 | cleaned

• God said it shall come to pass if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn and thy wine and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and that you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them.

  #196 | 2:12:22 to 2:12:58 | cleaned

• And then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and He shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield no other fruit, unless you perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be frontlets before your eyes. And that you shall teach them your children, speaking to them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou write them upon the doorposts of thine house, and upon thy gates, that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give you as the days of heaven upon earth. What did He say?

  #197 | 2:12:59 to 2:13:53 | cleaned

• If you have a family, if you have a church, if you have a community that will live doctrinally, biblically, scripturally, and obey God and do as He commands, it will be a little bit of heaven on earth. Communities. Community. Com is a preposition with. Unity. With unity is what the word community means. It means that which you have in common. We have a common unity in Jesus Christ. And we need to believe it and act upon it and bring our lives in conformity to His Word. So there will be heaven on earth. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to Thee. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your truth. We thank You for this meeting.

  #198 | 2:13:55 to 2:15:09 | cleaned

• Oh, Lord, help us to apply these truths that we've heard today. Help us determine in our hearts, Lord, that we will have community by Your grace and by Your mercy, because You're the one that can give that unity, that commonality in the faith. We ask, Father, for Your blessing upon us. Lead us, guide us, direct us, teach us. Build us up in the most holy faith. In Thy name we pray. Amen. One of the things we perhaps danced around today that I'll punch square in the face right now is there is obviously a geography to community. It's not one geography is better than another, one piece of land is better than another.

  #199 | 2:15:11 to 2:16:03 | cleaned

• But there is a physicality, there is a necessity to be near. And when we talk about near, a few miles away, a few acres away, with vehicles that run on gas, it is nothing for me if I heard Brother Weaver broke his leg. He'd call me on his cell phone, and I could be at his property. If I took it fast, I'd be there in 20 minutes.

  #200 | 2:16:04 to 2:16:28 | cleaned

• In the Pioneer days, as we call them, or in Little House on the Prairie days, it would take him hours to send word to go get the doctor to come back to help him. Now it's a two-second phone call and a quick 15-minute drive. And I'm across town, I'm across the county, because I have a vehicle that runs on fuel. If we can say, if we can see through wisdom that the Lord has given us, there will come a day when there is no fuel, when there is no electricity, when there is no cell service. How close do I need to be to Brother Weaver that if he were to break his leg, he could get word to me and I'd be able to assist him? Well, I need to be within a mile or two, within an acre or two to be able to come to his aid.

  #201 | 2:16:29 to 2:17:21 | cleaned

• There is a physical restraint to truly being in community. We have the affluence, the ability to drive. We have folks come here from the coast. We have folks driving hours to get here. But if we take out the equation of vehicles and fuel, we are back to how far can you walk to help someone? Can you walk from here to 206? Highway 206? Can you walk from here to 268? Can you walk from here to Broxton? How long does it take to walk to get to Douglas? What's a Fitzgerald walk from here? It would take all day. If I set out for Brother Weaver's land, I'd have a backpack and I'd set out and it would take all day to get from here to Brother Weaver's land. It would take him a day if he needed my help. It would take a day for someone and a messenger that he sent out. It would take him a day to get to me to send word that Brother Weaver needed help and an entire day for me to even get back if I started instantly.

  #202 | 2:17:21 to 2:18:30 | cleaned

• There is inherently the need to be close, physically, if we take out the equation of vehicles and fuel. And I believe anyone here understands that that day is soon coming upon us. If we think about the night our Lord was born, the shepherds in the hills, they said, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing. How far away was that field they were watching their flocks? Think about Broxton. Was it in Broxton?

  #203 | 2:18:30 to 2:19:03 | cleaned

• That's a good hour and a half walk. It must have been close. It wasn't miles and miles. We must be close. We can think of the pioneer days when if you was on the corner of your land, you could about holler over across the ravine to the other farm and get word. They would walk to the corner of their land, holler farther, and it would go from farm to farm.

  #204 | 2:19:03 to 2:19:31 | cleaned

• Brother Weaver just talked about illumination. If the Lord's laid it on your heart to be close, it takes giving up what things you have on your property. Everybody here lives in a house, I know that. Some in Douglas, some farther, some way farther. But what are you willing to give up to be close? Not just theologically, oh yes, but physically, if you're willing to say, there will come a time when we are reduced to foot travel. Where are you and who can you walk to with foot travel?

  #205 | 2:19:32 to 2:20:07 | cleaned

• Where should you be when you lose your fuel? You better be where you hope to be and near who you hope to be near, even in the midnight hour. Don't wait that long. But if it gets there, you need to understand we're not going to be moving around if we lose fuel. And I hope I don't have to convince you of what that would take and how easy that would happen.

  #206 | 2:20:08 to 2:20:35 | cleaned

• So I encourage you, be blessed in the theology we've heard today. But I would hope the result of this, as well as the following meeting, biblical home defense, biblical community defense. Down this road, the next three houses, four houses down, are all family of the Peacocks. This is, you can holler down from, I can holler from my house, I can holler at Brother Royce. Brother Royce could holler from his house to Royce Lee. One of us and I holler this way to Brother Allen. Brother Allen would holler that way to Brother Peacock, to Brother Victor. The Peacock family is so blessed and what we're talking about, they've already done, but it's 40 years in the making. We're talking about three months and we're going to have another meeting to talk about these things. The Lord blessed them in that. I've known Brother Weaver for 25 years since 96, 27 years now, and I'm blessed after 27 years to be living near him, where I'm in walking distance of Brother Weaver. Even if I had to walk and drag my family with kids in backpacks, I could do it to be near him, living in community when we need to survive.

  #207 | 2:20:36 to 2:21:59 | cleaned

• That day is coming. And so this next meeting, January 20th, we'll deal with so many more of those pertinent issues of where to be. And some homes, you're going to have to leave your home. Leave it. It's not worth dying for. Move to where you can be safe, where the Lord can bless you. I don't need to beat the dead horse. We're going to talk about this January 20th.

  #208 | 2:22:00 to 2:22:30 | cleaned

• So please put it on your calendars. Pray about these things. I encourage you. These days are upon us. If none of that made sense, talk to your pastor, and they'll get you the information and the literature to know these days are upon us. Y2K, we talked about that over lunch. Y2K didn't happen. COVID kind of scared us all, not in the virus of it all, but in the economy disruption. It was disruptive. These days are coming upon us.

  #209 | 2:22:30 to 2:23:05 | cleaned

• All we can do is be ready for them. They're going to happen. I'm not forcing it. You're not making it happen. But we ought to, in wisdom, with a vision, be ready. And in that preparation, bless others and love our neighbor as ourselves. Amen. It's been a blessed day. If you would, please stand. For community, that people need each other. And even then, that needed some tweaking.

  #210 | 2:23:06 to 2:23:37 | cleaned

• We might critique that they were a little too socialist to be efficient. So they, the pilgrims, went back to an older path, to scripture, where it says, 'If a man not work, neither should he eat.' And they refined the old path that they were making for us to follow. So even while they were forging an old path that we look to, they were following an older path that is scripture. They were establishing an old path for us to follow.

  #211 | 2:23:37 to 2:24:10 | cleaned

• So the theme of this year's conference is community. What does the Bible have to say about community? Helping each other, serving each other, and working alongside each other. Putting up with each other. There's so much required to make a community successful in the long term. Sure, anybody can blow in and blow out, but what does it take to make a community, a biblical community, successful? First of all, the second greatest commandment being to love our neighbor as ourself.

  #212 | 2:24:11 to 2:24:50 | cleaned

• Fulfill that each and every day with those around us. So, Brother Allen, if you would, come up, share the word with us. And be blessed. Brother Allen, come on up. Certainly. It's a blessing to be here on Saturday morning. Good day. I appreciate the word of the Lord that Brother Campbell has given. And I'd like for you to look with me at three verses found in Psalms 133.

  #213 | 2:24:51 to 2:25:24 | cleaned

• And we're talking about community, love, kindness, mercy, and just enjoying being together. Several years ago I asked all of our people here at the church to read a book called Meeting House Hill. That little book told of our forefathers and how that each time as they pulled up their tent stakes and moved westward, when they would stop to create another village, they would always build their sanctuary, which was basically just a little log building, on the highest geographic location in the area that they were building. And in that book, it told us always keeping God the highest, foremost. How wonderful it is that David said in Psalm 133, he said, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity." A little boy once said, listening to his daddy talk about community and talking about togetherness.

  #214 | 2:25:24 to 2:26:45 | cleaned

• His daddy heard a great noise going on outside and he ran outside and he found two cats with their tails tied together hanging over the clothesline. Well, that's unity, but it's probably not the kind we need. To be united, David is saying, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore." Amos said in the third chapter in verse 3, he said, "How can two walk together except they be agreed?"

  #215 | 2:26:46 to 2:27:47 | cleaned

• How wonderful it is to know that we have brothers and sisters that are together in the theology of this book called the Bible. And this Bible is given to us to grow, to learn how to live, even as Brother Campbell just brought out the fact that if a man won't work, let him not eat. What a blessing it is to be able, as I had a wreck a few years ago, about two years ago, and I feel better now than I did then, and for the last two years been recuperating, but how good it is to know that you can still work and do some things. How wonderful it is.

  #216 | 2:27:49 to 2:28:35 | cleaned

• I'm going to give you a little bit of a history of what happened in God's in our life that the Lord worked a miracle regarding this church that is here. But first of all, where there's no vision, men perish. There has to be a vision. There has to be desire. When desire cometh, it's a tree of life, Solomon said. How wonderful it is to be motivated. A vision for the members of Douglas Gospel Assembly. And of course, we did not start by coming out under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church to teach us what we're supposed to teach.

  #217 | 2:28:36 to 2:29:25 | cleaned

• But we learned that the Scriptures are given by inspiration of God. And these Scriptures are profitable unto us, every one of us, male or female. God gave His Word, and His Word is established in the heavens. It'll never be removed. If someone said they're trying to take our Bibles away, they'll never be able to do that. God made a covenant with a man called Abraham. And that covenant that God made with Abraham, God said, I decree it. It's an everlasting covenant. And the Bible tells us that when John the Baptist's father was able to speak, he gave a prophecy of that everlasting kingdom. And we're thankful that Jesus Christ has given us a kingdom which shall not be removed.

  #218 | 2:29:27 to 2:30:24 | cleaned

• Our vision as men, and if you look in 1 Timothy, the second chapter, the first few verses, He said, "I exhort therefore, that first of all supplication, prayers, intercession, giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty." Verse 2 is our vision for enabling others to find the blessing of the Lord Jesus, is that we might do nothing else but worship, serve and honor our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's the reason our forefathers came to this country, was to give honor and praise. I told our people that we found various ones of our people were coming under the authority of the Spirit of God and they were calling upon the name of the Lord and we were having baptisms in the water hole outside and in the river and various places. And what an honor it is to see people come to the Lord Jesus that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life.

  #219 | 2:30:25 to 2:31:57 | cleaned

• That's our joy. It's just one day, the fulfillment of Jesus' first ministry and first sermon, we're going to hear that call, to be "blessed are the meek for they shall inherit" what? Somebody say it. The earth. One day, our Heavenly Father, He's going to be totally and completely in charge of everything that leads a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.

  #220 | 2:31:59 to 2:32:39 | cleaned

• The Lord worked a miracle many years ago. I was helping to pastor a little country church, and my grandfather had pastored, and I was there. At eight years old, when he was asking young men at the end of his sermon to give their lives to the Lord Jesus, I was eight years old, he said, "Lord, I'm coming home," and he fell dead in the church across those young men. I was helping a pastor at church, a brother, Frank Vaughn, afterwards, that God called me to preach the message of the gospel.

  #221 | 2:32:41 to 2:33:25 | cleaned

• And the testimony of a man who had, at one time, he made a statement. He had become a multimillionaire. But he made the statement, he said, "I remember when bread was two loaves for a quarter, but I didn't have a quarter." But God blessed that man to come to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, who was one of my uncles, my mother's brother. And he gave his life to the Lord and he said, "I want to do something."

  #222 | 2:33:25 to 2:34:00 | cleaned

• And he said, "Let's buy a piece of land and let's build some elderly cottages on it. Let's do some things for the Lord's work." And I said, "Well, if that's what you feel like, you man's got the money. I mean, he knows God gives some folks the ability to do that." And so we bought this 26 acres here for the church. There's no church here, but that's where the church is now. 26 acres of property.

  #223 | 2:34:02 to 2:34:41 | cleaned

• Because we had that desire to lead a quiet and peaceable life. That was our desire. Uncle Richard, who was my uncle, he said, "Well, maybe we can build some cottages all up in here." So I went to governmental sources in the Douglas area, and they said, "We want to know everything about your background, we want to know everything about the church function, we want to know everything about how much money is in the bank, what you plan to do in the future, and besides, we need—they need to be able to handle everything through us."

  #224 | 2:34:42 to 2:35:34 | cleaned

• And I said, I think not. I said, my forefathers came to this country for freedom and liberty. And that does not sound like freedom and liberty to me. So we put down some septic tanks. We ran some EMC lines. And by the way, 40 years ago, EMC turned the power on in this church, and the church was full of people, and we praised the Lord. And we put down some septic tanks and did some things. And we said, what we'll do, we'll just let some elderly people that have a mobile home come and hook up.

  #225 | 2:35:36 to 2:36:24 | cleaned

• We built one little cottage, one bedroom cottage right up in the corner. Brother Harold's here this morning. Raise your hand, Brother Harold. Brother Harold's been in that cottage, I don't know, five or six years or more. I don't know. But he's enjoyed it, but we've enjoyed him. He made a garden, fed the people here in the church, and did what he could do. Processes meat. He made a honey flow.

  #226 | 2:36:26 to 2:37:02 | cleaned

• He knows how to get those bees to multiply and to do some things. But God blessed the effort. We didn't see as many people to take place. But after we built the church, children were being born and they were growing up and our daughter had gone to college and was an educated young lady and so we said, we'll build some rooms over here on the side and we'll let you teach, Candace. Brother Weaver said, along with Sister Weaver, put some of our children in there, please. So we did, I think we had eight or ten pupils, and we worked to see them being taught the Word of God.

  #227 | 2:37:03 to 2:38:03 | cleaned

• Where there's no vision, men perish. Maybe we did not do as much as we wanted to do, but we were not under the headship or the auspices of the federal government either. People came to me and said, we'd like to get married. I said, okay. The Bible teaches us that in the mouth of two or more witnesses, every word's established. And I said, we don't have to have a piece of paper to get married. And some of them said, I don't know about that now. Well, the reality is, are we under the headship of Jesus Christ or are we under the headship of man?

  #228 | 2:38:05 to 2:38:54 | cleaned

• It's up to us the desires and put forth the best foot to do what is right. Our vision down through the years has been the same. By the way, I did perform those marriages and I have been performing them for 40 some odd years. The government does not own us. When the government says we want your bank account, that's the day that they'll have to come and take it. The reality is, we have desires that are associated with this Bible. In the 49th chapter of the book of Genesis, if you look with me, it's something that has happened in just the last few years that's become very prevalent in our society. And I preached a message some years ago on burying your people intact. Burying them totally, completely whole.

  #229 | 2:38:56 to 2:40:15 | cleaned

• When we started trying to get a cemetery, I knew the man who was the, oh goodness what's his name, Neil Sims at that time, had the authority over cemeteries. And the government was coming down in the state of Georgia that there's many requirements and mandates and hooks to jump through to create a cemetery. But Neil Sims came out and he said, Alan, let's do it, let's do it now. He said, I see some things on the horizon that's coming and let's do it. Well, we cut out I think an acre or acre and a half and created a cemetery. It was only a couple of years later that Neil Sims himself came and he said, Alan, he said, I'm trying to buy some land for a cemetery and said there's so many things that we're having to go through right now. I said, I don't know that I'm going to do it. Well, turn with me to Genesis 49. And verse 28 says, we're talking about the 12 tribes of Israel.

  #230 | 2:40:17 to 2:41:44 | cleaned

• This is that their father spake unto them and blessed them, every one according to his blessing he blessed them. See, God declared that He would bless us—rising up, sitting down, in the city, in the field, in the house, with us wherever we went, because we're His people. He charged them. Here's the time that Jacob is about to leave. He charges his twelve sons. He said, "I am to be gathered unto my people." He said, "Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite."

  #231 | 2:41:45 to 2:42:27 | cleaned

• And we hear about at all times, especially the last few years, "Well, Grandpa's going to die, but I think it costs less money. We're just going to go ahead and cremate him." Jacob said, "I want you to bury me with my fathers." He said, "In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth." When Jacob had made an end of commanding—he didn't suggest it, he commanded his sons.

  #232 | 2:42:29 to 2:43:28 | cleaned

• He gathered up his feet into the bed, yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. What a blessing it is to be gathered to and with his people. In the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis, Jacob called unto his sons and said, "Gather yourselves together, and I will tell you the things which shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together and hear, you sons of Jacob; hearken unto Israel your father." And he begins to tell them their faults, their problems, but he told them the things that we do, and to please the Heavenly Father.

  #233 | 2:43:29 to 2:44:18 | cleaned

• "Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father's bed and defiled it; you went up to my couch. Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united."

  #234 | 2:44:19 to 2:44:46 | cleaned

• "In their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee." What a blessing it is for God to help us in our time of trouble, in our hours of need, that have a vision and a desire to help others.

  #235 | 2:44:47 to 2:45:28 | cleaned

• For several years, we operated a school. Along with that, we promoted private enterprise. Private enterprise tells us for a man to use his brain and to be able to overcome, to excel, to come forth victorious. Private enterprise has built and created this great nation that is being torn apart in front of our eyes. We're persuaded that if God be for us, who can be against us? We know the bad, the ugly, but we also know the good, the righteous, and the holy. We know Him that was, who is, and is to come, the Almighty. We promoted private enterprise by building a woodworking shop. We promoted self-sustainability by having a garden. Brother Harold is a good gardener, I want to tell you folks.

  #236 | 2:45:30 to 2:46:48 | cleaned

• He has produced a lot of food right here on the ground. But did you know you don't have to have a large acreage to make yourself self-sustainable? You don't have to have a large area. I live three blocks, grew up three blocks from the courthouse in Douglas, Georgia. My mother on a little 50-foot lot. Daddy bought two 50-foot lots on the side of a house and behind the house two more 50-foot lots.

  #237 | 2:46:49 to 2:47:30 | cleaned

• We worked those gardens with a hand plow and with hoes and rakes and shovels. We created enough food by the grace of God. It's the Lord that giveth and the Lord takes away. But it can be done because I grew up knowing that my daddy and mama taught me how to plant seed. They taught me how to fertilize. They taught me how to do things. I don't know about you folks, but it's important that children be taught. It's important that you tell them this is the way we're going to do it and we're going to do this for the right reason, for the right purpose.

  #238 | 2:47:30 to 2:48:19 | cleaned

• In the process of time, we saw many people live in that little cottage that Brother Harold lives in. I think it was 10 or 12. Had 10 or 12 people in the school. But you know, if everybody would just win one or two to the Lord Jesus, everybody can't have their quiver totally full like David said in Psalm 127. Maybe they won't have but two or three children.

  #239 | 2:48:21 to 2:48:57 | cleaned

• But the reality is they can be taught the things of God the right way to go. Brother John's children, some of them kind of grew up and each gone their own way. Life changes for us. But I just want to give you a little bit of history of where we are. The government is not involved in our bank accounts for the church. We are thankful for that.

  #240 | 2:48:58 to 2:49:32 | cleaned

• And they have no reason to be. What you gave to the work of the Lord last year was up to you. That's between you and God. The reality is we're to be obedient to the voice of the Son of God, and if we are obedient, we one day will hear His voice. And Job said, when He calls, I will answer, here am I. Thank God. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

  #241 | 2:49:34 to 2:50:05 | cleaned

• Our Father, we do want to thank you again for the lovely morning that you've granted us and for the opportunity to speak a few words regarding thee. We thank you, Lord, for the many times that you've answered prayer. When we were down on our knees and didn't know exactly what to do, we felt thy presence and we knew without a doubt that your word was sufficient. And when we poured over the Scriptures to find the path that was right to take, Lord, Your Word always established our going.

  #242 | 2:50:06 to 2:50:44 | cleaned

• And Thy peace has been in our hearts. And what a pleasant experience—how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Thank You, Lord, for these people that are gathered here this morning. Help us love You with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. For this is the will of God concerning us which are in Christ Jesus. And they all said, Amen. Thank you. Amen. Thank you, Brother Allen.

  #243 | 2:50:45 to 2:51:20 | cleaned

• That was the foundation we needed for today. I'd like to give a few thoughts before Stan comes up. There's an old song, perhaps some of you might know it. It's called, "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." We're to have a testimony. It doesn't mean we're to be weak or soft, but folks are to know us by our charity in Christ, by our love. The first one goes like this.

  #244 | 2:51:20 to 2:51:49 | cleaned

• We will walk with each other. We will walk hand in hand. And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land, and they'll know we are Christians by our love. Verse two: We will work with each other. We will work side by side, and we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride. And they'll know we are Christians by our love. How many of us have known within our churches, perhaps within our families, of an embarrassing weakness or a sin that a brother has committed, perhaps fallen into? We have, when we learn of it by any circumstance, we have the opportunity to guard a brother or a sister's dignity. We all know that opportunity is there for us. When we hear the dirt, however it comes our way, we know there's an opportunity to guard someone's dignity, even someone outside of the faith. An unsaved neighbor who you found has committed an embarrassing sin, even if he's not a believer.

  #245 | 2:51:49 to 2:53:11 | cleaned

• But it's going to shame him as that news spreads throughout the community. If we find out about it, if we see it, we have the opportunity to guard someone's dignity. Or the flip side, we have the chance to spread it like wildfire. As soon as we see somebody who ain't heard it yet, oh, we get to tell them too. Scripture would have us go one-on-one.

  #246 | 2:53:11 to 2:53:38 | cleaned

• And if necessary, move on. But we have the opportunity as we walk with each other hand in hand, as we work side by side, we have the chance to save and guard each other's dignity. There's a blessing for that. How quickly a church can be torn apart by gossip, by spreading that fire of deceit, whatever it might be, to shame a brother just because he fell into an error and you didn't, so you've got the upper hand on it. What a shame, but what an opportunity to be a blessing to our community within the faith and even without. But I'd like to pick up on this notion just for a moment. We will walk hand in hand and we will work side by side. Is Brother Alvin here? Where's Brother Alvin? I don't have Brother Alvin. Brother, would you come up? Come up. I was going to use Brother Alvin because I know he'd be used to it. But Brother, come on up. Good.

  #247 | 2:53:39 to 2:54:40 | cleaned

• Stand over here if you would. I'm going to clean it. Take my hand. I don't really want to hold this brother's hand. It's rough. It's scarred. Maybe a little clammy. It's just uncomfortable. It's awkward for us to hold hands like this. But notice, it's very personal, and yet it's very awkward. But what if my brother—he's a healthy man, good stature—but what if he was ill? What if he had a bum leg, a bad ankle, and needed help up these stairs as he came up, and I needed to reach out my hand and help him up, perhaps?

  #248 | 2:54:43 to 2:55:24 | cleaned

• All the awkwardness would go away. I don't need to hold his hand, because he stands before me, a healthy man. I've greeted him, and then we let it go. But he needs me to hold his hand, because this brother has a disease. He has the sin nature within him. And he needs me to hold his hand. I need him to hold my hand, to help me up as I've fallen into error, into weakness. He needs to come alongside me and pick me up and work side by side to walk along with me.

  #249 | 2:55:25 to 2:55:59 | cleaned

• This is something that ought not be neglected in our lives. Now, let's think about this. If we were not just hand-in-hand, but rather arm-in-arm, even closer, even stronger. Now we think, in battle, we want to be united. We want to link arms against the foe. The question is, are we not in a battle against Satan and his demons? We might think life is easy now, but we must see the unity of the brethren is so very necessary. And not just that I wave at him, but we need to be close, hand in hand, arm in arm.

  #250 | 2:56:00 to 2:56:42 | cleaned

• If you would, brother, come up here. Bring out this arm. Think back to Gideon, the night of Gideon. You give each of us a sword. Y'all get swords. You're the bad guys. We're on the Lord's side. Turn out the lights in this building and say, OK, have at it. I'd say we've got a fighting chance. Two against 60. Why? Because we're united. We've got strength. I know where he is. I know where he is. I know where his hips are. I know where his shoulder is. I can pull him. I can push him. Turn him out. Let's go at it. We're going to defeat you, heathen. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Jehovah! This is what we can do when we're united. Come on, devil. Give us your best. Amen. Thank you.

  #251 | 2:56:43 to 2:57:31 | cleaned

• This is what we must have. And yet today we think, oh, that was loud and maybe a little silly looking, but we've got to take it seriously. The times of our lives, even in the Pilgrim's day, they must have been united. Things were going well in the church, in society at that point. We're so disgusted with what we see, but yet we'll neglect, we'll forsake the walking of each other hand in hand, brothers helping each other that close. And it gets awkward at times, it gets uncomfortable, but we have to be willing to go there, to be that close in community.

  #252 | 2:57:31 to 2:58:18 | cleaned

• Brother Stan, if you would, come forward and share with us. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see y'all. It's a pleasure to be here. And before I actually start in my message this morning, I'd like to thank two men, actually, because they have had a big influence in my life. And one of them is Brother Allen. We met, he was a much younger pastor then, and I was a much younger man then because I wasn't even a pastor then.

  #253 | 2:58:20 to 2:59:06 | cleaned

• And he was talking about when they had the church and the school, and I saw that. I was not a part of that, but I saw it and it had a huge impression on me. It left a big, big impression on me. And I remember Royce Lee being over here in the school. I remember Candace teaching. I remember those students in there. I was probably in there fixing some lights or something like that.

  #254 | 2:59:06 to 2:59:39 | cleaned

• I don't know what I was doing. But I remember that, and I remember the woodshop. And I do remember this: there was someone in the church that had passed, and they needed to be buried. And they were going to be buried right out here. And I believe it was Ricky Wade. And he's sitting back there—he's acting like a Baptist back there on the back pew. But I believe it was Ricky.

  #255 | 2:59:39 to 3:00:07 | cleaned

• And he was in that wood shop, and they were actually building a casket. I'd never seen that done before. And I got to thinking about it. I said, what was the purpose of that? Well, it didn't take me long to figure out: if you go buy a casket from Sims or Ricketson or anywhere else, you know, that's thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. And so here was a church that was operating in a way that I had never even heard about before, at least in modern history.

  #256 | 3:00:07 to 3:00:46 | cleaned

• And it was just—it was almost dumbfounding to me. I'd been reared in the church my whole life, but I had never seen a church stepping out of the sanctuary, so to speak. And obviously they would step out and maybe do certain types of outreach programs, visitation. But I had never seen a church do those types of things. And then I saw the cottages. And I said, wow. The cottages. What are those for?

  #257 | 3:00:47 to 3:01:18 | cleaned

• And it was if somebody needed housing. I was blown away. I was thinking, I've never seen anything like this before. Thank you, brother. Thank you. And then Brother John and Miss Alice—poor Miss Alice, she has to put up with you all the time. She's been dragged from pillar to post across these United States, I know. But Brother John has been a mentor to me. I was hearing Brother John's messages when you still got them on the little cassette tapes.

  #258 | 3:01:19 to 3:01:57 | cleaned

• And my wife and I, at one point, we were looking at buying a new vehicle to us. And the only real criteria that I had on the vehicle was that it had to be able to play Brother John's tapes. Everything else was up to my wife, but I wanted to be able to hear his messages. And I thank you for your faithfulness. I look around in here today and I don't think there's probably anybody in here that has not been affected by both of y'all, by your kindness and grace. So as I come to you this morning, I think I told Josh—I said, that's my son-in-law that's here—and I said, the only way they could get anybody to listen to me preach was have me right before lunch because nobody wanted to miss lunch. But my subject this morning as we're talking about community is the community of the family. And family is one of my favorite subjects in all the Scriptures.

  #259 | 3:01:58 to 3:03:04 | cleaned

• And it's certainly not anything that can be dealt with in just one sermon. This is something that you could spend months and months on as you dealt with the biblical model of the family. But I wish to bring some of my thoughts this morning. And as I look, we see young couples, and then we see older folks. And I'm now in that second category, Brother Steve. I'm one of the older folks. That's right. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? When I first met Brother Alan, I didn't have all my children. We had some young children, and now I have grandchildren, one of those being here. So God has been mighty good to my wife and myself, our family.

  #260 | 3:03:05 to 3:03:53 | cleaned

• I would like to share some things with you, though. The question is, what is the family community? What is the purpose of family? Why do we have family? Now, you can have family everywhere. You can hear those that come together to the church. You're different than most people. You're different than the vast majority of the world around us, because you've set aside a Saturday to come and to listen to men expound on the Word of God, to have fellowship together with other believers in Christ. So you're different than the vast, vast majority. I'll say that you are different even than many of those that are formal members of a church somewhere.

  #261 | 3:03:54 to 3:04:43 | cleaned

• You see, there is a difference, and there is a small minority, and there always has been—a small, small minority of people that have a real, true desire to follow the biblical model of what God has set forth in His Word. The secular world is very unsure about what family is even all about. Do you realize that what was known for years as the nuclear family, that was terminology that came about, that the nuclear family, what is that, Brother Stan? The nuclear family is one man and one woman.

  #262 | 3:04:46 to 3:05:33 | cleaned

• We need to make sure of that. And then that they had children between themselves and they lived basically a very stable life depending on what era it was in, what decade it was in, but basically it was a family organization that was not all split up and mixed and mingled and this, that, and the other. And that is becoming such a rare thing, even today, and I'm not trying to be critical whatsoever, but even I would say within the church, we are seeing so many that don't even have a real understanding of what God's pattern is for the family.

  #263 | 3:05:35 to 3:06:23 | cleaned

• Why is that, do you think? I think that it is because it is so easy not to address it. Because so many pastors are more concerned about filling pews than they are about preaching the Word. Because when you really get into the Word of God, so often what happens is you don't want to offend people. And nobody, none of us, want to offend anybody willingly. But folks, I'm going to tell you, if we are being true to the Word, it is not we that are doing the offending, I would say that it is the Holy Spirit.

  #264 | 3:06:25 to 3:06:58 | cleaned

• The secular world is completely unsure about what the purpose of the family is. They're more concerned, so often it would seem, with materialism, with permissiveness, with immaturity even in their children. I appreciate your children, Bartholomew, because I've watched them. I've watched them when you visited us. And it is refreshing to see children that can sit, and they don't have to be little statues, but they are, and all the young people that I've seen in here, they're polite, they're respectful.

  #265 | 3:07:03 to 3:07:33 | cleaned

• And folks, that does not just happen. So we're not real concerned about what the secular world has to say because they have nothing good to say to us anyway. The truth is the secular world hates Christ and they hate Christians. We're more concerned about what the Christian family purpose is. And I would say this. I would say that the purpose of the Christian family, number one, is to rear godly future generations. Did you hear me? The purpose of the Christian family. It's not just for a man and a woman to marry. It's not just for you to go buy a house with a picket fence and have a bank account. There's nothing wrong with having that house and that picket fence and that bank account. But folks, our purpose is to raise godly future generations. And then the second purpose of the Christian family is for us to exercise dominion in our sphere of influence. What are you talking about our sphere of influence?

  #266 | 3:07:33 to 3:08:41 | cleaned

• Well, I'm a business owner. I have my business. And I cannot run my business in the un-Christlike way and be biblical. That's right. Amen. Every person in this place, every person that will listen by way of video, every single one of you. Mama, you may be homeschooling your children, and praise God if you are. Or your child may go to a school, a Christian private school, and if they do, that's fine. But I'm telling you, it is our purpose as Christian men and Christian women that we are to exercise dominion wherever God has placed us.

  #267 | 3:08:41 to 3:09:23 | cleaned

• In 1996, here's a shout out to your title here. I've never been assigned subjects to speak on very often, but he assigned these subjects and I appreciate it. I feel like you gave me the best one, okay? Best one, best time. But anyway, how did it go? It takes a village to raise a child? No, it takes a Christian family. In 1996, that Jezebel Hillary Clinton, she published a book entitled, "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child." Y'all are familiar with the title of that book.

  #268 | 3:09:28 to 3:10:06 | cleaned

• I hope you have not read it. But basically, the thesis of that book is that the rearing of a—let me say, my daddy taught me this, Brother John. We don't raise children. You raise corn, you rear children. And y'all understand, you rear children. But the basic thesis of the book is that the rearing of children takes the collective effort of a village. That's what she was saying. And in essence, she was saying it becomes everybody else's responsibility if that child is going to grow up and become a successful adult.

  #269 | 3:10:06 to 3:10:44 | cleaned

• Well, that is not what our Lord says. That is not what the Scriptures say. Because I'm going to tell you, a lot of people in the village of this world are wicked, wicked, wicked. They have come to the point where the government, they decide that they think that they own your children. We have seen this accelerated. And I won't go into all these details because I'm limited on time. But folks, I'm going to tell you, it is the parent's responsibility to rear the children. Do other people have influence? Absolutely they do. And some influence is good and some influence is bad.

  #270 | 3:10:44 to 3:11:21 | cleaned

• And as parents, you better make a determination on which one it is. The vast majority of people, though, they have fallen prey to this unbiblical model. And what does that do? That forms out the responsibility of the family to others. Did you hear me? We have responsibility and we have to raise our children. We can't save our children. That is the work of God. But we can make that ground as fertile as we possibly can so that the Holy Spirit will come in and move on them and affectionately call them. Amen? I can tell you what, if you were letting them be subjected to wickedness all the time, they are much less apt to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Amen. We have this responsibility.

  #271 | 3:11:22 to 3:12:30 | cleaned

• I look, I see two of my grandchildren right now. One's four and a half, and one's just turned a year. And it is those parents' responsibility, and by extension, their granddaddy that's got them right there, and their other grandparents. Yes, will we have influence? Yes, we will. Should we have influence? Yes, we should. But it is the family, the community of family that is going to answer to the Lord for the rearing of these children. God's plan has always been to accomplish dominion through the family. And you know, we see the family under extreme duress. We see so many familial problems that we—many have no inclination of even what the biblical model for family is.

  #272 | 3:12:31 to 3:13:27 | cleaned

• If we were doing that long series this morning, we could go into all the different roles, and we would. We would go into the different roles of the family. We would talk about how important the role of the father is and the husband. You know, he needs to be the husband before he's the father. Amen? But you see, even the world doesn't even understand that. And what just blows my mind, I guess with social media, there's no secret that stays secret very long, is there? But we see people, and they're just proud as they can be, and they're having children out of wedlock, and calling on the name of the Lord in the next sentence. Oh my Lord.

  #273 | 3:13:27 to 3:14:03 | cleaned

• Come on folks, y'all look at me like I'm crazy. We have forgotten what wickedness is. It is welcomed with open arms. People have no idea what the biblical model... You know what the biblical model for the husband and the father is? He is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Did you know, men, that you were to be the role model for what your girls see when they look to marry someone? You're to be the role model for what your boys should be and want to aspire to grow up to be? Your boys, you know what they should be doing? Your boys should be saying, I want to be just like Daddy!

  #274 | 3:14:03 to 3:14:44 | cleaned

• And if they're not, then what's wrong? I remember, I'm going to tell a short story. I was about five or six years old, and I was at the farm with my granddaddy. And he wasn't a large man, but he's the toughest man I've ever met in my life. And I remember this. I remember he was having some ponds dug, brother. And he was out there, and it was in the wintertime.

  #275 | 3:14:46 to 3:15:06 | cleaned

• And he had heavy equipment out there. And I was about a five or six-year-old little boy. I may have been Jack's age. I'm not sure. And you know what? I was fascinated with that equipment. And I was fascinated with what my granddaddy was doing, building those ponds. And it was muddy, and he was putting out drain tile, and I was riding his way. And all I wanted to do, Brother Harold, was be like my granddaddy. That's all I wanted.

  #276 | 3:15:06 to 3:15:30 | cleaned

• And so he finally, he took me down. It was in Douglas. He took me to an old hardware store called Alfred Lotz. And he bought me a pair of rubber boots. And let me tell you something, brothers and sisters. I got back out there on that job site and I put my dungarees, I took them down on those rubber boots and I stomped around like I was John Wayne. There wasn't any man bigger than I was at five years old. But you see, we got boys now, they don't even know if they're boys or not. Have mercy, they don't know what bathroom to go into. I tell you what, by the time a young man is 15 years old and it maybe should be younger, but by the time a young man is 15, that's exactly what he should be, is a young man and a young lady should be a young lady by that time. This period of time of adolescence and teenage years and acting like Peter Pan and can't grow up, God forbid that's not biblical.

  #277 | 3:15:31 to 3:16:33 | cleaned

• And if you were talking about the earlier history of the country and everything, you look at what our forefathers did. I remember, I could go on and on, but I'm going to tell you something. I guarantee you, sir, I don't know you, but I know this, I know that when you were 15 years old, you weren't acting like no little boy. I almost guarantee you were carrying the load of a full grown man because that's what you were.

  #278 | 3:16:34 to 3:16:57 | cleaned

• We're raising our children to be immature. We're raising them to be more concerned about what the world thinks about them than what our Father above thinks about them. In Joshua 24, you're all familiar with this, and it's probably no surprise that I would read this Scripture. But in Joshua, if you would, turn there, Joshua 24, in verse 14, it says, "Now therefore, fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord." And then in verse 15 it says, "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your father served, that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell."

  #279 | 3:17:02 to 3:18:01 | cleaned

• Do you understand that we still have this choice today? We're either going to serve Jehovah God, or we're going to serve the gods of the Amorites—any pagan deity that there is, because those are the only two choices. Christ said, you're either for me or you are against me. Amen? And he says, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Those are the types of definitive statements that we need to make. We need to declare in our heart and in our minds every day that me and my house, we're serving the Lord.

  #280 | 3:18:01 to 3:18:36 | cleaned

• He did not go back and ask his wife. He did not go back and ask his children. He did not get a committee together and see if that was the most prudent thing to do. He said, you can do what you want to, but as for me and my house, we're serving the Lord. Now, it's easy to say that. And it's easy to go down there to the gospel bookstore or go to Amazon and order the plaque.

  #281 | 3:18:36 to 3:18:57 | cleaned

• Boy, we go into a lot of houses in the work that we do. We're electrical contractors, and we do trouble calls, and we'll go into house after house after house. And some people are Christians, and sometimes you'll see these plaques that people have, you know, the "live, laugh, love," all that kind of stuff. Well, some people will have this quote from Joshua that says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." And folks, I'm going to tell you, it's easy to put that plaque on your wall, but it's harder to live it.

  #282 | 3:18:58 to 3:19:25 | cleaned

• He had made a bold declarative statement. But I want you to turn over two pages to the right, to Judges chapter 2. Judges chapter 2.

  #283 | 3:19:29 to 3:19:42 | cleaned

• Now here was a godly leader. He was God-ordained. And he said, this is what we're going to do. He'd drawn a line in the sand. Just a little bit of time later, Judges chapter 2, verse 8: "And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the mountain of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash." Now look at verse 10.

  #284 | 3:19:42 to 3:20:25 | cleaned

• And also all that generation, all those men and women that were of his generation, they were gathered unto their fathers. In other words, they died as well. And there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord. God forbid. Just that quickly, that quickly there arose—it wasn't hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later—there arose another generation that knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel. A whole new generation arose. And folks, apparently, the Bible doesn't particularly say, I don't guess, but this whole new generation arose and apparently they had not made the decision to serve the Lord.

  #285 | 3:20:25 to 3:21:18 | cleaned

• Do you understand that you may be a devout grandparent, and there could be a generation that you know that does not serve the Lord? Did you realize—and I don't have the most current demographic studies—but did you realize that even among college-age graduates that were reared, brought up in evangelical churches, that by the time they graduate from university, 70-some-odd percent never return to the church? And the number may be larger now. We are living in a spiritual desert. We are living in a time where people give lip service; they'll go to a church service, they'll go to a gospel service. Well, they won't even hurt to do that anymore.

  #286 | 3:21:20 to 3:22:31 | cleaned

• It's funny, I had to have a little surgery the other day, and the surgeon came in and she said, "What kind of music do you like?" I said, "Southern gospel." She said, "What is that?" Anyway, we listened to Southern gospel and they sang about Jesus. Amen? So anyway, let me move on. Folks, we can't be passive about our decision to serve the Lord. What do you mean, Brother John? I don't know what happened between Joshua saying, "As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord," and then a couple of generations later, nobody knew the Lord. Somebody had gotten passive about even giving testimony, because it says there arose a generation that knew not the Lord or even the things that God had done for Israel. They had not even given testimony. And I want to ask you, one of the best things that we can do as parents and grandparents is tell our children about the things that God has done for us. You might say, "Well, Brother John, I can't quote Scripture."

  #287 | 3:22:31 to 3:23:48 | cleaned

• You don't have to quote Scripture. "I'm not a theologian." Well, praise the Lord, because you know what? Neither am I. But I can tell you what I can do. I remember one of the most poignant times in my family's life when my children were young, and we were going through a difficult time, and I don't even remember what it is. You see, the difficult times, they go away. They go away. But I remember I gathered my whole family together.

  #288 | 3:23:49 to 3:24:23 | cleaned

• I had two girls, a boy, and a wife. And I said, "Everybody sit down." And I gave everybody a piece of paper, and I said, "I want you to write down everything that you're thankful for. Write down everything that you're thankful for." Well, some people were—my wife was thankful for healthy children. My youngest was thankful for the puppy dog. Did it matter what they were thankful for? It did matter, but what was important was that they were giving praise to God for the things that they were thankful for.

  #289 | 3:24:25 to 3:25:00 | cleaned

• Folks, we have got to draw a line in the sand and then we cannot become passive. It is easy because we homeschooled mamas—boy, y'all carry a lion's share of the burden because you're at home and you feel like your house needs cleaning, and it probably does. And the kids need to do their reading lesson, and Junior over here is not learning how to spell the word "cat."

  #290 | 3:25:02 to 3:25:25 | cleaned

• And I mean, it just gets tough and you want to fix supper. I get that. It gets tough, doesn't it, Mom? It gets tough. Hold on. Hold on, because those seeds that you're planting, they will bear fruit. They will bear fruit. This crowd over here, you're like, put a smile on your face.

  #291 | 3:25:25 to 3:25:48 | cleaned

• Now, we have to make our decision. And folks, I'm asking you, if you're unsure yourself, I don't have children at home anymore. I'm a grandpa, I'm a grandma, good. Good. You have more freedom to have influence on those kids. It is amazing what you can do. And I say this. Y'all don't know me, but my father was a pastor. And he pastored big churches. And he traveled. He had all the degrees, you know.

  #292 | 3:25:52 to 3:26:23 | cleaned

• And he loved the Lord. But you know who had the most influence on me, Brother Steve? My granddaddy, who raised cows and he was a steam pipe fitter. And he had more influence on me. He smoked cigars like a freight train. And you couldn't hardly get him to say two words. But I'll tell you what he would do. Every night after supper was finished and the dishes were washed, we would sit down in that chair. And my grandmother would be there, and my grandfather would be there, and he would open that Bible, and he would read a chapter of Scripture every night. Every night. And I don't know how many times they went through the Bible, Brother Allen.

  #293 | 3:26:24 to 3:27:19 | cleaned

• Once they got through, they'd start all over. And as a little boy, I remember it felt like agony to me to have to sit there for a whole chapter, and you were hoping that it was not the 119th psalm, it was the 23rd psalm. But you know what? All those things, you could count on it like clockwork. Grandparents, you have so much influence over your grandchildren. And your daughters and sons-in-law or sons and daughters-in-law, they may be overwhelmed trying to make a living. They may be overwhelmed with all those things.

  #294 | 3:27:21 to 3:28:06 | cleaned

• And you can take that time. I see my brother Ollie back there. And I know the time that he and Miss Carol love to spend with their grandchildren and have that influence. So this sermon is for all of us. It's not just for young parents. It's for old grandparents. That's right. The outcome of us not being strong in our decision to serve the Lord, you know what the outcome of it is?

  #295 | 3:28:06 to 3:28:35 | cleaned

• It is a lost generation. It is a lost generation. That is the outcome. What is the general outline of the family according to Scripture? Well, there's so much that we could cover, but I want to cover just a couple things. Deuteronomy 6 tells us that the education of our children, especially the religious, the spiritual, religious education of our children is not supposed to be left up to the pastor, or to a Sunday school teacher, or to anybody other than the parents. That is who is responsible. We see a picture of Noah that led his family.

  #296 | 3:28:35 to 3:29:32 | cleaned

• Can you imagine, you think that you're underneath pressure of those that despise God, you say, "It sure is hard raising a godly child and having a godly home." My word, we don't have a clue, do we? Because Noah and the seven others beside Noah, they were the only ones in a whole wicked world. And it says that he preached for 120 years, did not have a single convert. Can you imagine the pressure that he was under as he tried to work and preach?

  #297 | 3:29:33 to 3:30:04 | cleaned

• He was a real bivocational preacher, wasn't he? Amen. He didn't have a single convert, but yet he led his family. That's right. As Brother Allen spoke about just a moment ago, Abraham, as he showed complete trust in God in one of the most difficult situations I can imagine, as he goes up that mountain to sacrifice his own son. And his son wasn't a little boy, he was a grown lad.

  #298 | 3:30:05 to 3:30:42 | cleaned

• And he submitted to his father. What kind of relationship did they have that a grown young man would submit to his father? It had to have been wonderful. Because he was the child of promise, wasn't he? Have you ever met a family that can't have children? That's where he was. And then can you imagine the thankfulness and the gratefulness that they have realizing that those children are gifts? Do we treat our children and our grandchildren like gifts or like a nuisance?

  #299 | 3:30:42 to 3:31:30 | cleaned

• We see the Philippian jailer. What about him, Brother Stan? Man, he was ready to know the Lord, and then he led his whole pagan family right along with him. What is the general outline of the family? It's that the father leads in the home and out of the home. We move on, and I want to close a little bit right here. I had to go out of town the other day to another town.

  #300 | 3:31:35 to 3:32:12 | cleaned

• And I noticed something in it. I was thinking about today's message. And what I saw was I saw all these small houses that were being remodeled. They were in the city. And they were all being spruced up and remodeled. Well, I got to look around. You could see some of these houses, they had fallen into disrepair. And that happens in almost every city. At one point, you'll have a section of housing that's brand spanking new and looks good. And then over time, and it may be 40, 50, 60, 70 years, there's a transition away from those houses to new subdivisions or whatever the case may be. And so these smaller, older houses, what happens is they begin to crack, and they begin to crumble, and they begin to fall into disrepair. Well, as I was looking, I was in this other town, and somebody had decided that they were going to take these older homes that had once been bright and shiny and they were making them look brand new again.

  #301 | 3:32:14 to 3:33:35 | cleaned

• And I said, you know, a lot of times that's exactly what our family is like. There's a time when your family is bright and shiny. I was thinking, you know, about the newlyweds. Y'all got some newlyweds in your family and, you know, we have some in ours. You know, you think about it when you're a newlywed and, whoo, you're never going to get mad at that woman. She's your bride. Well, a lot of times that doesn't even last past the honeymoon, does it? And she gets mad. You know, life settles in, doesn't it? And then as time goes on, if you're not very...

  #302 | 3:33:36 to 3:34:17 | cleaned

• Listen to me closely to this point. If you're not very, very careful, rot can set in. Destructive influences can set in. Disrepair can set in. Why are you bringing this up, Brother Stan? Do you realize the statistic I shared with you just a moment ago about kids that are being raised in church when they get out on their own, out of college, that they're not returning to church? Why is that?

  #303 | 3:34:17 to 3:35:00 | cleaned

• Because they don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Folks, our families are in crisis. Our families are in crisis. I want to be kind, and I am being kind. I don't want to step on any toes unnecessarily, but do you know even within the confines of the church how rare it is to have a couple that marry and stay married their whole life, and to have children that worship God, and have children that go out and marry like they should? Do you know that if you have children, there's a certain way that your children should marry? If you have a Christian child, they should not go off and marry a heathen. Amen me, church. There are certain things they should and shouldn't do. And do you know how rare it is to have one generation after another generation after another generation follow obeying Christian principles? We are in crisis. In the church, we are in crisis. But you know what? There's a way out.

  #304 | 3:35:00 to 3:36:43 | cleaned

• You get up here and preach a while. You know, there is a way out. And what is the way out? First of all, we must be honest. I want you to be honest with your own family this morning. Men, are you being men? Women, are you being women? Are you being biblical women? Are you being biblical men? If not, nothing's going to change. Because God's plan is the only plan that works. I want you to think about your little house, not the physical structure. Your little house, your family. Is your foundation cracked? Boy, if your foundation's cracked and corroding and dipping down and getting undercut, you've got a real problem because that whole house will fall. What is the foundation?

  #305 | 3:36:44 to 3:37:44 | cleaned

• Turn to 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3 for just a moment. I won't be much longer. I want you to see this though. Folks from our congregation, when they hear me say, no, I won't be much longer, they know I'm not telling the truth. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11 says, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." If your home is not founded on Jesus Christ, your foundation is wrong. Your foundation is wrong if it's not about Jesus Christ. If you're not proclaiming the goodness of Jesus Christ. You know, over in Romans 2, it says, "Despisest thou the riches of his goodness which leadeth thee to repentance." The goodness of God is showered down all around you.

  #306 | 3:37:44 to 3:38:46 | cleaned

• And are you expressing that to your children? Are we thankful? Do we have an attitude of thankfulness? Do we teach our children that we tell them that they're bad or what not? No, they're sinners is what they are. And that there's a price to be paid for sin. And without Jesus Christ, it's an eternity in hell. So your foundation, examine it as you look at your house. My son and I had bought a house back in February.

  #307 | 3:38:48 to 3:39:26 | cleaned

• We remodeled it, put it on the market. Somebody was interested in it. If you've ever been through this process, you know how it goes. They hired a home inspector to come in and inspect the house. And what did he do? He went in the attic. He went underneath the crawl space. He looked at the brick. He looked at the block. He looked at the floor joists. He looked for termites. He looked at everything that he could possibly look at.

  #308 | 3:39:26 to 3:39:59 | cleaned

• And he made a report. He said, "You have a problem with the foundation." "What is the problem? Is it cracked?" "No, it looks like water's been running under the house." "No, that's not water. That's where the plumber was under there crawling around." But if your foundation is cracked, your house will come down. What about termites? What do termites do? That is an outside influence that comes in and it destroys the wall. Do you have termites affecting your family?

  #309 | 3:40:00 to 3:40:40 | cleaned

• What are you talking about? Any type of a destructive influence. In Romans chapter 12, you can probably quote this with me, but it says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." But too often, you know what we do? We allow those outside influences to come in and to conform our family to what the world would have us to look like instead of what Christ would have us to look like. How are we being conformed to the world? You know, the truth is, we're all conformed by the world to some degree.

  #310 | 3:40:40 to 3:41:18 | cleaned

• Our language, our attitudes, our opinions, the things that we watch, the things that we listen to, the things that we say. He says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed." He says over in Proverbs—I'm going to ask you, you don't have to turn there, but in Proverbs 12, I want you to see what he says here. Proverbs 12:26, he says, "...the righteous is more excellent than his neighbor, but the way of the wicked seduces them." Folks, I'm going to tell you, we are constantly under attack. There are termites constantly attacking our house. Termites are not like a cow that walks up in the yard.

  #311 | 3:41:18 to 3:42:13 | cleaned

• They're not seen, are they? They're hidden. Most of the time, they're underground. They make tunnels. And oftentimes, they have done the damage. You don't hear them. You don't see them. They have to be inspected for. But by the time you know they're even there, they have done the deed. They have caused the damage. And that so often is happening in our families. Inspect your home. Inspect your home. Check that foundation and make sure that your home is built on that solid rock of Jesus Christ. Make sure that you don't have those termites attacking the walls of your home.

  #312 | 3:42:14 to 3:43:01 | cleaned

• What about a leaky roof? A leaky roof. When you have a leaky roof, it lets those storms come in. And young people, let me tell you, old people alike, because I'm one of the latter, here we go. We are going to have storms in this life. They are going to come because we live in a sinful world and we are affected by the sinfulness of this world just like everybody else.

  #313 | 3:43:02 to 3:43:29 | cleaned

• But the wonderful joy of it is Jesus Christ is our shelter in the midst of the storm. In Nehemiah chapter 4, this is the last thing I will share this morning. I know I've bounced around quite a bit, but in Nehemiah chapter 4, we know that Nehemiah had gone to rebuild the walls of the city, and he had been called by God to do that very thing. He had been allowed to go by the grace of God, and Xerxes allowed him to go, and he gets there, and he says in Nehemiah 4, verse 7, "But it came to pass that when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were"

  #314 | 3:43:30 to 3:44:42 | cleaned

• Made up or that they were going up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, or very angry. Did you know that the wicked hate to see the righteous succeed? They hate it. They hate to see the work of God going on. Can't hardly stand it. And they will come against it. Some of those storms that you will face if you are actively serving the Lord, some of those storms that you will face will come from those that hate God and hate you. And it says, "...and they conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it." They always want to hinder the work of the Lord.

  #315 | 3:44:43 to 3:45:32 | cleaned

• How many attacks have you faced in your life, brother? Multiple. Nevertheless, in verse 9, he says, "We made our prayer unto our God and set a watch against them day and night because of them." And Judah said, "The strength of the bearers of burden is decayed, and there is much rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall." And our adversary said, "They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst amongst them and slay them and cause the work to cease." They intended to stop the work of the Lord.

  #316 | 3:45:33 to 3:46:13 | cleaned

• Did you, Mama, let me tell you something. Did you know that the work that you're doing in the home—and I'm saying Mama, because basically the biblical model here is that the husband is to go out and he is to work, and he is to provide. But what if we can't just make it on one salary? You better look at your finances, and you might need to cut back. Mama may need to work, I don't know. But here's the thing: Mama, you have such an influence on that child, and so often you feel like you're not appreciated, but you are. Did you know that every other—listen to this—every other job in the world goes to support motherhood? Amen. Every job in the world basically goes to support motherhood. You feel like you're tired and worn out? It's because you are. Husband, father, take care of your woman. Here the people were tired. They were tired of the burden.

  #317 | 3:46:13 to 3:47:34 | cleaned

• They were scared of those around them that were going to attack them. Verse 13: "Therefore said I in the lower places, behind the wall, and on the higher places. I even said to the people, what? After their families." He set them on the wall according to their family, with their swords and their spears and their plows. Why do you put families together? Because families will fight for one another. Or they should. They should. Families should fight for one another. They should protect one another. They should love one another. They should defend one another. And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, "Be not ye afraid of them."

  #318 | 3:47:35 to 3:48:26 | cleaned

• "Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible." And look what he says. He says, "And fight for your brethren, fight for your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses." And it came to pass when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work. They fought together. They fought together.

  #319 | 3:48:26 to 3:48:58 | cleaned

• I want to say this this morning, in closing. You're different. The people here in this place this morning, in this sanctuary this morning, you're different than the vast majority of people. You are. You're hearing more biblical preaching from these men than the vast majority of people in the United States will hear in their lifetime. Do you believe that? You know that.

  #320 | 3:49:01 to 3:49:41 | cleaned

• And you're willing to be different because you're homeschooling or you're paying the money to go to private Christian education or to homeschool? Well, how in the world can you justify that? Your kid needs to do this. They need to play this. They need to do all these different things. What good is it doing them if they lose their desire? Are more concerned about what their buddy on the ball team, or in the beauty pageant, or whatever. We place so much emphasis on wanting to look and act like the world that we're losing our children. Would to God that we be committed like Joshua was and say, you can do whatever you want to world, but as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. Please bow your heads.

  #321 | 3:49:50 to 3:51:14 | cleaned

• Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this day. And Lord, I thank You for every person here. Lord, I thank You for these young parents, and I ask, Lord, that You would just work in their hearts and their minds, that You would be with their children. Lord, we pray that You would bring salvation to these children that do not yet know You. Lord, we know that all the gifts that are needed to be saved come from You, and we ask that You would work in a great and a mighty way. I pray that you would give resolve to all of us in these times in which we live. Lord, I pray that your plan is accomplished in all of our lives, as we know it will be. In Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.

  #322 | 3:51:16 to 3:52:06 | cleaned

• Sister Wanda, if you would come on forward and we'll sing a song before we break out. We're looking good on time, so I'll share a few thoughts. The theology of the family is very near and dear to me. Specifically, I do have children. My wife and Jenna and I have been blessed, truly blessed with children. But in terms of family, I don't actually have my family near me.

  #323 | 3:52:07 to 3:52:32 | cleaned

• That is to say my parents, my grandparents who have passed on now. I've got a cousin who happens to be in Jacksonville and an aunt who happens to live in Birmingham. So geographically, you might say I've got some family, but they're not close to me. They don't attend this church. They're not in town. And yet my family, by the grace of God, theologically, it's been extended to the church.

  #324 | 3:52:32 to 3:52:57 | cleaned

• Now, I started when Brother Cluff started preaching, there was two more boys, my sons on the front pew. And if you'll notice, I'm being blessed by the fact that one son's over there being watched by Sister Pearl. Another son's there sitting with Brother Harold. And I'll kind of go into that a little bit later on this afternoon. But it is a blessing to me that my church family can help me. There's a blessing there.

  #325 | 3:52:58 to 3:53:28 | cleaned

• It's not just all on Jenna and I. It doesn't take a village, but there's such a blessing in being a part of the family of God. And not just the fact that we attend church here, but by those, by extension, our brothers in the community. As my sons grow up and they'll be able to be working boys, I would hope if Brother Stan has a job in which a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old can help, that is to say picking up the clippings from when he's done the electrical work or setting out things or sweeping up, I can simply throw one of my boys into his work truck and I know he's got them for the day. Not that he's got to babysit them, not that he's got to watch out for them, but that they can be a blessing to him as he teaches them.

  #326 | 3:53:28 to 3:54:20 | cleaned

• How much do I have to pay for that education? He'd do it for the work of the Lord. Not that I'd pay Him for it or that there's some kind of compensation. He would do it as a ministry. I know He would. And I look forward to that day. It doesn't mean raising children has to be expensive. Getting their education doesn't have to mean a dollar value.

  #327 | 3:54:20 to 3:54:46 | cleaned

• We're given the example in Scripture. Remember before Christ was found in the temple by His parents. The circumstances of Him being there, they were all in town with the family, the assembly they were with there, the group that family paid in taxes. And as they journeyed a day's journey out of the city, Mary and Joseph finally realized Christ wasn't actually near them.

  #328 | 3:54:46 to 3:55:16 | cleaned

• Now, what did this mean? All day, Mary and Joseph were at peace knowing, well, surely He's with the cousins. Surely He's in the company of our family. Now if you think Mary and Joseph went an entire day that it was normal for Christ to be amongst His cousins, being cared for by the aunt, the uncle, getting lunch, getting breakfast, getting dinner, whatever it was, Christ was around those other cousins, those other families, surely Mary and Joseph would have ended up with Christ there for breakfast, with who knows what cousins with Him. And so the cousins just, they're there, well, let's make lunch for everybody. And the other aunt and uncles, whose children they were, would have known, yeah, the cousins, ah, the kids, they're over with Mary and Joseph.

  #329 | 3:55:16 to 3:56:06 | cleaned

• What a blessing to be able to share times, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews. Again, I don't have relatives near me, but I have brothers and sisters in Christ, in the church, and what a blessing that is. The blessing flows. Hebrews 10, verse 25, you all know the passage: 'Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.' The assembling of God's people ought not to be forsaken.

  #330 | 3:56:07 to 3:56:44 | cleaned

• Now is this simply limited to churches and their particular members? We've already heard it. Families have reunions where they get together. Churches gather, members of a church gather on the Sabbath to worship corporately. Wonderful, but can we broaden the application of Hebrews 10:25? We know families get together, members of a congregation gather corporately, but here churches have assembled. Churches from the community have, in fact, come together. And I say to you, according to Hebrews 10:25, this gathering ought not to be forsaken. You might say, well, once a week, once a month, how often should we be doing this?

  #331 | 3:56:45 to 3:57:28 | cleaned

• When the Lord leads, when the Lord provides the opportunity. But what a blessing it is. Families, churches gathering together, assembling. From each of our pastors, in years past, each of our pastors have taught us, in our churches, the sphere authority. We heard a little bit about it earlier. Family, church, and state. Sphere sovereignty. One ought not go against the other. But where is, in Scripture, where is community authority?

  #332 | 3:57:29 to 3:58:03 | cleaned

• Where do we see that circle? What does it have to do with something? What are its parameters? Where is community sphere? Where does that fit in? And I'm going to suggest that community comes from a biblical desire, not a command. We desire to be in community. We desire to be rubbing shoulders with brothers and sisters of the faith, to come together willingly. We volunteered to be here today.

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• We volunteer to be a part of each other's lives. You can't help who your blood family is. You just can't. But we are to be in church. We're to be members of a church and faithful and accountable to our church. But what about this? This is completely on your own. This today is volunteer, to be a part—or even if we live close together, house to house, which would be a blessing as we do here to some extent. What a blessing. But it's a volunteer basis. It comes from seeking a blessing beyond mere obedience. You attend church and are faithful and accountable because it was Christ's example to go into the church. It was His custom.

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• And so we follow that. But what do we see here today? This is more for the sake of a greater blessing for our families, for our churches, and then to bless our community. Scripture demands obedience. We know that. But we would do well to desire this blessing, a further blessing for ourselves, our families, our churches, and our community. Brother Weaver points out that scriptural principles would tend to lead towards a representative form of government, a republican form—not the party, but the form of government as being a republic. The principles of Scripture lead toward that. I would say Scripture leads us to desire community.

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• It's not demanded, but it's to be desired. But if we see a blessing in community, then we ought to seek that blessing. We have to follow that. And again, how does the Lord urge us to seek Him? To seek first His kingdom, and all these things will be added unto us. We are to seek His blessing. And what is needed extra from us? We say, okay, so we're supposed to be faithful to our families. Yes. We're supposed to be faithful to our churches as members, as participants. Yes. Well, what is needed to be part of a community? It's what you're supposed to be doing anyway.

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• Loving each other as ourselves. It simply becomes an extension of our godly life, serving others, loving others, as Christ would have us. So there's really nothing extra, no more burdensome theology, to be a part of a community for the grace of God. So we serve others. Think of the verse, "Do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great." What a blessing. When we are rubbing shoulders with fellow believers, we can do good to them. We can lend. If I know what the Lord has given me is extra that I can actually give to a brother, if I were to give it to Brother Stan, I just want to bless him with it.

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• I'm not going to hope for it again. I just want him to be blessed. Where did it come from anyway? The Lord gave me extra, and I can bless him with it. And he'll praise God for the blessing, for the help. When I need help, I would hope the brothers in the community would come to my aid. And I know you would. The Amish have this right. If we could say their theology stinks, but they've got this right. They help each other. They throw labor at each other, building their barns together. They give their cattle—a milk cow. If someone's lost a milk cow, here comes another one from the community, to be a blessing. And when they need, they're then blessed.

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• This is where we ought to be. There is a song, and I'd like to quote it. It's called "For the Fruit of All Creation." It's just very pretty. It's to the tune of "All Through the Night." Follow with me if you would. For the fruit of all creation, thanks be to God. Gifts bestowed on every nation, thanks be to God. For the plowing, sowing, reaping, silent growth while we are sleeping, future needs and earth's safekeeping, thanks be to God. Verse two: In the just reward of labor, God's will is done. In the help we give our neighbor, God's will is done. In our worldwide task of caring for the humble and despairing, in the harvest we are sharing, God's will is done. And verse three: For the harvest of the Spirit, thanks be to God. For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God. For the wonders that astound us, for the truth that still confound us, but most of all that love has found us, thanks be to God.

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• So so.

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