service so far today. It's been a blessing just to be here. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, preaching through this book. I want to read one verse and then we'll pray. Now, today I'm going to preach a message. I'll get the gospel in there somewhat, but he's writing to the church. He's writing to believers. And I wanna preach a message today out of verse number seven, where it says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That's what I wanna preach on, this treasure in earthen vessels. Then it says that there's a reason this treasure, and we'll talk about what that treasure is, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Well, what a verse and what a passage of scripture this has been. Lord, we thank you for this day. I pray that you'd help me to preach. Help me to feed the flock of God and preach the word of God. And I just pray, Lord, that you'd hide me behind the shadow of the cross. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. That I'd be an earthen vessel that you could preach through this morning. The great treasure of Christ. I pray God today that the sweet spirit of God would be upon this place for your glory's sake. And Lord, I pray that folks would be saved. I pray, Lord, that Christians would be strengthened. And then, Lord, I pray that we would see broken vessels, broken earthen vessels that would send forth out of that broken vessel the treasures of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen. I want to start, go back to verse number one, chapter four, and kind of set the stage for this today, the context of this passage of scripture, because this is, I want to preach this. There's probably a higher aim for those who may be called to the ministry in some work of the Lord specifically, but it is for all of us. He said in verse number one, he said, therefore seeing we have this ministry, If you'll notice in verse number seven that I read, it says, but we have this treasure. In verse number one, it says, we have this ministry. And he's telling us what the treasure is by that. He's talked about back in chapter three, in verse number six, that we had the ministration of the spirit and how that the letter would kill, but the spirit gives life. And what a treasure that is, amen. It's the spirit, the treasure is the spirit. There's a lot of things involved in this treasure. but it is that we have the ministry of the spirit, the presence of the spirit, the work of the spirit, and not just our personal salvation, but the message of the gospel, the good news of Christ to give to the whole world. And that's what a treasure it is. I don't know what your bank account is today, and I don't really care. I don't know what you may have in lock boxes. I don't really, not too interested in how much gold or silver you may have put back. I don't know how much land you may own. I don't know how much the dollar value of your assets are, but I can tell you this, that none of that amounts to anything compared to the treasure of Christ in you, the hope of glory. And the treasure that we have in our faith in Jesus Christ, what a treasure it is. And God said we have this treasure in these earthly vessels. He said, for that reason, we faint not. And we get up there in verse number five. He said, this ministry of the Spirit, this ministry of the Lord, the gospel. He said, we've renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. I really like that. That clears the fog out. The gospel is the truth. The word of God is the truth. Our message is the truth. Our treasure is the truth. And we live in the sight of God. We're not worried about what people think about us. He said, our conscience is on the side of God. And he said, I know what I'm preaching is the truth and I'm not worried about all that other stuff. And what a clearing it does for us when we know that we're in truth. You don't have to worry about somebody going to find out this or that or the other. Not living in secret and darkness and that kind of thing. And the gospel, he said in verse number three, if it's been hid, it's hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world had blinded the minds, notice the word, blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest something happen, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. This is what we need to understand as a church and as individuals and even within our families. The mind is blinded and it takes the spirit of God. This is why it's such a treasure. The spirit of God can pierce through, as Brother Josh talked about, beyond the mind and beyond the intellect, and God can take this glorious light of the gospel and shine it into a dark heart. And he takes us then down to verse number five, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servant for Jesus' sake. He said we're not preaching ourselves, we're not preaching our denomination, we're not preaching our little deal, we're preaching Christ. Then he said in verse number six, he gives the Old Testament example of Genesis, for Christ who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. He took it back to Genesis and said, let there be light without form and void the earth, darkness is upon the face of the deep. It's a picture of a lost man in Genesis chapter one. And the light that God sends into that dark world is a picture of the light of the gospel. And I'm going to tell you this much. This is why I'm hammering in on this church and our homes and our families. We have got to have the ministration of the spirit of God, not of the letter. And we need the spirit of God working in our own hearts and our own minds and our children's hearts in this church. And it not just be a bunch of rules around here and this is what we do and this is how we live. It has to be somebody living inside a treasure and it's something that we love and we treasure it. And then he said, he gave that example, has shined in our hearts. And that's what happened to you when you got saved. If you're saved, the light of God shined in your heart and it gave light of the knowledge of the glory of God. And here's how it gave it in the face of Jesus Christ. God never shines anything out for his glory, except it be in the face of Jesus Christ. It's all gonna revolve around Christ when it's over and it's in the face of Christ that we see the glory of God and that we see this treasure. So that's the preface to this verse number seven when he says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, this light in the face of Jesus Christ. And all true ministry, all true ministry takes a person or people to the face of Jesus Christ. That's honest truth. If our ministry is not taking people to the face of Jesus Christ, it's misdirected. Amen? That's where we want to take people. We need to take them, the light shines when the light, when they see the light of Jesus Christ, it shines His holiness, His justice. It shines and shows us our sinfulness, but it shows us His love for us. shows us his substitution, and this is what I preach repeatedly and over and over again, and I will ever preach this, the substitutionary, sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for my sin. So it shows us his substitution, his sacrifice, his provision for the forgiveness of our sins through his mercy, through his grace, in that death, birth, and resurrection of Jesus. It shows us his grace and his mercy, his forgiveness, and it's his life that is imparted to us by faith, and his righteousness that's imparted to us and imputed to us by faith, and that's the treasure you have in earthen vessels. If you're saved, you have this treasure in an earthen vessel. And what a treasure it is, the eternal life, the eternal love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now it says there in that verse, it says, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Each one of us have a body and the Holy Ghost in Scripture refers to our body as an earthen vessel. We are made of dirt. Sometimes we call it clay. whatever it may be, but I want you to notice in chapter five, you're there very close. Look at chapter five. For if, for we know that if our earthly house, look at the phrase there. There's an old song they used to sing, this old house. How many members of that song? Anybody remember this old house? My goodness, I'm singing that these days. windows are cracking and all that kind of stuff. And it's sung out of this chapter in the Bible, out of this passage, that this earthly tabernacle, this earthly house deteriorates and crumbles and is going to go back to dust. But anyway, he says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. He's talking about our body. But then why do we have, why did God put this treasure in earthen vessels? He said that the excellency of the power may be of God and not us. Then I want you to notice something interesting Paul does. Now this is, unless the context of this is understood, jump down now to verse number eight. Right after verse number seven, Paul said, after he tells you that he has this treasure of the ministration of the Spirit, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace, the presence of Christ, the life of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, all of these things, this great treasure in this earthen vessel, then he says something. Watch this. We're troubled on every side. yet not distressed. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Did you know this, if there's anything describes me at this little passage, troubled on every side, the further I go and the harder I preach and the more I preach the Bible, the more trouble I have. That's honest truth. I, uh, many times fact of it is just in general, I'm kind of perplexed. but I'm not in despair. That means I don't understand everything going on. You understand everything going on in your life? You understand it all? I don't understand it all. And I'm perplexed about a lot of things. I really am. I got a lot of questions, but I'm not in despair. This is the critical thing. Then he said, persecuted. I haven't experienced much persecution, a little bit. Facebook shut me off again yesterday, but that's not too bad. you're not, I'm going to tell you, if you're not preaching hard enough on Facebook for them to shut you down, you ain't preaching nothing. Amen. And all I did was talk about them scumbag snowflake boys who'll get a girl pregnant and run off and leave her to take care of the boy, the child. And they put me off Facebook over that. Can you imagine that? I don't think they like the word, I call boys like that dog eating, vomiting eating dogs. I know that's not very loving, but a guy did put on, a guy did put on Facebook, he said, Reggie, back in Spurgeon's day, that wouldn't have flown, but he said, in the rotten generation we're living in, that's the only kind of preaching that'll get their attention. And it did, amen. But I'm not persecuted. I mean, really, I don't feel persecuted, but not forsaken. And I never will, even though if I might be persecuted, I'm never going to be forsaken, amen. And you're not either. Cast down, but not destroyed. Amen. Now Paul writes that right after he's saying, I have this treasure in this earthen vessel for the glory of God. By the way, you know what he's saying? If you have this earthen vessel and you decide to serve God in any kind of matter like Paul did, that's going to happen to you. Now what God wants to happen is, watch this. Here's our message. God wants the treasure that he put in your earthen vessel to be given to a world He doesn't want you to put it and keep it inside the earthen vessel to hide it. He wants the treasure that you have, your salvation, your knowledge of Christ, your experience with Christ, your knowledge of the gospel, your love of God, that your love of souls, He wants that to come out of your vessel. What Paul's telling you is that God broke my earthen vessel so the treasure could get out and people could see the treasure of Jesus Christ in me. And you will never affect your world for Christ till your earthen vessel is broken. And that's a gospel biblical truth. And so here we go. He's relating the essence of what's involved about this earthen vessel being used for the gospels. Broken, Paul's broken. Jesus described it this way. He said, if you lose your life for my sake and the gospels, you'll keep it. You allow yourself to be broken for my sake and the gospel. Break your will, break your desire, break your ambitions, break your goals for my sake and the gospel. He said, you will find your life. But he said, if you keep your life, you'll lose your life. It's another way of expressing the same thought. I've come to believe, and I really do believe this, that, listen to me this morning, that every person is going to be broken. You don't have a choice about it. The question is, who are you gonna be broken to? Who is going to break you? Either God will break you, or sin and Satan and self and the world will break you. Somebody said he died a broken old man. A fellow yesterday had a feed, a Facebook post on his daddy. And he talked about how this daddy laying in a hospital bed and his body's just sunk up and his head's hanging down. He said, this is my daddy. This is what liquor did to my daddy. 60 years of drinking liquor did to my daddy. He said, he's so hard you can't talk to him about Jesus. He hates everybody. He said, this is what liquor will do to you. The broken man, not broken by God, but broken by liquor and broken by sin. If you refuse to let God break you, you will be broken by sin and self and the world. But I believe that all will be broken. By the way, I want to ask you this question that ought to be asked before we proceed with the message. But do you have this treasure in earthen vessels? Are you saved? Have you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Have you come to a place where you acknowledge that you're a guilty sinner and deserve hell? And that if God be just and holy and righteous, he'd send you to hell? Have you come to that place and then have you looked at the cross and saw a Savior bleeding and dying for you and bearing your sin and saw that that was your only hope and the only way you could be saved and forgiven was by the blood of the Lamb of God? And did you repent of your sin? And boy, did I get a case this week. I got a call this week, a guy, I mean, you know what? When somebody calls you up and says, is this Pastor Kelly? Yeah, it's Pastor Kelly. Have you got your Bible handy? That's the first one. And then when they have prayer, let's have a word of prayer before we start. I'm like, start what? And I preached on, and I say it again, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. But he hates for anybody to preach repentance and include it about salvation. Repentance doesn't save you, but repentance must be there as a prerequisite to be saved. your repentance, and of course he dispensationalized all that out. I said, what about Acts 17, 30? I won't go there. Oh my goodness. But anyway, do you have this treasure? Do you have Christ within you? There's a little song they used to sing. This little light of mine, going to let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. And then it says, hide it under a bushel. No, I'm going to let it shine. What's that bushel? Where'd they get that song from? Hide it under a bushel. No, I'm And they're talking about, hey, you got to get it. The bushel is the earthen vessel that you're hiding the treasure behind. And people can't see. And I'm going to tell you what, this is the honest truth. But that's that song singing about what I'm preaching about. And I may not do a very good job of this, but I hope the Lord will help you get it. But how has God ordained that your little light shine? We may sing the song, but what is your bushel and are you hiding that light? And what's going on with your light? I am telling you this, you will always keep your treasure, your light hid in a bushel or a vessel until you're broken. Paul was used of God to scatter the gospel around the world because God broke Paul when he was Saul, and God doesn't change with anybody. Now, I don't want you to take time because I'm going to try to run. Well, we got time. It's just 1134. How do we do this? Go to the book of Judges. Go to the book of Judges. I wanna show you the essence of ministry. Now, I'm gonna talk specifically, Judges chapter seven, I'm gonna talk specifically here to men who may be called to preach. You young boys who may be called to preach. I'm telling you, listen, God called me to preach when I was 18 years old. I didn't surrender to preach until I was 28 years old. So some of you guys, I mean, I don't know how to work out for you, but if God ever calls you to preach, I'm gonna show you how to preach. I'm gonna show you how to let God use you, all right? It's clear in the Bible, it's very clear. Judges chapter seven, is everybody there say amen? All right. And you know the story, Gideon was called of God. They were under the oppression of the Midianites and the Philistines and all Israel had sinned, you know, and they were under oppression. Okay. Kind of like you and I under the oppression of the leftists and the God haters here in America. God's going to show you how to have, God's showing us how to have victory over this. All right. So they're in this oppressive time. Verse number 16, and God's getting ready to give Gideon a victory, give the people of God a victory over the godless, okay? And this, he's gonna show us how it's done. It still works today. He divided the 300 men. By the way, he got rid of a bunch of people that were a bunch of cowards and scared. Are you listening to me? And he narrowed it down to 300 men, 300 men. And he said he divided them into three companies. And he put a trumpet in every man's hand. Now you listen to this. He put a trumpet in every man's hand with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers. Now I was gonna try to get that together and just between going down everywhere this morning, I didn't get it done. But I wanted to bring like a pottery piece up here, a pottery lamp, and then like just a flashlight, just for example. But it would be, here's this pitcher. The pitcher was like a clay pitcher, all right? They were very fragile. They carried water. By the way, they were cheap. They didn't cost a lot. I think somebody told me one time, the human body, if you took all the elements and everything else, it's worth about a dollar and 16 cents. You ain't worth much, Art. But it was a cheap vessel. And then he said, you put the lights in. He said, you take a trumpet. And he said, empty pitchers and put lamps in the pitchers. And he said in verse 17, look on me and do likewise. And behold, when I, by the way, you know, that's a good thing. Can you say, look on me and do likewise? Can you say that to other people, look on me and do likewise? And then he said, behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, underline that in your Bible, because I may preach on this tonight. Did you know that's in the book of Hebrews too? That God wants you to come outside the camp? Anyway, here we go. And it shall be that as I do, so shall you do. Now here's what he said in verse 18. When I blow with the trumpet and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpet also on every side of the camp and say, And I don't think he said, whisper it. I believe they called it out, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So Gideon, the hundred men that were with him came into the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, and they had but newly set the watch and they blew the trumpets and break the pitchers. There it is. were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets, break the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands to blow with all. And they cried the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And look at verse 21, and they stood. You ought to circle a bunch of words in there. They blew the trumpet. They said the sword of the Lord Gideon. They blew the trumpets. They break the pitchers. They blew the trumpets. They break the pitchers. They held the lamps and they cried out and they stood every man and they just kept blowing. Amen. They say, how did they win a victory? They won a victory by blowing the trumpet. You say, I want to, I'm going to be in the ministry. You got to blow the trumpet. The Bible said, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their sins. Now you listen to me, nobody will ever appreciate the cross and the gospel of Jesus Christ till they've been shown their sin. You can say what you want to, but America does not want any preachers showing anybody their sin these days. Nobody's supposed to, I'm gonna tell you what I've had, just tell it like it is, and you're just junking around, monkeying around with it. But I tell you what, if I preach on sin and I get very specific, I'm telling you what, people will leave this church pretty quick if they're not right with God. I've seen it over and over again. It doesn't bother you as long as I preach on somebody else's sin, but it comes down to your home and your family, especially if it's your kid. That's just the way it is. America can't stand preaching these days. That's why we got into all this praise and worship stuff, because they don't like preaching. And by the way, if you'll take what Paul, what did Paul tell Timothy to do? He said, rebuke, reprove, exhort, correct. But that ain't what people want these days. When he said lift up the trumpet, he's telling you something the Bible teaches. Lift up the trumpet and show my people their sins. People have no appreciation for the cross, for the blood, for the grace, for the mercy of God until they've been shown they're sinners. Sorry. We want a gospel that just kind of greases us in without ever having acknowledged that we're wicked from the very core of our being. We're wicked, sorry. I mean, hell deserving sinners. By the way, that's why we don't have no shout. That's why you preach on the cross and preach on the blood and preach on the mercy of God and the grace of God. And everybody just sits there like you're just talking about a series of little book catalog. I'm telling you why. Because they don't have a deep appreciation that they'd be in hell if it wasn't for the grace of God. I was out in the woods this week and I got on my face before Almighty God. And I said, I got to thinking about the children yet unborn. I got a first grandson who's going to be a teenager this coming year. And you know, the first thing that happened here, if I live to be another 10 or 15 years old, do you know I'm going to start seeing a bunch of great grandkids coming around? And I asked God not to let one of my descendants die and burn in hell forever. I got so burdened. I got so happy. I said, Lord, I don't want any of my kids, my descendants to die and go to hell. Let me tell you something, folks, listen, going to hell is a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to think about. And I'm telling you something, we're just keeping our little light in our little earthen vessel and we're just praying through life. And I'm telling you, God says, you'll never get the light out of your life until you've been broken. He said, you blow the trumpet. And then he said, you holler out the sword of the Lord. You know what the sword is? the book, he said, to swore the Lord and get in. He said, they blew the trumpets and they break the pictures. Now here's the deal. They could not see the light till the picture was broke. And when that picture broke, that thing would probably bust into 1500 pieces and hit the ground. Watch this. And you didn't go down and pick it up and bring it back up again. God needs people who are so broken. They'll never go back to their old life. so broken they won't even think about quitting the ministry. Then he said they held their lamps. I want to tell you something. We had 300 preachers in America who would blow the trumpet. Why do you think Facebook doesn't have any problem with putting a bunch of drag queens and sodomites and the most vile garbage you've ever seen? They'll line Facebook up with that and they have no problem with it. That's not hate speech. They said yesterday my preaching was hate speech. This world does not want you, and we know that intuitively. We know that if I could get 300 preachers to break their lamps, to blow that trumpet, break their lamps, and just held it, just hold it, they didn't have to do a cotton-picking thing except blow that trumpet, hold that lamp, but it had to be broken. The thing I'm asking you today, are you willing to be broken by Almighty God so that God can take your light to defeat the darkness of America? we don't want to be broken. And I'm going to talk, I'm going to preach on this today and I understand it because I've been through it. By the way, then the Bible said they stood. New Testament says, having done all stand. and it pictures victory through brokenness of an earthen vessel. I'm going to tell you when America had great preachers and great churches and a great foundation, that's when they had preachers that were broken before God and they didn't care what anybody else, their lives were broken before God, their light went out, they couldn't help but go out and they lived for the Lord and they said, they said, getting the gospel to America is more important than making money and owning this and owning that and owning everything else. But now we're steeped in prosperity gospel. We think the prosperity of ourselves is the ultimate deal, when the death of self is the deal. You listen to these psychologists, it's all about me, me, me, me. You listen to preaching, you listen to churches, it's all about the self-life, self-life. Love yourself, love yourself, love yourself. instead of self being broken, so the treasure in the earthen vessel could come out. You know why the Bible says so that no flesh should glory. The Bible teaches us, what is God saying when he said break that earthen vessel? God wants to break us of our pride. We're so stinking proud, we want everybody to like us. He wants to break us of our self-sufficiency, our attitude that we don't really need God. Most people in America right now who even profess Christ as Savior, if they can get enough money, materialistic goods, do not need Him any longer. The Bible warns about riches. How hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. Rich men aren't easily broken. They're cocky, they're proud, they're self-sufficient, and God said that has to be broken. That's why if God breaks you financially, it's not always a disaster. It may be the biggest blessing of your life. Then God wants us to break us of our intellect and break us of our talents and break us of our skills so that he might receive the glory. And then this is the big one for preaching and for the ministry, breaking the fear of man. The fear of man must be broken in a man for him to ever have a light that'll shine for Jesus Christ. The curse on America today is not the sodomite crowd so much as it is the preachers who would not preach against it. The people who said, judge not, it's only verse they know in the Bible, judge not that you be not judged. The preachers who would not preach on adultery and fornication. I literally, when I started in the ministry, had a preacher that pastored a church in this town who caught me at a service station in Mountain Grove. I walked in there, said, hi, how you doing? He literally unloaded on me. He said, if you didn't preach on adultery and fornication, he said, you wouldn't have anything to preach. He said, you wouldn't know the gospel if it's out in front of you. And I'm talking about loud in front of everybody. I mean, he flat unloaded on me. You know what? God had just got through saving several people here at this church, and we had a Bible school and so forth, and I don't know why the timing was, but you know something, I said, I'll just tell you, and I just said, listen, all I can tell you is God's blessing the Word. But I said, I will tell you something further. There's 50% of couples in America and churches who are divorced right now, and homes breaking up. I said, somebody needs to preach on adultery. Isn't it a sad state when preachers jump on you and tear you up because you preached on sin? fear of man though is their problem. Then there's the fear of failure, the love and desire of approval from the world. Can I tell you as a preacher, you'll never be worth a flip nickel until you get over the fear of man. The fear of losing approval from the world. Let me just be very candid this morning. If when I surrendered to preach, and I'll tell you everything in this Bible is so true, I can remember when the superintendent of schools over here called me up, said, I hear you're gonna start a Christian school. I said, yeah. He said, I wanna have a meeting with you. I went over and met him in the bus barn, sat down at an old potbelly stove, kind of a good old boy setting. He said, you don't need to start a Christian school. He said, we'll just let you have some Bible classes up here at school. But inside my heart, I knew God has called us to start, basically, it wasn't so much just about a Christian school as it was about taking our families out of the world's education system. And I said, well, that all sounds fine and good, and I appreciate the offer, but I said, God told us to start a school. But you listen to me. If Reg Kelly would have been a big buddy to the public school over here, I'd be liked by, do you know I'm the most hated man in Norwood, Missouri? That's the truth. When my daughter ran for office, did you know the place she got the least amount of votes was right here in her hometown? Do you know why? Because I believe in God educating young people for the Lord, and I have not been a supporter, and I pay my taxes like everybody else does, but I'm saying this, I do not believe it's right to teach kids something on Sunday morning, and then send them to a place they're gonna get taught just the opposite on Monday morning. A place where they're told they cannot pray, and a place they cannot read their Bible, and pray for Jesus Christ is not preeminent. and where it makes me disobey the Bible, my very faith, to send them there. Other people can do what they want to do. Do what you want to do. Do as you feel led, but that's why I'm saying this, that I'm telling you, but oh, if I'd have been a preacher like they wanted me to be and come over there and pray at their little deals, you know, they have their little deals, keep all the preachers roped in. The superintendent of schools over there used to, when I first started preaching, he'd go around, visit all the churches. You know what he'd do? He'd give this one a cooking job and that one a bus, and this church over here, a bus driver's job. And this one over here, you know, a janitor job. And he scattered all the school jobs among all the churches. And then he'd say, he curled them preachers in on himself. And then he knew, now I'm just gonna, I'm gonna preach honest with you. Then he knew something. He knew a lot of them preachers are jealous of me and didn't like me under the curtain. And he played on it. Now you listen to me, if I would have went in and said, hey, I'm gonna be here for all your basketball games, and I'm not gonna preach about your cheerleader showing her underwear off to everybody, and I'm not gonna preach on all the garbage going, I'd have been their buddy. And then another thing come down through the years, if I'd have went along with contemporary Christian music, I could, come on, I'll tell you something, I could fill this place so full you couldn't get, we could have two services on Sunday morning if I'd have fell for all the garbage just to be approved by man. But if you stand against that stuff, I'm telling you right now, you've got to get over the fear of man. You've got to get over where people like you or don't like you. Don't matter. I'm not worried about it. I love everybody. I want everybody to be saved. I'm not on a hatchet job. But I'm going to tell you something. The world wants you to compromise in order to gain their approval. And they know there's something inside you that you're, by the way, denominationalism makes me sick to my stomach. Most of us, not more than that, anything more than a pyramid scheme. 10% offering goes in from the church house to the big house the big house controls the preachers the preachers go back out and the big boys control all the Churches control watch preach control what's believed everything nobody they're not even free The big huge pyramid scheme, and you know how they do it well if you stay with us reg We'll make sure you got retirement We'll take care of you when you're old you just make sure that the money keeps coming up to the big house from your local church These are things nobody wants to talk about, it's just the truth. And by the way, these preachers are told not to preach on certain things, and they're told to be a big buddy of all the local, you know, the Chamber of Commerce, and this group, and that group, and be involved in all these groups. The reason being, because we want them to come to your church, and if they come to your church, take up an offering, they'll have their money. The love of money is the root of all evil. It's real nice and quiet in here this morning. Some of you, sweat's running right down your armpits right now. And I'm not trying to be smart. And I'm not trying to be arrogant or nothing else. It's just the flat truth. But you know, that's something I knew. That's one of the reasons from 18 years to 28 years of age, I had a hard time surrendering to the priest because I knew I could feel, I sensed, I wasn't stupid. I was all over this place. You think I graduated from over there. I lived in this county. My dad was an assessor. My dad was a state representative. I knew, I had an auction business. I knew everybody from this side of Springfield to West Plains. And I'm telling you something, the fear of man will bring a snare, it'll trap you. And the first thing that happens, you won't preach against this and you won't preach against that. How many times do you think in the 15 or 20 churches in Wright County that any preacher gets up on a Sunday morning and says one single solitary thing about teaching kids that God's a liar by teaching them evolution in our schools? Nobody. Isn't that pathetic? Isn't that pathetic? They're afraid to say a cotton-picking word against a public school teaching your children that the first verse of the Bible is a lie. We're sick. But I want to tell you something. God had to break me. The only way that ever happened was breaking me. God had to break me. You know what? I wanted people's business. I wanted to be liked by everybody, Mary. I want to be friends with everybody. Can I tell you what your Bible says? Friendship with the world is intimacy with God. And whosoever will be the friend of the world. Oh, but wait a minute. We're nice little idolaters. We can carve out a God of the Bible, a Jesus, who is just fine with all the stuff we like. So we're dualistic idolaters. We want to worship God, but we want the friendship of the world. So we're going to be really careful about where we stand about things, and we're not going to be broken. We're not going to let God break us. Let me tell you, over through history, you study your Bible and you study history, God uses the brokenness, the broken people, because that's where the light comes out. And until you're broken, light's not going to come out. Take your Bibles and Mark chapter I'll show you, it's another place in the Bible. It's all through the Bible, but these are some of the big ones about earth and vessel. Mark chapter 14. I mean, I'm just being honest with you. Some of you guys are never gonna surrender to preach because you're afraid. First of all, you're afraid that you can't do it, but you're right, you can't. You can't do it without God. Yeah, it's just God. It's quiet in here. There's a spiritual warfare going on right now. You're going to have to get past your fear. Afraid of what your folks will think. Afraid of what your siblings will think. Afraid of what your friends will think. You know what? God needs to break some people inside this church so hard that you don't care what I think. Mark chapter 14, verse number three, and being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he said it, meet there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment. Now that alabaster box is a picture of an earthen vessel. of Ointment of Spichnard. That Ointment of Spichnard is a picture of the Holy Ghost inside the earthen vessel, the treasure inside the earthen vessel, remember? And she did something. Everybody tell me what she did. She break it. And she poured it on his head. She poured it on Jesus Christ's head. Here's what God wants you and I to do. First of all, you've got to understand that if you're going to be broken, the world's not going to like it. Watch this. It's so amazing. Pass it. Let's just read it. Let the Bible speak. Poured it on his head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves and said, why was this waste of woman made? I want to tell you kids and you young people something, that if you allow God to break you and you're no longer afraid of anybody except God, The world is going to tell you, and you say, I'm going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to give God my life. The world is going to tell you you're wasting it. Don't break your life. Don't lose your life. Don't waste your life preaching the gospel. Don't waste your life serving the Lord Jesus Christ. I thought a lot about Sister Juliana, Juliana, Edna Juliano recently. She passed away. the scripture that was on her headstone, that I might finish my course with joy. And that girl left Florida down here, converted Catholic, saved, knew the Lord Jesus Christ, went to the Philippines, spent her entire life, died in the Philippines, I'm sure buried in the Philippines. Did she waste her life? But there had to come a point in her time and her existence where she let God break her. Now you listen to me preach this morning. There comes a time when God's got to break you about even having a marriage partner. If it's His will, fine, if it's not, it's fine. But you're broken about that. It's not the all-consuming, all-consuming, I've got to have somebody. You're gonna get yourself in trouble by got to have somebody. And you've gotta get to the point of where it's not about a good job, and it's not about getting this, and it's not about getting that. God has to break you of all that. That's what America's lacking today. We don't have broken people who are just willing for God to crush their life so we can live His life. D.L. Moody said this. D.L. Moody was a broken vessel, and here's what he said. He said, I have yet to seen the man who has totally given himself to God, what God would do with him, and I believe it, you know, basically something of that nature, that he had never seen what God might do with one man who was totally given to Christ. But he said, I intend to be that man. Couldn't even spell good. Couldn't talk very well. His command of the English language wasn't good. Started out just bringing little kids to his Sunday school class, but he gave it all to God. This woman, look at this. There's three things. She bought an alabaster box of ointment, very precious. She'd break the box, poured it on his head. Look what they, verse number five, for it might've been sold for more than 300 pence and have not been given to the poor and yet, and they murmured against her. If you allow God to break your earthen vessel, you will be, you'll be told you're wasting your life. They'll be murmured against. Jesus said this, let her alone. Why trouble you her? She hath wrought a good work on me. For you have the poor with you always, and whensoever you will, you may do them good, but me you have not always. She hath done what she could. Look what he said. She's come to afford my body for the burying. You know what she's telling you? She believes in the death, birth, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then verse nine, verily I say unto you that wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that she hath done shall be a spoken of a memorial of her. You know what I'm telling you? She let God break her. Her name went down in history. That's what will happen. That's how it works. Let me give you the supreme example, Jesus Christ. Last Sunday we took communion, and in that bread we said, this is my body, which was what? Broken, his body broken. Jesus allowed himself to be broken, and his blood was what, like the alabaster box, poured out. That aroma filled the whole area. Jesus' sacrifice, the pouring out of his sacrifice has affected the whole world. He was, and it was precious. Let me just say something to you. Your life is precious. I don't know why I hear recently, I've been so burdened about the slaughter of these babies in our nation. I don't know. It's just like somehow I know the reality of how horrendous and awful and paganistic and hellish and satanic and murderous it is. And I think, oh God, if God is just, and he is, What will His righteous wrath be against this nation who had such light? Let me just tell you, those little babies are precious. Life is precious. And I want to tell every young people who listen to me, your life is precious. Don't let Satan break your life and pour it out on the ground for nothing. Let God be the breaker of your life. And the preciousness of your life will come out in that light to others. And God will make your life last. God will make your life fruitful. I'm honest with you. I told you to talk a while ago, and I know that you probably tired of me talking about it, but I was 18 when God called me to preach. For 10 years, the devil told me that if I surrendered to preach, I'd waste my life. I didn't want to be no preacher. I want to go make money, go enjoy things, do things. But I want to tell you something. The devil lied to me. The night that God broke me, and I mean he broke me, I'm the kind of person, I don't flop off of a diving board. I mean to jump. And when I dived, I said, God, it's all or nothing. And for 10 years I wrestled that. And I said, God, I do not intend to be some little coward preacher who's afraid to say what needs to be said. It's amazing the people God put in my life. I'm thinking right now about a beloved friend of mine, LT Hopper. who stood right back there in that foyer and stopped me and took me by the arm. An old man looked me in the eye and said, Reggie, you keep preaching like you were preaching. There'll be a lot of people come here, but there may be more leave. They will not stay with you. And then he said this, I'll never forget it, but if you ever quit preaching like you're preaching, me and Cora will quit coming. I'm not trying to get self-exalted here today. What I'm telling you is this, that I know from personal experience that a man has to be broken, and that which is the life of Christ which is in us cannot come out until we've been broken, until the picture's been broken. I want to tell you young people something. For 10 years, Satan lied to me and told me that I would be wasting my life if I surrendered to the ministry. The opposite was the truth. The fullness of God that He's given me is beyond measure. I may mess up tomorrow. I will, apart from God's keeping power. I pray that I'll never mess up. blaspheme the name of the Lord by some stupid act or some stupid deal, but let me just tell you, everything that I experienced today that is the deepest joy and the most lasting blessing to me came because of surrendering to God. I didn't waste my life, I found it. Young people, you will not waste your life surrendering to the will of God. You will find it. Don't be worried about what your friends think. Don't be worried of the future. God's already there. I guess out of the cry of my soul today is this. I'm 66, and I don't know how many more years I'm going to have, but I'm asking God for broken vessels. People who are not on a ego trip and trying to be super spiritual and all that kind of junk. Something you ought to know if you know me very well, that if God can use me, He can use anybody. That's the truth. I'm not a good pastor. I'm not a good Christian. But I know something about what I'm preaching today that we have to be broken. and there's a need for brokenness, broken from our pride, broken from our selfish life, from our temporal values, living for now, broken of our desire for temporal security. I'm old enough to remember as a young man some of my people that in the scope of my life, who had answered the call to preach and they went to these towns and there was no church there. There was nobody there to meet them. They simply went into these towns and they started either in their home, like the folks in Canada, or they rented a storefront building and they didn't try to have, they didn't even think and care about having a big facility with stained glass windows and padded pews and all that. And they would work a job and then the evening when they got home, they'd eat supper and they'd go out for that evening and soul went and knock on doors and invite people to their services. They had that pioneer spirit in them. They didn't have to have everybody egging them on and say, oh, no, no, come on, come on, come on. And they just knew God. They knew what God had called them to do, and they let their life go for Jesus' sake. And that's what this country's going to have to have. I am telling you right now, if America doesn't get a bunch of broken preachers, we're sunk. That's the only hope. That's the way God works. It's through the foolishness of preaching. I want to tell you right now, I've acted so foolish up here. If I'd have thought when I was 16 or 17 years old that I'd act like that, I'd have probably shot you and said, you're crazy. But it is through that. You know, I want to tell you something. You've got to be made to look like slop. In fact, Paul said we're the off-scouring of the world. You've got to become that. You've got to become, hey, listen to me. You've got to become the subject of people's discussion when they're scouring you. You have got to be willing to hear all kinds of garbage on you that you cannot imagine where out of the bowels of hell came from. And I'm not up here on a pity party. I'm just telling you, Paul understood that this brokenness has to be, what do you think his former Pharisee buddies thought about him now? What do you think their conversation about Paul was around the pharisaical tabernacle temple coffee shop on Monday morning? They hated his guts. But I wanna just say to you as a testimony, if I was to never step behind this pulpit again, God has been so good to me and he has given me life. I'm almost scared to say it, but I'm going to because I'm so grateful. And I don't know why. And if God tomorrow, changed all the direction of everybody's life, and it'd be fine, but you know, this morning, my children that are here, they're sitting in church, I don't know how God's given them enough grace to keep listening to their preacher, their dad, pastor. I don't do business with my kids, and there's a reason why. I'm their dad, I'm their pastor, and they don't need me as their boss. And it takes a lot of grace to be the child of a preacher who's preached what I've preached. Nathan told me one time, said, Daddy, you ain't even heard the half of it. They'll say stuff to my kids they won't say to me. But I will tell you something. Today when church is over, I'll go home, and most of them will be at our house. And I don't know why, but within three mile of me and Karen, there's six houses. Nathan lives in one, Zach lives in one, Ben lives in one, Hannah lives in one, Sarah lives in one, and Susanna lives in one. God's put all my children within three miles of our house. We can get on our four-wheeler and drive to our children. You tell me God hadn't blessed us. Behind the back door of all the garbage, I'm just telling you, my flesh is my flesh. I've got flesh like you do sometimes. I get burned off, I'm like the apostle Paul said, he said, who is offended and I burn not? You ever heard the statement burned up, burned off? You get burned off of all the garbage. A man's foes should be they of his own household. You get sick of it. But I'm telling you, it's worth everything. This message ain't went like I wanted it to do. The one thing, last thing I want is for somebody to feel sorry for me, because I'm the most blessed guy in this church house. I've got a wife who stayed with me through thick and thin. I want to ask you this morning about this. You say, Reggie, broken from what? First of all, I'll repeat myself, broken from a self-life that life's all about me and mine and what we have and what we're gonna do. Broken from life of just simply pleasure. Broken from fear of man, man's approval and acceptance. Broken of your friendship with the world. A love for the world. Broken from a dualistic faith, which wants to have a relationship with God accepted by the world, but your light will never shine to your earthen vessels broken. Until you said like your savior said." Watch this. He prayed. You think brokenness is easy? He's in the garden of Gethsemane and he prayed and his sweat was a great drops of blood. Then he said this statement, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. here's the brokenness. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. I guess just to put it to you straight, I'm preaching this morning that the Holy Ghost would reach out somewhere in somebody's heart, place a call, the ministry upon you, And that it would be such a work of the Holy Spirit that you just don't, you're not worried about what anybody thinks. If your brother likes it, fine. If you don't, that's okay too. You're gonna love him, but you're not gonna let his approval affect you. That if it meant you not making all the money you meant to make, and have the house that you wanted to have, the possessions you wanted to have, if that's what it meant, you're just willing. America's dying for real revival. We want a revival that lets us maintain our materialistic world. Boy, I thank God for the old preachers of America who got on an old horse and took off down through the country, threw up some old brush arbor, brush covered places, went and rode all over the country and said, we're having a meeting down here. Went to see people. Died penniless and in a nameless grave. But all the things you know about America that's great about America came because of men who were broken vessels for God. I'm honest with you. We lose this book in America, we're shot. There's no hope for this country. Give me 300 men who'll blow the trumpet, break the pitcher, hold their lamp, cry out the sword of the Lord in Gideon, and then stand and let God brought a victory. I want to ask you this morning, and I'm telling you what, you be careful. You be careful. Has God called you to the ministry? Has God called you to preach? Has God called you to start a church? Has God called you to be a missionary? But even if he hasn't, are you ashamed of the gospel out in the day-by-day life? If you are, you need to be broken. You need to be broken. And I want to give you some news you're not going to want to hear. But he will break you, and he will break you, and he will break you, and he will break you. And he will never get done re-breaking you the entire life of your ministry. I want to tell you a little something this morning and I'm going to close. Right now, God is breaking me anew and I need it. I need it bad. I've gotten hard, calloused, angry, bitter, just the events of life. God knows I need to be rebroken. If you read your Bible about the men in the Old Testament specifically, God broke them, and he broke them, and he broke them, and he broke them. Some one old preacher said one time this statement, none of us can minister to anybody except through the cracks of a broken soul, where the grace of God flows out of our life into others through brokenness. And I want to say finally through this, all the stuff that I've said this morning about whatever it may be, it's not some kind of feel sorry for me, nothing. It's just trying to explain to you that you got to get past worrying about what everybody thinks. You got to break the picture. You got to get past that fear of man, whether they like you or don't like you. Some of you is in deep prayer right now, but I'll close. And I will help the Lord answer that prayer. Let's stand. Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed. I want to talk to you before I dismiss the service. About a year into the ministry, I thought I was broken. And God brought circumstances that put so much pressure on me, I didn't think I could stand it. And I went out into the woods, and I got on my face before God. And I said, God, I did not call myself to preach. And I promised you that if you'd put it in me, I'd preach it. And Lord, I have preached it, and now the fire has come. Lord, you have to do something inside of me to give me the grace to continue on. Lord, now please listen to what I'm telling you. This is what went through my soul to God. Lord, my preaching has made it hard for my family. Give my family grace. I would suggest that some of you get along with the Lord. Number one, God, have you called me to serve you? In whatever way, Lord, help me to break, allow the breaking of my life, the losing of my life. And just know this, you're never going to drop your soul in the hands of God and be sorry for it and ever be in danger. Father in heaven, I pray now that this message would accomplish that which you intended for it to. Lord, it's been a little different, but Lord, I'm asking you to raise up in America, around the world, people who are willing to be broken. and their earthly vessel so that their light and the treasure in that earthen vessel can be seen by this lost and dying and dark world. I pray God, use it for your glory somehow or another. I pray God right now, I wanna ask you something Lord special. Anything that I've said today or any way that I've said it that might be contrary to the blessed Holy Spirit, I would ask you to strike it from these people's minds And Lord, don't let the devil take anything I've said and twist it or misconstrue it. And I pray, dear God, that you'd put the spirit of grace upon this message. In Jesus' name, for his sake, I pray. And Lord, I do ask you, call people and break people. In Jesus' name, amen. You're dismissed. Thank you for being here. See you tonight.