The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 24, faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss, and I charge you by the Lord and this epistle, be read unto all the holy brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, amen. Father, we'd ask now your blessings upon what it is we're gonna do and continue to do. Thank you, Lord, for the folks that were here for Bible study. Lord, help us to get our minds on thee now and help us to look for the things that you would have to teach us and tell us tonight, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. All right, notice he says in verse number 24, he says, faithful is he that calleth you. And then he says, who also will do it. No matter what it is that you do and what it is that you're involved in doing, the Lord is going to see it through. Uh, he that begun a good work with you will complete it. He'll finish it. Come to first Corinthians chapter 10, I believe it is first Corinthians chapter 10. So ultimately, when that thing happens, ladies and gentlemen, that's the one I'm looking for. Ultimately, when you get into the situation where you're trying to follow the Lord, the results are up to Him. Now what you want to learn to do is be obedient. You want to learn to do what God tells you to do when God tells you to do it. You want to be very careful about trying to discern what you think God's doing in somebody else's life. I've seen God use success in people's life to derail them. I've seen them use success to make them do other things that they ought to do. I've seen them also take things and make them a trophy of His grace by them being so far down in the hole that when the Lord saves them, they become a great testimony and a great witness because of the hole that they came out of. You can't tell by looking at the outside what it is you think God's doing with somebody else. The main thing is, is what's God doing with you? When was the last time you asked God? More than just, you know, what you're doing now every day. When was the last time you just checked up? Lord, I'm reading my Bible and I'm praying, studying, going to church and witnessing, ministering to people, doing what you asked me to do. Anything else you want me to do? Anything else you'd like for me to get busy at? When was the last time you asked yourself whether or not you really feared the Lord? The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You know why we sin? We don't fear Him. You say, well, I'm not really afraid of Him. The Jesus they preach today is this soft, kind of a charismatic, swishy, kind of a more effeminate, sort of a, hey, let's just all get along, kind of a... Jesus was not like that. If He's God manifest in the flesh, He loves holiness. He loves purity. He likes being sanctified. He likes being separated. He doesn't like, although He's able to minister to other people, He doesn't like trafficking in filth. I'll show you in just a few minutes. One of the reasons that we have failures in the Christian life is, is that we've lost that reverential fear. No, we've lost the fear. Not reverential fear, as Scofield says about fear. We've lost the fear of the Lord. Look here, if you will, please, in 1 Corinthians chapter number 10. He says, well, preacher, I don't fear Him. I am. I'm scared to death of Him. You say, why? I've seen what He does by just not doing. Haven't you seen God do some things sometimes that just makes your skin crawl, man? I'm not talking about the devil, the stuff He allows to happen. People ask me all the time, why'd God let that happen? He's just watching. He's just looking. He doesn't always intervene. Man, don't that give you, that keep you up at night? We say, well, my Lord keeps me and all that. He does me too and He'll keep you through that stuff. But ladies and gentlemen, that idea of not being afraid of God, I'm scared to death of what God might do. You say, why? I've got a sense. You know what one preacher said one time about wisdom? He said, wisdom's really simple. He said, you can tell if a man is wise or not. I said, well, how is that? He said, well, he knows when to be scared. and he knows when not to be. If he's scared when he shouldn't be, then he's not wise. And if he's not scared when he should be, then he's not wise. That's profound. You need to know when to be afraid. Say, I'm not afraid to jump off of a building. You're a fool. You're insane. You're getting shot at or you're getting in a bad fight or the boogerman breaks in your house and you're not afraid. Something's wrong with you. There should be natural fears that you have. You should be afraid of certain things in life. You should be afraid of God, even though you're saved. Look, if you will, please, in verse number 13, 10-13, There is no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Then he talks about fleeing idolatry. You know what he just said there? He said, I gave you the ability to do it, and I'll do it, but your part you have to do. Let me see if I can show you this thing here. Proverbs 8. Proverbs chapter number 8. Stop off and go to Psalms 34, and then we'll come back up to Proverbs. Come to Psalm 34. There are great verses that are throughout. Bless the Lord at all times. You can preach on that a while. Praise shall continually be in my mouth. Preach on that a while. My soul maketh her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me. That's a good marriage verse. And let us exalt the name together. His name together. That's a good verse for a wedding. I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me of all my fears. They looked at Him and likened their faces and were not ashamed. This poor man cried, so on and so forth. And notice the Bible says, The angel of the Lord encampeth around about them, that what? Thank you. Well, don't you want the angel of the Lord to camp around you? He said, he can camp around you if you're afraid of him. Come on down a little bit further in the passage. Oh, taste and see the Lord is good. Blessing the man that trust in him. Oh, fear the Lord. Here he is again. Ye his saints. There's no one in them that what? My goodness, man. Look at verse 11. Come you children, hearken unto me. I will teach you the what? Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, what? The fear of the Lord. Now come over to Proverbs. Come to Proverbs chapter 8. I'll show you what it is and then we'll move on. Proverbs chapter number 8. Wouldn't you like to know what the fear of the Lord is? I would, so I'd know how to do it. Do you know how to do it? Watch. Verse 13. It would be a 13. Proverbs 8, 13. The fear of the Lord is... Here comes the definition. To hate evil. Well, if the fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom, then my relationship with the Lord begins not only by what I love, but what I hate. Look across the page over there in Proverbs 6. Six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination to him. Do you hate what the Lord hates? You say, what does he hate, preacher? He hates a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, whether a pen or a sword, a heart that deceiveth wicked imagination, devises wicked imagination, feet that be swift to run into mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among the brethren. You know what the Bible said? The Lord said it's an abomination to him. That's pretty strong, isn't it? I would say. You think God hates anything? He just said that. He said, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, over there in Proverbs chapter 1, if that's the Kate, ladies and gentlemen, you're talking about being afraid of a God that says that when calamity cometh upon the people, like a river rushing down on top of them, that the Lord will laugh when their calamity cometh upon them. He will have them in derision. Derisive laughter. You know what that is? That's making fun of people that are suffering. Is that the kind of God you know about? You don't hear that God preached. You hear big Santa Claus gone, got on a red suit with a big old gut from gluttony and that kind of a deal and got him a big old black belt on it and big old black boots and he sits up there with a little twinkle in his eye and little red cheeks up there and he just wants you to come sit on his lap and that kind of thing. That's not the God of the Bible at all. He's never like that. That's just what people turned him into. That Bible is there. He is so bad he scares John's hair white. He gets down there on his face when he saw the Lord. He said he fell on his feet as if he were dead. Revelation chapter 1. That's real fear. That's John, the one that leaned on his breast. at the table. That's the one that had a chief seat there. Here's Jesus Christ, there's John sitting right there. I mean, you talk about close, they're close. Even when Jesus referred to him, he referred to him as the one whom Jesus loved. That's John, special relationship. He saw him up there in heaven. You know what he did? Down, scared slap to death. You say, why? Didn't he know he was safe? Didn't he know he was secure? He was scared out of his mind. Scared to death. Notice what he says here in Proverbs chapter number 8, verse 13. The fear of the Lord is, number one, to hate evil. Well, do you hate it? I don't know if you do. You say, well, if I'm going to have the right relationship, I've got to be a good lover and I've got to be a good hater. I've got to love what God loves and hate what God hates. I don't care what the world makes this compromised way of living nowadays. It's not biblical. I appreciate some of you folks that stand up for what's right. You don't just fall for everything. Just because the family does, everybody says, okay, if y'all want to do that, it's your business, but you ain't doing it at my house. I hate that. That's one of the things I can't stand about the South. They come to your house and they want to light them up, you know. They come to the house and they want to, well, you know, it's okay if I bring my bottle. Not to my house. You say, why? Because you're a preacher? Because you used to be a policeman? No, no, because I'm a Christian and you ain't drinking in my house. You want to go out and do whatever you want to do. It's your business. It's a free country. You ain't doing it in my house. But that gets tough when it gets to be mama and daddy, and then it gets to be grandma and grandpa, and then it gets to be great-grandma and grandpa, and then it gets to be the grandkids, and then other family members turn against you because you're mean to the kids, you know. You say, why? Because it's right. Because I fear God more than I fear them. The old statement is made that if you have a man that's afraid of men, then he'll never be afraid of God. And if you have a man that's afraid of God, he'll never be afraid of men. That's a great statement. You have to make a decision based upon your relationship with Him at the judgment seat of Christ. It boils down to which one you fear the most. When I say fear, it's not always shaking in your boots fear. Sometimes you're worried about how your reputation will suffer if you stand up for Jesus Christ. down here in Florida, it's not a whole lot different. Where I grew up in the mountains up there in Tennessee every summer, everybody spent all their time up there at Chickamauga Dam, up there at the lake. And of course Sunday was always the day they went. Left on Saturday night and then all day Sunday and then they missed church and all that during the summertime. Come back, looked like a lobster, then burned up out there because they all at the lake. Everybody's at the lake. Down here they're at the beach, at the beach, at the beach and all that. And you ask yourself, you think to wonder to yourself, what's a Christian doing out there? Not just Sunday, Nothing wrong with going to the lake, nothing wrong with going to the beach, but why would you be going to places you're going dressed the way you're dressed? Why is that? The picture would be something like this. You get ready to walk downstairs and you got on your suit. I was up in Kansas a week or so ago and I walked down into the lobby and these kids were coming in and they were running the pools down there on the first floor. You go down to the right there and it's down there on the left. I always walk down the stairs and all that and get a little bit of exercise in. I'm walking down the stairs and I come walking down there. And these kids are running, you know, like wild Indians running down through there. They're all excited about jumping in the pool and stuff like that. You know what? They could tell by looking at me I wasn't going to the pool with them. Can they tell the same thing about you? You say what? That's why we do what we do at camp. We catch heat over it, even now. you know, well preacher, you know, if we're gonna come, you know, we'd love for our kids to go, but you know, I mean, you know, I mean, we let our kids, okay, good, fine, no problem at all, I'm all for you doing what you want with your kids in your own house, but they're coming to church camp. We don't do that. Not trying to impress anybody. The girls ain't running around half-naked and neither are the boys. And the boys are just as bad as the girls, you know, they can't wait for everybody to see their six-pack. The way you keg out, boy. You'd be wearing a t-shirt more often. You just will get in practice now. But that's an odd thing. You know what that represents? I'll tell you what it represents. That goes all the way back to the garden. Nothing wrong with me. That's why you're taking your clothes off. You're not embarrassed. You say, well, preacher, you know, I happen to know. Okay, here we go. You weren't here for Bible study. When you learn to do right, it's right to start where you do right. If you didn't do right before, do you just say, well, I ain't going to do right because I used to not do right? Well, then there goes AA and Narconics Anonymous and everything else. Sooner or later, you've got to repent and turn around, don't you? The church is full of people that repent. If you had a relationship with Jesus Christ, you know what you had to do? You had to turn around and change your mind. The way you were going was the wrong way, doing the wrong thing. And bless God, I'm going to get back in. And I don't know what it is about Christians. They're like them crabs in a pot. There used to be an old woman down in the project. She used to make crabs all the time. And at certain times, she'd flag me down out there, have her apron. She'd be wiping that, what's that, that little red seasoning stuff she put in that thing. Old Bay. She had Old Bay in there and she had carrots and corn and onions and taters and lots of crabs and other stuff like that. And she'd say, come on in here, come on in here, come on. I said, no, no, it's okay. No, come on in here, she'd say, come on in here and get me a crab, you know, a blue crab. They say you can eat, I get the meat out of the thing. And then crab legs, I like them because it's a little bit bigger. And eat that. But crabs would be boiling. They'd get them from the fish house down there and they're still alive. and they pitch them in that hot water and then things start popping, you know, and they're like, you know, it's hot in here kind of thing. And one of them claws will come up over invariably of that big old pot that old woman had up there and come up on top of that thing and grab that like that and get ready to try to get out of that pot and them crabs down underneath that thing and reach there and pull that sucker back down in that pot. And they all just die together. And we'd eat them. But you know what that reminds me of? It reminds me of some Christians. Somebody starts trying to get out of the pot and they start trying to get away from your social club and get away from your Facebook and get away from all the social media and texting and they try to kind of break away a little bit and not do the stuff everybody does and you can't wait to pull them back in the pot and just die with you. I admire her for, of course now grandma, she never did, that's what I called her. I couldn't tell you her name for nothing. I'm sure she's dead now. She was older than Methuselah back then. She was a sweet old woman. She'd just be humming the whole time and that old thing would come out there and she'd take that old wooden spoon and knock that clog. Get on back in there, she'd say. Knock it back in there, stuff like that. That's some of you. If you're not pulling them down here, you're knocking them off. You don't want them to be there where you are. You don't fear judgment. You're not afraid of what God's going to do to you when you get up there and God holds you accountable for dragging somebody in the dirt with you. I'm not trying to be hard on you. I'm trying to be honest with you. There's more to this Christian life than you just living lily white and living at the foot of the cross. You know, hey, you want to see what perfection is? Find the cross and find my name right there at the foot of it. I mean, I'm pure as a driven snow. Okay, how come you're so busy trying to pull people into your carnal lifestyle? You know, it's really isn't that bad. I mean, you know, I don't really see a problem with it. Okay, crab. All right, I can tell you, never mind, I can't. Verse number 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Watch this. Now, he's going to put a colon there, but that means so that we're going to use the operative word in the sentence. The operative word is hate. So we hate evil. We hate pride. Shall we move on? And arrogancy, what is arrogancy? It's just pride and practice. Arrogant people are just people who are acting out on what they think themselves to be. And then he says, hate what? The evil way. The evil way. Do you hate the evil way? Why are you on it if you do? and then hate the froward mouth. Notice he finishes it at the end. Do I hate? The fear of the Lord is to hate some things. It's as if the Lord is saying to you, if you really fear me, then there are certain things you ought to hate. Now, doesn't that fly contrary? Come over to 2 Thessalonians chapter number 2. Doesn't that fly contrary to what you hear preached today? Are you beginning to understand now why they're preaching what they're preaching today? They're preaching the Antichrist's gospel. He's preaching stuff to you that makes you get along with everybody and takes the fear of the Lord out of the equation. There's nothing wrong. Everything's okay. I'm okay. You're okay. We don't judge anybody. No, but the Bible does. The Bible says, He that is spiritual judges all things. I can judge certain things. You can certainly judge a book by its cover if you know enough about the cover. I can tell you a lot about a man if I know what he's afraid of and if I know what he loves. I can pretty much sum that man up. I can just about tell you everything he's going to do because out of those two things right there, he'll make nearly every decision he makes. Fear is a healthy thing. Your kids ought to be afraid. You say, were you afraid of your daddy? Absolutely. I was petrified of my dad. You say, but the way you talk about him. Yeah, and I loved him too. This is the modern teaching. How can fear and love be mingled together in the same sentence? The same way I was afraid of my dad, but I loved him. That's God the Father. I'm afraid of him, but I love him. but there's not a reverential trust. Uh-uh, no sir. Scared, shaking in my boots, scared, S-K-E-E-R-E-D, scared, like country scared, common sense scared, like know when to be afraid. You say, well, you may not be smart. I got some wisdom over some of you. I'm scared. Suppose the Lord just decides one time to pull his hand back and say, you know what I think I'm gonna do? I'm not gonna protect you for 24 hours. See, you don't even know the stuff God's protected you from, let alone the things you do know. Suppose God just said, you know what? You're just a little bit too much of a jackleg. You know what I think I'm going to do? I'm just going to pull that back. And all of a sudden you're running through an airport and you've got some communicable disease and you could have died from it and the Lord killed it before it got in your system and you don't even know nothing about it. You say, it doesn't happen. You haven't been watching what's going on in New York. You haven't been paying attention to what's going on in other places in the world. They got an Ebola virus going on in the United States right now according to the CDC in Atlanta. Well, how come you don't have it? You go ahead and say, well, it's because I've been inoculated. I'll say God inoculated me. There's no reason why you shouldn't have it. Why don't I have all these other kind of things? Well, you've got enough troubles as it is. I understand that. But a lot of this thing I'm trying to show you tonight there, when the Lord talks about what He's going to do, He's going to perform it. He gives you some guidelines, and the guidelines have to do with stipulations. It doesn't give you a get out of jail free card. It doesn't mean that if you don't do wrong, He won't knock you in the head and there won't be repercussions for it. He never teaches you that! We get the impression that sometimes, because the ship doesn't come in or the crops fail, that that's going to be the Lord about all things. Sooner or later, you know what the Lord does? It reminds me of a story I heard a preacher tell one time, and it's a true story. As a matter of fact, I got it, I think, from Bob Jones, Sr. I think he's the one that I heard the illustration from. Bob Jones Sr. was trying to illustrate the father one day, and he said he had a young boy that grew up there, and the young boy was a lot of trouble and stuff, and so he sent him off to the military. And he got dishonorably discharged and came home drunk. And so he decided, well, I'm going to send him to college, and they bounced him out of college and brought him back down there. So his daddy tried to get him a job and tried to get him to go some other place and do the things that he was supposed to do, and he wound up getting drunk and got in jail again. And when he was on his way home, the story is told, that old man went out one evening, full moon, standing out there in the back, gazing out over the cornfields, and listening to the hogs over here rooting around, and the chickens over there just kind of clucking a little bit, getting ready to go to roost. And he stands out there, and the folks that told the story said that that old man was out back praying. And then they heard what sounded like a grizzly bear groaning and screaming out there, just in horrible pain. And then after that he came back in and he walked into the closet and pulled out a shotgun. He heard his boy was coming to the house that had gotten out of jail. And his boy came up there to the gate and his father said, you're not coming in here anymore. And he said, I am too. Get out of my way, old man. I'll mop the floor with you. And the old man put the gun in the middle of his chest and he said, I'll blow a hole through you. You're not coming in here. And the boy walked off and was never seen again. Now see, you don't get that. Well, he should have just let him in again. What? To kill his mama? To put her in an early grave, worrying about him, being drunk all the time? He gave him time after time after time after time and then eventually, you know what he said? That's it. No more. You don't understand that. That's God. That's a great illustration. A great illustration of where the Lord finally said, I've had enough. I've had enough. Now I've been gracious and I've been kind and I've tried to help you and I've tried to help you and I've forgiven you and I've forgiven you." He ain't doing that no more. You still be saved and he cuts it off. That's it. You say, what do you... that ought to scare you to death. Bob Jones Sr. told that thing, man, it made the... it was Bob Jones Sr. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I'm thinking, boy, can you imagine? That old man prayed, okay, Lord, what do you want me to do? He says, enough's enough. The mistaken idea is that we leave the Father's house and leave the Father's house and leave the Father's house and because He always has a robe and a ring and shoes for us and a fatted calf that we can just leave as often as we want to. One day you might leave and He might say, you ain't coming in. Still saved, coming to heaven. I'll see you when you get to the end. You ain't coming in. Your conscience can get so defiled, it can get to the point where it's seared, where the Holy Spirit can't even deal with you anymore. You catch yourself doing things and saying things and being involved in things you never even dreamed possible. You say, how'd that happen? Your conscience switched off. You know what God said? Done with you. Done with you. That scares me. What scares you worse than anything, preacher? God taking His hand off of me. God not chastening me. God not correcting me. God not giving me guidance. God not showing me the fear of that, not being able to pray and feel like my prayer is getting there, right there, rafter. Lord is this getting on up there? No, you got a new roof. You ain't got enough power to get up in there anymore. That ought to scare you. That's why I'm trying to tell you that right now this new stuff that's being preached nowadays is this thing where everybody's okay. That's not the God of the Bible. It sure does make you more popular. You can sure fill up a building quicker. Just promise you all the good things and only talk about the Santa Claus God. Don't talk about the real God. That's what the devil wants to do. His preachers in the pulpits telling people stuff makes them feel good. Well, when's the last time you had to come to Jesus meeting? The preacher is just too harsh. Now wait a minute. How do you judge that? Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't judge it by this right here, it won't make sense to you. No politician is telling you this. I'm not the poster child for it. It's the Bible that tells you this. As a Christian, as a Bible believer, you have to be very very careful not to get too comfortable with God. where he's just the man upstairs. He just winks at you when he sees you, because you and him got a thing. I understand, you get ready to talk to the Lord, you should be playing with him, but for the Lord's sake, man, when you're playing with him, you make sure you're playing with him in a respectful manner. Get up there and eyeball to eyeball with him and act like you can cuss at him. I just err on not doing that. A fellow said to me that one time, and I guess if you're in a lost man, a lost condition, I guess that would be okay. And by the way, if you were a lost man, a great book for you would be the book of Ecclesiastes because that tells you all about life. You know, the rich guy gets it, but it ain't always because he earned it. And the powerful guy gets it, but it don't always work out right. And he tells you about how life is. The way it looks ain't the way it turns out. And then for Christians, probably Colossians would be good for you, especially if you're living a kind of a carnal life. Colossians would be good for you to read. But here's the thing you want to understand about God. The God that's being preached nowadays is not the God of the Bible. And why is that? Well, because it just allows you to continue life down here with no thought of eternity. No thought of eternity. Here's a fellow here the chief was telling me about when I said, what's the black band? That's when somebody died in the line of duty and I was a kid 40 years of age that in training and healthy just ran six and a half minute mile last week and kicked off of a heart attack. 40 years old. You don't know when you're going. Better to err on the side of caution. Better to err on the side of getting something done today because you may not have tomorrow. Wouldn't that be a blessing? Wouldn't it be a blessing, man, if you never saw another morning? Wouldn't it be a great thing if you saw the sun of the morning at midnight tonight? Ta-ta! And you never see darkness again. You say, well, preacher, when we come down at the second advent, yeah, but the light of the world is leading it. How do you think every eye is going to see Him? It would be more than wormwood coming at him, man. I'd be thinking, man, what in the world is that? Faster than a speeding bullet. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Jesus. Yeah, man. Out like Superman and back like the Lone Ranger. You have to think about that in a minute. Do you even know who Lone Ranger is? You don't, do you? Tell your mom and daddy to show you a high O silver or tell them to teach you about Trigger and Tonto. They probably can't even run that now. Seriously, they probably wouldn't run that. I bet they can't run the Green Hornet either. What was the little guy with the Green Hornet that was with the Kato, Kito, Kato, whatever, you see? Oh my goodness man, let me give you this, 2 Thessalonians, I'm trying to hurry. Notice the Bible says this in verse number 7, "...the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way." It's talking about the Antichrist, not the Holy Spirit. And then the Bible says this in verse number 8, "...then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth." I'm in verse 8, "...shall destroy the brightness of his coming, second coming to Christ, Now what is he trying to do? He's giving you something about God that's not true. He's teaching you a God that doesn't have but one side, all positive. The God of the Bible has both sides, perfect in nature, positive and negative. That's where the power comes from. It's a balance. A false balance is an abomination to the Lord. In the last days, the day of deceit comes along and the gospel is full of signs, wonders, and miracles. It has to do with speaking in tongues and healing people and anointing them with oil and having them, you know, do the flop doodle on the floor and covering them up with a sheet or a blanket. But it's more than that. It's an all deceivableness of unrighteousness. What is the unrighteousness? I read it to you over there in the book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah, that which is good is bad and that which is bad is good. It's completely opposite. I showed you over there in 1 Peter chapter number 3. I showed you that in one case there that the Lord gives you good for evil and that we respond good for good and evil for evil and the devil responds by giving you evil for good. That's what's going to happen in the tribulation period. So you preach a God that doesn't have any judgment, well then why get saved? Listen, if you knew a bunch of people were coming to your house, would you tell them it was really hot there and it's on fire? Why you think they don't preach about hell? I think any preacher that doesn't preach on hell, I'm going to make a pretty strong statement here and it's going to sound harsh but I'm going to say it. I think a preacher that doesn't preach on hell has to be demon possessed or lost because why wouldn't you tell people you're going? If you knew for a fact that the foyer was on fire, do you think I would tell you about it? What kind of man wouldn't tell you, come this way, don't go that way, and you in the balcony come down and go out the side door. Don't go out there, there's a fire burning out there. What preacher wouldn't tell you there's a fire burning down there? Unless he's working for Him. If he's working for the devil, don't tell him about that. Don't tell him about the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth. Don't tell him about the horrible pain and the torture down there. Don't tell him where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. Don't take that out. Change it, man. Don't make it hell. Make it Hades. Make it Sheol. Make it Gehenna. Make it anything. Don't tell him about hell. I mean, good night, man. Why would you want to do that? How negative can you be? Quote, Mr. Osteen, we never hear you say anything to anybody about hell. Well, he said, they have a tough enough life as it is down here than to be warning them about what might happen in the future. You call yourself a preacher? My job is to give people comfort in the life here and now. Okay, good. You say, well, he must be successful. I guess he is. He's got hundreds of thousands of people watching and buying his books and he's got plenty of dough. but I don't think he's working for the Lord." You say, why? Well, if Jesus preached on hell, you don't have to be in every sermon but it ought to be around enough for you to be thinking that you're not going there. Thanking God you're not going there. And if you're lost, be thinking about going there. You know judgment's real but the modern God's no judgment. The modern God, keep living like you're living. As long as you're getting away with it, you're good to go. No, you're treading on the mercy and grace of the long-suffering of God. Don't tread it underfoot. Don't take it for granted. Alright, back to 2 Thessalonians chapter number 1. Now, the Lord gave you a promise there. And the promise is that He's going to get you through. He's going to finish it up. He's going to do it. Now, how is He going to do it? I couldn't tell you. I can't tell you. Let me cover this thing on signs real quick here if I can. Look at 2 Corinthians 12 just real quick. 2 Corinthians 12 since I brought it up. This is what I call the circus or the sideshow. 2 Corinthians chapter number 12 and it's around. Verse number 12, 12-12, Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. For what is it written wherein, where ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong. Behold, the third time I am ready to come unto you, and will not be burdensome to you. But I seek not yours, but you." Now Paul comes along there, and you know what he said? It's the signs of an apostle. Okay, Paul, where are your signs? Paul never spoke in tongues. Paul never said... Paul came not to baptize, but he did baptize. One fellow said, well Paul didn't come to baptize, we didn't know, but he baptized. He came to preach the gospel. He's letting you know, I didn't come to baptize like Peter did for salvation. I came to preach the gospel because salvation's changed. Well, I just believe, you know, it's all through the blood. Okay, whatever. The bottom line is you're as bad as a Campbellite if you believe that stuff. But here's what you want to understand. I give you all the other passages on tongues and signs and healings and wonders. Well, you need to understand that stuff's appealing to your flesh because you would rather walk by what you see than by faith. Your job is to walk by faith and not by sight. But oh, how we like to see it. I'd rather see it. I'd rather see what it happens and all that. And I can tell you about every shyster that I've ever met or that I happen to know about or read about. And for some reason it doesn't seem to change the tide of things. People still flock to that stuff. They still go for that stuff. I still get those questions on a regular basis. When people, oh, I know preacher, but I saw. Yeah, but I just felt this tingling and I felt these bees in my hands. And I just felt like, you know, I was having a supernatural revelation from God. Really? You've been reading your Bible and fasting? No, I had a vision. Well, you must have been smoking crack or drinking wine or something, man, because in the Bible you don't have it. Well, you know, in Joel chapter number 2, their old men shall dream dreams. That has to do with the tribulation, man, and going off into the millennium. That had nothing to do with you. That's the nation of Israel. Their old men shall dream dreams. Not you. Why? That's how God deals with the Jew. Signs, wonders, and miracles. What happens when the Jewish ministry comes back? Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe them that believe not. Right? Everywhere you see the sign showing up, who's there with tongues? It's an unconverted or an unsure, an unbelieving Jew. Everywhere. Why do they show up in the tribulation period? You're back under the same kind of preaching. What's it for you? You're saved by grace through faith. Why are you looking for more than that? You can't top that. Always want to add something to it. Why? Why? I'll take it just like it is. I don't have to work to get saved. I don't have to have initial baptism of the Holy Ghost. Slow down and say it slower. Initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost for you is as you publish the Word of God. They spoke the Word of God boldly. That shows you're filled. You brag about who saved you. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit doesn't even ever speak of himself. He's always talking about the one that sent him. That's one of the reasons you know that stuff's wrong. Oh, Holy Spirit, we invite you to come and commune with us now as we sing kumbaya around the campfire and roast s'mores. That's not in the Bible. They don't ask the Holy Spirit to come. The Lord said, when I'm gone, He will come. I will send Him. Ask Him to come. You know what happens if you know you're full of the Holy Ghost? You say, what happened? You tell others about Jesus. That's one of the greatest evidences there is. You publish the Word. Alright, look if you will please in Romans chapter number 15. Romans chapter 15. Now the false apostles come along and that's what they do. They do signs, wonders and miracles. You don't have to know much Bible to do that stuff. And most people that listen to it, they don't know enough Bible to call them out on it. So what would you do if you ran into it today, preacher? Leave. And when you correct them, no. Why would I? They're not interested in being corrected. I'd have to ask myself, why am I in a crowd where this stuff's being done anyway? That's what I would do. Have you ever asked yourself that recently? Why are you running with the people you run with? You know what I was always taught? It may be silly, it may be stupid, maybe you don't agree with it. I was always taught birds of a feather flock together. She's got bird seed all over the creation out back. I guess for everything that's out there. Whatever comes around. Possums and raccoons and rats and roaches and whatever eats it. And birds. But that's what I was trying to get to. Birds. And one group will come and these black birds come with these little orange wings on them. and they come in there for a little while and they go and then the blue jays come and then they go and then the red birds come along and then they go and it's like this. They're never all in there eating together. Every now and then you'll see doves down on the ground and you'll see the other ones up in the top part of the feeder but they're never together eating out of the same thing. You ever ask yourself why aren't you keeping some of the company you're keeping? If I was in a service and that stuff broke out, I'd have to ask myself, why am I in this crowd? I would know right off the bat, I'm in the wrong crowd. I don't need to be here. I'd have to excuse myself. I'd just quietly get up and go. Notice what happens here in Romans chapter number 15. I've got to get over there to it. Is that in the New Testament? That's it, Romans chapter 15. Look in verse number 18. For I will not dare to speak of anything of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about Lycarium I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. You know what he's saying? I'm not telling him about all the things I did. I'm preaching now a different deal altogether. You don't have Paul known for his healing ministry. You don't have Paul known for speaking in tongues. You don't have Paul known for slaying people in the Spirit. You don't have him talking about and making emphasis on the Spirit. He makes an emphasis of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Alright, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and we'll shut her down for this evening. I'd like for you to see this. You say, well preacher, why do you need to know that? Because in the last days many will depart from the faith and give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Now what I just told you, believe it or not, will put a definitive line between you and most people. You don't even have, it's not about smoking or drinking or cussing, it's not about what you wear, where you go, rock and roll music or movies or any of that other kind of stuff. What will cause a problem for you is, is for you to say we don't believe in the sign gifts. They'll say you're not apostolic or you're not full gospel. I am full gospel. The full gospel is the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with whether or not you do that. Now I know some of your kinfolk are involved in that. I don't mean any offense to any of them and I know they mean well and I know they're nice people and they can cook fried chicken and turnip greens like nobody in the world can and boy they just and they're just so wonderful and they're just as messed up as a soup sandwich. and don't care who they mess up and be mean as a snake to you because you don't go along with their foolishness. And I realize it's your family members and they give you a hard time about it, a rough time about it. And you say, well, we don't do that. And South, especially Kentucky, lower part of Tennessee, Northern Georgia, all up and around there, right up there through the foothills of the parkway, they speak in tongues and they handle snakes. and they do it to this day. And some of them, they get the cane breaks and they get all the other ones and they get the good buzz going and all there. Some of them milk the snakes before they bring them out. That means they take the rattler and hold him behind the head or they get somebody else to do it. I ain't doing it, but they do that. They poke them teeth down in that, those fangs down in the thing and milk the poison out. So while they're up there handling them and the thing pops them, oh, I didn't swell up. I didn't do that. Anybody check the snake to see if he had poison in it? They got bit, but now they don't do it all the time. Some of them get bit and they lose a limb over it. Like the boy that lost the thing down here off of Old St. Augustine Road. He got bit by a little pig meat and no big deal playing around with the head. But at any rate, what you want to realize is to them, that stuff's real, but it brings up demonic spirits, which I don't have time to go into tonight, but the power behind that thing's real. It's not all a side show. Some of the languages and things like that that they're speaking that you can't understand, it's demonic entities. And that handling snakes and that knocking people over and having this power and stuff, it's demonic. It conjures up another spirit. We'll talk about that on Sunday a little bit. But you get to fool around with that stuff, you're messing around with a realm you don't want nothing to do with. You want to guard against it. Don't invite them things in. They are literally inviting those spirits to come in. And so then things come in and people are just crawling with them. They are crawling with them. Alright, 2 Thessalonians. I'll just give you the foyer here of this thing and we'll go into it on Sunday morning. This is Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus under the church of Thessalonians. This is the second epistle that he writes. And there's a couple of things here. I'm not going to teach you the whole thing verse by verse, but there's a couple of things here that I think is important for you to ponder until we get back on Sunday. Notice he said, and the charity, the end of verse 3, of everyone toward each other aboundeth. You know, Paul says something that's remarkable about the church of Thessalonica. They were known for how they treated each other. Alright, 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13. Charity is the operative word. You say it should be love. Well, it ain't love, it's charity for a reason. Charity is love in action. It's a verb form of that. Now, before I read this to you, if you want to see God's personality demonstrated anywhere in the Bible through Jesus Christ, you're fixing to read it on paper. If you want to be like Jesus and you want to know what would Jesus do, I'm fixing to read it to you on paper. Here's what I want you to get in the back of your mind and then I'm going to close with this now. It won't be long, but I want you to listen to me now. Imagine that the Apostle Paul, of a number of things he could say about the church at Thessalonica, he said, I want you to know that I'm going to commend you the love, the charity that you show one for another. And then see if he could say the same thing about us as a church. He's saying as a church, I'm not commending you for the charity you show to the world. I'm commending you for the charity you show to each other. Charity, the bond of peace, loving each other the way you're supposed to. Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, and have not charity, I become a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. And have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity. I'm nothing. Though I bestow all goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. He's making a reference there to the judgment seat of Christ. I get nothing for it at the judgment seat of Christ. It doesn't matter if I do all those things if I don't have this. Now watch what he does here with charity. Charity suffereth long. It's kind. Remember he's talking about Thessalonians. He's talking about how they're demonstrating it to each other. It envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself. It's not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not her own. Is not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil. It's a pretty good wedding verse here. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in all truth. Boy, you could preach on that a while. Rejoice when your enemy falls and rejoice when people do wrong and rejoice over that instead of rejoicing in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things. That's the all things that are righteous and good, etc. Hopeth all things, endureth all things. It never fails. Charity never faileth. You know what he just said there? The Apostle Paul said, there's a couple of things here that I think defined you as a Christian, and it's your giving the way you treat toward each other. And every head bowed and every knee bent. That's a tough one. I was going through a thing for a while there, and every morning when I would get up, the first thing I would do, I'd leave my Bible open, and I'd go into my office there to get stuff and get ready to get things going. I'd have it open 1 Corinthians 13. And in my old Scofield Bible, you come to the end of those first three verses, and when you turn the page, the top left-hand corner of that column there, those next four or five verses right there, has to do with what charity is. I started reading them every day. He said, what did it do for you? It doesn't do you any good if you don't apply it. It's like knowing there's a bottle of pills there, but if you don't take the pills, it doesn't do you any good. And I read that, and read that, and read that, and read that, and read that, and the thought came to me, boy, if there was ever a goal to strive for, it'd be that right there. If you could accomplish that right there, it'd take care of everything in your life. If you could do that, you could have victory over sin. If you could do that, you'd never be lazy a day in your life, in your Christian life. If you could do that, you'd have the right balance in everything. The demonstration is, and the doing of that, is something that you do to other people. Alright, let's stand together and be dismissed.