That's mighty good singing, mighty good picking and playing. I have trouble getting enough of that. That's good stuff, I like that. Good job, young people, practicing. Are we talking about practice? So what we're talking about is practice. I mean, practice? We got to practice? Somebody said, I wish I had all that natural talent. You would if you'd practice. You know why you don't think you have any natural ability? You hate practice. Praise the Lord. That's a good job. Good, good job. I'm telling you, they practiced. You don't get it that right on the money without some practice. I appreciate that. I preached in one church mission conferences for years. They never had a piano player. So every year, I told them, I said, I know why you don't have a piano player in this church. You don't have any parents that will make their kids practice. I tell them that every year. One year I went and they had this real good musician playing the piano. The pastor said, how do you like that? I said, he practiced. That guy practiced, amen. We just had a young man in our church that won the national championship on the banjo. First in the nation. His name is Hudson Doucette. The Doucette family have been traveling and singing some now out of our church. And his older brother had competed in the nationals on both the mandolin and the guitar. But his little brother laid him in the shade when he won first place this year. So brother Holton is going to be practicing now. He wants to be the first to do it on two instruments now that he's in second place through his little brother. But I tell you what, those kids have put in some time. Practice it to get that good. We have a music school at our church every May. And for pretty much a whole week, we have the best musicians that I can find come in and teach our kids. And I started that many years ago when the Doucettes were just little kids. So they got lessons one week out of the year. and he won the national championship. You know what that tells me? Two things. Get a good teacher, even if you can't have them every week, and practice. And when these good teachers saw how these kids were practicing, they started sending them videos of something they would play and what both hands were doing. And those teachers were Brother Travis Alltop, on guitar at Bluegrass Pike Baptist Church in Danville, Kentucky. He played professionally before he became a preacher and a pastor. Brother Jim Britton teaches the upright bass and the banjo, and Brother Andy Lefwich Brother Jim is the assistant pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Carthage, Tennessee. Brother Andy Lethwich was probably the best musician of them all. He's won five Grammys on the fiddle, and he taught fiddle and mandolin. And we had Sister Judy McCullough. Did I get that name right? Piana from Louisiana. I love to hear. She's 70 years old now, but she can still just, I mean, burn the ivory off of a piano. Love to hear her play the piano. We just got the best we could find to come in there. They teach all day, and then they play and sing. in the evening and let all the kids play with them for a while and then the teachers play by themselves. And we have a great time in that music school every week. And so if you have any young people that have any interest in taking their music to another level, we would invite you to be a part of that music school. And you probably have to email my wife to even find out when it is. But it's around the second or third week of May, and it's always a good time. And our young people have really, the ones that have practiced have gotten really good. Did you know if you won't practice, you'll never get good? By the way, that works for preaching too. Oh, I wish I could preach like that. Well, you're going to have to do more preaching, get some practice. Huh? Well, you say, God called me. Fine. Now you got to study. And pray and practice. Where are you going to practice? Nursing home? jail, on the street. Everybody wants a pulpit in the congregation. You need some practice first. Amen, so people won't go to sleep while you're preaching. You've got to have some practice. Spurgeon, if a young man said he was called to preach, Spurgeon would have him to preach, and then he'd tell him when he got done either, yep, I believe God called you, or no, you missed it, he didn't call you. Don't hear that much anymore, do you? But we need somebody to do that. Brother Wood had a sermon he used to preach, and he'd give the invitation at the end of it. And the invitation was for preachers to come and confess that they were never called and to get out of the ministry. Not many of them came, though. They're too proud. They're not going to admit that they just hadn't got it. They need Spurgeon to tell them. I'm in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I tell you, after that great singing, I said, I better preach on Jesus a little bit. I don't ever get tired of hearing about Him. I don't get tired of people singing about Him. Man, that youth choir. Mm-mm-mm. I was wishing a couple of my lunatic shouters was here. I've never been a real big shouter, but I've been around some who were. Brother Bright talked about Brother Keith's tenses. I was Brother Jack Wood's associate pastor beginning in 1978. at the Shady Acres Baptist Church. And in about 79, he made me the co-pastor of Shady Acres. And I said, OK, what does that mean? He said, it doesn't mean a thing unless I die. He said, it means if I die, you become the pastor, and they don't even have to vote on it. He said, but as long as I don't die, it means you do whatever I say. He said, what I say today is you need to go get that toilet unstopped over there in the men's restroom. One of them ghetto kids flushed something down it and we can't get it out. So he said, unbolt it and take it out in the parking lot and fish it out from the bottom. So that's what I did. That was my job description my first day as a co-pastor. 1981, I went to East River Baptist Church. Brother Wood said there's a church out there that's had a, they didn't have a split, they had an explosion. It wasn't, it didn't one church become two churches, it was one church became no churches. Everybody was so mad, they just left, gave up, got bitter, and didn't want to go back. And he told me, ìDonít even go visit them.î He said, ìTheyíll be so bitter.î He said, ìAll theyíll do is cause you trouble.î He said, ìIf you knock on a door and they say, ìOh, yeah, I used to be a member of that church.î He said, ìJust say, ìWell, God bless you. Have a nice day.î And he said, ìGo to the next door.î Now, I was trained by a Southern Baptist pastor one time to go and find all the unchurched Baptists. and try to get them back. Brother Wood said, just leave them alone. They're gone for a reason. He said, just find you some drunks and drug addicts that know their sinners, amen, get them saved by the grace of God, and they'll be loyal church members. And when they get saved, they'll give a tithe and a faith-promised mission offering, because all their life, all their money has went to sin. And when they get saved, they actually get a job for the first time in their life, and they got money, and they don't know what to do with it, because they don't drink, they don't do drugs. They come and say, what do we do with this money? And you say, put it in missions. And they say, glory to God, amen, and they'll do it. I'll tell you why churches can't give more to missions, amen. They got too many Baptists. They've learned how to spend all their money, amen, on boats and motors and rods and reels and rifles and scopes and handguns and ammunition, amen, and high-heeled shoes and lipstick and rouge, amen, and toenails and fingernails and hair salons, amen. They can't have enough money for all the things they need money for. But you get you an old prostitute saved. She don't need hooker shoes anymore. I see Baptists that still like them. But them hookers believe it identifies them with a profession, and they get rid of them when they get born again. Are we having fun yet? See, I thought you were going to preach on Jesus. Well, hang on. I'm on the porch talking to you again. Amen. I've got to have a little fun before I get to him, because I've got to get serious when I get to him. Somebody said, well, what are hooker shoes? I asked a hooker that question. He said, where did you meet her? In church. I saw her bring a sack full of them shoes down there and put them on the altar. They're high heels. It's got straps that go up around the ankle. So when they're doing the pole dance, the shoes won't fall off. Was that more information than you needed? I see them in a lot of Baptist churches I go to. So I'm glad there ain't no pole in here. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I was going to say something about key stenses. That's what I want. I was out there at East River. I pastored for 14 years, and Brother Wood said, I'm sick. I can't go any further. You're going to have to come back and take this church if the Lord leads you. Well, after taking a church that had three families and pastoring it for 14 years and watching it grow and watching it get out of debt and build a two-story fellowship hall and Sunday school building debt-free, That's kind of hard to walk away from. And I was praying about that. Went to a meeting. Keith Stensis was there. There was a little camp meeting and they called on him to preach this before he ever went to the mission field. And he got up and preached, read the story about Jesus spitting and getting the clay and rubbing it on the blind man's eyes. and healing him. And Brother King Stimson preached on, here's mud in your eye. I'm going to bless you, but you're not going to like the way I do it. I mean, he hadn't got very far into that message, and the Holy Ghost said, you're going back to Shady Acres. Houston. High crime. A lot of wickedness. My dad said in 78, when I told him I was going to Houston to preach, he said, you know what happened to Locke? Well, he went to Sodom and Gomorrah, don't you? I said, yes sir, I read that story. That's the way I kind of was thinking about going back to Houston. I wasn't really looking forward to that. My brother Keith preached on, here's mud in your eye. I said, I got it, Lord. Here we go. I'd ask a bunch of preachers what to do, and they all told me the same thing, don't go back. You put 14 years into this work, that church will go down, your church in Duquesne will go down, they'll both go down, and you'll get the blame for both. I said, well, I guess somebody needs to take the blame then, so I'll just take the blame for both of them. But they're both still going strong. That shows you how much preachers know. So you can't follow a legend like Jack Wood. That never works. And what it does if he told you to do it. I submitted to Brother Wood's leadership when I first went there. Missionaries, if you're going to go work with another missionary, submit to him. You say, I don't agree with him. It doesn't matter. Submit to him anyway. If he's a veteran, he's been there for years, just do what he says. God will bless you for being obedient. You say, well, I need to straighten him out on this and straighten him out on that. No, you need to listen to him and learn something. Let God straighten him out. You just be submissive. Be obedient. Do what he says. If he says take out the trash, just do it and smile. If he says don't go to that house, you better avoid that house like the plague. You got a reason for telling you that. Same way if you've got a good pastor, you know, and if you don't have a good pastor, find you a church that has a good pastor. If you've got a good pastor, just submit. Obey them that have the rule over you. You say, well, I believe I can do a better job. Help yourself. Go out there and find you a church. You ever notice that churches that are looking for a pastor are not very good churches? And pastors that are looking for a church are not very good preachers. The good churches already have a good pastor. The good preachers already have a good church to pastor. And you got all these losers floating around, churches and preachers, that end up getting together where they can just be dead together. That's my assessment of the situation. You're welcome to your own. People say, can you recommend somebody to our church? Well, tell me about your church. They get through telling me about it, and I'll say, a lot of times I'll say, yeah, I can recommend a guy. I think about a guy who's always looking for a pulpit. He won't do nothing, but they're not going to do nothing either. It's a match made in purgatory. Amen. Put the do-nothing people together. Here's mud in your eye. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1 says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel. There are a couple of things interesting about that to me. One is the subject is the gospel. And the people being addressed are already saved. We think the gospel is only for the lost. That's not true at all. Nothing will encourage you more than somebody just getting up and preaching on the gospel. and reminding you what the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, did for you 2,000 years ago, it will refresh your memory, it will encourage your heart, it will straighten out your living, amen, just hearing what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross of Calvary. So he is preaching to the brethren. And he said, moreover, in other words, he has already had something to say, In fact, before he got to the gospel, he had fourteen chapters of problems to try to solve. Wouldn't it be great if we could just get up and preach the gospel to every service? And by the way, some churches do that, but their churches are so shallow, amen, you can't even get a drink of water. You're going to get sand and mud because they're so shallow. I mean, chapter one, they got contentions, division. Everybody had their favorite preacher. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. And the super spiritual said, I'm of Christ. And God said He's going to use the foolishness of preaching to save people. The world still thinks preaching is an act of foolishness. And they believed, thanks to Hollywood, that preachers are fools. Theologians were the most educated men in America in our early history. Yale, Princeton, the Ivy League colleges were all starting to train preachers. And they deteriorated over the years to training lawyers. Because they wanted the most educated guys to be lawyers. We'd be better off if the most educated were still preachers. I know independent Baptists don't believe that, but they're not always the brightest bulb in there anyway. Chapter 2, they got leaders in the church who are not even saved. Chapter 3, they've got people who are saved, but they're babies. Somebody still has to change their diaper. Burple. Wipe their mouth off and other parts of the anatomy. Chapter 4, they were unspiritual in their judgment. They couldn't make good decisions. Chapter 5, he had to explain church discipline to them because like most Baptist churches even today, they didn't believe in it until he explained it to them. I explained it to a pastor one time. We were in the same motel in a meeting and he had a problem going on in this church and he was asking me what I thought. I read that chapter to him verse by verse. I really didn't even make any comments. He said, Put them out of church. I said, well, what does the book say? He said, I'm not in the business of getting people out of church. I'm in the business of getting people in church. I'm not doing that. I said, then your church is going to get eat up by that sin. And it happened. Chapter 6, a lot of wicked living going on. Fornication, idolatry, effeminate, abusers of themselves. with mankind. Chapter 7, they had marriage problems. We've never seen it so bad as it is today. A selfish society has a hard time when two fallen creatures expect perfection out of each other. That's my definition of marriage. They don't expect it out of themselves, but they expect it out of the other one. Did I lose you all on that one? That's just the definition. Chapter 8, they carried liberty too far. They abused their liberty in the Lord. And their liberty became a stumbling block to those who were weak. I remember one time that a preacher came to Houston, rented him an apartment, I stayed there about three months, got three of my young preachers out in this apartment and trained them. All your sins were taken care of at Calvary. You got liberty. You can drink. You just don't want to drink around lost people. He said, all that Pharisee Israel may preach and teach at Cheney Acres is not necessary. All three of those young preachers became drunks. Well, there's something wrong with that kind of liberty. There's something bad wrong with that kind of liberty. Chapter 9, preachers are encouraged to live the gospel by the man that made tents for a living. He said, don't be ashamed to take an offering and live in the gospel, but on the other hand, Don't be afraid to work and support yourself. You say, well, which way is it? Both. Depends on your situation. Amen? The guy that just insists that he's not going to work, he's going to be full time, he's the one that needs to work. The guy that's a little embarrassed because he's working and he'd like to have more time to preach, That's probably the guy that needs to go full time. So it just kind of depends on your attitude and where you're at, how things are going. I encouraged all the missionaries out of the Shady Acres Baptist Church almost 20 years ago to apply for a work visa. No matter what country you're in, get a work visa. You say, why? So that if the economy craters in America, they can get a job and stay on the field that God called them to, and they don't have to start the process after the crisis has already hit. They'll already have the work visa. The only one I know of that did what I said was Rick Weimer. in Germany. He got a little job over there at the post office. He meets all these Germans in that part of town every day. His sons all got German public school education, and they all love God, serve the Lord, preach on the street. Oh boy, this is This is not going over very well, is it? I'm not saying you've got to do it that way. I'm just saying he listened to his pastor and he did what I said. And some other people refused to put their kids in the public school in foreign countries, and they had to come home because they wouldn't renew their visa because they wouldn't put their kids in the public school. They call that convictions. I call that abandoning your call. You call it whatever you want to. Chapter 10 had problems with baptism in the Lord's Supper. Chapter 11 had trouble with the women. Dr. Don Green said, over 90% of the church problems I have involve women. Well, in the book of Acts, when they were going to get seven deacons appointed, you know why they had to appoint deacons? Because they had a bunch of women bickering, being racist. The Jewish women and the Grecian women. got to arguing about who was going to get the neck of the chicken and who was going to get the leg of the chicken and who was going to get the breast of the chicken. Amen. And one group or the other of them felt like they were always getting the bony pieces. And the preacher said, we don't have time to deal with all this. We need us some Holy Ghost filled deacons that can deal with this bunch of crazy women. That's the purpose of deacons, is to keep the women from gossiping and fighting and arguing. It has nothing to do with running the church, at least not in the Bible. I don't know what it has to do with where you come from, but in the Bible, they just saw racist women gossiping and squawking. Chapter 12. They were abusing spiritual gifts. Chapter 13, they were doing everything pretty good, but they didn't have any charity. Chapter 14, speaking in tongues was a problem. They're dealing with problems. All these chapters are problems. They're problems. All 14 chapters. Tongues was not being commended in chapter 14. It was being a problem that was being dealt with. And the key to understanding tongues in 1 Corinthians 14 is the italicized word, unknown. God had those translators to put that italicized word, unknown, in there so we could keep the doctrine straight and correct. Anywhere the italicized word unknown is in the text, as it is in the King James Bible, it is an abuse of the gift of tongues. Now there is one verse in there, Paul said, I speak with tongues more than you all. And the word unknown was not put in there because he was talking about the correct use of the gift of tongues. You can keep it straight if you'll remember that. And he said in chapter 15, moreover, I've got something, I've been dealing with these problems for 14 chapters and I'm sick and tired of dealing with problems. I want you to know there's something more important than all these problems, any of these problems. I've had to deal with the problems because the church was so carnal. But once we've dealt with the problems, I want you to know one thing, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel. I say it is still the power of God to everyone that believes in any country in the world. I do to get this message to somebody else? We're having a Faith Promise Mission Conference, and we get an opportunity here tonight to say, What will I do to get the gospel to the regions beyond? We've got a message to tell the world, the greatest message that's ever been told. It's the gospel. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received." It's not enough just to preach the gospel. And by the way, just in passing, he did not say, the gospel which I shared with you. This is the Independent Baptist Church. Surely I don't have to dwell on that. I don't share my tea, I don't share my water bottle, I don't share a chicken leg, and I don't share the gospel. Amen. I preach it. Which also ye have received. Even the preached gospel has no effect until somebody receives what is preached. But as soon as they receive the gospel in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, everything starts changing. And wherein you stand, we are to stand in this gospel by the grace of God And remember what we heard when we got saved. Verse 2, "...by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." Verse 2 tells us the gospel can be preached and somebody can believe it is the truth, but believe in vain because they don't receive it and stand in it. You've got to receive it and stand in it. How do you stand in the gospel? Well, what is the gospel? It is the death, the burial, the resurrection, and the seeing of Jesus Christ. It says in verse 7, He was seen. Verse 6, he was seen. Verse 5, he was seen. A lot of people quit after the death, burial, and resurrection. Hey, somebody's got to see him! You don't ever see him by faith, this gospel will never be real to you. But when you really see the Lord Jesus in this gospel, next thing you know, your old man's going to die. There's the death. Be buried. Raised to walk in newness of life, that's a picture of the resurrection. Watered baptism is not what washes away our sins, it's a picture of when our sins got washed away. Dead, buried, raised, walking and talking and preaching the gospel and declaring it, which means putting it on display for the world to see. Or as Paul said to the Philippians, if you'll do what I do, you watch me live and you live like I live, and the God of peace will be with you. That's putting the gospel on display for a lost world to see. I'll tell you why we can't reach more sinners nowadays, we won't die. Be buried. Let the power of God raise us up. to go out there and do the work. Why is the death part of this so important? Because the penalty of sin had to be paid. And it could only be paid not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Have our sins been paid for? What a message to tell the world. Your sins have been paid in full by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a free gift. Whosoever will can come and drink of the water of life free. The penalty of sin had to be paid. And the wrath of God had to be satisfied. Isaiah 53. Verse 4 and verse 10. And the curse of the law had to be lifted. Galatians chapter 3, verse 13. And the price of our redemption was too high for us to pay. But Jesus Christ paid it in full. Hebrews 9, verse 12, verse 14, verse 26. In Hebrews 2, verse 14, the devil had to be destroyed or he would have gotten us all. Did you hear what I just said? But in Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ was crowned with suffering and death. But in that, Hebrews 2.14 said that he that had the power of death, that is the devil, had to be destroyed. And Jesus took care of that at Calvary's cross. Amen. I'm not like the charismatics, you know, where we're going to just tell the devil off. But I will say this, we are on the winning side. He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. I know the devil's got power. I know we're no match for him, but we've got a Savior that knows well how to take care of the devil. You'll be in a situation someday if you serve God long enough that if the Lord Jesus doesn't take control of the situation, the devil's still going to steamroll you. The devil had to be destroyed. Hebrews 2 verse 9 said, at Calvary, Jesus Christ was crowned with glory and honor. The crowning act of Jesus Christ was the suffering of death on Calvary's cross. Oh, and God saw that and was satisfied, and He crowned Him with the glory of God. And to this day, the glory of God will only be revealed through people who have suffered. The age-old question. In the book of Job, it's why does the righteous suffer? And people still wonder that. Well, I was serving God, and why did this happen to me? So God would have an opportunity to reveal His glory, but you got bitter and angry at God, and then you short-circuited that deal. If you'd have just suffered as a Christian with grace in your heart and just loved God and said, well, all things work together for good, them that love God, who are called according to His purpose, and I love Him and He called me, so I don't know what His purpose is, but I'll trust Him And I'll just serve Him, and I'll just go on, amen, and be kind, and be gracious, and be a blessing to others." And those people that watched you go through all that, Sir Prentle, say, they got the real deal. Did you see them go through that, and they kept a good spirit, and a good attitude, and a kind heart, and a word that's a blessing to others? The glory of God is revealed through suffering, just like it was at Calvary. So it will be in your life. His death proves His love for the church. Ephesians 5, 25. I'm telling you, Jesus Christ loves the church. You better quit talking bad about the church. Amen. That's His bride. He's going to get upset with you if you keep bad-mouthing His bride. You come up here and start telling me what all's wrong with my life, you're going to have a bad day. I expect the Lord Jesus, amen, to be more extreme than me. Brother Wood, he preached a message one time on the Lord's coming, and boy, is he mad. And he said one reason he's so mad is because they changed his last will and testament. He said, how would you feel if you wrote your will out and filed it with the lawyer and then you died and somebody went in there and revised it? Updated it and made it easier to understand. Amen. He's going to be upset when he comes back. Amen. They changed his last will and testament and then they made fun of us because we wouldn't go for it. And he's going to be mad because of the way they've treated his bride. Preacher Lackey had a sermon he used to preach called Kicking the Bride Around. He had a life-sized dog. And he'd preach on kicking the bride around, he'd be out in the aisle, and he'd throw that thing down in the floor and he'd kick it halfway to the back of the building. He'd say, that's the way you treat the bride of Jesus Christ. When you won't tithe, when you won't give commissions, boom, he'd kick her again. Her dress would fly up over her head. People would turn and look the other way. He said, what's the matter? Is that embarrassing you? He said, the way you live is an embarrassment. The way you kick his bride around. Oh, he just went on and on with it. He could preach for an hour and a half on that kind of stuff. I love to hear that old man preach. His death proves his love for the church. He gave himself. I'll tell you why a lot of marriages are in trouble. These fundamentalist men, they're always talking about how this woman ought to submit to them. I'm the head of this house, you're supposed to submit to me and do what I say. You know Jesus doesn't do that. You know the guy that's always using that to browbeat his wife is doing that because he don't love her. Yeah, I just said that. That's what my husband does. He's an idiot. And you're an idiot for marrying him. Amen. You should have got to know him a little better before you married him, amen? And then he wouldn't have to take his Bible and beat you with it to get you to submit to him. If He loves you like Christ loved the church, and if He gave Himself for you, amen, you wouldn't have any problem at all submitting to Him. Thank you. God bless you. Amen. That's good. I appreciate it if I am doing it. And I got that from Preacher Lackey too. That's why His death is so important. Why is the burial so important? He had to be buried because All of His disciples and followers had to come to the place that all hope was gone. He's dead. He's buried. They get in a room and they close the door for fear that they're next to be nailed to a cross. All their hope is gone. And it proved to the world that he really did die. He didn't just swoon or take a nap. He died. And his body needed a rest after what he went through. So for three days and three nights, that body rested. And his soul went to hell. And I will not leave my soul in hell. And his spirit went into the hands of his father. Into my father's spirit. I commend my spirit into his hands. I commend my spirit. Threefold being, just like we're threefold being, what happens when we die? Body gets put in the grave. The soul and the spirit go to be with the Lord. He had been beaten, bleeding, breathless, mocked, scourged, spear in his side, crown of thorns on his head, smitten with a reed. His body endured more than probably any man has ever endured. And that's not even counting the weight the burden of the sins of the whole world for all time. Peter said he bore our sins in his own body. I'm talking about the message that we've got to tell the world. And why we ought to give commissions to get that message out. Send these missionaries out. And he had three days of important business to tend to, and I'm not even sure how all this went, but I've heard preachers argue about what happened to the blood, was it put on the mercy seat? They say, well, nowhere in the Bible does it say that. Well, I preach it anyway. He put blood, amen, on the mercy seat, took care of our sins, amen, once and for all. He took care of that little deal in that three days and three nights, amen. He preached to the spirits in prison, those Old Testament saints, amen. And He led captivity captive and went through a blood-sprinkled way through the principalities and powers of the air. I'm talking about He had three days and three nights of important business to take care of. laying in the grave. He was redeeming the time. So what's the difference in the spirit and the soul? Well, I've always illustrated my dad was working on a peanut combine one time and a chain kept jumping off of a sprocket and he pulled the cover off and he was scratching away the dirt where he could see how this thing was running and why it wasn't lining up right. And when he scratched that dirt away, he was Thinking about it, he looked down and blood was dripping on the ground. And he said, well, where's this blood coming from? He looked and his finger was gone right there. Somehow scratching that dirt away where he could see, he got his finger in between that chain and that sprocket and he didn't even know it. And he said, evidently I got dirt under that fingernail. He said, because to this day it still feels like I need to clean that fingernail. I'm saying that part of the body got cut off, but that part of the soul was still there. That's why old men that's had a leg amputated will tell you that their foot's itching. The soul is the seat of our feelings and our emotions. And so you still have feelings in the soul even when part of the body is gone. Well, you don't have to believe what I believe. I'm just telling you that's the way it is. There is a difference between the soul and the spirit. And that's why with the Lord Jesus, one of them can go one way and the other can go the other way at the same time. They'll all be reunited one of these days. Why is His resurrection so important? Well, He had to raise from the dead to fulfill the Scripture. Matthew 12, verse 38-40, John 19, verse 31, Leviticus 23, verses 1-8. It proves His deity. He had the power to lay His life down, John chapter 10, and He had the power to take it up again. Nobody else could do that, but the deity could. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything that was made. He was God manifested in the flesh. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. His resurrection proves that He is indeed God. He forgives sins, and somebody says, You can't do that. Nobody but God can forgive sins. Well, that's why He could do it. Amen. He was God. They just didn't believe it. It proves His deity. And it lets us know, even in this chapter, that He is our only hope. Verse 17, And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, and you are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept. In other words, He is not going to be the last one that gets up from the dead. We are, too, if you've been born again. That's why we have hope when we go to the funeral of saved loved ones. He's our only hope. His resurrection gives us salvation. Romans chapter 10, Thou shalt confess with thine mouth and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. You can't get saved if you don't believe in the resurrection. It tells us here in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 42 to 44, that we have the victory. So also is the resurrection of the dead, sown in corruption, raised in corruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. Verse 55, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory. Not only is salvation free, but victory is free. He giveth us the victory. Glory to God. Amen. I wish I had time to preach on that a little while. It's free. The victory is free. The victory is ours. We have victory in Jesus. We sing it all the time. We just need to start living it. Victory. Victory. How do you get to victory? Same way you got salvation, by faith. Trusting in Him. And the resurrection proves that if he's got the power to get up from the dead, amen, and he's got the power to get us up from the dead, he's got the power to give us victory, because the victory is in Christ. It's not in us. Therefore, my beloved brethren, that's how he started the chapter. Be a steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So just keep on going no matter what happens. Is it going to be easy? No. Is it always going to be a lot of fruit? No. It's just about serving the Lord, doing His will, pleasing Him. He may want you Prove that you can be faithful if you don't have any fruit. Nobody's looking forward to that calling, but you just might be the guy that God trusts you to be faithful even if nobody's getting saved. I watched Brother Ralph Cheatwood in Turkey for years and years and years with no converts. Very few converts, but he just stayed with it and trusted God. Verse 50 of chapter 15 says, Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither can corruption inherit incorruption. Well, if flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God, how are we going? Well, he said in verse 51, Behold, I show you a mystery. Let me explain to you, he said, the mysterious part of this flesh and blood can't go to the kingdom of God. I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. Here's the mystery. The mystery is, people like you are going to go to heaven. and fit in like you belong there. Now, that's kind of a mystery, isn't it? Huh? We kind of got a choice. We can let God change us here, or we can let Him change us there. But He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it. He will get her done. You can let Him do it here and now, Or you can resist Him every step of the way, men, and at the trumpet, when this corruption puts on incorruption, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. You may not like me here. A lot of people don't like me here, but they're going to like me in heaven, because I'm going to be changed. Amen. I'll have that entire sanctification then. Till then you're going to have to pray for me and be gracious with me and tolerate me. And likewise, me, you. This resurrection solves the mystery of how can fallen sinful creatures go to heaven when they die. Because God's gonna change us. And then he said, he has to be seen. He has to be seen. I'm not talking about a vision. I'm not talking about A picture on the wall. I'm talking about looking in the pages of the Word of God. Getting a little glimpse of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not even talking about a mental picture. I'm just talking about looking by faith and saying there He is. The sinless one. The perfect Lamb of God. What a Savior. We're kind of looking through a glass darkly now. We're kind of looking through the lattice. A lot of it's blocked out by the lattice. We just get little glimpses of the Lord, but all the glimpses sure are sweet. I got a little glimpse while the young people were singing a while ago. I got a little glimpse. I can't wait when we get there and see Him face to face. That's the message we have, preachers, missionaries, ladies. Children, that's the message we have to tell the whole world, that God loved them enough to send His only begotten Son to die on the cross for their sins in their place, and if they'd just receive Him, they can be born again, go to heaven when they die, and don't have to fear ever going to hell. Why, if you're not saved tonight, you ought to be running to the altar right now to get saved. Amen. God made it so simple a little child can do it. But it made it so complicated, a Ph.D. can't do it unless they'll come with the faith of a little child. It's foolishness to the educated mind. So they stumble over the simplicity of the gospel. Don't do that. Come to Him, and then ask Him who you can carry this wonderful message to. Tell somebody else. Nothing will fire you up like being the one that talked to somebody and prayed for them and got them to church. They got saved and they come and say, thank you. Thank you for telling me this wonderful message about Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, where I can see you. Have you ever seen him? By faith? Don't come tell me some weird story after the service. I've had plenty of those. I was visiting an old man in the nursing home one time. He said, you ever been born again? Oh, yeah, yeah. He said, yeah, I'm safe. He said, this other day I looked out in the hall and Jesus Christ himself was walking down the hall. Is that how you know you're safe? Yeah, that's how I know I'm safe. I'd hate to face God with that. Maybe he did. I got my doubts. He might have been an angel of light or a devil that transformed himself into an angel of light. Might have been what he saw. I hope he saw the Lord, but I sure got my doubts. What about you? What do you trust? Church membership? Repeating the prayer? You better open your heart and let Jesus Christ come in. Let him have his way. Father, I pray you bless the message tonight. Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful gospel that we have to preach. I pray you bless these young people who did such a great job singing tonight. Bless them for practicing. Father, thank you for this good spirit in this church. All the liberty to preach. Father, thank you, Lord, for a good pastor that paid a price to stay with it. Thank you, Lord, for Brother Byrd that's had the burden for that print shop all these years. Father, I thank you that that guy that told me that those printing presses would all shut down if he left this church. I thank you, Lord, that that never happened. I told him it wouldn't happen, but he didn't believe me. And I want to thank you, Lord, that you've been faithful to provide now all these years. Brother Tom is pleased over there on the other side with what's happened here at Victory Baptist Church in Milton, Florida. And I pray, Father, you'd give him some joy and blessings right now for knowing that his vision's being carried on, and his burden is still being carried on. And I pray you'd help, Father, this church to do well, to get this gospel to every creature in all the world. Thank you, Lord, for the little part that Shady Acres Baptist Church has, for the friends we've made over these years, And I pray now, Father, that you'd speak to every heart about what you'd have them to do for a faith promise for the next 52 Sundays in a row. Help them pray tonight, Lord, what would you have me to give for a faith promise? And I pray that humbly and honestly seek your will about that matter. And you'd speak to them clearly, this is the way, walk you in it, this is what I want you to do. Show them tonight, Lord, you're worthy. The message is worthy to get it into all the world. And these men are worthy who have quit jobs and sold homes and driven their family all over America to raise the money to get to the fields you've called them to. Bless them tonight. Strengthen them and encourage them. Give them fruit for their labor, souls for the harvest, and clarity of their message and the power of God to preach it with. May they live their life in such a way that others can see the gospel being declared through their daily living. I pray in Jesus' name.