Exodus chapter number 18 and I look with me there we begin reading in verse number 13 the Bible says and it came to pass on tomorrow that Moses Set to judge the people and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening And when Moses father-in-law saw all that he had done to the people he said what is this thing that thou doeth to the people? Why said it thou thyself alone? All the people stand by thee from morning unto evening. And Moses said unto his father-in-law, Because the people come unto me to inquire of God. That's a good thing to do. And the Bible says, And then they had a matter that come unto me, and I judge between one and the other, and I do make them know the statutes of God and His laws. And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, this thing that thou doest is not good. Thou should surely wear away both thou and this people that is with thee, for this thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice, and I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee. Be thou for the people to God. God would, and thou mayest bring the causes unto God. I mean, let's read that again. And thou, that thou mayest bring their causes unto God, and thou should teach them ordinances and laws and shall Show them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, and rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all seasons, and that shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter thou should judge. So shall it be easy for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou should do this thing, and God commanded thee so, then thou should be able to endure, and all the people shall also go to their places in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all of Israel, and made them heads over the people, and rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, and rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judge the people at all seasons the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small manner they judge themselves. Father, help us tonight. I pray you might take these three words. I pray that you might empty me of self and fill me with thy precious spirit. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. You can be seated. Appreciate your standing. One of the greatest needs that we have in our nation today amongst Christians is leadership. It's hard to find very many people today is able to think for themselves. A lot of folks need somebody to tell them what color blue dog is. If dog is blue, you don't need to tell me if the dog is blue if I can see it. But however, there's a lot of people today that will not think for themselves. And we got a lot of young people, a lot of young men, a lot of young ladies don't have the capacity to be able to think for themselves. And I believe that the problem is, is because there's a lack of leadership. And I believe one of the glaring problems we have in our nation is leadership. It's hard. You know, just a few years ago, in our nation, it's a shame. It's really a shame for us to even be considering to have Sarah Palin running as a running mate. Where's the man that's got some backbone, some leadership? Where's the man to lead our nation? We're looking at a woman. We got a bunch of men standing up behind a woman saying, go lead us. Lord, help us. Something wrong with that. If you read over in Isaiah, I'm finding in the Bible, the Bible says when a woman runs a nation, that's a judgment of God is on them. Is that in your Bible? That's in the Bible. And so when we ain't talking, we ain't trying to deal with the women tonight, I'm talking about leadership. So y'all can just rest easy, just relax a little bit. I didn't come to preach to all the women. I got a wife out here too, amen. I'm just kidding. But one of the greatest needs that we have is leadership. Moses was a great leader. In fact, he was a man of God, a man of integrity, a man of truth, a man of honor. God used this man in a tremendous way. And his father-in-law, Jethro, came and said, Moses, what are you doing? He said, I'm doing the work of God. And Moses didn't see anything wrong with what was going on. Moses said, look, God told me to do this. And you know, there's nothing wrong with what he was doing. But the problem with it was, is that it wasn't the most effective way of doing things. And one of the things as leaders, one of the things, one of the greatest assets we can ever have as a leader or as a Christian is to continue to be teachable. Teachable. Too many folks today that get old and can't learn nothing else. I used to work, as he said, I worked for the Internal Revenue. And after graduating from college, I went there and got a job as an entry level in the accounting division. And after working there for nine months, my supervisor came and said, I want to, we're going to promote you to the computer room. Boy, that's wonderful. About this time, I worked with about 19 or 20 ladies. I was the only guy in there. And most of the ladies in there got mad with me because I came in and I worked hard. I came early and stayed late. And I just worked and worked and worked. And after a while, I started getting my production up. And it started to make some of the folks. I've been around there a long time. And one of the ladies, I can never forget her. She was my trainer. And she said, Ms. Sandra Brown, she said, why is he getting to go to the computer room. I've been here 15 years. I've got 15 years of experience. He's been here nine months, and you're promoting him. Why is that? Well, Ms. Gail Cox was my supervisor. She said, well, no, you've got one year experience 14 times. You haven't learned anything since you've been here. You know, you've got to be teachable. You got to be teachable. And as we look here in the word of God, we see God told, I mean, Jethro told Moses something. By the way, it's good to have a father-in-law. Amen. I'm about to get into that business before long. Amen. Being a father-in-law, I got three daughters. I want to get married one day. And one day I'm going to graduate to that area. to be a father-in-law. And I'm looking for the time I can go to my son-in-law, just like Jethro went to his, amen, and tell him what to do, amen. You think I'm going to raise a child up to 25 years old? You think I'm going to give it all over to you? Come on, man. Come on. Mother-in-law and father-in-law are some of the best things you can have after you've raised your children. Don't believe that. Don't believe that. The problem that Moses had was that he didn't see a problem with what he was doing. It wasn't because he wasn't doing it right. His problem was that it was a better way of doing things. And his father-in-law said, you're not going to make it very long. You're standing up here from the morning all the way into the evening judging the people. It's not a break. It's going to wear you out. It's going to wear the people out. He said, this is what I want you to do. And that's why I think we need in a local church, really need to understand this thing about leadership. Notice what Jethro said. He said, Jeff, he said, Moses, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go and get some men. It's too much for you to do by yourself. I want you to find some other men. that got some leadership about themselves. And I want you to be able to put them under you and let them do most of the work and let them bring the hard things to you. But we need some leaders. And notice what he didn't say. He didn't just say, go get in a jack leg. He didn't just say, go get anybody. He said, go find some men. And he gave the qualifications of those leaders. And too often today, I hate to say it, but in many churches you go and they don't have any qualifications for leaders. If a guy show up and if he can walk and don't fall down, they let him do something. It's not because he's faithful, not because he's able, it's because he's available. But God says more than just availability. Notice what he says here. Notice, we're talking about leadership. And by the way, we need strong leadership in our churches. It's going to come a time, if we're not careful, that the homosexuals and the sodomites are going to be marching up against these doors here, because I know your preacher, he's going to preach against it. And it's going to come, and they're going to try to tell this church and tell all other churches, we're not going to preach against us. We don't want you preaching out the Bible. In fact, you go in there and sing and go home. That's what we want you to do. If you don't have strong leadership, if we're not careful in 50 years, that's all they'll be doing in churches, because we got There's sodomites and a bunch of people that hate God in political office now, and they're able to change things and politicize things. And if we're not careful, they're going to beat us down. And where we get afraid. And by the way, this situation with Chick-fil-A. You know what the homosexuals are doing? They shot a bullet across the barrel of Christianity. They told us, you know, when you shoot a bullet across the bow, what you're saying is you're about to stop. You better hold up, because the next one, we're going to hit you. And that's what they did. They shot a bullet right across the bow, Christianity. They're trying to find out who's going to stand, who's going to keep going forward. And that's what they wanted us to do, to carry on out, and shut her down, and act like God and die, and crawl up in a hole somewhere. There ain't a hole around here big enough for God. Leadership. Let me give you some things here tonight that I believe God is looking for in every leader. You know, I've been married now going on 27, 27, 28 years now. And I didn't know this up front, but my wife was looking for a leader. She was looking for somebody that can lead her. She didn't want to follow me. She wanted me to lead her. And so you know what? I guarantee there's a bunch of women in here today want their husbands to be a man of God, a leader for the cause of Christ. And so often too many men are willing to just to be henpecked. Not willing to stand up ain't trying to tell you to go home fight your wife tonight But I believe every woman every godly woman today Desires to have a man that will lead her and guide her in righteousness in front of Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that Now a bunch of these heathen women out here don't want that They want a man that they can tell what to do and beat down and make him stand up when they say Stand up sit down when I say sit down. They remind me of them. I story I heard about this man named John. Everybody in the church knew he was henpecked. Everybody in there knew that his wife told him everything to do. And the pastor said, well, we want all the men that is not henpecked to stand up over here. And we need all the men that is henpecked to stand over here. And everybody looked at John. And he was over here. Then he went down in this line. And the pastor said, John, what are you doing over here? He said, well, my wife told me to come over here. But we don't need We need men that are leaders. And in fact, I'm going to give you some things here tonight, just for a few moments here, that I believe that's going to help us as Christians. It'll help the local church. It'll help a man. And young boys, if you get a hold of this thing here early on in your life, it's going to help you. Look in verse number 20, I want you to see here the qualification. Now Moses was doing a great job. He was a tremendous leader, but however, his father-in-law had some wisdom about some things. And he looked and saw, he said, man, if you keep going like you going, we're going to bury you for long. You can't go up in there early in the morning from the time you can see him to the time you couldn't see, all standing there judging all the easy, hard cases. He said, man, you got to figure out to do something. Notice, if you would, in verse number 20, he says, notice in verse number 19, he says, now hearken now unto my voice, and I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee. Be thou for the people to God that thou may bring the causes unto God. Now, what he's saying is we're not going to keep you from doing what God told you to do, but we're going to do it a little different way. That's why it's so important. You'll never be a great leader until you become teachable. You got to be able to learn. You got to be able to have some teachability. I dealt with Winston Isaacs for a long time, being teachable, having a teachable spirit. And Moses, I believe here, is the epitome. He helps us to see, even though he's a man of great leadership, man, God is using him to judge the people, but he has a spirit about him that is still teachable. said he can still have someone tell him something even after he's been doing it for a long time so many folks I've been doing this okay nobody tell me what I've been doing this all my life hold on you'll never be a great leader I believe until we see the example of Moses he was teachable even in his old age notice what the Bible says verse 20 and the Bible says and thou should teach them he's talking notice this he says thou should teach them the ordinances and the laws and she'll show them the way wherein they must walk and the work that they must do he said now before you do anything before you go out and get these men that's going to help you he said you need to teach them something he didn't say go out there and teach them how to be a government official notice what he says the way that they once walked and then he said to work He said, teach the men about the priorities in their lives, the way they should walk. And by the way, that's so important today. We got such a lack of integrity today in leadership. In Memphis, Tennessee, y'all heard it on the news, over the last five, six years, they put a dozen or so folks in jail for taking bribes. Leaders, folks, leading the nation, leading our city. I'm talking about a third of them that filed for bankruptcy, and you want to know why the city is upside down. Well, it's leadership. One lady said, well, me filing bankruptcy won't have any bearing on my ability to lead and shape out a budget for our city. Hey, it's obvious you can't take care of your money. You care more about your money than you do the other folks' money. How in the world are you going to be able to lead this city and make sure it don't go to bankruptcy? I'm just, I can be able to do my job without letting my personal, oh, you're talking about dollars and cents. If you put yourself in a hole, you put somebody else's money in a hole. That's leadership, and that's what we don't have. You got to be teachable. Teachable. One of the finest qualities of a great leader is having a teachable spirit, a teachable spirit. If you get to the point where you think you know everything, you're in trouble. You ever been around the people? You ever heard people say something like this? The people that know everything are especially annoying to those that do. People that think they know everything. Especially annoying to those that do and that's what happens so often with our leaders. They become unteachable But notice here's a example of T leadership the Bible says and teach them notice he didn't put some folks up there without just teaching them and Training him. He didn't say go up there and just tell him. Yeah, just wing it somebody come up there with a complex problem Just wing it They said, don't teach them. He said, the way they must walk. He said, some integrity. If you're going to work with people, you need to be, listen, if you're going to put somebody before somebody, they need to know how to walk right before God. If they ain't walking right before God, they in trouble. And by the way, it's going to make it difficult for people to follow them as well. I know it is for me. It's hard for me to follow leadership if they ain't right. Man, if you're not right, there's no way in the world I can follow a guy that's slothful and slacker. messed up, I find me somebody else. I'm a man's man. I got to follow a man's man. I like a man that's strong and got some leadership about him. Some men that are willing to tap somebody now and they have to ask for forgiveness. Opposed to a guy that won't do nothing. I like a guy that gets down the street and charges. That's the kind of guy I am. And I like men like that. That's why I was attracted to your preacher there. Notice what the Bible says in verse 21. The Bible says, Now she'll provide, out of all the people, able men. Boy, I tell you what, that's one of the greatest things we need today. We got too many men are not able. We got young boys don't know which end of the hammer to hold on. I know some guys 23 years old had never changed a flat. Something wrong. I'm telling you, you ought to go just cut a tie sometime. Just teach these boys how to change a flat. They don't even want it. Where's the jack? Anybody say, it's in the trunk. Don't know how to do nothing. I was working, had a blowout in my van once, had a teenager with me. I took the tire away from under the van, set it on the back, and I'm around there jacking it up, and I left the tire back there. I was going to go get it. You know what he asked me? Do you want me to bring the tire around the front? I said, no, just leave it there. I'm going to bring the van around there in a minute. Man, bring me the tire. What are you talking about? You need to bring it to the front. We need some men, some able men. We need somebody that's got some get up and go about, some men that has been taught something. And by the way, I love men that done had a daddy to teach them something. I like working with those guys. I work with other guys, too. But when you done had a daddy or granddaddy or somebody in your life and invested in you, when you go tell them to go get a crowbar, they don't bring a screwdriver back. We were working at the church, and I told the guy, I said, look, we got some shovels in there. We're out and around digging. This guy come back with a big old snow scoop. I said, come on, man. I said, I said, I said, what you going to do with this? I said, I'm going to dig. I said, well, start digging. Show me how you got big old scoops, big old snow scoop. How you going to dig in some hard ground with that? I said, Lord, help us. We got too many men that don't have any leadership about them. We need men that is able to that's got some things going on in the life that is enabling a man of stature, a man of wealth, not necessarily of wealth, but of some integrity and some know-how. Let me show you, let me look in the Bible if you would. Let me show you a couple things here tonight, give you a couple things here with. Notice in Deuteronomy chapter one, verse 15, we're talking about leadership. Throughout the Word of God, we find that God required men to be taught, men, able men, men that had something going on in their life. The Bible says, Deuteronomy chapter one, verse 15, the Bible says, so I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and notice this, and known, and made them, what? Head over you, captains over thousands. What? Known men, men that had some ability, wise men. I'm talking men that know how to get something done. You go to church sometime and the women got cleaned up and got women in there running everything. I remember several years ago. Y'all don't think I'm a showman. Don't think that for a second. I had a mama and a daddy. And my daddy, he whooped me. And he made me pay attention to him. My mama whooped me. It wasn't good as my daddy could. Daddy whooped you make you want to cry for two weeks. I'm talking, you can hear that. When daddy say he gonna whoop you, you go to crying because he know when my daddy whooped you, he's tired and you wore out. My mama whooped you, don't do that again. And I just knew if I can just hold on for about four more, I was over. But daddy whooped you until you give up. Give in, you think you're dying. And it didn't make me disrespect my mama or nothing, but daddy just put something on you. And what I was saying here, is that we need wise men. We need men that can handle some things. Men that can take charge. I went to a church and went in and blessed the lady's heart. I hope we don't have any ladies like that around here. I'm sure we don't. I went there and they got cleaning up. We're building a building and we're trying to get it ready for Sunday morning. It's nine, fifteen men in there. working dust everywhere we got two ladies in there telling them what to do. Now put this over here and move that and sweep that up. I said, Oh, I got to go home. I can't, I can't live like this. I don't need no woman here telling me what to pick up. I said, I could be wrong. I said, I said, I need to go home. Cause I'm going to say something in a minute. It ain't going to be nice. And I just need to go home. So I won't get in no trouble. So I left and went back. And I think I told somebody on the way out and they slipped and told that woman. said, Brother Patterson, think I'm too bossy. Well, you are. Especially when they come down and tell a bunch of men what to do. Go get your husband. I'd rather take order from your husband than you. I'm just saying, when you got men that won't stand to be leaders, women will run over some. Y'all still sound like I'm showing you something. I hope I ain't trying to sound like that. I'm talking about leadership. If you're a man and it's kind of making you kind of upset, I hope it ain't. If you're a woman and you say, yeah, I hope my husband be a leader too, praise God, it wouldn't hurt to say amen every now and then. Notice here, the Bible says no men. We're talking about men, able men. Look at verse number 21 again. Notice not only able men, but the Bible says, it says men, it says that they shall provide out of all the men, able men, such as fear God. Let me tell you, that's one of the problems we have in our nation, that's one of the problems we have in our churches, that's one of the problems we have in our homes, is because we got too many men trying to stand up and be leaders and don't have a fear of God in their life. They'll do anything, say anything. Let me tell you, God needs men to have a reverential fear of who He is. We get men standing in the pulpit, we got deacons, ushers, and people all over the country that don't have the fear of God. You say, how do you know? Because they live their life any kind of way. God ain't going to judge me. He ain't going to judge me. He ain't going to judge me. Look in 2 Samuel. Look there with me in chapter 23. Let me give you some Bible to go. I tell our folks I'd like to give you some Bible to go with some of this stuff I'm talking about. Look in 2 Samuel chapter 23. with me there tonight. Look with me there. 2 Samuel chapter 23 in verse number 3. The Bible says, And the God of Israel said, The rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just and in the fear of God. God is looking for His leaders to have some fear of Him. We got men that are fallen. We got men that are incapable of leadership. It's because there's no fear of God in their life. The Bible said a fear of man bringeth a snare. We got more folks that have a greater fear of man than they do of God. And that's why churches are hurting today in the area of leadership. We need able men. If you're going to be a great leader, you need to be a teachable man. Not only do you need to be a teachable man, you need to be an able man. You need to learn something, amen. If you want to join and get involved in the church, try to learn something, amen. We have a discipleship ministry at our church. And every person that you're going to be in any leadership capacity at all, you've got to go through a 13-week discipleship course. If you're going to sing in the choir, you've got to go through it. Why? We want to make sure that you're on the same page as we are. You come in, I don't know what you believe. I don't know what you've been taught. We've got to make sure that you're going to propagate what we propagate. And so if you're a leader, church members don't have to be a leader. The first time you say, hey, I want to be a leader. I want to lead somebody. Well, you need to learn something. You need to learn what we're teaching around here, because if you don't know what we're teaching, how are you going to tell somebody what we should believe in? You get out knocking on doors like we do, guess what's going to happen? What's y'all church believe? I don't know. You're a leader? Yeah, I'm a leader. What's y'all staff? I don't know. I go to church. That's crazy, isn't it? But that's why we have a discipleship course. And we have to, I hate to say it, deprogram some people. Because they've been taught the charismatic moves. They've been taught speaking in tongues, and laying on a hang, and slaying in the spirit, and this, that, and the other. Hey, if you're going to be a leader, you're going to have to submit to what the Bible says, and not all that foolishness out there. And we make them go through it. And if you don't want to do it, that's simple. We have people who want to be in the choir. We give them the choir book, handbook. Here it is right here. I tell you, this is at a minimum what you've got to do to be in the choir. You know what I'm saying? Nothing. They don't have a concept. read this and come back to see me. Half the folks get it, and guess what they do? They never come back. Because you've got to be a church. When we're on the first requirement, you've got to be a faithful church member. We don't have any part-time choir members. They'll sing when you get ready. I ain't singing this week. What is that? Dolores Church, we've got folks out here that need to be saved and ministered to. Well, I'm taking a week off. Well, if you don't come back Sunday night, you was going to lead that song. We was going to have you lead it. Oh, I was at home watching 60 Minutes. Come on now. There's some requirements. We're talking about leadership. And if you don't have any leadership, guess what happens? They go to driving the bus from the back. You ever seen anybody driving the bus from the back? You can't steer it very well. That thing might go anyway. It might. What kind of men do we need today? I'm so glad. Jethro saw Moses and saw that he had some needs. It wasn't because he was doing something wrong. He said, man, what you need is some, you need some help. He said, let me tell you, get some qualified help. Get some men, teachable men, some able men. Then he said, men that fear God, that fear God. Let me tell you, if we have the fear of God in our life, if we have a reverential fear of God, it's going to keep us straight for the most part. It's when you don't fear God, it's easy to find yourself in sin. You know, oftentimes folks do stuff, they ain't got no business. They'll look around and look behind them. They ought to be looking up, because God sees everything that we do. Let me tell you, when you have the fear of God on you, you don't just go to looking behind you to see who sees you. You go to looking up, knowing God sees everything that you do. And let me tell you, it'll halfway, if you're right with God, it'll keep you right with God. The fear of God, not only do we need men that are teachable, men that have fear of God. But then notice in verse 21. Remember this is where the road kind of meets the road. It says, such as fear God, and notice this, men of truth. Boy, the Bible said the truth should make you free. What is the truth? The word of God. You need some truth today. We need truth. If truth is not embraced, lies would be easily I'll come in and to see the whole congregation if we don't embrace truth let me tell you I tell our folks this all the time all the time truth exposes error you get truth I don't care words you get the truth it's going to expose error you know I found out long time ago as a young man if you tell the truth all the time you'll never have to worry about what you see let's keep telling the same truth but if you tell a lie it's hard to keep up with them. I told John this, I told Sam that, I told Miss Barbara this. Now what did I say? Now you got to figure it all out. If you tell the truth, it don't make no difference who's your police, FBI, the preacher, the Pope. Just keep telling the same truth. The truth don't change, but lies do. And the Bible said, he said, make sure it gets the men of truth. You can't be up there, be a lying, the lyingest man in the whole city up there judging people. Did you see why he said truth? He said, don't go get the guy that lie all the time. Don't go get the people that's, that's telling lies all the time. Get some men that hold to truth. And by the way, that's what we need in our churches. We need men that, that are truthful. The Bible says in Isaiah, I mean, in Psalms 51 in verse six, it says, behold, thou desire truth in the inward part and in the hidden part of thou shall make them known by wisdom. That word, the Bible said, I need truth on the inward part. What do you know what that simply mean? I just want to tell the truth every time. The Bible said a righteous man hated lying. Hated lying. And so if I'm a man of truth, when you come to me, I got to tell the truth. I've been asked to lie a couple of times. In fact, since you said that, preacher, I ain't going to call no name. We was at a preacher's fellowship. I'm not sure at what church we was at. Early on, we was desiring to have a building. Boy, we was desperate for a building. I was looking everywhere. looking at gas stations, I'm talking about fire departments, anything that looked empty, I would put a church in it. I was just getting desperate. And I was sharing that with the men, and one of the guys in our city, they had a building right around the corner from where we was living. The church had just went belly up, and the church building was there, and it was owned by a freewill Baptist, and I never will forget the pastor's name at that church. His name was Pastor Gore. And I met with him, and he told me, he said, well, Brother Patterson, We've been really looking for a man that could come into this community. We're looking for a black man that we can turn this work over to. And we're going to let him have this building. I said, wow. He said, well, we've been looking for a man that's going to bleed like we bleed. Spirit of God said, watch out. What you talking about bleed like we bleed? See, the free will Baptist believe you can lose your salvation. They ain't never bleed black. And I said, hmm. I said, well, how much you want to sell it for? He said, well, get back with me. And we were talking about putting it on the market and stuff like that. So I come to fellowship, and I told him the preacher's there. I'm talking preacher's there. I ain't going to call his name, so I ain't going to do that. But he was out there, and I told this, just like I'm telling that. You know what he told me at the end of the service? At the service was over, we got to eat. And he said, preacher, come here, let me talk to you. I said, this is what I would do if I was you. He said, I'll go to that preacher and tell him that you're going to believe what they believe. And in one year from that day, change the name back and you'll have your building. And I said, no. I said, no, preacher, let me tell you something. I said, we're going to start, we're going to finish just like we started. We ain't got to lie, cheat, and steal if God's still going to bless us. God blessing don't have to be, you ain't got to manipulate God or manipulate man. And I said, I said, I, I said, I appreciate your advice, but I can't do that, man. I cannot start lying the day we start our ministry. Everything is built on a lie. Yeah, man, I believe what you believe. Been a year, time to change your name. I said, Lord, help us. Man, I'm in this fellowship. I said, Lord, help us. We need men of truth. We need men of integrity. You know the Bible says in 1st Corinthians chapter 13 verse 6 is to rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in truth Rejoice in truth rejoice in it because we need to have men of truth so many folks Today they live in a deceitful way they live a lie They present themselves in a way to try to convince other people that there's something that they know they're not just living a lie And we need men of God. We need men, leaders in the church that are men of truth. Men that stick with the book. Men that won't compromise the book. And by the way, let the Bible settle it all. You trying to figure out what's right or wrong? Just stick with the Bible, amen. You'll never go on the Bible and it'll never lead you wrong, amen. Not only, and we'll close with this, not only do we need men of truth, but notice in the latter part of verse 21. In the latter part, the Bible says, men of truth. Then notice what the Bible says, hating covetousness. God knew, even in that day, covetousness was a big problem. And I can't tell you today, it hasn't changed one bit. Because we got more things that are presented before us today than there's ever been. We see all what our neighbors got, we see what the internet puts out there, television, and it look like everything out there. It just seeks to allure us and to draw us. The Bible says, make sure you find some men that don't have a covetous spirit, because if he get up there and have a covetous spirit, somebody slip him something, he's going to take it. I'll judge about your cows if you give me two of them. That's the problem. with our nation today. We have too many politicians on the take, getting for this interest group and that interest group. They're not governing. They're not leading based on convictions that they have. They're leading on who can give them the most money, who can get them over in the corner first, who can give them the most amount. The Bible says he don't want to see some leaders representing the things of God that have a covetous spirit. The Bible says in Hebrews 13 in verse five, let your conversations be without covetousness. Covetousness God don't want our hearts to be consumed with covetousness and I guarantee you all the marketing people in our nation Whether it be on TV billboards or wherever you find it. They have a plan to cause our hearts to covet They want us to go after everything we and they make it appealing Well, I won't that I won't this what you like to have some of that and before long will understand this year The flesh is never satisfied. You get that, you want some more. You get this shotgun, I want another shotgun. It's just more and more and more. But let me close with this. Notice, and we'll show you what Moses did. Look in verse number 23. And if thou should do this thing, and God, and God commanded thee, then should I be able to endure, and all the people should go to their place in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law and did that what he did that he had said. And Moses chose able men. He got the men God told him to get out of all Israel and made them heads over the people. Rulers of thousands and rulers of hundreds and rulers of fifties and rulers of ten. And they judged the people at all seasons and the hard cases they brought unto Moses. But every small matter They judge themselves. Listen, when you do it God's way, that's what you get. You get God's results. And let me tell you, Moses, how do you have a man of his caliber, with that great leadership, listen to his father-in-law? It's because his father-in-law had some wisdom about it. And Moses, being the leader he was, had a teachable spirit. If you're going to ever be a good leader, one of the first qualities I believe you must have is you've got to have a teachable spirit. And I believe God is going to bless and God is going to do some great things if we have a teachable spirit. I'm going to have your pastor come.