through his poverty might be made rich. This is a Missions Conference, Faith Promise Missions Conference. If you're not involved in Faith Promise Missions, first of all, you start off with just being a tither. You start there. And then you give offerings. And then when you hear something about grace giving or faith giving or faith promise missions giving, and I learned about that a number of years ago, and I'm thankful and grateful that my wife and I heard about that and started participating in that. And every year we try to stretch our faith just a little bit. And let me show you what a dollar bill looks like when you go to the grocery store. And what it looks like when you go to church. You may not have been able to see that with just your bifocals on back there or whatever. But you need to participate and it'll be a blessing to your life if you become a giver. There was a college that had a pretty popular class in it because every year in this class, there were no pop quizzes. There were no tests along the way. There was just one test at the end of the semester. And in 25 years, it had never changed. It was the same thing. And the test was describe the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. Well, everybody signed up for this course just because they didn't have all those little tests and so forth. And you had a whole semester to work on that. Well, Meathead, was the star of the football team. Now you can probably guess why he was called Meathead. And so he signed up for this class and they assigned a tutor to him so that he would pass the course at the end of the semester. And so he learned all about the apostle Paul's journeys. He learned about Paul and Silas and Timotheus and he learned about Ephesus and Corinth and Philippi and all of these places. And man, he was ready to go. And he went into the room that day, and the professor said, now look, when I tell you, turn the paper over, put your name in the right-hand corner, do the test, when you finish, you can leave. And so he said, you may begin. Everybody turned their test over, and you heard this gasp. They couldn't believe it. In 25 years, they'd never changed the test until today. It was not described the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. The test was critique the Sermon on the Mount preached by Jesus. And you heard this gasp. Except one guy, Meathead, he started writing. Other guys just went up on the professor's desk and laid the paper down, knowing they were gonna get an F. But Meathead just kept writing. After an hour, Meathead was still writing. Finally, when he turned his paper in, he's the only guy that got an A+. And somebody said, Meathead, what did you write about? He said, look, I just put down who am I to critique a sermon preached by Jesus. I think I'll just write on the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul. That's pretty quick thinking. I told you last night I was from Kentucky, but I live in Florida. You know, there's three kinds of people that go to Florida. There's snowflakes, snowbirds, and frogs. Now, snowflakes, they come down there, they're not there very long. They're gone. Snowbirds, they come down, they stay a while. Frogs come down there to croak. This one guy, he said, kid, he said, Dad, Granddad, he said, can you make a noise like a frog? He said, well, I can. Why? He said, well, Daddy said as soon as you croak, we're going to Hawaii. So boy from Kentucky went over to Hawaii, and he got off the plane. The lady came up. She put one of those flowered leis around his neck, and she smiled and said, aloha from Hawaii. He smiled and said, Roy Dean from Kentucky. So a boy from Kentucky was walking down the street. He had one shoe on and one shoe off. Somebody said, did you lose a shoe? He said, no, I found one. Have you found Second Timothy yet? Last night, I preached a message on really how to be a good missionary and how to be a good missionary-minded church. And there's some things you need in your life if you're going to be a good missionary, or a preacher, or a Sunday school teacher, or a bus worker, or whomever, a church member. You need a big God. And God says, is there anything too hard for me? What's big to God? What's little to God? He's just God. And the second thing you need, if you're gonna be a good missionary, good preacher, good church member, good mission-minded church, you need the right Bible. Now, I'm not gonna just preach to the choir here because most of us all have a King James Bible, but here's the sad thing that I've observed. A lot of people who have a King James Bible and who would defend a King James Bible never get around to reading and obeying a King James Bible. I've heard preachers say before, you know, I just don't have time to read the Bible. If you don't have time to read the Bible as a preacher, you ought to do something else. You need to be in the Bible. You get in the Bible, and let the Bible get in you. The Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter three, and I read 1 and 2 Timothy again today, and I told you last night, I have read those two books lots of times, because it's written by a preacher to a preacher, and I'm interested in what a preacher would say to a preacher. And I read it again today, just observing the times when he's talking about the Bible, the Scriptures, the Word of God. And rather than taking all the time right now to mention that, let me do mention the one in 2 Timothy 3, in verse 15, and that from a child. Thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good works. In chapter four, in verse two, he said, preach the word. And did you know that if you're eating and you have the Bible and prayer. The Bible says that food is sanctified, 1 Timothy 4 in verse 5, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. There's something about the Bible. And when the Bible talks about doctrine, it's talking about the word of God. And may it please the great God of heaven that formed all things to stand for his divine approval upon the reading, hearing, heeding, and preaching of his forever settled in heaven word of God. Would you pray with me for me, please? Father, for a few moments, I'm sure, Lord, it's probably not gonna be anything new. But may the challenge be new. May the determination in our hearts be new. May we love our Bibles better. May we serve thee better. And we pray, dear Lord, that you would just help us. In Jesus' name, amen. My last verse is Psalm 119, 161, and 162, which says, princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word. I rejoice that thy word is one that findeth great spoil. One day when I was thinking about the word awe, I was in a restaurant one day and I just gave my order. Probably a hamburger and french fries or something of that nature and the waiter said awesome Awesome, what is awesome about just giving you an order? I don't use the word awesome very often I do use the word awesome with regard to the Lord. You know the word awe is found three times in the Bible. In Psalm 2, Psalm 4 rather, stand in awe and sin not communion with your own heart upon the bed. What he's talking about there, you ought to stand in awe of what sin will do to you, how far it'll take you, and how much it'll cost you, and how long you will stay there. And then in Psalm 37 and verse 8, 38 rather, he said, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of God. Then my life's verse is, my heart standeth in all thy word. Now here's how I understand the word all. Have you ever been to Grand Canyon? Some years ago, I don't know, 15, 18 years ago, I went there for the first time. This is true. There's probably not a day goes by that I do not think about the Grand Canyon. You can ask my wife. I talk about the Grand Canyon a number of times with various people. That was the impact that it had upon me. When you go to the Grand Canyon, you pull up at the park, and it costs you money to go in. And so I paid the money, and I went in, and we're driving along. And for about four or five miles, you're thinking, this looks like South Georgia. And I'm thinking, it's scrubbed trees and pine trees. I said, where's the canyon? And then you come to Mather Point. And when you come to Mather Point, you park your car. Now, from that day to this, they have reconfigured that area, and it's not exactly the same with regard to a building there. It used to be no building there, just the parking lot. You get out of your car, and you just sort of follow the people, and you walk over, this is what you do. You walk over there like this, and you go, huh! You've never seen a hole like that hole. That hole is about 300 and some miles long. From here over to there, it's like 18 miles. You can see over there. If you went straight out, dropped a pebble, it would, it'd drop a mile. You've never seen a hole like that hole. It'll take your breath away. That is awesome. So I use the word awesome with regard to God, the Bible, and what sin will do to you, and then the Grand Canyon. Now let me tell you where we are in America. Not everybody would say, even though they would read the verse, my heart standeth in all thy word. Not everybody comes to the Bible and says, here's where we are. Would you take the word of God and turn to, if I were to say John 3 16, now you know that verse, and so you know everything there is to know about John 3 16, so you're not even interested anymore, and so it would be like, Do you see the difference? Between huh, as opposed to huh. When you talk about God, I was on the elevator today with Judy and I, and there was a man that came on, he was from Sweden. And so I gave him a gospel tract, he said, I don't need this. He said, I'm an atheist. I said, well, you know, why don't you just keep this? It might come to the day when you may need somebody. I said, my name's on there. He said, that never happened. So he went his way, we went our way. But when you talk about God, God is God. You know, he's not just a big buddy upstairs. He's not some old man, senile, rocking himself away, pining himself away. He's God. And if you knew what sin would do to you, you'd never love it and embrace it like you do. My heart standeth in of thy word. There's something about the Bible. We need to get a new love for the scriptures. Though the cover is worn and the pages are torn, and though places bear traces of tears, yet more precious than gold is the book worn and old that can shatter and scatter my fears. When I prayerfully look in the precious old book, many pleasures and treasures I see, many tokens of love from the Father above, who's nearest and dearest to me. To this book I will cling, of its worth I will sing, though great losses and crosses be mine. For I cannot despair, though surrounded by care, while possessing this blessing divine. If I were to tell you, I know where you could go and find something that would change your life, and it'd make you smart. It'd make you happy. It throws light on a lot of things. It lasts for a long time. It's never going to hurt you. It's pure, and it's true, and it is sweeter than honey. It's better than money. It will warn you when you're doing wrong, and it will reward you when you're doing right. You say, well, where would I find such a thing like that? Psalm 19 says, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, gave them much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. I would say to all of our missionaries, as I would say to myself, as I would say to all of the church members of Calvary Baptist Church, or whomever you are in here, you need to have a good relationship with the Word. The Bible says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him that was made. Without him was not anything made that was made. And then you drop down and the Word was made flesh. If this book were become flesh, become person, it'd be Jesus. And Jesus has come to declare the Father unto us. You know where you're gonna learn about God? You're gonna learn about God through the Bible and through Jesus. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day into day utters speech and night into night showeth knowledge. But they don't tell us what his name is. They don't tell us how much he loves us. They just tell us he's a big God and he's a God of infinite variety. But you learn about him through this book. Joshua said, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and thou shalt have good success. The only time the word success is mentioned in the Bible is in Joshua 9. God said, if you wanna be prosperous, you wanna be successful, get in the book. And let the book get in you. There's just something about the Bible. Some years ago, there was a program on TV called Let's Make a Deal. And it was about a guy by the name of Monty Hall. He was one of those high-powered MC kind of guys. He was full of energy and so forth. And he might come up to a lady and say, if you've got a few enough clippers in your purse, I'll give you $50. And of course, they'd be looking if they had it. Oh, I got it here. And then after they got the $50, and if you'd like to give that $50 up, I'll let you get what's behind door number one. And they'd go on back and forth. So let's do a little Let's Make a Deal. And so I'm going to let you, you're going to be up on the stage, and I'm going to give you an opportunity to win some things. And so you come up here and all of your buddies are cheering you on, and you're happy to be up on the platform, hoping that you're going to be able to take some things home. And I say, now, this over here is a brand new car. And boy, that's big. But not only a new car, you can have the car and two weeks paid vacation in Hawaii. All you have to do is give me the retail price within $200 without going over, and it's yours. And so you're trying to think and your friends are hollering at numbers for you and finally you settle on something and I say, you're right, you just want a new car and an all expense paid trip to Hawaii for two weeks. Now if you like, you can keep the car and the vacation or you could trade it off for what's behind door number three. Now let me tell you something about what's behind door number three. There are people in the world who have died to get one. There are people in the world who would give everything they have to get one. There are people in the world who have one, and they would rather die than be without it. Do you want to trade your car and your vacation for that door number three? Now you're thinking, and your friend's saying, go for it, no, yes, go, yes, no. Finally you say, yes, I'm gonna go. And so door number three opens up, and a table is rolled out with a big box. And I say, your prize is in the box. Now, you're sweating now. I just gave away this car and two weeks vacation. And so you look in the box and what is in the box is a black, leather-bound Bible. How do you feel about that right now? You know, there are people in the world who died to get one. There are people who would give everything they had to get one. And there are people who have one who would rather die if they didn't have it. I would remind you in two weeks that vacation's over. I would remind you that you could get T-boned or have a wreck with your car or you keep it a little while and the thing rusts out and there's problems having cars like this. But your Bible. Years ago, there was a little guy that wanted to go to this little church that they had, a Christmas thing, and they would bring gifts and put it under this Christmas tree in the church, and then at a certain time, they would have people come and holler names out, and they would pass out these gifts. And little Frankie, he said, mama, I wanna go to that Christmas party. She said, Frankie, we don't have anything and there won't be anything under that tree for you and you'd be embarrassed and you'd be hurt and you don't wanna go down there. He said, mama, it's okay, I can handle it, I'll go. She said, son, you don't wanna do that. Well, you know how children can be, they stay at mama and stay at mama until finally she said, okay, you can go. So that particular night, there was this big box and the name on it was the rich kid in town got the big box. And then a couple other boxers, and then they pulled up just a little bitty thing and said, Frankie. Well, Frankie didn't move because he knew he wasn't getting anything. Frankie. And somebody said, Frankie, they're calling you. Well, Frankie got excited, man. He ran up there and he picked up that little package. And someone said, open it up, Frankie, open it up. And Frankie opened it up. And you know what it was? It's a little New Testament. And little Frankie's heart just sank. He ran out of that church, he ran home, he ran into his house, and he ran over to his bed, and his mama said, Frankie, what's wrong? He said, Mommy, all those other kids, they got nice prizes, and all I got, Mommy, all I got was a New Testament. And mama said, all you got was a New Testament. Let me tell you, son, one day you're probably gonna go around the world preaching that book. That book will tell you how to go to heaven and how you can enjoy the trip, too. And sure enough, he did go around the world preaching that book. His name was J. Frank Norris. One day he was back in his hometown and a drunk was staggering down the street. And he said to somebody, who's that? He said, don't you know? It turned out it was a little rich kid who got the big gift. Turned out to be the town drunk. You know, I tell you folks, if you have a Bible, You are somebody special. But it doesn't do any good if it's just on the coffee table. It doesn't do any good if it's just around you. You know, one of the things about today is we were down at dinner a while ago and all the guys, all of them had cell phones. I said, guys, this thing has changed the world, hasn't it? Because they're talking about talking to their wives back home and so forth. And you know, if you leave your house and you get about a mile, two, three down the road and you say, where'd my cell phone go? Probably 90-something out of 100 go back and get it. You start off to church, and you say, where's my Bible? Probably 90-something out of 100 won't go back and get it. It's just my Bible. If you knew what that was, just my Bible. Just my Bible. You know, I'm thankful for my Bible. I have a number of Bibles. When I got saved, I was 19 years old in the United States Navy. When I went into the Navy, they gave me a little Gideon New Testament. It didn't mean a lot to me, but when I got saved, I said to Pastor Robert J. Amory, Indian Creek Independent Baptist Church, outside of Northwest Virginia, and he's gonna order me up a Bible. So I said, I want one of those Scofield Bibles. It was about that thick. And I bugged him for about three weeks every time I went to church. Pastor, did it come in? Did it come in? Did it come in? It hadn't come in yet, Don. Did it come in? Did it come in? It hadn't come in yet. Wednesday night, he said, it's here. I was as excited over that first Bible that I bought as I was over the first 56 Chevrolet that I ever owned. It was my Bible. And I put in it the day that I got saved, May the 7th, 1962, the happiest day of my life. I still have that Bible. There's just something about the B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E. You know, the Bible says in Isaiah 55, verse 10 and 11, you know, without rain, You can't live, you need rain, you have to have rain. Rain is necessary, life's impossible without rain, you won't grow any food without rain, everything would be a desert if you didn't have rain. Did you know that the Bible is like rain? Listen to this, Isaiah 55, 10. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it. If the word of God is preached, but Pastor Broyhill, any other pastor here, missionaries, if you're preaching the word of God to your people, it's like rain. And if people, if church members get around where it's raining, And I'm not talking about just a gully washer. You know, you just boom, it's there. You know, that kind of rain didn't make things grow. It's probably washed off and gone somewhere. In Kentucky, we used to say that's a crop growing rain. It's just one of those rains that sets in. When you go to a church where the Bible is preached on a regular basis, you'll grow. You'll learn some things. And when you begin to grow, because you've gotten around where it's raining. Now, if you're a church member, You're not growing Then one of three things is true Either in where you go. They are not getting rained on Or you got sin in your life Or you're just dead Zombies I Don't know why zombies are popular these days, but they are You know zombies they have never they have no joy they never smile Zombies still have the grave clothes. Zombies, they walk funny because they never bend their knee. And zombies always talk funny. Oh. Now you know you're around a zombie if you say, are you a tither? Oh. You faithful in church? Oh. You a soul runner? Oh. You read your Bible? Oh. If you're real, you need to go somewhere where you get rained on. And God said, when you get rained on, you're gonna grow. God said that. It will accomplish that which he has sent it to do. Now, in our text, from a child, he said, you've known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise. unto salvation. You know, the Bible says being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And then he said, we all scriptures given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. It'll teach what's right for reproof. It'll straighten you out for correction. It'll correct you for instruction in righteousness. It'll instruct you. When you go with your Bible, and you should always go with your Bible, if nothing else, just to check out and make sure the preacher did it right. I encourage our people to bring their, your pastor's not afraid for you bringing your Bible and checking him out. We want people to bring their Bible and check us out. We want them to look up these things. You know, there are five things you can do to the Bible. And you ought to do all five of those. And the five things, I tell you what, why don't you just hold your hand up, just hold any of, either one of your hands, just hold it up a minute. Let's look at your hand a minute. Now here are the five things. If you wanna know how to get a good grip on the Bible, you know, if I had a sword up here, it has a shaft and a handle. You wanna make sure you know the difference between the handle and the shaft. And if you're gonna grab it, you wanna make sure you get a good grip on it. You don't want somebody to come up and pull it out of your hand and slice you with it. The Bible is likened to the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now here's what you're gonna do if you get a good grip on it. You're gonna hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it. Let's try that. You're gonna hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it. Let's do it again. You're gonna hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it. Now see if you can do it without me. Now, if you do those five things on the Bible, you get a good grip on the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now, if you don't do all five things, let's say that all you do is hear it. When you come to church, now, when you come to a place like Calvary Baptist here in King, North Carolina, you're at least gonna hear it. And so when you hear it, let's assume you're gonna think about. You're gonna think about what you heard. If all you do is hear it and think about it, you're not gonna get a very good grip. But the preacher is saying to look, You're not in church all day long, seven days a week. And of course, we understand that. So you need to read the Bible on your own. And so you said, okay, I'm gonna hear it, and I'm gonna start reading it too. Now, in Timothy, we're told to give attendance to reading. You need to be a reader. I told you about the preacher said that he didn't have time to read the Bible. You ought to be a reader. You ought to read the Bible. You ought to read other things as well. You ought to read for information. You ought to read for entertainment. You ought to read for instruction. You ought to read for inspiration. And Paul said, bring the books, but especially the parchments. Books and parchment. The parchments were the scriptures. Bring those. He's an old man, and he's still interested in books and the parchments. So you become a reader. And you say, well, I don't read good. The reason you don't read good is you don't read. You got to read. Make yourself read. Discipline yourself to read. Even if you start out just reading a little bit. I don't care if you have to put your finger on every word and sound it out carefully. After a while, you'll be moving a little quicker and a little quicker. And you'll be glad you did that. So you're gonna hear it, read it, and I'm assuming you're gonna think about what you've heard and read. And then the Bible, the preacher said, now look, you got a Bible, you're hearing it, you're reading it, why don't you study it? So you study it, you're gonna look up this passage and you're gonna compare it with that passage. And you're gonna be like a lawyer, you're gonna sift through these pages and you're gonna compare and analyze and contrast and those kinds of things. When I'm reading the Bible, I'm looking for, in a chapter, I'm looking for words that repeat themselves. How many times that word's there? God doesn't just say a word to take up space. He is telling us something. And so when you learn little things, and sometimes they are alliterated. For example, the furtherance of the gospel, the faith of the gospel, and the fruit of the gospel, all that will be in Philippians 1, and there starts with an F, easy to remember, but you're reading. And then when you read, because the pastor said you ought to study it, now you're looking at those things, and you're studying the scriptures. And then one day, the pastor just about shocked you. Because everybody knows you can't memorize anything, can you? That's what you say. I can't memorize anything, I'm too old now. I bet you none of you grab a map on the way home tonight and follow it. You know where home is, don't you? You got it memorized. You can memorize. You can memorize. You just gotta be motivated to memorize. There's a guy that was from Eastern Kentucky. His name was Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson grew up in Eastern Kentucky, my state, and he was in the drywall business and made lots of money. Have you ever heard of Hiles Anderson College? He's the Anderson in the Hiles Anderson. Now in Commonwealth Baptist College, Jeff Fugate, who's a friend of mine, Mr. Anderson gave him a lot of money to help him get that school started. Mr. Anderson has property in Hawaii. He's a pretty rich dude. Let's suppose that Mr. Anderson came and asked Pastor Brohill if he could say something, and he was given permission, and he said, folks, God's been good to me. And I wanna share what God's been good to me with and with you. And here's what I'm gonna do. For every verse that you can memorize in one week, I am going to give you $1,000. Are you with me? First of all, you wanna know where the line forms, right? How many of you think, Mr. Anderson, he's got the money, and he's gonna give you $1,000 for every verse you memorize. How many of you think, possibly, possibly, You could at least do one verse between now and a week? How many of you think you could? Now, here's what some of you are thinking. Let's see now. I owe about $8,700 on that car I'm driving. If I can get down about nine verses, I'm debt free on that car. You know what? I'm gonna work real hard. I'm gonna stay up a little extra. I'm gonna get them nine verses down so I'm gonna pay off that car. Now, obviously, I think you see where this is going. Mr. Anderson is not gonna show up. That I know of. And he's not gonna give you $1,000 to memorize a verse. But the Lord Jesus Christ has challenged us to hide God's word in our heart. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Then he said, thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. You don't want to sin against the Lord? You see, if someone says, why don't we go get drunk tonight? Let's go get us a drink. You say, no, no, no. Proverbs 20, verse one says, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging. Whoever is deceived thereby is not wise. You know, when you have the word of God here in your heart and someone wants you to go do something that's wrong, then you can have a verse that would match whatever that is, and you say, I'm not going to do that. You see, there's two words for word. One word in the word was logos, which was the whole word, all of it. But they had another word for word called rhema. Rhema was not the whole word, it was a particular word. For example, you go to the doctor and he says, I know exactly what your problem is. He gets a script down, he writes a little script, says, you take this down to the pharmacist, you give it to the man, he'll take care of you. So you walk in and the pharmacist says, may I help you? And you said, you know, I'm sick and I've been to the doctor, just give me something of everything. It didn't work that way. You got a script? Prescription so you give it to him and he says oh, yeah So he goes over and he takes this this and brings it together here. This is what you did You see there are times you don't have time to read the whole Bible When the devil's knocking at your door, you don't have time to get the whole Bible out But if you've got something hidden away in your heart, you can get that out and the Spirit of God I help you get that out And you know, if we could just get our church members, if I could get my whole family, getting the word of God in their life and all the people in Winkler Road Baptist Church get the word of God in their hearts, it'd stop a lot of meanness and foolishness and sin acting from our people. We don't have anything to counter that. We don't know that we are to submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. We don't know then, so faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And so we don't show up at church so we can increase our faith. I'm saying last night you need a big God. I'm saying tonight you need a Bible. Not just one you're going to carry, but you need one that's going to carry you. You need one that's going to get in your heart and change your life. You know, just a simple little thought like this could be life changing for somebody. I'll tell you a story and I'll be done. I have a preacher friend who used to be a prison guard in Indiana. He wasn't allowed to carry his Bible and talk to the guys, but anybody he could talk to that he could have a verse memorized, they'd ask him questions, and they did, they called him Preacher Man. And he taught a lot of those guys, a number of them, to the Lord because he could talk about the Bible as long as he didn't use the Bible. He could talk it. One day he's going through the dormitory. They call them dormitories. My wife and I was in California a year and something ago, and we're riding down the road, and there was a sign over there. Now this was a prison, but this is what it said, California Men's Colony. A men's colony, it's a prison! So this guy's in the, quote, the dormitory. And there's a guy sitting there and he's leaning over like this and he's got a Thompson chain Bible in his hand. And so the preacher man walked up and he said, just making small talk, he said, understandest thou what thou readest? And this man looked up in him and he said, yes, preacher man, I'm afraid I do. And he told him the story. I was an independent Baptist preacher. I got off into sin. I lost my family. I lost my church. I lost my ministry. I'm sitting here in jail. He said, Preacher, I can tell you right now how it all started. He said, Well, how did it all start? He said, It all started the night I put my Bible down. He said, preacher man, wherever you go preach, you can tell my story. So my friend wrote a little poem. There was a man of God who sat in a prison cell. He had preached the word of God. Everyone had known him well. Now he sits with his head bowed. He hardly makes a sound because one day he decided to put his Bible down. His cellmates, they all wondered why to prison he did go. If he had done his best for Jesus, why is his head so low? They asked, why are you here, Christian? As they gathered round, the man then told the story. I put my Bible down. I thought it was harmless to skip a day or two of reading my devotions. I had other things to do. Then my new nature grew weak and the devil came to town. I could not win the battle because I put my Bible down. I did not know how to fight him. I did not know what to say. For I had not read God's word or took the time to pray. Oh, I went on serving Jesus. How godly I did look, but I did not have the power that comes from God's dear book. So now I sit in prison, an inmate just like you. My reputation is all ruined. My preaching days are through. That is why I hang my head and my face wears a frown. Because I regret that day I put my Bible down. O Christian, hear the message. From this man's prison cell, there are children who need a leader and there are sinners going to hell. There are blessings to obtain. We must win the victor's crown. May you never have to say, I put my Bible down. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?