But I want to help you. I told you last week we was going to start a series on maturity, and then I ended up, it blew out in here, and we ended up just kind of preaching off the cuff. And then Thursday night, Brother Bubba gave his presentation. There was some night in there. Was it Sunday night? I preached on some marks of maturity. I want to continue on with that, give you like a part two introduction to the series, and then we'll start going through the elements of maturity, amen? And I just want to give you some of this, and this isn't really like an evangelistic type message. done several series years ago that I really enjoyed and I've restudied some of it. We did that Marriage Matters and that sprouted into a marriage conference and everything else. I was excited about that. I believe that helped, but I believe And y'all know we do things a tittle bit different than some. When you travel around and see this thing, you'll see a lot of high worship, you know, encouraging salvation message on a Sunday morning. Sunday night will be more discipleship. Wednesday night will be Bible study. We kind of flip all that on its head. Tonight, we'll do expository Bible study. On a regular, that's what we would do. Oftentimes, we change things up. But Sunday mornings, that's when we got everybody here. And I really feel like that's when we need to do more discipleship stuff. If I asked everybody to lift their hand if they're saved, the whole room is probably going to lift their hand and say they're saved. And I believe we need to grow in our Christian lives. And I ain't going to talk about all this stuff, but really, if I sat here and asked you, Anything about your eschatological viewpoint, your end times. If you couldn't tell me whether you're pre-tribulational, pre-millennial, post-millennial, amillennial, pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, and why? And if you can't tell me whether you're a literal interpretation of the Bible or allegorical, and if you can't tell me the three groups of people that the Bible is truly written to, if you can't tell me where the historical section is, and you can't tell me what's directly to the New Testament church, and you can't tell me the different things about this Bible, then you're behind. What are we doing? Are we checking a box? Or do you want to learn about what you believe? And you want to be what you claim you are. And I throw a lot of that stuff, and I'm convicted because I want to find a way to better teach that stuff. I got your attention three times a week, and I don't always think that the new answer is something new at a Bible institute. That might be cool. But I ain't taking all that on my shoulders. We need help, amen? And different things like that, but I want our people to learn and at least for you, if you don't believe the way I do, at least be able to say, well, I want to believe in covenant theology. I don't want to believe in dispensationalism, preacher. And this is why. Be able to tell me why you look at your Bible. If you're still one that says, I'm just going with my Bible today, get me a word of encouragement, and just flip it open and read a verse somewhere and say, bless God, he encouraged me. I can move mountains or whatever it is. You probably got some growing to do. And that's what I want. This series could become somewhat offensive in your mind, but it's not my fault. It's not the Bible's fault. If you's a football player, man, are you going to stay on the B team your whole life? You're going to be on the practice squad your whole life? Or are we going to say, this is my craft, this is what I do, this is what I believe, and I'm going to do my best to know this thing? Now as a pastor, my goal is not to build a crowd, y'all know that. My goal is to put out quality men and women that know their Bible. And I believe we've been somewhat successful, the preachers that's come out of here, but it's not just preachers. It's moms and dads that have a family that teach them youngins the Bible. And it's marriages that are so strong because they're Bible-based, amen. Families that learn to quit fighting in the home, and they learn the roles, Bible God-given roles, and what we are to do as parents and Christians. It's growth, man. Lou Holtz said if you're not growing, you're dying. So if you're not, listen, I got convicted the other day, because y'all know I've been having a little busy schedule recently. It comes in spurts, and I got convicted that I wasn't doing enough and listening enough just in my mind. I feel like I'm in my mid-40s. I feel like I'm forgetting things, and all this stuff's driving me crazy, because I used to be sharp as a tack, and I'm wanting to push everything I can in my brain I drove 9 hours to Alabama, I listened to about 8 hours of the Bible College the whole way. History of music, history of the church, authorized King James Version, how to dispute it, and things like that. And Johnny, if I ain't doing that, and I know this is my job, I know I'm the pastor, but if I ain't doing that, I feel like I'm getting behind. I wish as a Christian every one of y'all would feel like, if I ain't studying something in my Bible and learning how to better study this Bible, I'm getting behind. I'm wasting time, I'm being idle, I'm not learning what I need to. If I don't teach people to do that, I feel like I'm a failure. I don't ever have to have a big crowd, I don't have to have a big name, but I want men to grow underneath me, and when I say men, that's mankind. I want women, children, everyone to grow. Here's the thing, maturity, Christian maturity, it takes some time, but it's not equated to time. Just because somebody's old and been here 30 years don't mean they're mature. Oftentimes their families come and tell me how hell-bent they are anyhow. And that don't mean anything. Let me just give you an example of my daughter. My daughter is godly. She has read her complete Bible and almost two times, almost done with the second time now, which is more than 70% of the church by average if you look up the statistics. She does study her Bible every night when I walk in there before she talks on her phone to that boy. She's in there reading her Bible and she's wanting to grow. But let me tell you one thing, girls. You ain't got no excuse to be like, well, I'm a girl. I just don't know that stuff. You need to know theology too. You need to know how to rightly divide the Word of God. You need to understand why we're pre-tribulation. You need to understand why we're pre-millennial. How we look at our Bible. You need to understand all that. But people look at Lauren, and because she plays the piano in the Holy Ghost Falls and things, it was Tuesday in Alabama, and God got in that thing Tuesday night. Glory got on it. It was her without me, sitting over there playing a couple songs, and God got all over it. And you know what people say, well, that's a godly girl. Really? You don't know. You don't know where she is on her maturity level just because she's got a talent. And just because somebody's got a talent, hey, just because somebody can oratate and preach, amen, does not mean they're where they need to be in their maturity level. We need to quit thinking of gifts and talents and all that stuff and start thinking on the maturity of the... There are levels to this thing. There's levels. I want to be a high-level Christian, amen. and your Christian maturity, your level changes who you are and it is evident by the fruit you produce, it is evident by the way you handle yourself in your conversation and lifestyle, it is evident through your reactions, it is evident in your faithfulness to the house of God and the man of God. And if you handle things right in that situation, it's evident in the way you leave or come to a church. It is evident in how you operate in the church. It is evident in how you forgive people. It is evident in how you handle setbacks, amen, and promotions. It is evident in how you handle your suffering. Man, it's evident in a lot of things. So in our text, in John, the beloved, he's writing his first epistle, the gospel of John tells us how to be saved, and his epistles tell us how to know that we are saved. Now I preached the no-sow salvation out of 1 John chapter number 5, how to know you have eternal life, amen? And John chapter 1 describes who the person of Christ is, 1 John chapter 1. Then he goes into conditions of fellowship with him in chapter 2, and he tells us that Jesus is the advocate with the Father and the propitiation for our sins. And he then begins to give us directions in being Christ-like in our lives, amen? But then in verse 12 and 14, I believe he gives us some of these levels I'm talking about, amen? In a roundabout way in who he talks to, he's showing us the levels of where you can be in the Christian life. Let's read 1 John chapter number 2, verse number 12. Well, let's read verse number 1. Let's read them all. My little children, these things write unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ who rises, and he is a propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. Say, people live a certain way, y'all. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked, as Christ walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye had heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, saved, walking in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. You better be real careful about hating somebody. You better be real careful about having problems with somebody. And I ain't just talking about in here, I'm talking about the church you come from, the church you're going to or anything like that. You ain't allowed to have problems with people. You say the light's in you, but then you hated somebody, there's darkness in you. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes. Now here's some words right here. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong and the Word of God abideth in you. And ye have overcome the wicked one. Did y'all see three levels in there? I sure enough did. I've seen John address three different groups of people and say different things to them. I won't preach on those for just a minute. Every born again true believer ought to have a desire to grow in maturity in this Christian life. And it's time, as I said in a message previously, to level up, man. Get out that baby level and get somewhere in your life. Quit letting all the setbacks and every wind of doctrine and every arrow of the devil pierce you asunder and destroy your life, mess you up, and let's become mature Christians. Lord, we love you, God. Help us preach your word this morning, God, I pray. People see the desire in my heart and the compassion, Lord. God, I love these folks, God, and I wanna see people grow. God, help us understand, God, we wouldn't, people, the church wouldn't need half the counseling they get, God, from a pastor from somewhere else if they'd just simply grow in their Christianity, God. We love you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen and amen. Number one, there's the childhood of the believer. Verses 12 and 13, you can look at 12, it says, I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. Then he says in the end of 13, I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. So that's really all he can address the little children about. Because all they know is that they know that they're saved. Now if you're in here struggling to even know if you're saved, you on a level I ain't even preaching about this morning, you need to get right. You just need to receive it. You need to accept it. It ain't hard, man. Don't sit there and fight and think, I don't know if I'm saved, I don't know if I'm saved, I don't know if I'm lost, I don't know this, I don't know this. Just profess Christ and start to live it, man. And God will show you where you're at. We ain't counting numbers. I'm sick of that garbage, man. People just need to, if they say they're saved, they need to live it. If they can't live it, there's a problem. That ain't Lordship Salvation. We're going to struggle, we're going to have setbacks. But there's got to be some progression in your Christian life. Children in Christ, they just know that they're saved. Amen? They can give a testimony like mine that you've heard a million times. They can get up like Bubba and give a solid testimony of knowing when the fact God saved them. When he got under conviction in a Holy Ghost filled service and he went home. And he prayed and he got with God and he got born again. Amen. They can give a testimony like my wife that got under conviction in a service and went home and fell on the ground weeping and crying and got born again. Amen. They can give a testimony like my son Tyler who knelt down on a bale of hay at the age of seven or eight. and called on the Lord and got born again. Amen. But that is the childhood of Christianity. The day you got saved. Amen. I hope you remember it this morning. I was so excited to be saved. I know God didn't pull some of you out of where He did me. But thank God I was so thankful that I didn't have a desire for alcohol no more. I was so thankful I felt all the alleviation of the shame and the pain and the sorrow come off of me that day. And I'm glad I was saved. I began reading my Bible like a madman. I began praying like a madman. It was a new thing to me, man. I was excited. It was like my sin, oh the bliss, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. It was a happy day in my life. And that carried on for a good while. You better never forget that day. I absolutely loved it, but listen. Just like in real life, man, there's levels. We accidentally placed all our kids three to four years apart. And the best I can explain it, when Brock was around 10, and Lauren was around 14, or 15, 14, and Tyler was around 18, or wherever it was. You could see the differences, Johnny. You could see one that was learning things and contemplating life and making life decisions on what he's going to do with his life. You could see that trying to seek wisdom and trying to do right and all that. Then you can see the one in the middle just excited about life, 13, 14 years old, excited about what she's going to be, and saying, I'm going to have a family, and I'm going to have children, I'm going to do all this. That's my dream. I'm developing dreams. I'm progressing forward. And then you add Brock at 10 years old, just like any 10 year old, they just want to have a good time, man. Just want to have fun, just excited to not have any stress or any responsibility, amen. And it's just joyous and fun. Maybe that's why you want to stay in the childhood of Christianity. So you can just shout about being saved and never have nothing else to worry about. But that stuff, don't you, I see that in the Christian ranks. But here's the problem about staying a child, y'all. Children also have problems. Children are lazy. You have to fight with them, unless yours are just perfect, to do a chore. To have a sink empty and the trash empty on a Sunday morning, a week before your birthday, when you get up to go to church. You have to fight to get them to do specific things. All children. You have to... They're rude. I mean, we're re-experiencing it with a little niece. As Lauren comes out and says, Dad, she's just looking right at me wiping the boogers on the wall. That ain't right. That's kind of rude. Wipe a booger on my wall. They self-centered. Same little girl, tell Freddy not to watch this. Same little girl. I'm out traveling, my hips hurt and everything else. Get home from a nine-hour drive and stinking Carla messed up and let her sleep in my bed. I'm like, I gotta lay down, I'm dying. Here's me. Think she owns my bed. Self-centered. Uncooperative. Let me pull your hair up. No. Let me pull you up. No. I'm ripping it down. Uncooperative. Starting fights all the time. Arguing. Mean. Your best friend one minute and then angry at you because you don't leave it on whatever stupid cartoon she watches. You understand them elements are in baby Christians? These churches splitting, people leaving, people going, people, I mean, people getting mad, people fighting over carpet collar, people fighting over getting beds to bring kids into church. I know pastors, amen, that literally have had to fight tooth and nail over and over and over. And you know who always wants to run the service and tell you what ought to be done and tell you what's different and somehow got led of the Lord even though they ain't read their Bible in a year? It's the baby Christians! Always the one giving the leadership the problem and forming the coups to come against everything is the baby Christians. And if you set them down and start asking what they knew about that book, they don't know a thing. Usually. Jeff Foxworthy would say, you might be a baby Christian if you're lazy and you won't serve and you don't pray and you don't read your Bible, but you watch TV all night. You might be a baby Christian if you're rude to other people in the house of God and you've got personal grudges and things in your personal life. He'd say you might be a baby Christian if you're self-centered, always worried about yourself, and no time to do anything else like the prayer and the Bible, everything I just read, but all of a sudden you've got time to do whatever you want to do. You might be a baby Christian if you're uncooperative and causing fusses and you're talking about people in the church behind their back to other people in the church and you got problems and you sow seed of discord, amen, and you're easily offended. You might be a baby Christian, amen, if you're mean to people, nasty to people. Baby Christians are what's tearing up churches everywhere. Half the time it's the pastor's fault because they ain't letting people know they've got to grow. He's trying to encourage everybody every week and keep them babies. And they got a Baptist ratio of 80% where nobody will even be faithful. And that Sunday morning crowd tears up the church. From the youngest all the way up, you have no excuse for not growing. And your maturity as a Christian. Churches are filled with people that are saved, they've never served, they've never been faithful, they've never been to a prayer meeting, they've never had a real prayer life, they've never read their Bible through, unless the American way has caused it, amen? It's cultivated an environment of baby Christians. How in the world can you get upset about things going wrong in your life and you making wrong decisions and all that happening if you just satisfy being a baby Christian? You don't want to mature at all. You know that's when you struggle through life, right? You're gonna see in the next point, but I believe there's a very important aspect that we preach on around here all the time. And I said it in the beginning, man, if you don't know this book and know how to study it, you are a baby Christian. And I don't mean to be offensive. I'm trying to help you because it's messing your life up, not mine. Childhood. For being a child. Secondly is manhood. Look at verse 13. I write unto you, young men, because you've overcome the wicked one. You've overcome. Verse 14. I've written unto you, young men, because you're strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. The overcoming Christian, the warrior, the worker, they're no longer babies, but they serve the Lord and Savior. Listen, American society thinks that people come to church to get something from church. You didn't come here to get nothing. You came here to give something. I understand I'm teaching and doing that, and you come to get something from the Word of God, but you know what I mean. I had somebody graduating in this church many, many years ago, and said the statement right in front of me, well, I've come to this church 18 years, if they don't at least give me a nice Bible for graduation. What in the world, man? The body of Christ is believers coming together to be disciples and learn this word of God so that we can go out and be effective as Christian witnesses in this world and see people saved and born again and not go to hell, amen? Listen, this is not a social club where we're coming to have friends and to hang out three times a week. People are dying and going to hell. and we're coming here to get energized and get excited and learn the Word of God and take it to the world and you can't do it if you're a baby you don't know nothing about the Word of God how in the world you gonna do that The devil does everything he can to keep you a baby. That's why it's hard to read your Bible. That's why it's hard when you start to pray. That's why it's hard to be faithful. That's why the kids fight you. That's why all these different things happen when you're trying to grow as a Christian. You just gotta be dedicated, y'all. If he can keep you as a baby, it's so unproductive. It's the unproductive level, there is no fruit, And you can see it in baby Christians' children as they get older. When you begin to serve God and live for him and give him everything, it changes your life. Satan will do everything he can to keep you trapped where you're at. He'll sidetrack you, he'll throw obstacles, he'll try to destroy your home, your marriage. But really what he wants to do is keep you out of the Word of God. You want to overcome the devil. The only way you're going to be able to do it is through the Word of God. I'm going to preach tonight, probably on the day, that's where we're at in Ephesians, chapter number 6, verses 1 through 4 or 5. Just talking about what we battle against. He's powerful, y'all. You ain't got a chance against Him. You ain't got a chance against Him. All you've got is this Word of God right here to help you. And the power of God is the only way you can do it. I've written unto you, young men, be strong, and the Word of God abideth in you. Does the Word of God abide in you? Is there any of it in you? I stink at memorization. I need to do better, and it convicts me and bothers me. And that's why I've decided lately, I've struggled the past week, but a week before, I was listening to a Pauline Epistle every day. If you drive to Charleston, you've got time to listen to a Pauline Epistle on your way to work or wherever you're going. Romans takes about an hour or so, a little bit longer, Corinthians a little longer, but any of the shorter epistles, you can listen to one on the way to and fro instead of whatever you're listening to. I'd say 95, I ride in silence all the time, drives my family crazy, but I'd say 98% of y'all listen to something while you're driving. And could I tell you gospel music ain't doing jack for you. Your Southern Gospel album, it may encourage you a little bit for a couple minutes, that's fine. But if you're solid just listening to music for hours, what is that doing for you, honestly? It's entertaining you, which is not what Christian music was even designed for in heaven by God. I can't even think on the things of God when Sissy wants to listen to music. And I say, turn it off, honey, I can't even think. I'm trying to think of a conversation. I'm trying to think how to help counsel this person. I'm trying to think what to say to this preacher. I'm trying to think about this message. I'm trying to think about the things of God. The devil wants to keep you busy even if it's with southern gospel music as you're driving down the road. Sermon audio. Y'all know we use that, right? Are y'all familiar with that now? That's, there's some Calvinism on there, but that's mostly independent fundamental guys. You understand that? Thousands of them. Thousands of them. I can give you a list. Go on there, list the Charles Lawson. Go on there and list David Peacock. Go on there and listen to some different guys. You gotta get to manhood at some point in time. If you're not reading your Bible, you don't know your Bible, you are a baby this morning. Listen to me, I ain't trying to be mean, but you're a lesser man if you don't read your Bible. You are. You're a lesser husband. Ma'am, you're a lesser wife and a lesser mother if you don't read your Bible. If you don't know that Bible. I dearly, I truly want you to read it. I truly want you to be in it. I truly want you to study it. I am looking, if I gotta build a pamphlet on my own and make one to give you, I will, but I'm trying to find a pamphlet to help people understand and study and put all the different things together that we talk about so when you read your Bible, you'll be able to use it and apply it to your life. If you don't read your Bible, it's gonna end up bad, y'all. I use that illustration back in the day about mowing grass. I don't know if any of y'all remember it. I think it's been a good while. But I was cheap when I lived down there on Campbell's Creek. My daddy gave me an old plain push mower craftsman. And my whole yard was about as big as the front yard here and there. So I wasn't getting nothing new. I mean, I'm telling you that thing was probably from the 80s, Blake. It was beat to death, brother. And I try to cut that grass. And what I do is every summer, I'd put it off that first cut. Y'all do it too? I'd keep putting that first cut off. And then finally, I'd go out there and do that first cut. Well, we lived up a holler like this. Mouth of Campbell's Creek. And there was sandstone on that back hill and a right of way going upside the hill to a tower. Rocks fell down off that hill all the stinking time. I'd go out there and cut in a foot of grass. Just like we saw the neighbor doing Brock. Whang! I always held it down. Whang! Whang! And it goes everywhere. Drop it down. Whang! Go a foot at a time. Bogging down. Hold it up. Shoot it. Start it. I'd be in that backyard. Whang! Pow! Blow one of them pins. Hey man, hit one of them rocks. And it'd take me hours to get that grass cut. It ain't no bigger than that. Should have took 20 minutes. And I struggle through the thing for hours and hours. I get done with it. I've tore things up. I've messed things up in my life because I hit things I did not see that I could have known about if I'd have kept it trimmed. And I get to the end and I look back, Johnny, and there ain't nothing but big old clumps of mess everywhere, high spots, low spots and a broke down mower. I'm trying to tell you that's your life if you don't stay in this book and keep the sin cut down and keep everything where it needs to be, amen. You're going to get to the end of your life and you're going to look back at a messed up life and a bunch of messed up children and there's gonna be a lot of things broken in your life that you cannot fix but if you just say I'm gonna pick up the Word of God today and become a man in this thing God will give you a nice manicured little lawn. Amen. You can play putt-putt off that thing. You'll still have troubles. Yellowjacket's nest, things like that. But man, don't a good manicured lawn look good? Amen, I told Hannah she should have done weed, eat all them weeds down there, Blake. I know she likes doing that stuff. I want victory over the devil in my life. I want victory for my family. You've got to grow up in this thing. Read your Bible, but also have a desire to rightly divide it and understand it and know what's for you. Text me. Call me. Message us. What's this mean, Pastor? Man, it's some of the best times in my ministry is when people start coming and start hitting me up with, what's these verses mean? What in the world's this? What's that? And we get to talk Bible. Some of the best times, Johnny, is when we have prayer and those nine of us that it used to be nine strong, we'd sit around here and we'd talk about theology and everything else and crazy beliefs and all that stuff. And I used to be fearful of encouraging my people to study deeper and study other men's writings and different things like that because I was worried because other men have bones you got to spit out. We know that, Delbert. Different guys may be great on some things, but then here's this one cuckoo thing they got. You got to be mature, but I want you to grow. I'm not saying a shouting message and all that stuff. Our church, look at us, guys. All these kids, good grief. The numbers seem to be going up. We got all these young'uns. The most important thing right now is for us to have real growth and not swelling. What's a dead animal do on the side of the road? That dead deer gets hit. It swells. That ain't growth, y'all. That's what a lot of these churches are doing. Y'all been watching the same videos I do about them whales exploding and killing people? Elephants, if they don't let the gas out right, it'll literally explode like an atomic bomb and kill people. Huh? Go watch you some videos on that, it's beautiful. The gastric juices exploding out of a large dead animal. Because it's swelled up, that's what's happening to these churches, y'all. That's what's happening in churches, they're packing them full of baby Christians playing their rock and roll contemporary garbage, playing their K-Love services, flashing their light shows and their smoke machines and singing Kumbaya, amen, 7-11 songs and all that garbage, and it's packing the house full of people that are coming to a party, amen, and they're a bunch of babies and it's swelling, and at some point in time that thing's going to explode! We've got to grow. We've got to have real growth. Real growth. Manhood. Start studying your Bible, amen? Fatherhood. Verse 13 and 14, I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning, I have written unto you, fathers, verse 14, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. Says the same thing twice. See, fathers have experience. They've been in the thing a little bit and they've decided to grow while they're doing it. You hear me? That means they have wisdom, they have understanding, they have Holy Ghost discernment, they can reproduce, they can teach people, they can help people, they provide for others. That's what a father does, amen. And they know him. You know what, knowing him, that's not talking about salvation. They know him because they've been around him like Enoch that walked with God. You learn to pray and you learn to walk with God and you grow as a Christian, amen. And God helps you and gives you understanding and discernment and wisdom, amen. When you get around somebody, you become like them. Iron sharpeneth iron, amen. And I believe that's what's going on around a bunch of our men. I don't know how many of us listen to some of these wise teaching preachers. I told somebody yesterday, we preached down there in Alabama at another church on Wednesday, and I told that young preacher, I said, listen, and one preacher told him, you need an encouraging preacher, you need a Bible preacher, and you need a different one. I came here, I said, brother, you do whatever, and I agree with that. But for me, I want a teaching preacher to help me grow in the ministry. That's what I listen to. Here's the thing. Age doesn't really necessarily... You've got to have some experience under the belt. But I'm literally watching my 22-year-old son. I'm glad he ain't here. His head gets big real easy. Oh yeah. But I pushed him and he says, quit saying you help me because it makes me look like I'm a robot or something. Half that contemporary stuff you fighting is because I done said it in the house, son. But I pushed him into hermeneutics and homiletics and Bible survey at the age of 13, 14, 15. I didn't say school was important. I said the Bible's important. I understand you got to get good grades. I understand that. But this is what's important. And we try to push it. And I'm literally watching 30-year-old preachers ask him questions and try to get things from him because they know and they won't fight with him. And I've sat and watched him sit and debate with 60-year-old men. He's been doing this thing a long time and apologetically, in kindness and love, say, well, how come it says this? Because this is in the Bible and this is what I believe. And I've watched older men get to a point where they're like, oh, okay. And he's becoming a leader. He's becoming a spiritual leader. He works hard. He studies all the time. And I believe our men have helped, too, as we sit around and talk. And he'll go home and study what we talk about and the theology that we talk about and the spiritual life that some of us have. And we've seen that reproduced in my son. Thank God! And I want to see that reproduced in all of us. Amen! I'm thankful for those that have said, Preacher, what's that e-sword thing? Can I put it on my phone? Brother, that last prayer trip was amazing. Everybody down there, Jeff was slinging it like commentary crack, man. He's slinging stuff, people's coming, hey Jeff, can I get that commentary you got? Yeah, man, here, I'll put it on your device. And then they go over and somebody else says, Jeff's got the good stuff, Jeff's got the good stuff. I said, hey man, I know I don't know you, Brother Jeff, but can I get that stuff? That's what the whole prayer trip was like, man. He was slinging commentary crack. There's a program called eSort you can put on iPhone or Droid. And it's got every public domain commentary on there. I believe I showed Brother Josh and some different people, every public domain, it's like having an entire library on your phone. If you text me about a question on a verse, I can read that verse and get the understanding of it from what the Holy Ghost gives me, and then I can read nine different dudes, Albert Barnes, Clark, Amen, Jameson Fawcett Brown, Matthew Henry, Warren Wiersbe. I can sit there and read, guys, and get thoughts. That's where you ought to be on your Bible. I want you to be able to read God. Now, when we start reading commentaries and things like that, we need to learn what those men believed that's a little bit different than us. Some were all millennial before the 1900s. There was a revival of premillennialism in World War I. I believe the first founding fathers of the church from A.D. 50 or 90 when New Testament was completed to A.D. 323, 85, 90% of them was premillennial, pre-tribulational. Eternal security. But then that guy got in there and started teaching the allegorical hermeneutics, which brought about the Catholic Church, which brought about Calvinism, which brought about covenant theology, brought all that stuff out. And the Catholic Church hid the word of God from people for all the dark ages. Then the Protestant Reformation comes in, but all those priests in the Protestant Reformation, Luther and Swingly and all them guys were ex-Catholic priests that retained the Catholic hermeneutics, amen. And when World War, everybody was all millennial and thought, we're living in the millennial kingdom and all this stuff, then World War I hit. I just read the history yesterday. And they said, whoa, this is hell. He said, this can't be the millennium. Everything ain't getting better. World War I. And then premillennialism was revived. So understanding a little bit about how our church history and Bible's written, all that is so interesting. And I'm praying after a message like this, some of y'all come up and say, give me a book, preacher. What's that one about the history? Trail of Blood? Yeah, let me get that. I remember handing out 30 of them to the church a long time ago. How many of y'all read a Trail of Blood? Good, good amount 10, 10, 12 of us. And we've got to read, I'm gonna get you a rightly divided one, either C.I. Scofields or Clarence Larkins, one of them, I'm gonna read them. I'm gonna read them all here shortly and give you the one that I believe is closest to where we're at and be able to give you any disputations and things from it. I'm thankful for those that have Esword on their phone. I'm thankful for those asking about the commentaries to buy. Thankful for those in the church that have decided, I'm gonna read my Bible every year. 40 to 50% of us go eat steak every year because they read through the Bible. That number's getting a little bit less every year, it seems like. I love the men that are coming to the prayer trips. I love the real progression that we've seen. But when somebody doesn't, I worry. When I don't see any growth, sometimes see fear of salvation on people's faces when we're preaching on hell. It's worrisome because we're a family and we love each other. I was on Facebook the other day and I posted that thing about premillennialism and of course some young preachers said what in the world is he talking about? I used all the big words, eschatology which is end times, pneumatology which is doctrine of the Holy Ghost, but I put all that on there But then one person commented on there with just a meme that, to me, meant confusion. Like, what in the world does this mean? I ain't gonna say no more than that. All I'm gonna say is I don't want any of y'all to get any confused about our Bibles or what we believe. And I'm trying to find the best way to get it in our heads, to truly understand this stuff. There's a guy teaching theology classes on Monday night. There's just four or five people that go. It's just a local church pastor, Josh Barkley, that's just trying to do something for the Lord. I took four or five of our guys up there, and he's teaching on the Bible. He's teaching on Bible theology. He's going through a systematic theology book. Wouldn't it be awesome if like 30 people from our church went and pack his place out? It sure would be awesome for me for you to really want to know what your Bible's talking about. Where are you at this morning? Come help me, sissy. How do you grow like a tree? It takes life. You've got to be alive. You've got to be saved. If you're not saved this morning, come get it. He's not willing that he should perish. He wants to save you. It takes time. It doesn't happen instantly. You can make it move along faster. Believe that. But it's not an instant thing. You gotta decide to do it. You know what it takes? Nutrients. Word of God. Prayer life. Sometimes I almost feel like I'm so redundant I ain't helping because it's the same thing over and over. Prayer life. Bible study. But how many of you studied it this week? How many of you divided it and looked at it? Maybe went a little farther and maybe looked at some studies of other men and different things. Is this thing real to you this morning? Is it really? really real your life what you do or are you going to just go home and not touch that Bible not really pray till you come back Thursday night I don't know how to encourage you or make it dramatic for you or whatever I'm just gonna tell you you're gonna end up just like that grass cutting illustration with a way better life if you decide I want to be an adult Christian I want to make it to fatherhood one day. Then verses over in Titus says the aged women of the church teach the young women to be chaste and to be holy. That's what the real church is, y'all. Let's grow from each other, y'all. We decided this morning, you're going, whatever it is, read the Bible, pray, get closer to God. You want to grow in this Christian thing. We'd be real with yourself. older person say you know what I'm still baby I'm gonna try and do something different she's gonna sing I'm gonna pray then y'all do what the Lord leads you father we love you Lord we praise you thank you Lord for who you are and what you do God I pray Lord you'd change our church Lord I pray you'd use our people I pray you'd do something in us Lord in Jesus name amen amen There are trophies to be won, successes there to claim. And some would sell their very soul to reach Earth's high.