How's everybody doing this morning? Well, hey, let me turn my deal on here. Now, let's start again. Can you hear me? All right. How is everybody doing this morning? Hanging in there like a loose tooth. I'm very glad to be here. And I hope and pray that the Lord will use me to be a help to you and get this thing kicked off and heading in the right direction, Lord willing. I'm going to start out with a different type of message, but I think it would be helpful for us as we get ready to build a foundation this week, as we start into this morning and this morning during worship service. We're going to have a very special, special type of service this morning, and what I believe the Lord would have me to do this morning. This is a foundation, so I want you to take your Bible and turn to a very unusual passage for somebody that's gonna preach about revival and be invited in, but you'll see, I'm gonna make it very practical. Ezekiel chapter 47, verse number 12, just one verse. Ezekiel chapter 47, verse number 12. And if you wanna stand, you can. If you wanna sit, you can. I'm not gonna, Be upset one way or the other, I want you to have liberty today and then hopefully enjoy being fed the word of God. Ezekiel chapter 47 and verse number 12. Ezekiel 47, 12. And by the river, upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed. It shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because there are waters they issued out of the sanctuary, and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine." Well, glory to God, that just revives us all, doesn't it? I promise you, I'm going somewhere. Brother Jeremy's heard me preach many times and he knows that there's something very practical coming out of this passage. We'll see what maybe it is. So let's bow our head and let's close our eyes. And Brother Jeremy, my good friend, I love so very much. Would you pray for me this morning? Yes. Amen. Thank you. You can be seated this morning. Now I want you to understand that this verse that I just read to you here in the book of Ezekiel chapter 12, I mean chapter 47 verse number 12, I want you to know that it deals doctrinally. Now doctrinally the meaning of the passage is talking about trees that will be planted by the river of life and that river is going to flow during the millennial reign of Jesus Christ on the earth. And what I want you to notice about that tree is talking about here. It says that the fruit on the trees are for meat. And notice this what it says. The leaves are for medicine. Homeopathic. That's good medicine right there. I don't know what this has to do with the message but I looked it up when I was studying to get this message. Many years ago, the word medicine or medicines show up four times in your King James Bible. And this particular tree right here gives out God's medicine. And that's what I want to preach to you and teach you and make maybe a mixture of it this morning. I want to preach to you about God's medicine. And that is the title of my message. God's medicine. Now, if you take medicine and have taken medicine, you know that medicine can come in the form of a pill. It can be liquid. It can be a shot. They can give it to you in a spoon. But medicine is usually used to prevent and treat illness. That's what you use medicine for. And God's medicine treats and prevents spiritual illness. And that's the worst kind of illness. You know our prayer list that we do on Wednesday nights and on Sunday morning. And by all means, listen, if I'm real sick, I want you to put my name on the list and call my name out and ask God to help me because I know that's where the healing power comes from. But many times we forget there's a worse kind of sickness than cancer and diabetes and heart problem. It's spiritual sickness. There used to be a time many years ago when people would pray and they would say, let's remember the sin sick. They don't say that anymore. It's just all about cancer, all about diabetes, all about heart problems. And listen, they're true. They're terrible. If I get some kind of terrible diagnosis from the doctor, the first place I'm going is to the Lord. I'm going to my local church, and I'm getting on the phone and calling my buddies and saying, pray for me. But the worst sickness that a man has is spiritual sickness. God has his medicine. There's different types of medicine. The best medicine that God gives out is the Word of God. He'll give you a preacher sometimes to dispense that medicine, a friend, sometimes a good friend, a good friend, iron sharpeneth iron. That can be good medicine. The Holy Spirit is good medicine to convict you and to show you and speak to you, and that's going to be part of the medicine given to you this week. As I preach and I teach and people maybe testify or sing or whatever happens, the Holy Spirit may be going to show you some things and point some things, and He's trying to get you to take some medicine. Chastisement in our lives can sometimes be pretty good medicine. We need that. A song or a testimony. or sometimes a song does as much for me or more as preaching does because of the message in the music. It can be a great testimony. And I will say this, medicine, remember this this week as I begin to go with this, medicine is not usually very good going down. How many of you have ever drank Robitussin cough syrup? You might as well turn up a bottle of motor oil and drink it. It's about the same. It's horrible. It's just terrible. But if you can get the Robitussin down, guess what it'll do? It will stop the cough. You see, sometimes we have to take some rough tasting medicine to stop the cough, to stop the problems. Keep that type of medicine in mind and that thought in mind this week if something is said here that's like, hmm, that's not very palatable. I don't really want to take that. But God may want to give it to you because he loves you and he wants to help you. Thank God He has some medicine for us that's ready for us when we need it. And some medicine we have right now is this meeting. You know what this meeting should be? This meeting should be spiritual medicine for us. It's spiritual medicine that's going to take care of spiritual needs. We all have spiritual needs. I don't care how long you've been saved. It doesn't matter if you've been saved a short amount of time or a long amount, many years. We all have sicknesses to come up. I don't care what age you are or how spiritual you are. We all have to tend to our spiritual condition and we have spiritual sickness that would show up at different times in our life. And God is there ready to give us some medicine. But the problem is you have to take it. And we'll get into that here in just a moment. Now thank God he does have some medicine with us, for us. And his medicine is always good. You never have to worry about being given the wrong medicine or doing studies on you and tests on you for about $75,000 to $100,000 worth trying to find out what medicine to give you. God's medicine is good. It's not like Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies. You know her medicine she used to go take? She called it medicine, and one time I watched the episode of the Beverly Hillbillies, and they said, Granny, we're just so worried about you. It's so cold, and you're just having to get up in the way you feel going down there to get that medicine. She said, I may feel bad going down there to get it, but I always feel good coming back. I don't know if any of you watched the Beverly Hillbillies. And it's not like Bon Jovi's medicine. Your love is like bad medicine. No, God's love is good medicine. I'm having trouble cracking any smiles this morning, but that's okay. God's love is good, good medicine. I want to think about God's medicine and how that medicine many times is not very palatable, but it sure will help you, and that's what I wanted to do. So I want to look at four things about God's medicine. Number one, here we go. Take the medicine if, if it is prescribed. Take the medicine if it's prescribed. Now in real life, and we have some medical personnel here this morning, so you can help me out if I'm wrong about that. My understanding is that only a doctor or a nurse practitioner can prescribe medicine. If someone else can do it, I'm not aware of it. And Matthew chapter nine and verse number 12 likens Jesus Christ He is likened to a physician and Jesus Christ is the great physician. And he is the only one that's qualified to give you the medicine or let's just put it this way. He's the only one that's qualified to write the script. But anybody can give you the script. And this is what I mean by preaching this point on take the medicine if it's prescribed. It does not matter who gives you the medicine as long as God has written out the script. It doesn't matter if it's a young punk preacher that knows everything or if it's a old great hair preacher that you can't tell anything. It doesn't matter. That's between them and the Lord. What matters to you this week is the truth. It doesn't matter who gives it to you as long as God has written out the script. It doesn't matter where it comes from, if they're younger or if they're older, if they know more Bible than you or less Bible than you. That has absolutely nothing to do with it. If the script is right and the script comes from the Lord, it doesn't matter who tells you to do it, you ought to do it. It doesn't even matter if they're saved or lost. I've heard lost people say some things that were spiritual and that were right and they didn't even realize they had not even been saved themselves. Listen to this. It doesn't matter if they have a bad spirit when they're giving you the medicine or a good spirit. Now I would like for my doctors to have some bedside manners. And that's why this is just my opinion. I hope that I never have another. Male doctor, I like female doctors. My endocrinologist actually goes to my church and she's a female doctor and I try to go to female doctors because they'll actually listen to you and they seem like they care more about you than the men do. Now that may not be true all the way around but they seem that way. And people say, well I just want somebody to diagnose me and I just want some, I don't want you pity. Well I like pity, it's pretty good. I mean all of us need a little bit of pity every once in a while. And I just like dealing with the female doctors better. That's just me. That's just me. But it doesn't matter what kind of bedside manners they give you. Now for an example, if I have some kind of tremendous rare tumor in my brain this morning, that was cancerous and was going to kill me. And they said, well, I want to tell you something. You don't know this, but just an hour and a half from here, right here from Tahoe City, is the greatest neurosurgeon there is in the world. But he is a mean old joker. He'll smart off at you. He doesn't care. Acts like he doesn't care, but he's pretty good. Well, I'm going to go to him. He can smart off at me and talk bad to me, but I want to go to somebody that's got the information, that's got the ability. So Even though I think bedside manners are important, that's not the most important. It doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if they're spiritual or unspiritual. Can I have my water, please? I forgot to take it. Let me tell you a story to illustrate this. I have a cousin that's very close to me. We've always been close and more like brothers than first cousins. And when we were little, we both were saved and then we both got out in the world and did our thing and backslid and served the devil together. And then finally, we both came back to the Lord. We all actually was in the same dorm room in Bible College. He's been preaching for years and I've been preaching. He's a good friend of mine. Now, my first cousin is very unlike me in that he is good at golf. I go and play with him sometimes, but I'm not that great at golf. When I used to play back 20-something years ago, and I played on a regular basis, I was a bogey golfer. That was about it. Nothing great about my golf. But my first cousin as a preacher, he is a very good golfer. Very good golfer. Matter of fact, he shot par several times in his life just for what we call a weekend duffer. And he shot par, and that's not getting mulligans and kicking the ball out of the grass and all that kind. He could, he can't do it now, I don't think, but he could actually shoot par golf. One day we were playing on this course that we play on back in Andalusia, Alabama, where I'm from. It's a course that's connected to the junior college there. And there was an old group of men that played, retired men that played all the time. And we knew them and knew about them and talked to them. And Brother Keith was down there on the green, and he had a putt for par or something and he hit it and missed the putt. It was a putt he should have made or thought he should have made. Now, how many of you have ever played golf and know how frustrating that is? I mean, if you want to test a man's Christian character, take him out on a golf course, we'll find out. If he says he doesn't talk ugly, he may say, well, I don't use profanity. Well, just wait, let's see, let's get you on the golf course, then we'll judge that. Yeah, well, we'll see what the real truth is about you. Well, Keith, my cousin, got upset, and this is what he did. He took his putter and just throwed it. Well, these guys on this other hole that I'm talking about, they saw it, and they were coming up to the next hole, which run parallel to get them around there. So they made them a loop on their little golf cart and pulled up there to my cousin. And there was a fellow there, an old fellow, he said, preacher, I saw what you did. He said, you ought to behave yourself out here, throwing that golf club like that. But first, before I tell you how my cousin responded, let me tell you about this man. This man was a Southern Baptist deacon that cussed and smoked cigarettes all the way up and down the course, cussing, telling things he shouldn't tell, and just out there laughing about stuff he shouldn't be laughing about. Every time we saw him out at the course, just nothing godly about him at all. And all my cousin done was throw a putter, and here this guy's coming out here every day, I think he's a Southern Baptist deacon, cussing and telling things you ought not be telling, smoking cigarettes like there's never gonna be a tomorrow, just sending up smoke signals, and he rides down there and he has the audacity to get in my cousin's face and say something about him throwing that thing. You know what my cousin did? He looked at him and he said, yeah, brother, you're right. He said, I shouldn't have gotten mad, and I shouldn't have threw that putter, and I'm sorry. And of course, this guy pulls off on the golf court. Now listen to me, because if you miss this, you miss a good part of this message. There's people that may have the wrong attitude and the wrong spirit and just getting in your business, or they may have 10 times more things wrong with them than wrong with you. But if God allows them in your life to tell you the truth about you, you're to say, you're right, I'm wrong, thank you. You don't bow up at him and say, well, he's got as many things wrong with me as I got wrong. I mean, wrong with him as I got wrong with me. Who is he to tell me anything? And that's when God can't give you no medicine. If the pharmacist wrote out the right script and I go to somebody working in the pharmacy that knows nothing about medicine and they're mean and they're rude and they're whatever, I don't just say, well you know what, I know I'm deathly sick, but since you're rude to me today, I don't want that medicine. I get sick and tired of baby Christians always with their feelings on their shoulders about some little something that doesn't even matter and they'll put up with all kind of mess out in the world to keep a paycheck coming. to stay in certain clubs and to keep things going, but if anybody ever says anything that sort of gets on them or rubs them the wrong way, then they get mad and blow it up like a bullfrog over it, and you can't get help that way. I can't get help that way. If somebody comes to me that I know is a terrible sinner, or what you might consider a terrible sinner, and gets on to me about something that we consider very minor, You know what my job is to do? It's to say, thank you. You're right. You're right. What you're saying about me is right. But boy, it hurts the pride, don't it? And you know what's going to happen? There's going to be some medicine prescribed here in the next few days. And you can say, well, here's this fellow telling me to do right, and he can't even control his appetite. Look at his gut. This fella's telling me to trust God and he's got Stevie Wonder glasses on. You know, this fella right here told me to do so and so and look at what I saw him do. Yeah, listen, listen, let me tell you something about me. If you're looking for lint, I promise you, you can find it. I can show you some lint you don't even see. I ain't worried about people lying about, I don't ever understood why people have to lie about me, brother. There's enough that's true about me you could tell. Yes, yes, if you're going to have the attitude, well, who is this guy? Listen, you are absolutely right. I am nothing to come here and tell you anything. I got enough I'm struggling with. I got enough I'm struggling with. I'm not, I don't deserve to be here to tell you anything. I know that. But if I give you some medicine from God, it's not between me and you. It's between you and him. I'm asking you to take it not for my sake, not to verify me. I'm asking you to take it because you have a Savior that loves you and he's given it to you to help you. And it doesn't matter how unpalatable it is going down, you've got a terrible spiritual cough and he wants to help you. Number two, not only should you take the medicine if it is prescribed, you take the medicine, number two, when it's prescribed. You need to go home to the pharmacist and get it filled and start taking it. The sooner you take it, the quicker you will get better. Don't be like Pharaoh. That's one of the most unbelievable, disturbing passages in the Bible to me when he's got frogs all over the place and frogs on top of frogs and frogs are everywhere. And he's finally decides he wants to get rid of the frogs. And Moses said, praise God, man, when you want me to do it? And he says, tomorrow. That's where you get that famous sermon. And just about every preacher has their version of it. I think Hugh Pyle was the originator of it. One more night with the frogs. And I've heard just about, I've got my little version of it. I'm not going to bring it out this week, but everybody's got their play on that sermon. And the thing is about it is is that the Pharaoh, he's so stupid and hardened. He says. Tomorrow, I mean, there's frogs everywhere, frogs in the oven, frogs in the microwave, frogs in the car, frogs in the garage, frogs in the bed. Yes, frogs and all these big carry cups like my wife has, is she carrying cups around all the time, frogs everywhere. Everywhere a frog and you know what he says tomorrow Thus the title one more night with the frogs Let me ask you something Why do you want to spend one more night with yourself and in spiritual debauchery when you can get some help today? you go to the pharmacist and you get it filled out and you get the thing going and And sometimes there's nothing to pray about. I'm going to preach a sermon one time. I've been working on it, brother. Entitled, There's Nothing to Pray About. All these things that people want to pray about, I'm like, you don't have to pray about that. That's already been answered. There's some things you do not have to pray about. That's a cop-out. The Lord's already told you what to do. You know that there's something that you need to take care of. Whatever it is, some kind of unconfessed sin in here, something, maybe it's something you're not doing He wants you to do. He that knoweth to do good and doeth not to him in his sin. It could be anything, but whatever it is, it's right now, today is the day of salvation, and today is the day to do what God told you to do. There's nothing to wait on, there's nothing to consider. Right now is the day if somebody winds up here this morning unsaved, right now is the time to be saved. You're not assured of tomorrow. And listen, do you know what the best time in your life is if you're a Christian here this morning to get right with God? The best time to ever get right with God is right now. You're not going to have a better opportunity than right now to get right with God and take the medicine. So number one, you take the medicine if it's prescribed. Number two, you take that medicine when it's prescribed. And number three, take the medicine that is prescribed. You don't take other people's medicine. That's illegal. Don't be fooling with Aunt Bertha's Oxycontin that she's got left over. That's not right. You'll go to jail if they find out about that stuff, okay? Don't be stealing Aunt Bertha's Oxycontin either because you're a drug head. Got real quiet in here. Nobody's stealing anybody's Oxycontin. Listen, listen, you take, you don't get somebody else's medicine. When I'm up here teaching and preaching this week, you know what the Holy Spirit's gonna do? He's gonna take that word that I give you, our brother Jeremy gives you so often, and it's the same teaching for everybody but he's going to deal with somebody over here very differently than he deals with somebody over here because we all have different spiritual problems just like we all have different medical problems and metabolic problems and physiological problems and so that medicine is going to apply differently to different people. So you cannot take somebody else's medicine or even worry about what they're taking. You take the medicine that God gives you out that you need. And you take it, and you take the right medicine. You know, you don't take an aspirin for constipation. And cough syrup won't help a broken arm. I don't know of any blood pressure medicine that'll help your ear infection. I don't know. And it doesn't matter if you don't like it, or if it tastes bad, or if it costs a lot. Matter of fact, once you get sick enough, it doesn't even matter if your insurance covers it or not. I've been through all that. I'm a poor preacher, too. I'm not, you know, I'm not this Joel Osteen and folks on TV that's trying to get you money and your wife or both. That's what they're doing. I'm just a regular average guy that pays my bills and, you know, I'm like you. I go through the same thing. Well, let me tell you something. I've had that struggle where before, you know, I have decent insurance now, pretty high deductible, but good insurance. But I've had that struggle before when I was sick and whatever, like, we don't have any money, I can't go to the emergency room, or I can't get this filled, or I can't do that. But you know what I know? If you get real, real sick, You won't worry about the deductible. You won't worry about what the insurance can do or not. And you won't worry if you have to pay the hospital $25 a month for the rest of your life. You'll go get it. And let me tell you something. There's probably going to be some people here or wind up here in this next few days that's pretty sick. And whatever they're worrying about it costing them, or they have to get rid of or whatever, they need to go get the medicine. They need to start the treatment and let God worry about how to pay it because he's paid it all. And some of you, well, if I do this, then this is going to happen. If I do this, it's going to affect this relationship, it's going to affect work. And if I do this, it's going to cost me here. Listen, folks, listen. When you start reasoning like that, you're already started out on the wrong foot. And you can forget revival. You say, it doesn't matter what it costs me, I'm not well. And God's told me this is what will make me well. So whatever it costs me, it's worth it to be well. And if you could really get a hold of that, really get a hold of that, it will sure help you. You know, some medicines that's prescribed for you can be rebuke, or it can be exhortation. There may be somebody that winds up here this week, they don't need rebuke at all, but they need some encouragement. A certain message, a Sunday school lesson, But when God gives it to you, take it. Because some people treat the Bible and preaching like that. You'll take the medicine you want to take and not take the medicine maybe that you need that has been prescribed for you by the great physician. And that's why you stay spiritually sick. You cannot bargain with God. You cannot take, now God, I'll do this, and I'll do this, and I'll handle this, and I'll take care of this. But don't ask me to fool with this. And God says, no sir. You're willing to do all this and that's not even what's got you so unhealthy. This one thing I'm telling you to take care of that you refuse to let go. That's what's killing you spiritually. And this is what I want you to take the medicine for to deal with. And I pray that you will. You know, I pray that you will. Because I want you to get help. I want you to have revival. I want you to have joy in the Lord. I want to see God keep doing something in this church and with your pastor and with this family. It pleased me unbelievably to see it. Finally, I want to say this today. Not only should you take the medicine if it's prescribed, not only should you take the medicine when it's prescribed, not only should you take the medicine that is prescribed, you should take the medicine as it is prescribed. That's the correct dosage, the correct time and times of day, the amount of times per day, and as many days as the script says. And you know what they usually tell you about some medicines, a lot of medicines? They say, if something happens and you miss your dose, take it as soon as you can. Now listen to me. God's got some medicine for you. And you may be saying, okay, he's prescribed it. He's given it to me. I've got it. But now here's something that's very important. You got to take it like he told you to take it. For an example, I was telling the pastor and Sister Kern, we were talking about last year, I got diagnosed with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, had a big tick get on my side when we went fishing down in Alabama where I was from, made a big old bullseye. And my endocrinologist is actually the one I had an appointment with her. I said, hey, let me show you this thing. And she got concerned. We did the blood test and we found it. All right. I didn't have any symptoms. I didn't get sick. I could have died from it. I found out it's a serious thing. But, you know, when I went to her and she what she did was there's a certain antibiotic that you take for that. Miss Kern knows the name of she named it last night, but I forgot what it was. That's it. And and here's the thing you do. I said it was and I could have been it was either a nine or a 10 day treatment. But you know what I did? I didn't I didn't get to peel number three or day number four. And stop because I was I was feeling pretty good and nothing was happening. You know, I didn't feel like I was gonna die or anything. You know what people do a lot of times when they don't get well? They get something wrong with them and they have to take antibiotics and they get to day three and they say, oh, my tummy don't feel so good. And I've had diarrhea with this. And I just go around feeling so blah. And I'm feeling better now, so about day three or day four of a 10-day treatment, they just quit. And it never knocks the thing out of their system. I took every one of them, just like she told me to. And I want you to know that the bull's-eye rash has been gone for a long time and I never got sick. Praise the Lord. But you listen to me. It's not just enough that you say, I need a prescription, I'll take it from whoever, if it comes from God, I'll take it. You gotta take the dosage right. There's some things that you need to take every day. Like me and Miss Julia sat in the living room together with Pepper this morning, both praying and reading her Bible, probably 30 or, I don't know how long it was, didn't say anything to each other, just praying and reading her Bible. That's medicine you need to take every day. Prayer is medicine you need to take every day, every day. And then there's some medicines you need to take twice a week. You take that on Sundays and Wednesdays. And one day per week, there's some medicine you need to take three times a day. Sunday school, Sunday, and afternoon. And if you miss a dose, whether it's your fault or not, you don't panic. But you take that dose as soon as you can. Now we all have things come up where we can't go to church for work or And listen, listen, I understand, God understands. God's not an ogre up there. Sometimes you have to work. Sometimes you get sick. Sometimes things come up. You get the ox in the ditch. There's nothing wrong with getting the ox in the ditch. Just make sure you don't put them there on Saturday night. It's alright to get the ox out of the ditch on Sunday. I've had a fella call me before and say, Brother Dennis, I'm not gonna be at church today, man. He said, I come down here and my pipes are busted, I got water all in my basement. You know what I said to him? I said, Brother, if you trust God, you just let him take care of it, get you behind here to church this morning. You know I didn't say that. Let me tell you something, if I woke up one morning, I'd have to debate, I'm the preacher, I'd probably say, hey, old brother so-and-so, can you preach for me today? I'm not coming to church. You can judge me all you want, I don't care. I've got a flooded basement. I am not an unreasonable, hard-hearted, mean dictator, Bible believer. Matter of fact, I'm hoping to help people move away from all that nonsense. But what I'm saying is you know the medicine that you need and you know how God wants you to take it. You don't get to decide how you take the medicine. The great physician does. You don't get to decide what medicine it is and when to take it and all that stuff. You have to do what the doctor says and we forsake the similar of ourselves together. It hurts us in our strength for the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not going to help you. It's going to hurt you. I'm asking you. I'm begging you. I'm praying that you will. Take it just like the Lord tells you to. We have to patiently wait for the help to come as we take the medicine. And God is going to provide you some spiritual medicine every day of your life if you're saved. But it's going to be up to you to take it. When he prescribes it, take it. It doesn't matter who gives it to you as long as it comes from God. Don't wait around to start taking it. You need to start taking it right now, right today. Take the medicine that will help you even if it tastes horrible. If you can get it down and keep it down, it's gonna help you. Take the medicine like the script tells you to take it. There isn't one spiritual sickness that you have here today that God's medicine can't cure, not one, but it won't do you a bit of good if you don't take it. And what I'm asking you to do this morning as I get ready to close, I'm asking you to please not let pride, or a bad attitude, or dislike for a preacher, or message, or laziness, or procrastination, or neglect keep you from taking your medicine. Don't be what I've been before. I think that my endocrinologist is a fine lady, and she loves me and tries to help me, but sometimes I am a non-compliant patient. Don't be a non-compliant patient. Dr. Jesus has got just what we need. He's got what I need, and he's got what you need. You say, what is that? That's God's medicine. All right, preacher.