Look, if you will, please, we're going to go, we left Ephesians 4, go to Colossians chapter number 1, and we're talking about long-suffering. I'll tell you what let's do. Come to 2 Corinthians 6. Let me talk just a minute about faith. Paul said, I've fully known my faith. It comes after the purpose there. So what I want you to know is, is how can I demonstrate faith? That's a better point for me to do it. Now, let me say this. Your faith is not demonstrated until you go through tragedy or trouble. When you go through tragedy or trouble, people can see what it is you're claiming to live for. I was talking to Leanna about a few other things, and we had a brief conversation about that. The only way unsaved people can tell the difference in you and other people is for when you go through trouble, it's how you handle the trouble. Otherwise, you're just like anybody else when they go through trouble. You come all to pieces and stuff. But a Christian ought to be able to go through trouble and problems, and they see that your faith is in something greater than you. It's good to say I'm saved, but people believe, whether they believe you're saved and have the eternal picture, they don't believe you have a relationship until they see you go through something that is beyond explanation, and they want you to go through that thing, and they're thinking to themselves, how are they getting through that mess? How would I go through that mess? And the answer is, is that if it wasn't for the Lord Jesus Christ, I wouldn't make it through the mess. So that has to do with that. Paul is going to show you that here in a second. Look, if you will, please, 2 Corinthians chapter number 6. And if you would, just pick it up in verse number 4. Paul says, but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities and distresses, in stripes and imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers yet true, as unknown yet well-known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet processing all things." Now, here's what the Apostle Paul just said to you there. If I'm going to know what faith is, I mean, if I'm going to believe in something, I have to know first of all what I believe. There's your doctrine. What do you believe in? Well, what you believe in comes to the test when you go through the things I just listed for you there. Turn on the air conditioner, please. I gave you those things listed. Nearly every one of those things is an outward demonstration of what you believe on the inside. How are you going to go through persecutions and troubles and trials and difficulties? You say, what's the purpose of that? Have you ever wondered why the Lord allows that to happen? It's so people that don't have the faith you have can see it demonstrated because they don't understand the spiritual side to that. Look, you are a part of a different relationship. First of all, you have a relationship, not a religion. Every other religion, including Taoism and Shintoism, including the Muslims and Islam and that kind of a thing, you know what they say to you? They say to you, get cleaned up and then come to our religion and our religion will make you. Once you get clean, then we'll keep you clean. You know what Jesus Christ says and Christianity says? He said, I'll take you just like you are. You know what they say is after you get saved, everything ought to be okay, everything ought to be fine, and after you come join their religion. You know what the Lord tells you? The Lord tells you everything is settled for you in eternity, and everything is settled for where you're going. But He never lies to you. He tells you, guess what? Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Why, preacher? Not just because you're an off-scouring to the world. Not just because you're different than the world. Not just because you're highly separated and don't do everything the rest of the world does. It has nothing to do with that at all. It has to do with Jesus making you a witness. There's more witnessing than just with your mouth, the death, the burial, and the resurrection. There's more witnessing than just, you know, I dress right, I look right, I don't go to the bar, and I don't go here, and I don't go there, and I don't cuss, and I don't smoke, and I don't drink, or whatever thing you want to put out there. No, there's nothing in there about that. Paul doesn't say, and I stayed out of the bars and stuff like that, and I didn't go to the strip club, and I didn't hang out at two o'clock in the morning with the dope dealer down on the street because somebody would think the wrong thing about me. I didn't run around with the girls of the night time and those kind of things. I didn't hang out with the gamblers and the people that were robbing people and all that. None of that's in there. Paul doesn't tell you I didn't smoke or drink or cuss or any of that other stuff. Paul said, no, how God made me a witness was by putting me through things. Now, we talked about that a little bit this afternoon. I have always had kind of a fear, a kind of a, I hope and pray the Lord to give me the grace if there were to really be persecuted. I'm talking about like Fox's Book of Martyrs persecuted. I'm talking like Martyrs Mirror persecuted. Hey, man, good to see you back in here from California, I guess. Good to see you. I'm glad you're here. I don't have my glasses, but I can see you well enough to know you're back there. Good to see you. So here's the thing. I've always prayed that if that were to happen, if they were to really persecute you, and I ran, they just had a guy who was a world-class wrestler. Wrestler, excuse me. I'm from the South, Rassler. But he was a world-class wrestler, and he had some things that he said against the government and stuff, and the government took him in, and believe it or not, several of the countries went to bat for him and said, you know, don't kill him and all that. They tortured him till he confessed. So whether he was guilty or not, you don't really know, because you get a confession out of somebody when you're torturing them, it goes to the amount of pain that they can tolerate, and then they finally tell you whatever it is you want to hear, because you just want the pain to stop. Now, I realize you think you can handle all that kind of stuff, but man, I mean, drilling your teeth and pulling your fingernails out and doing ungodly, unspeakable things to you, I mean, more than just hanging you up by your arms and stuff like that. I mean, anyhow, they tortured him, and then they killed him. And I thought to myself when I read that just recently, I thought to myself, could you be tortured for Christ? Paul was. Could you be tortured for Christ? Peter was. Could you be tortured for Christ? Christ was. Could you be tortured like the martyrs that were in Martyrs Mira? That's hardly ever mentioned anymore. Back when I first started preaching 30 years ago, 35 years ago, that was one of the things that was talked about on a regular basis. People that were getting hung up and people put on the hot squat, people burned alive, people put in the burning calf and stuff like that. People tortured and boiled in oil and all those other kind of things and doing just horrible, horrible things to them. And nowadays hardly anybody mentions that. Well, those days may return. they certainly will return in the tribulation. In the tribulation, if you don't take the mark of the beast, they cut your head off. But that's the end to a life. I hope that there's not anything that takes place prior to that, but I'm not going to be in the tribulation. But neither were the other people that were tortured that are your ancestors. Spiritually speaking, they paid a price just to be able to be baptized. If you were baptized, you pulled away from the Catholic Church and you didn't believe your baptism saved you, you know what they'd do? They'd catch you, they'd hang you on the end of a pole and put your head in a sack full of rats or a sack full of rattlesnakes and then dip you down there. They called it dunking. they'd dip you down there in the water and make those snakes react and make those rats react and they'd start chewing on your head and then they'd pull you back up and then they'd put you back down and then they'd put you back up until they just bit you and just bit you and just bit you with your hands tied. What are you going to do? How are you going to shake it off? How are you going to do that? Laughing and mocking and making fun, tying people to the ground, staking them to the ground at low tide. and watch when the tide comes in there and laugh and talk about them being baptized. I mean, mock them, belittle them, make fun. I mean, I don't know about you. I think maybe worse than having that happen to you is watching your loved one have that happen to them and saying, if you'll just, you know, go ahead and deny it, the Lord will take care of it and we'll put them to a quick death. All I'm saying here is in this passage, the Apostle Paul shows you something about how your faith is manifested to people, and it's not always in dressing right and spitting white. Sometimes it has to do with you going through a divorce, or going through a death, or going through a disease, or going through some kind of problem that manifests your faith to unsaved people and backslidden Christians. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter number 2, For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they are spiritually discerned, neither can he know them. What can he know? He can know by looking at me where my heart is. The Lord, people can look at me and say, oh, the Lord saved me. How do I know you're saved? Well, he went through that particular trouble right there, and something was different about how he handled it according to the way other people did. Now, you may or may not believe, but that's how your faith is manifested. Watch this. The apostle Paul tells Timothy, look at 2 Timothy chapter number two. Make it 1 Timothy 4. He tells Timothy to be an example. Why would he tell Timothy to be an example? That's it, 1 Timothy chapter number 4. Come all the way down, if you will, in the interest of time, look at verse number 12. He's talking to Timothy and he's telling him to command and teach these things in verse 11. Verse 12, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou what? He didn't say upbraid him. Rip them. Tell them, you know, tell them that, you know, I've got the power, I've got the authority. Apostle Paul's behind me. Paul laid his hands on me. Paul ordained me to the ministry. Who do you think you are? That ain't what he said. He said, be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance to reading, exhortation, so on and so forth. You know what he said? He said, Tim, the way you're going to win people is be an example to them. be an example to them in trouble and trials and tribulations. That's when Paul said, you fully knew my faith. How do we know that, Paul? Second Corinthians 11, I demonstrated it for you. Second Corinthians 11, I demonstrated my faith must be in something other than the Shemitah and the blood moons. It must be in something other than the Torah. It must be in something rather than the phylacteries around my hand or the little thing in front of my face. It must be more than just the Jewish law. I counted all that but dung. Why? I met somebody that means more to me than any of that. That's what Paul's trying to get across to him. He said, you knew my faith. You knew my faith wasn't in the law. You knew my faith wasn't in religion. You knew my faith wasn't in the temple. It wasn't in where I was born. It wasn't in my heritage. It had nothing to do with my background or how I was raised or being trained to defeat Gamaliel. I never put any faith in my law degree whatsoever. Paul said, I had a faith greater than that. My faith was in Jesus Christ. Now that's a great testimony. And you say, what do you have to do? People say, well, I'm not much of a witness. You know what? Maybe right now you have people taking care of their wife, having to stay home with them all the time. And you say, why? Because their wife's unable to take care of themselves. Their wife's an invalid. What are they doing? Good witness, good testimony. You say, why? Doing what they have to do to take care of their family, to watch out for them because they've had the unfortunate thing happen to them where the wife's half out of their mind or so feeble they can't get around. You say, what do you think about that? I hope to the good Lord that made me that she don't have to do that with me. I've had many a friend of mine or people that I have known that had to take care of somebody, laid around there in diapers and stuff. You say, what do you think about that? People watch that. People pay attention to that. People say, man, how are you able to do that? God gives me the strength. God takes care of me. God watches over me. God's the one that's doing that stuff. You ever realize the only reason you're not laying there like that? is because of God. Do you ever pause to thank God? I mean, not to dovetail too much into this morning, but you ever just thank God that, Lord, thank you, I can still walk. I'm at that nursing home today and I'm sitting there. She's going through everything like a house of fire and folding clothes and hanging up clothes and making sure things are right. We hadn't been there in a while, you know, and when she was going all the time, it was able, she's in there and she's buzzing around and talking to him and I'm talking to him and stuff. And I'm watching them people, you know, And I'm thinking, my Lord have mercy, man. Nobody but a nurse to take care of them. A bunch of senile old people taking care of senile old people and wanting just somebody to come by to visit with them. They don't have to know who you are in the first place. They just figure anybody that's there that's not like them must be there to see them. It's a whole world revolving around them. And I'm sitting there saying, Lord, thank you. Lord, thank you. Lord, thank you. I hate to say I was so selfish. I'm saying, Lord, thank you. I'm not like that. I'm asking, please don't let me be like that. I don't want to be like that. Please don't let me be like that. What a terrible thing to be that way at the end of your life after living your entire life. And that's what's left of life for you. You can't remember whether somebody was there the day before or talk to them 15 minutes ago on the telephone. What a way to go. You ever thank God for that? You ever pause to just think for a minute about the people that have to put up with folks like that and deal with that? A friend of mine had to take care of his wife before he died. He died, let's see, two years ago now. Ran prisons with us for a long time. Helped to get us in over there in Tallahassee. And his wife lost her mind and run around the house. And they've been together for years and years and years and years. Grew old together. And she'd come around the house. She didn't even recognize who he was and him taking care of her. It's pretty bad when you get to the point where you can't even remember how you're supposed to go to the bathroom and when and where you're supposed to go to the bathroom. I'm just being real with you. You say, what'd you do? I watched that man deal with all that stuff he dealt with in prisons and be a chaplain and be a Marine and be on the SWAT team and do all the stuff he did as a policeman and a police chaplain and all that other kind of stuff and being there in that jail. And I got to tell you, it was a remarkable thing. But the thing that stood out for that big old bull more than anything was, is he had the kindness and the compassion to do what he needed to do to take care of that woman. I wound up, called me the day that he checked her into the place. He got where he couldn't take care of her. He had heart trouble and all kind of other stuff going on and called me, big old bull of a man in his 70s, and he called me and said, well, Brother Peacock, he said, I had to put her in a nursing home. I can't take care of her anymore. He said it was pitiful to stand there and look at her at the door just crying and bawling. You see what that did? I saw a demonstration of his faith. in something bigger than Him. That's how people see your faith. You say, what is faith? You can't, you can't. No, no, that's demonstrated. By when you go through, what do you believe in? Paul said, I know in whom I am believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep me against that day. Paul said, nothing will separate us from the love of Christ, height or depth or angels or principalities or powers and things to come and things below and things above and so on and so forth. Nothing shall separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, but it sure tries. In that passage, he says death and tribulation, angels and principalities. Don't those things come your way? Making a little bit of sense of suffering or trying to, to help you to understand. That's how God uses you as a witness. That book back there in my office, Martyr's Mirror, it's that thick, looks like a Webster's Dictionary, looks like a Strong's Concordance. It's full and little tiny writing. I can hardly read it anymore without backing away from it, being able to see it, little tiny writing. And two columns on both sides, on both sides of the paper, through about 600 pages of that thing. And you go through reading that thing and look at that stuff and you got to think to yourself, you have got to be kidding. What is that? That's God using them to be a testimony of something greater than them. I believe what that Bible said, but one of the reasons I believe what that Bible says is I've seen people who've been affected and infected by the God of that Bible. I've seen the stuff they've gone through. I think of a guy that I know by the name of David Ring. I haven't seen him in quite some time. David Ring, he's got to be getting on up there in age now. That guy is the guy I told you about that had cerebral palsy. He leans over the pulpit. He was singing Victory in Jesus and all that, slobbering all over the pulpit and all kind of stuff. I remember him sitting in the living room talking to my daddy. Nobody knew who he was. Didn't know him from Adam's house, Cat. I was there when he was talking to him and stuff. He knew my dad well. And he's up there on the hour of power or something that Falwell had going back in the day. I can't remember what that was, the major majority or something or another. But at any rate, he's up there and he stops that big old choir. That place was packed full. That's back in the days. Very few people on television. There wasn't no YouTube or none of that other kind of stuff. Not everybody was a star and all that kind of a deal in those days. Nowadays, there's so many stars in the church, you can't even find Jesus. But at any rate, he's up there and he stops and he leans over the pulpit. He's twisted up. He looks like a pretzel. And he says, I've got cerebral palsy. What's your problem? I'd just come in off a midnight shift and I said, I ain't got no problem, man. I ain't got no problem. Oh my goodness, man, you got to be kidding me. If I was born like that, would I be in the pulpit? You say, what do I do when I see it? I see his faith. I see his faith in something greater. God never healed him. God never healed him. He never walked a straight day in his life. Twisted from the day he was born. Born that way. God never healed him. God never touched him. God never did anything for him other than call him to preach. What a thing, call a guy like that to preach? You ever pause to think about that? You say, what is that? That's a demonstration of God's faith. He preaches without opening his mouth. Stands up there in a pulpit shaking and twisting and trembling and that kind of a thing. Now, let me ask you a question. If God can use somebody like that, could He use you? He probably got 10 times the talent He had. Would it be maybe the problem is you just wouldn't surrender? You'd rather use what God gave you for yourself instead of using it for Him? I don't mean to put no pressure on you, but when people pray that prayer, you know, Lord, do whatever you want to do. You know, it's one of the oddest prayers I've ever heard in my life, some of the stupidest things I've ever heard come out of Christian's mouth. Lord, you know, if it be your will, make me holy. You're talking to a holy God and he's already told you in the Bible, be holy as I'm holy, right? And you say, if it be your will? What do you mean if it be your will? He wants you to be holy, right? He wants you to be clean. But I hear individuals say, you know what, Lord, I surrender all. You surrender your health? Yeah, that's a tough one. You let God put you in a hospital. There's a black preacher that I know. I don't know him very well. There's a black preacher I know, had a brain tumor and some things like that, and God put him in there and just about let him die in that hospital. Didn't know if he was ever going to walk again, ever going to come out, ever be able to speech. His speech center was all messed up and all that other kind of stuff. Went through all kind of stuff like that, and the guy can preach too, but I don't know if I'd want to go through what he went through and not know if I was going to come out just for the sake of having that kind of power. You say, what do I see distributed? I demonstrate it. I'm not talking about his oratory capabilities. I'm talking about the faith that he had to go through the trouble he went through and to be able to come out on the other side and not be bitter at God. I'm talking laying in a hospital bed for a year. I don't know about that. That's faith demonstrated. I can tell you my mom and daddy, I saw their faith demonstrated, not just in raising us three kids and stuff like that. My sister was pretty close to perfect. Me and my brother were maybe not so much, but I see their faith demonstrated in the fact that when they first started off and gave up everything, they thought it was a big deal just to get a pack of chewing gum and have a stick of chewing gum for dessert. a cable spool for a table and a couple of wooden crates to sit on there, happy as they could possibly be serving Jesus and their baby dies. You say, what do you see in that? I see faith demonstrated. I see people coming by and saying, well, that preacher must believe something more than in seminary. He must believe in something more than just, he must have something going on. I mean, how do you go through something like that after you've promised to serve the Lord and love the Lord and do what God told you to do and give up the potential to do all that other kind of... By the way, let me just say this about that. You'll never give up anything that God won't replace it ten times over. Don't you ever get the idea that whatever you gave up, God won't fill in that blank and then something. You ain't gonna get up to heaven and go, now Lord, you know, this is where I would have been if... The Lord's like, I got you covered, boy. He just may not give it to you when you're real young because you might blow it all by that time, but just keep that in the back of your mind. He calls the Apostle Paul. He said, Paul, he said, I'd like to have you to be a preacher. And Apostle Paul said, well, I'm trained at the feet of Gamaliel. He said, well, he got a little problem there. He knocks him off there and puts him in the dirt and changes his doctrine. Takes him on the backside of the Arabian desert and teaches him something. But the Apostle Paul is not known for his great oratory skills or the letters he wrote. You know what he's known for? Second Corinthians 11. The passage I just read to you in 1 Corinthians. The passage where the Apostle Paul said, we're troubled on every side and yet not, and we're perplexed and yet not, and we suffer yet not, and we suffer even unto death yet not. Your yet hadn't come yet, but he said, I'm not discouraged. I'm not downtrodden. I'm not quitting. You say, what is it? It's you preaching a message. That don't sound like much fun, does it? But that's how your faith is seen by other people. It's not by you talking, ladies and gentlemen. It's by understanding God doesn't lie to you. He tells you cancer's coming. He tells you, children dying is coming. That's life. Now listen, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Don't you think it's just Christians? It's the difference is, is that for Christians it works together for good because it demonstrates your faith in something bigger than you. For unsaved people, it don't amount to a roll of pins. But for you, God's putting up a bank of stuff up there that you can't even possibly imagine of God's grace, God's mercy, God's goodness, God's long-suffering. God's putting that stuff up there, and you know what He's saying to you right now? He's saying, I'll pay you back, I'll pay you back. Don't you worry, I'll pay you back. You'll understand it all when you get up here. Don't you worry about that. What I like about Him though is, is He don't shade it. He doesn't give you smoke and mirrors. What's the thing they used to say in a sales deal, bait and switch, where they tell you it's one thing and they give you something else? The Lord makes no bones about it at all. Paul said, listen, I got saved and we glory in tribulation. What? Paul said, oh, heck yeah, man. He probably didn't say heck yeah, but at any rate, the apostle Paul said, oh, yeah, man, yeah, nothing like it, boy. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. Man, I met the Lord Jesus Christ, and guess what? I've had nothing but a thorn, a pain in my side ever since I got saved. Man, the Lord gave me a thorn in the flesh to buffet me, and I asked Him three times to take it away, and the Lord said, no, my grace is sufficient for thee. Whoo, ain't that a great answer? I got an answer to my prayer. I'm gonna have this until the end of that thing. Paul said, man, this is great. Why? It's a demonstration. There was an old preacher, he was a Nazarene preacher. I don't know if you can even get his stuff anymore. I had one of his tapes from a bajillion years ago. His name was Bud Robinson. They called him Uncle Bud Robinson. He had a bad speech impediment. I mean, sort of a messed up way of looking at things. One of those, you know, you got to live it to stay right, and if you live it, you are right, and that kind of a thing. But a great preacher, a great old soul, and that guy'd get up there, you could hardly understand whatever, what he was saying. And you look at that kind of a deal, he's the guy that walked around in New York City one day, and he looked around here and he said, Thank the Lord, I don't see nothing here that I want. That was his trip to New York. He saw all them big buildings and saw all that money and all. You know what he said? Thank the Lord. I don't see nothing here that I want. That guy went across this country and helped people and was a blessing to people because of his infirmity. There was another old preacher and his name slips my mind. It's here in my notes somewhere, but he'd walk around in the nighttime. This guy had real power in prayer. He'd get ready to pray, get ready to pray like we talked about this morning. That's where that was. It was the illustration this morning. He'd get ready to pray. And a young preacher one time said, man, I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out what's going on with that guy. I'm going to find out how he gets so hooked up. He'd get up in the pulpit. He liked preacher like. He'd get ready to preach, and he'd start preaching. Man, I mean, the power of God just fall. He's like, I'm going to figure out what that is. I'm going to find that out. So he got over there in the hotel room, and he broke into the room, and he hid under the bed. And the preacher came in after the meeting that night, had one of them hallelujah, shouting, glory, shekinah, glory things. And he comes down there and he waits and he gets in there and he sees him change clothes and puts on his jams. And then he jumps into the bed and he reaches over and he hits the light and he goes, night, Lord, and turns off the light. And he thought, well, man, that's a bust. What in the world was that? That wasn't nothing to that at all. A guy comes in and said, good night, Lord, and goes to sleep. About three o'clock in the morning, that guy's testimony is, is that man got up and he was doing this right here, rubbing his arm back and forth this way. And pain was so bad and his elbows to his forearm, I mean to his wrist, he's rubbing his arms together like this and he said, Lord, thank you for this. This is so much better than sin. This is so much better than sin. Thank you for this, Lord. Thank you for this pain. Thank you for this agony, Lord. Thank you for this agony. And that kid said, I know where his power's at now. A demonstration of his faith. Now, if you want to demonstrate your faith, that means you allow the Lord free liberty, not to take, but for you to yield. God's a gentleman. Don't you know that? He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, you present your body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your what? Reasonable service. So what he says is, if you'll yield it to me, I could do something with it. But when you yield, how about your mental stability? Now about your body, that's what he said. Present your body, that be okay with you? Well, Lord, there's a limit. Well, the Lord said, fine, I can't use you. You don't get the right to tell me what to do with you if you're going to yield. You'd be willing to do that? I'd rather give up money than give up health, especially older I get, wouldn't you? Maybe you're thinking, oh, no, I can handle a broken ankle or whatever it might be. Well, suppose it's a broken back. Can you be a testimony to the doctors? Can you be a testimony to the nurses? Can they see your faith? Getting ready to go under the knife? Chief back here is getting ready to go in for surgery and stuff like that. They're fixing to cut open his neck. and going there and messing around and monkeying around with a motor system of making his hands and stuff work. And man, that's a spook. I don't care who you are, man. You're in there messing around with wires. Me and electricity don't get along anyway, but you're messing around up in there. You got a whole bunch of stuff, one little slip, man, one little nick and you're done. You could be paralyzed. And he's laying up there and he's looking at the deke here and looking at me. And he said, the doctor's getting ready to come. And he said, excuse me, doc, I still remember it. You mind if the preacher prays before we get ready? That doctor said, no, man, I'm all for that. I thought I'd be praying too, man, if you fixin' to put your hands on me. And we join hands there and pray. Now, I realize the COVID deal, they can't even get in to see people anymore to be able to do that. But you know what that was? That wasn't a testimony of my prayer life. That was a testimony of his faith. Doc, I appreciate you doing the surgery, but I ain't putting my faith in you. I'm putting my faith in the one that's running you like a puppet. And you may want to try to hurt me, but if he's in control of you, he can't. You can't. He won't let you. You have no idea how many times God has stood between you and the devil. One bright preacher said one time, he said, well, the Lord is so good. He said, the Lord is so good. He is so good to every time you think your back about to be pressed against the wall, he leave just enough space between you and the wall for him to get behind you. And I did that with emphasis, because that guy could flat preach. He said, I know you think you'll back against the wall. I know you think things is bad. I know you think it's terrible. But right at the last minute, what the Lord will do is he'll slide right between you and that wall, and he'll help you. And I'm thinking, man, I'm about to come out of the car, man. I mean, I'm like, people are riding by. They thought I was like a headbanger or something, because I'm like, yeah! And they're thinking, yeah, he must be listening to Iron Maiden or whoever's out there now or something. I'm sitting there thinking to myself, that guy's got it. That's got it. He's got it. He'll let you go, doesn't he? Let you go, and let you go, and you're getting desperate. Good night, Lord. They're going to throw me in the lion's den. And he don't show up till you're there. Man, Lord, why didn't you like let him trip and fall before you threw me in there? I think about Daniel, I bet he's thinking to himself, man, I bet them bites were gonna hurt. And then he's thinking, Lord's gonna get me, the Lord's gonna get me, the Lord's gonna get me. And then the Lord lets him go down there, he's like, oops, didn't see that one coming. What do you think you'd do if you heard them lions growl? We're out there in South Africa. And they got those big old lines. Those big old lines are reaching way up here like this. I mean, stretched out on a tree. And they're doing like cats do on those pieces of carpet thing, you know. And their claws are out here like this. Their claws are as long as my fingers. Out of their hand, big as mine. They're up here like this in big old paws. And they're stretching out like this. And they got double fences. There's a fence right here, and I'm right here by it. Then there's another fence. There's a track in between. And they're way over there. They ain't about to get in there. And unbeknownst to me, I'm squatting down there, and I'm looking at him, and I'm oohing and aahing, trying to make some kind of spiritual application or whatever, that kind of a deal. And I didn't even see a man, but slipping through the bushes over here and coming across the... Here come this big lion, and he got over here on the corner. I never saw him, and then he... Like, you know, like that. I jumped back, screamed like a little girl, fell on my hind end. He started laughing. He's like, Preacher, there's fences there. I said, did that roar sound like there was a fence between us and them? I said, I may not be fast, but all I got to do is be faster than you, buddy, I'm telling you now. That big old thing came around there and roared like that and stretched out like that. And you're thinking to yourself, man, oh, you have little faith. You ever pause and think about that? Daniel's down there in that lion's den and that thing roars and there's more than one of them roar. There used to be a lion. Brother Jerry's not here tonight, him and Miss Sandy. We used to go down that way, had a youth camp down there that we went to years ago. Watcha Bacaki or whatever that thing was. You remember that back in the day? Back a bajillion years ago, down around Silver Springs. And that little town where they used to live, they had a lion and a little baby zoo there. And at nighttime, I didn't believe them. I drove up there to see it. At nighttime, you know what happened? That lion would roar out there where he was. You could hear him all over that town. You'd think he was in the building next to you. Because a lion can roar like that. Daniel's down in the lion's den. When did the Lord show up? After he's in the den. You ever look at the three Hebrew children? Until they were in the fiery furnace, they didn't see Him. You say, what is that? That's where their faith got proven. But it wasn't until they got in the fiery furnace. That thing's all the way through. Paul gets on the boat. Boys, you shouldn't go, you shouldn't go, you shouldn't go. Here comes the Uruk-Hilah. He's in a hurricane. Man, it's going up to beat the band. Man, I mean the stars are blowed out. The chandeliers of glory are gone. There's no moon. There's no sun. There's nothing they can set the sexton to. They can't get a compass bearing. The tackling's been thrown out. Everything's gone. Nothing but everybody's waterlogged. The ship timbers are full of water and stuff. The thing is certainly going to go down. That thing is tossing and turning and tipping. It looks like it's a little tiny boat in a washing machine like a toothpick that's being washed in the major cycle and on the spin cycle. It's just going around and this and that and the other. And Paul goes down in the hole of the ship and he's down there. He don't say he went down there looking for the Lord. He's in the hole of the ship. He's a prisoner. And he's down there. And guess who he found in the hole of the ship in the middle of the storm? But it wasn't when the storm first broke out. It was after they'd been at it a while. and they'd already done everything they could, and you find nothing where Paul is in touch with God until he gets down there in the hold of the ship and the Lord said, hey, Paul, how you doing? What in the cat hair are you doing here? Well, just waiting to make sure you've done everything you could do and make sure you didn't give any credit to anything else. Go up there and tell them to be a good cheer, I got you. But it wasn't until the storm was in full velocity Christian, what I'm trying to tell you, and I don't even think I'll go to the, I'll let you go home early tonight. I don't think I'll finish with long suffering tonight. What I'm trying to get across to you is, is the only way for the unsaved world to see you is not just by you on the corner, fine. Preach on the street corner, fine. Preach on the street, I don't care. Get out and pass out tracks and stuff like that. But the real witness is this. They get to watching Jesus. Where do you think his eyes were? They're focused. What are they focused on? What's his mission? What's his purpose in life? What was he here to do? Oh, well, I came here to die and Paul, he talks about it and talks about it. I'll be a martyr and he talks about it and he talks about it. And the day comes and they're up there in the garden of Gethsemane and he's done praying, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And there's a rustle in the bushes and the next thing you know, here comes a big army of individuals out there and they got ropes and they got torches and they got staves and they got sticks and they got swords and they got all the other kind of stuff. And they're coming up there and they're gonna, Jesus, And they say, we're looking for Jesus. And Judas comes up there and kisses him on the cheek. And the Lord says to him, you know, appreciate that friend. He's being sarcastic, you know. He kisses him right there. And they know that's Jesus. And Jesus speaks. They fall over backwards. And then they get up and they get ready to tie him up. And all the apostles are sitting there thinking, you got to be kidding me. What's he going to do? He's showing you where his faith is. He's an example. They're in there pulling his beard. out by the handfuls. What's he doing? Nothing. Probably crying because in his physical body it would hurt. They're smacking him. They're spitting on him. Goodness, man, that's why you wear a mask right now. They figured that you can get diseased by spitting on people, by the stuff coming out of your mouth. What does he do? Nothing. Probably cries. Snot begins to run down his nose. Ears begin to ring. Blood starts pouring out of the orifices in his body. Eyes begin to swell shut. He can't hardly see for the sweat and the blood, the drops that are there. He tries to go up, rakes his hand across the the thorns in his head, blood pouring down off of his face and down in his eyes, running into his ears and stuff. He's trying to keep it clear and about the time he gets it clear, somebody comes by and knocks him down, knocks him over, he falls on the floor. Another one picks him back up and sets him back up there. What's he doing? Demonstrating his faith. You know, one of the reasons that Calvary was such a horrible, horrible thing is because the Lord is saying to you that at some point in time, you're going to be a Christian, you have to demonstrate your faith. People have to see it. You can't just say it. They take him out there, and I can't imagine if you could even think about this. It's a torture tactic. It's in the torture manual. It's one of the things that's known by the military, by the CIA, by all the people that are involved in black ops and stuff like that. You take a man or a woman's clothing away from them, it does something to you psychologically. A little kid doesn't know that, but you strip down a person like that, and then you start mocking and laughing and belittling and making fun of them. You know what they did to the Jews before they took them and put them in the ovens? They stripped them naked. You say, what does that do? It takes your dignity away. That mask don't take your dignity away. Having you up there in front of people you don't know and you're naked as the day you were born and you're ashamed and you're embarrassed and they're laughing at you and treating you like they're herding cattle, you don't think that has an impact on you? You say, what's he doing? He's standing there just like he was born, not a stitch of clothes on, laughing, mocking, cloaked in blood. and somebody throws a robe over him and makes him a king, and they bow down, and they mock him, and they belittle him, and they get out the whips, and they tie him in that naked form up there to that big old whipping post, and those soldiers back off, and they grit their teeth, and they begin to sweat, and they get worked up, and boy, that sweat begins to come out on them as they begin to weave that whip against that floor, and they can hear that thing making that noise, and then the next thing you know, that thing comes across his back, and he drags it across there, boy, like trying to pull a fishing net in full of fish and just opens up that back and blood begins to pour everywhere. By the next time he slings it again, when he comes back this way, that blood flies all over the walls and all over. People are like, oh, good night, man. What in the world? You say, what does he do? Like the sheep before shearers is dumb. You say, what's he doing? He's not testifying, not verbally. He's demonstrating his faith. They take him out there. They have a mock trial for him. They put him on trial. People are already believing what they want to believe. They're going to say what they want to say. You think you got it rough? You think you have enemies? You think you have people that are talking about you on that cotton-picking Facebook and social media, and you're trying to run down what the source of the problem is? They're sitting there making the Creator of the universe, the One that literally made them, and by Him they're actually breathing. Did you ever think about that? Why that prodigal boy, he goes to his daddy and he said, I'm tired of living here, I don't appreciate your protection, this place is like a prison to me. Did you ever pause to think in order for him to finance his trip he had to go to the very one that he didn't want to be with to ask him to do that? Did you ever think about that? I'm leaving, give me my money. But you know what I know? I know that in you right now, that if you want to reject God and you want to reject what God thinks, you know what you have to do? The very breath He gave you, He has to give you to reject Him. You've got to go to Him and say, Give me my breath! Give me my life! Give me my way! Let me do what I want! I'm out of here! I'm leaving! You've got to go to the Father and ask Him to give you what it takes to get you there, because He's the one that provides all things. And here's the father. You know what he's doing? He's standing there watching his son being beaten right there. What is it? Demonstration. We're looking at it now. We're 2,020 years past that. And if you want to say, well, it was actually... Okay, you're over 1,000 years, 1,500 years, 1,700 years, 1,700, 1,800, 1,967 years past that. You're a long way. You know what you're doing? You're looking back there. You say, what are you seeing? A demonstration. They take him out there after they've mocked and belittled and made fun and they won't let Barabbas go and they take him out there and they put him on that cross and strip those, pull those arms probably out of socket and turn his arms inside out this way so to make him suffer long and drive those nails in here right there and he probably hollers. And he probably screams. Maybe he does. He's in physical pain. It strikes those median nerves in there, man. And his body begins to convulse because it's a physical body. Oh, it's not like Mel Gibson stuff. It's not like things you've ever seen. It was the most horrible, most torturous death anybody could die. And behind that is a demonic entity that is pushing them to the envelope, doing everything they can to do every kind of torture possible, every kind of shame possible. How can you shame the Son of God? that's never had that kind of shame, lived holy, pure, perfect, lived in glory, and you're shaming Him, hanging Him up there naked in front of His creation and laughing at Him. What does he do? Demonstrating his faith. Lets himself be stretched out there high and wide, hangs up there on that cross and that blood begins to mingle with that sweat and that spittle and that snot begins to trickle down that place and run down those sides of those legs and off the end of those toes and off the ends of those elbows, just drip just a little at a time, drip and then begins to drip more and coagulates a little bit. and that pain hits him, and that convulsion hits him, and he pushes on the median nerve, and it causes his body to move this way, and he pulls, and the median nerve makes him, and he rides against that pain and opens up all those wounds on his back again, and the blood pours! And he says, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. You say, what is that demonstration of his faith? A visual spectacle for me and you to look at. The day you got saved, you know what you did? You realized I had to come back to that place right there where that man demonstrated his faith and was willing to die for me. And you didn't physically see it, but you know you believe it and you could see it in your heart and you knew you deserved that death and you knew you should have died that way ten times over. And you look at that and you're saying, what is that? He didn't point at you. His hands were nailed. He's hanging up there. You know what he did? He demonstrated his love for you. How? By dying. A horrible, despicable death. You say, what is that? Demonstration of his faith. You know what I love about Jesus? I muck a lot of things. I love about Jesus, he's the kind of leader that never asked for you to do something he didn't do himself. Man, I can follow somebody like that. He doesn't tell me to go do it. He does it himself. He leads by example. Man, what a Savior. Boy, I'm telling you what. He said, you're going to be laughed at and mocked. He goes, well, I've been laughed at and mocked. You're going to be belittled and tortured. I've been belittled and tortured. You're going to be made a gazing stock. Yeah, me too. I've been there. I mean, listen, I'm the Son of God. I'm the creator of all things. I had my glory exposed to everybody. My goodness, man! You want to expose God like that? You say, why did He do that? To demonstrate to you something you couldn't understand? So He said, let me just give you a picture of it. Pilate doesn't say, behold God. Pilate doesn't say, behold Jesus. You know what he says? Behold the man. Behold the man. You say, why? Because you're a man. You hear me? You're a man. Not behold the church. Behold the man. What's the salvation come in? It comes in a man. It's a demonstration of his faith. I like the passage in Acts chapter number two. I'm winding it down now and getting ready to pull into the bay and park it for at least tonight anyhow. I like the passage over there in Acts chapter number two when the Lord talks about being there in hell, paying the price for my sin. I love that passage in there that he said the Father wouldn't leave me in hell. I'd say behold his faith. He's living a life as a man. He goes down and suffers as a man. He begs and pleads like a man that's in hell. You know what he said? Father ain't going to leave me here. He's going to come get me. You say, what is it? Demonstration of his faith. He's willing to die and go to hell for you. Read it. His soul was in travail. Read it. It's in the passage. Read Acts 2. Where did he go? What do you think he did? He went down there to hell to dump your sins off. He didn't take them into paradise. He dumped them all. He bore them and took them down there and paid for them. Eternal payment. How do you think all that worked out? I don't have all that worked out. I can't tell you. I just know He had to be the propitiation, big fancy word for take my place. My sin had to be paid for, had to be paid. Why? My sin was against a holy God, an eternal God, so the payment had to be an eternal payment. So it had to be done by an eternal being. That's God going down there for me. You say, what did He do? He let his actions do the talking for him. Paul said, you know my faith. You see me not deny the Lord when I was beaten. You've seen me not deny the Lord when I was in prison. You've seen me when I was falsely accused. You know my faith. You know that my faith ain't in where I came from. It's in who I believe. I know in whom I am believed. Job's over there and he's asking this question and he's asking that question. He wants to know about this and he wants to know about that. By the time you get around Job 23 or so, Job's getting kind of bold and stuff and he's saying, you know, I don't mind making my case to the Lord. I don't mind talking to the Lord. I'll be glad to talk to the Lord. I'm not afraid to talk to the Lord. Bring him on. The problem is, is I can't find him. By the time you get around Job 38, the Lord shows up into 37 there, and right before 38, the Lord comes up and says, Hey Job, I understand you're looking for me. And Job said, yes, for a matter of fact, I am. And he said, you want to talk to me? He said, well, matter of fact, I do. I've got some questions for you. I'm going to ask you some things. And the Lord said, OK, well, before you do, get dressed and come stand before me like a man. And you got questions for me? Well, before you open your mouth, I got some questions for you. Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the world? And where were you when the sons of God were singing and shouting and dancing for joy and the morning stars were singing together? Now, if you can answer that, Job, I might be willing to entertain your questions. Otherwise, stop asking about the why since you know the who. God doesn't always reveal the why. He doesn't reveal His plan. He reveals Himself. God says, Job, you kind of got things backwards there. You're looking to try to figure out pi equals mc squared and the theory of relativity. You just well go spring that to a bottleneck clam or something down in the ocean somewhere or some crab. They're not going to get it any more than you could understand what it is I'm doing. Why you want me to reveal my plan, what you think I'm doing, what about this and all that kind of stuff? Stop asking why. It's coming from me, bud. And if you know me, I got you through it. I like Job's faith. He takes it pretty good. Wouldn't you agree? You say, oh, come on now, preacher. That's pretty... No, no. No, no. You know what he said? When that woman comes to him in Job chapter number 2, she says to him, curse God and die. Now, don't get all jacked up. I'm not going to preach a sermon on women. You know what he said? You talk like a foolish woman. He said, we receive good things at the hand of God. Shall we not receive evil also? What he's saying there is, is listen, God's been good to us and now that things have turned, I'm not turning my back on Him just because He ain't doing things the way I want it to be done. Job's faith was proven in the trials, not in the blessings. The trials came and he come through there and the boys come in there and they give him a fit. I mean, up one side and down the other. Hail, Columbia. Every time you turn around, they're giving Job trouble. It's your fault, Job. It must be your fault, Job. What's the Lord saying? Job, Job, Job, Job, Job, this and that and the other. And the Lord comes to them later on and he says, the problem ain't Job. And I'll tell you what, boys, I'm not gonna listen to nothing you say unless Job prays for you. And the Bible said, and Job prayed for his friends and God turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends You know, I like how Job ends. Job didn't know when he did that he was going to get back twice as much as he had in the first place. Job never did know and God never told him until, I guess, the day that he died that God was the instigator of the whole thing. He never said, Job, I'm the one that drew your attention to the devil. I'm the one that turned him loose on you. He said, I just wanted to see how you're doing with you. Faith. I don't know, how would you be? Lose 10 kids in one day? Lose all your property in one day? Lose all your servants? Lose your testimony? Wife turn against you? Could you say, naked I came into the world, naked I shall leave, blessed be the name of the Lord. Well, I don't know, but I'm trying to show you here something in the Pauline Epistle and we'll pick it up a little bit later on, but just so that you know, ladies and gentlemen, you know what you see in that? You see Paul making an example to you to say, you've fully known my faith. It's demonstrated in how I've handled situations that have come my way. I hope that helps you. I hope you understand that. I hope you realize that's not just a trial of your faith, it's so other people can watch it. Let's stand together and be dismissed.