All right, good evening. Welcome to Liberty Baptist Church for the midweek service. If you can, let's all stand. We're gonna call the roll. When the roll is called up, be honored. ♪ When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound ♪ ♪ And time shall be no more ♪ ♪ And the morning breaks eternal bright and fair ♪ ♪ When the saints of earth shall gather all around the earth ♪ when you're ♪ And yonder I'll be there ♪ On that bright and cloudless morning ♪ When the dead in Christ shall rise ♪ And the glory of His resurrection share ♪ When His chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies ♪ And the roll is called and yonder I'll be there Let us waver for the master from the dark descending sun Let us talk of all his wondrous love and care And when all of life is over and our work on earth is done And the road is called up yonder I'll be there When the road is called up yonder See you back tonight. I left my phone on so I could tell you of all the folks that we have that folks have asked us to pray for that might be in the Problem with music. Yes. There it is. So it says let's see pray for mrs. Cool service we ask Lord that you take care of our loved ones friends and relatives that are down in the Florida area and also pray Lord you'd be at the ones are recovering in all the other states that got hit last week and I pray Lord you just bless in the recovery efforts there in Jesus name amen you may be seated all right wonderful wonderful words of life Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life. Let me more of their beauty sing, wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty, teach me faith and duty. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. of life. Christ, the blessed one, gives to all wonderful words of life. Sinner, listen to the loving call, wonderful words of life. All so freely given, moving us to heaven, beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Sweetly echo the gospel call, wonderful words of life. Offer pardon and peace to all, wonderful words of life. Jesus, only Savior, sanctified forever, beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Pray for Brother Coral, if you would. Some of you know that he's coming at the end of the week, but he came in yesterday and spent the evening here, and he flew down today. We dropped him off at the airport again this afternoon, and he's flying down to Mexico to speak at Brother Wynn's tonight. They have a Wednesday night service. a Thursday night service, so speak at that, and then he'll teach in the college on Friday, and then fly back in here Saturday, and then preach for us all day Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So, again, as far as the prayer list, there's a new prayer list on the back, little back table. The new one is the green one. It is the up-to-date one. I took some folks off that said we could take them off, and we added some folks. But the things we always pray for is Brother Nicholas' health and Cindy, Brother Wynn's and his family's safety. Natalie is over the... some of them for health issues that, again, they probably will have till they die, but we're just praying that many of them will get, I mean, again, that some of them would get over it, but a lot of them have, a lot of them have cancer and things like that, that they may not, they may just have that for quite some while, but pray for them. And then as far as the stuff going on, As far as the regular stuff, this week, tomorrow night at 645, we have someone in a visitation here at the church. And then Saturday, we have bus visitation, and so we're in at 1045. And then Sunday, we're back in church services here, and Brother Coral will be here. The older Sun School classes can bring the kids in. Teachers sit with the kids if you bring them in. But Brother Coral will be teaching in Sunday School. He'll preach the Sunday morning service, the Sunday night message. And then he'll be with us Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 7.30. So Sunday night it will start at 6 like our regular service. The other days, it will start at 7.30. So again, that's Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The books, he has some new books, one on, I think, on Islam, and I can't remember what the other one is. They had some new kids' books, but they didn't show up, so I talked to Mrs. Coral today, and they're gonna try to see if they can ship them the expensive way, like next day mail or something, whether they get here in the next day or two. If someone happens to have some kind of, I don't have, my wife used to have the, or if you call it, where you can get it, you pay a monthly fee and you can ship stuff for free. If anyone in here has that and can use that to have other stuff shipped, let me know and I'll have you get ahold of Mrs. Coral, and that way they can ship the stuff here. Because if you've ever shipped books, you realize a big box of those books will cost us anywhere from $25 to $40 to ship a box of books, sometimes more than that because they base it on size and weight. And so that's why we don't ship them back every year. The reason we've kept them here And we always just box them up and put them upstairs, and next year bring them back down. It's because he used to spend about 200 bucks to get them here. At the end, we'd box them up, spend 200 bucks to get them back. And so we spent $400, and that's not counting any books that they sold. So again, it made it hard for him to make a profit. So we just kept them here. So we just keep them here, and they only bring the new ones. We try to keep seven of everything. If we have some of the old ones, if the stacks are getting short, they'll send us some extra ones. But again, they're going to try to, they forgot to send us, their secretary got married and went on a honeymoon. So she called me the other day and she said, we need to ship you some books. Can you send me the list? And I said, already did. She said, yes, but she's on the honeymoon. We don't want to bother him. So I sent her the list. And then they apparently forgot the kids' books. When I looked through the box today, I said, do you have new kids' books this year? And she said, we did. We didn't send you any?" And I said, no, ma'am. So, again, if you have, what is it where you can send stuff next day cheap? What's it called? Oh, there is anything? Huh? Yeah, Amazon Prime. So you can't do Amazon Prime that way? That's the only stuff you order? Okay. Well, I knew my wife always had stuff coming this way, so only thing I ever dealt with was the returns. I ended up having to drop stuff back off at UPS or something. So, all right, so forget that. I thought maybe someone might have something like Amazon Prime, and I didn't know if it worked both directions or not. But pray that we can get those kids books here, because I know if you're like me, I like to get the kids book, use them for the kids or grandkids. So again, that's this weekend, and then Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. As far as stuff in the near future, There's a sign-up sheet down the hallway that is for a church clean-up day on October the 26th. It starts at 7.30 in the morning. It says bring your gloves and there'll be food and water provided. Mark and Maria's wedding is November the 9th at 4.30 p.m. Christina is having a bridal shower on November the 16th. That is Saturday at 2 p.m. And that is here at the church. If you'll see Mrs. Sells about the food sign up, we'd appreciate that. And then the next event on the calendar, now Brother Coro is this weekend, the next event is Brother Jeff Owens. He'll be with us on the 4th, which is a Wednesday night. Then he'll be at Texas Baptist representing Liberty Baptist Church because we're the ones hosting the youth conference. We're just using Texas Baptist facilities because they have a gymnasium. And we play games and stuff in the gym. So that will be on the 6th, which is a Friday, 7 o'clock. And then Saturday starts at 10 o'clock. He'll preach. Brother Owens will preach once Friday night and twice Saturday during the morning and early afternoon. And then there'll be volleyball and stuff later in the afternoon. But again, that is coming up in a short time. So again, then a couple of months after that, we'll have the Valentine's banquet and then Two weeks after that, Brother Gomez will be here. So we do have a lot of preaching coming up in the future. And that's always a blessing to have special speakers and special guests come and preach for us. But pray for this weekend. Pray for Brother Cora while he's down in Mexico. And then pray for him as he travels back. And he'll be with us this weekend. All right, again, let's stand. We're going to sing, Who is on the Lord's Side? ♪ Who is on the Lord's side ♪ Who will serve the King ♪ Who will be his helper ♪ Other lives to bring ♪ Who will lead the world's high ♪ Who will face the fall On the Lord's side, here for Him we will go By Thy call of mercy, by Thy grace divine We are on the Lord's side, Savior, we are Thine Fierce may be the conflict, Strong may be the foe, But the King's own army None can overthrow. Round is standard ranging, Victory is secure. ♪ For His truth unchanging makes the triumphant ♪ ♪ Joyfully enlisting by Thy grace divine ♪ ♪ We are on the Lord's side, Savior, we are Thine ♪ The reason I'd often go to the special speakers we have Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to be in church tonight. I pray that you bless this offering, bless the gift and the giver, exceed the needs of our church, Lord, and be with the prayer requests mentioned. Thank you for Pastor Nichols and Brother Block, and be with them. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, amen. All right, I wish I had given him more. Do that one more time. By and by, when I look on his face Beautiful face, thorn-shadowed face By and by, when I look on his face I wish I had given him more More, so much more More of my life than I ever gave before By and by, when I look on his face I wish I had given him more By and by, when he holds out his hands Welcoming hands, nail-ribbon hands By and by, when he holds out his hands I wish I had given him more More, so much more More of my love than I ever gave before By and by when he holds out his hands I wish I had given him more In the light of that heavenly place Light from His face, beautiful face In the light of that heavenly place I wish I had given Him more More, so much more Amen. Dark the stain that soiled man's nature, long the distance that he fell. Far removed from hope and heaven into deep despair and hell. But there was a fountain opened and the blood of God's own son. Purifies the soul and reaches deeper than the stain has gone. Conscious of the deep pollution, sinners wander in the night. Though they hear the shepherd calling, They still fear to face the light. This the blessed consolation that can melt the heart of stone. That sweet balm of Gilead reaches Deeper than the stain has gone All unworthy we who've wandered And our eyes still wet with tears As we think of love that sought us through the weary, wasted years. Yet we walk the holy highway, walking by God's grace alone, knowing Calvary's fountain reaches deeper than the stain has gone. When with holy choirs we're standing In the presence of the King And our souls are lost in wonder While the white-robed choirs sing Then we'll praise the name of Jesus with the millions round the throne. Praise him for the power that reaches deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation. God still reigns upon his throne. And I know the blood still reaches deeper than the stain has gone. Amen. I think that was one of the songs for the robot fuse to sing. I don't know if you ever heard Brother Orloff preach. Actually when I was a teenager I got on his, on the Swear the Lord tape club and I also got one of the first Bibles, one of those things where if you send them a love offering of a certain size they'd send you a large print Bible and I got one of Brother Orloff's Bibles. I used to hear him preach on the radio. He was one of those guys that didn't prepare messages. He would only say, I'm going to get up there and preach whatever God lays on my heart. And he would say, what happens if you do that? You guys would be very disappointed. This is loud as well guys as it was for Brother Nichols. I don't know if they can hear it but I can. And so Brother Rolfe was one of those guys that when he preached he would preach a little bit and then he'd sing a song. Then he'd preach a little bit because he had songs that they always just came to his mind while he was preaching. So he would sing a song or two during his preaching. He had a good voice as well. But he was one of those old fashioned fellas. had a bunch of boys and girls homes down in Corpus Christi. I don't know if they're even still in existence now, but they used to get a lot of boys and girls, men and women, and help change their lives from lives of addiction and rebellion and other stuff. And some of them went back to it, of course. It's kind of like some folks go to jail and come out and come out reformed. Others come back and go right back to what they did before. So it is tough to stop people when they're addicted to stuff. It's very difficult. But they worked at it really hard and had a lot of folks down there. And I always thought it was funny, they didn't want you drinking soda, because you could go down and stay in one of their little trailers or cabins and then you could see the ministry. And they didn't want you to drink soda, but if you drink soda, they want you to put the cans in the area so they can recycle them. And I thought, they don't want you drinking them, but they're okay keeping the cans if you do drink them. So I always thought that was kind of funny. In your Bibles in 2 Timothy, we'll finish tonight. This is part six of passing down a spiritual heritage. We're going to look at 2 Timothy 1.5 which is where the original text was and we're going to go to Psalm 78 and we'll see the last part of what the message covers tonight. Now 2 Timothy 1.5 said, Now what that meant was genuine. It wasn't fake, it wasn't pretend, it was the real thing. Now it's always a blessing to see third, fourth generations of Christians still being faithful, by the way still having standards. It's easy to have the first generation, and then the second generation is a little bit more liberal, and the third generation is pretty liberal, and the fourth generation don't even get saved many times, and that happens lots of times. But again what he is saying here is this was the third generation. Now again notice it wasn't dad that was faithful, it wasn't dad that was setting the example, and father should set the example. But from what we can tell Timothy's dad might not even have been saved. If he was saved, he was not the one that was the spiritual guide to Timothy. Because Paul said, and again Paul knew the family, because Paul knew Timothy very well. And Paul said, Grandma was a godly lady, your mom's a godly lady, and I'm pretty sure you're a godly fellow as well. By the way, that is pretty high praise coming from a fellow named Paul the Apostle. almost as high, I mean not quite as high as coming from Jesus, but up there pretty high. So again what Paul said was Timothy has the real thing. Then in Psalm chapter 78, now in your verses there, anyone need the verses? Henry will be glad to run them over to you. If you need verses raise up your hand and Henry will bring you some verses. Mrs. Wallace needs some if you could. Anyone else? For those of you that, most of you have already figured it out, I stick them on the back table. I used to have the kids run them around and give them to people, but I just stick them on the back table now. And I usually, if I, every other week when I do the prayer list, I stick it back there as well. Notice in Psalm chapter 78, now we're going to start, I'm going to start reading in verse three, where we started originally. And then we'll be at verse seven and eight, which is in your notes. which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them. the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children." So He said I want the fathers to give it to their kids and then when they have kids pass it to their kids. Verse 7 and 8 will be tonight and these will be the points of tonight's message. That they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments. That's three of the points again setting their hope in God, not forgetting the works of God, but keeping His commandments. And then the fourth point will be and that they might not be as their fathers. Now that's kind of a sad thing to say you don't want someone to be like their father, but in this case the reason was because their fathers were a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. So he said don't want you to be like your dads because your dads weren't godly. Now that's why it's so important on us as fathers and mothers to be godly, because I wouldn't want it that God would tell my kids don't be like your daddy, be like these other folks. And so that was what happened in Psalm chapter 78 verse 7 and 8. What we looked at in the past was with the first First point that we looked at was what should be passed down. We have four things that should be passed down. The praises of God, the strength of God, the works of God, and the testimonies of God. Then the second main point was how should it be passed down and that was make them known, declare them, and set your heart aright. That's what we covered in the past weeks. Tonight we're going to look at why we should pass it down. and that again, there's the four reasons that we looked at, three of them was in verse seven, again that they might set their hope in God, first one, not forget the works of God, second one, but keep his commandments, third one, and might not be as their fathers, the fourth one. So we'll look at those this evening, let's pray, and then we'll get right into the lesson. Lord, I ask you for your help and your blessing, I ask for your power and your wisdom, Lord, help me to say what I should and get through this stuff and make it as clear as possible that it might be a help to somebody, and Lord, we promise to give you the glory in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're looking at why we should pass it down. Now in verse 7 I mentioned the first thing it says is that they might set their hope in God. Now Brother Nicholas has told you hope in the Bible is not like when we say I hope it because what that means is I mean it is one of those things it's like wishing or we Again, in the case of the Bible, the definition of the Bible is a confident expectation. Now, the reason we can have a confident expectation is because of who we are hoping in or who that hope is placed upon. That hope is in Jesus Christ. And we're gonna look at that a little bit in just a moment. But again, understand, hope in the Bible is a confident expectation. It's based on the assurance that God has promised it. Now, there are a lot of folks that have convinced themselves that there's some things that God has told them to do. Now, if you tell me that God told you to do something, and it comes from the Bible, I'll always be in your corner. If you tell me that God told you to do something because you saw a vision in the night, or He spoke to you in a cloud, I mean, you saw some kind of cloud up in the sky, and so on and so forth, I'm gonna be a little hesitant, okay? Actually, I'm gonna be a lot hesitant, all right? Now, you say, could God do that? Yes, He could. Does he usually do that? And the answer to that is no he doesn't. And again that usually goes back to the Pentecostal upbringing. And that usually is because folks like to think that they're more spiritual than somebody else. So we would like to convince you that God does stuff for me and talks to me and he doesn't talk to you because Well, you know, I'm who I am. I mean, you know, look at this and why wouldn't God have a relationship with me and not one with you? So usually pride is involved in that. And by the way, if you know anything about pride, that was the devil's main point. It never has been the one that God's too proud of. So again, wants us to realize Yet, we need to base our hope on the assurances or on the promises that God has given us. Now, some of the aspects of hope, and again, I'll give you these four quickly, and then we'll get right on, but some aspects of hope, again, this confident expectation. What it is, it gives us a firm foundation. Now, most of you that know anything about building realize the rest of the building is important, but not as near as important as the foundation. The foundation is what the rest of the building is built upon. Again, if the foundation is not good, it doesn't matter. The rest of the structure is going to have problems in the future. Now, here in San Antonio, we have problems with foundations because the foundations shift. Now, that doesn't happen everywhere. Does that happen in other states? Maybe in some states. We never had that problem in Missouri. I mean, I never heard of anyone talking about here. It happens a lot. When we used to rent this property next door, When we would walk across there in the summertime, sometimes there'd be cracks in the dirt that big. I mean, we'd have to be careful with small children to fall in the cracks, and we'd lose them, and we'd have to put a rope down and try to pull them. I mean, here the earth moves a lot. That's not true everywhere, but it's true here. Now, again, you want a firm foundation. And again, because we have that confident hope in Jesus Christ, we have a firm foundation. Another thing that it gives us, it gives us an anchor for our soul. We sing a song about that. We have an anchor by the way if you're saved you do have that anchor and again, it's a good anchor I mean and again if you try to anchor in the sand Your ship's gonna move if you anchor in the rock I mean your anchor catches a rock you're going to be secure and again Christ is that that rock so again because of that The aspects of hope we have a firm foundation. We have an anchor for the soul. We have a source of light now again the Lord uses us to But the truth is, and we're supposed to be lights. How bright we are is based on how dirty we are not. Because dirt, if you've ever had a lantern or had a globe over your light and it gets a bunch of dirt on it, The bulb's still bright. The problem is the stuff, the globe that's around the light, and sometimes even the light. If you don't have a globe, the bugs can get on the bulb itself and make it pretty dirty. Now, don't try to wash it while it's still hot. Not a smart thing. You say, how do you know? Because I've seen people do that, and it's not a good experience. Not only is it not easy to hold when it's hot, but you're also probably going to make it, it's probably going to blow up and you're going to end up without a light bulb. But the fact is the light's brighter if the bulb is not dirty. And you and I are the bulbs Jesus Christ gives us. He's the light and he gives us, he's the source of our light. But again, we want to make sure that we are a good light. And then the last thing as far as some aspects of hope, it's an environment where faith can grow because of the fact that we have That that expectation or that hope in Jesus our faith can grow and again you and I should continue to grow There's not a time now. There's a time we quit growing physically, but there should never be a time that we could growing spiritually now I don't care how many times you've read through the Bible. I heard Brother Nichols and Brother Corl talking while they were sitting eating. And Brother Corl was talking about a place where he had seen something he just never had noticed it before. And he said, I bet I've read that, because he said, I've read the Bible through between 150 and 200 times in my lifetime. And he says, and I just never noticed that. By the way, the Bible is the most shallow book that if you get a new convert, they can read the Bible and understand some. Now they won't understand all of it, but also it's the deepest book that no matter how many times you have read it, there'll still be something that you didn't get the time before. Because by the way the time before you wasn't quite as mature or quite as grown up and you didn't I mean But finally the light you read it and the light comes on this time again. It's important that you and I realize We have that we have the Word of God now in the Hebrew word The in the Hebrew the word for hope is T I K V A H tick, but it means expectation Cord or a rope and we're going to look at that you think we've heard the expectation but cord or a rope the root word for tick for is to bind and Or to wait for or upon so again it means to bind kind of like tying a Christmas tree to the roof of your car Adjoining it together by the way you and I are bound to Christ we got saved I mean he moves in our heart so the truth is Again, when you think of that binding you think of in there and you note you have Joshua chapter 2 verse 18 in Joshua 2 verse 18 It said behold when we come into the land thou shalt bind up This line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by, and thou shalt bring thy father and thy mother and thy brethren and all thy father's household home unto thee." Now, who was this that had this scarlet thread hanging down? Rahab. What was she hoping for? What was she expecting? That if she had that rope hanging down, what was going to happen? She was going to be kept alive. Her family wasn't going to die. Now, the rest of the folks, they were all dying. But because she had helped the children of Israel, because she had helped the spies, when the spies left, they said, she said, can't you do something for me? And they said, yep, but hang this rope. And by the way, you say, how does she know they was there? Well, let's see, they marched around the city one time, on the first day, they marched around the city. I think she knew they were there. Now, she probably had no idea what they were going to do. I doubt they sent her a message and said, you know, they probably didn't fill her in on the plan. But you say, what'd she do? She put that rope down. You know what she was expecting? Expecting to be safe because of that rope. Again, because there was a promise made to her by the children of Israel. In Jeremiah 29, verse 11, For I know that the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Again, When we think of expected in it means a rope to the future or again We have something we can count on in the future now There are folks here if you're if you're not careful you'll count on money you put your hope or your expectation in money now again Some of you have money in the stock market. I used to tell you for years I would say if the stock market crashes tomorrow guess how much money I lose Zero and the stock market goes way up high tomorrow guess how much money I gained zero but a few years ago my son said dad I've been messing in the stock market, and he said, you got a little money, give me some money and I'll invest it. The problem was, right when he invested that money, that was the last time that the stock market, that time right before it crashed here a few years ago. So my $7,000 I gave him, like the next, I mean like two or three days later when it crashed, it was down to like $2,000. So I've never been real successful in the stock market. So I like to better win. If it went down, I lost zero. If it went up, I gained zero. But again, usually when you invest in something, you expect, you would like to think, you hope. I mean, you like to think, but again, money's not always that way. Money won't always help you. People won't always help you. Again, if you put your hope in people, you put your hope in politics, especially in politics. You put your hope in your abilities. Again, when you put your hope in these things sooner or later, they're gonna fail But by the way, you and I should put our hope and our expectation in Jesus Christ Use him as our rope I mean tie ourselves to him and we are much safer and much more secure again Hope is a rope. Hope also is an eager expectation. We know this verse in Isaiah chapter 40 notice verse 31 We sing it. I think there's a song about it. I Know there's there's that's often we quoted this but notice i say a forty verse thirty one when i say hope is an expectation it says this but they that wait upon the lord again that is that expectation shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles they shall run and not be worried they shall walk and not faint now when we say hope is an eager expectation that when it said they that wait upon the lord what it means is those who look to the lord those who wait with expectancy on the lord and by the way you and i are supposed to make sure that you don't leave without the Lord. Okay, now you can leave, you can leave other folks. Sometimes you'll say, you guys either get in the car or you're gonna get left. Don't ever leave without Jesus. You and I wanna make sure that we always have, I mean that, now again, you and I are riding with Him, okay, so make sure that you get with Him. Don't make the Lord, don't expect the Lord to wait on you. My daddy used to always say, you wanna ride, you make sure you're in the vehicle when it leaves, because we're not waiting on you. You say, Brother Block, did they ever start driving down the road without you? And the answer to that was, yes. You say, what did you do? You ran behind the truck down the road trying to get them to stop. Did they stop? Yeah, usually. Did they stop right away? No, not usually. Because it was like, well, I told you. And it's like, well, why didn't you stop? You saw me back there. And they said, hey, we told you when we was going to be leaving. And then you went from there. So that's your own tough luck. You say, was you ready next time? Oh, yeah, I was sitting in the truck next time. You don't have to be real smart to learn your lesson. But again, we want to, again, hope. Again, we want to have that hope that's an eager expectation. We're waiting on the Lord. Hope is an act of binding. Notice Titus chapter 1 verse 2. In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. Now you say, what is that hope? That hope is an expectation. It is an act of binding. Again, by the way, we should know the promises of God. If we know the promises of God, then we can claim the promises of God. When I was a teenager, I had a bunch of little cards and a little thing, and it was all the promises, it was a bunch of promises of God. And you say, Brother Walker, are there a lot of them? There are a lot of them. A lot of promises of God in the Bible. Now, if God makes you a promise, then you can hold Him to that. Now, there are times we try to hold God to something that He doesn't, I mean, He didn't commit to. But if He commits to it, trust me, if He committed to it, He's going to carry through with it, because God can't lie. Again, make sure you find those promises, learn those promises, believe those promises, then you can expect those promises. You can have that expectation, that hope. Now I said again, The first thing that he was going to look at was that they might set their hope in God. The second thing that came out of verse 7, 78, 7 was that they might not forget the works of God. You say that the children of Israel do that? They sure did. Notice there in your notes you have Exodus chapter 12 verse 31 it says and he called for Moses and Aaron by night and said rise up and get you forth from among my people both he and the children of Israel and go serve the Lord as you have said he set him free now they had already been trying to negotiate this for a while and There was a time he said you can take you know, you can take the adults and then you can take the kids but I mean they kept negotiating but by the way, God wasn't negotiating and God always said, here's what's going to happen, and nothing, I mean, I'm going to keep judging you until this happens. Say, what was it? That he let his people go. I'm talking about men, I'm talking about women, I'm talking about kids, I'm talking about livestock. In this case, they even took some of the Egyptians' jewelry with them as well. Even took some of the Egyptians' wealth. You say, why did that happen? Well, because they asked, and the Egyptians wanted them to leave so badly, it's like, oh, come here, take this, just go. You say, what had happened? They just lost their firstborn. Some of the wives lost a husband. Some of the husbands lost a wife. Almost every family, if they had kids, and there might have been families without kids, families with kids, they lost their oldest child. Maybe they lost, again, their oldest grandchild. A lot of death that night. So again, the children of Israel were set free by God. Then they, by the way, in Exodus chapter 14, there in your notes, verse 21 and 22, they get to the Red Sea. Enemies behind them. God's guided them. And He told Moses to stretch out his hand, in verse 21, and Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind, all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground, and the waters were a wall unto them on the right hand and on the left." Now there are folks who try to tell you the children of Israel walked through the Reed Sea I believe it is, and I've heard Brother Nichols and others say either way it would have been a miracle. Either he rolled up the sea itself and the water was up, I mean like walking through an aquarium sometimes where you see all the fish and stuff. I mean, and I'm sure some of the kids went, I mean, they saw, they tried to see if their finger would go through the water, but there was a wall of water. Say, why do you say it was a miracle if they went through the Reed Sea? Because the Reed Sea was only about 18 inches deep. It would have been a miracle if all of Pharaoh's army and the horses and the soldiers all drowned in the Reed Sea. So either way, but the fact is we don't think it was a Reed Sea. We think it was exactly, you say, well, there's only a difference of an E. Yeah, but God didn't make mistakes and again, we believe that this is what inspired of God So if he says it's a Red Sea was a Red Sea So they walked but they walked through on dry ground now. He could have made him walk through on muddy ground He could just put the water up and if you ever have moved the water up the ground still wet Especially when you've had water there so long. I mean sometimes you got you got deep mud and But in this case it was dry ground, because he stirred the water up, and then he let a wind blow, he put the fans on, and he dried it out for them. So they walked across, and then when Pharaoh's army got in there, he brought the water back down on them. So the children of Israel, they saw God do all these things and got them out of Egypt. Then they see God do this at the Red Sea. He went on, notice there in Exodus chapter 17, verse six, you know what else they saw? They saw again what God did. God gave them water out of a rock. 17 six says behold I will stand before before thee thereupon the rock and order that thou shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink and Moses did so on the side of the elders of Israel now understand this wasn't just a little bit of water we're talking about a me and me and have people you know how much water it takes to Water a million and may not people and their livestock their dogs or cats or their cows or sheep I mean we'll talk about a pile of water probably a waterfall came out of that thing and They saw that, I mean a miracle. They'd already seen the Red Sea, they see this. Next was the quails. And again, there was a lot of them. I could have covered, could have did 20 different things. Just put a few here. Notice next was the quail. There in Exodus 16 verse 13. And it came to pass that even the quails came up and covered the camp. And in the morning, the dew lay round about the host. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen a covey of quail. I don't know if you've ever seen a covey of quail. Now, where I grew up, they were called bobwhites. Okay, we only had, we had bobwhites. And Bob White's, a large covey might be 12 or 15. Most coveys, especially if they've been shot or broken up, if they've been divided, sometimes there'll be just three, three or four, five or six. Now when I was in California, they have a thing called Blue Quail or Mountain Quail. Now there I've seen some massive groups. I mean, one time I had to stop on the road, because I mean, they were going across the road, and I'm talking about several hundred. But again, understand, to feed a million people, we're not talking about, we're talking about far bigger covey than what I saw. We're talking about, because again, the quail's not very big. Most of those guys could eat two or three quail. Even most kids could eat a quail. Most ladies can eat a quail. So each family was going to use several quail. Again, he fed them with quail. Now, you say, how'd they get them? Probably when they tried to fly, when they flew into each other, trying to get up, because quail fly in every direction. So when they went up, some of them knocked themselves out as they tried to get away. Then also, I'm sure some of those kids, that's where they got their slingshot practice. It'd be like, hey, mom, can I go get the quail for supper? Yeah, take your slingshot. I mean, I don't know if they had nets. Nets would have been nice, but I don't know if they had nets. But maybe God didn't even let the quail fly. I don't know, but all I know is they ate quail. Again, a miracle that this many people had quail. Notice the next thing. Numbers chapter 14 verse 2, and I have in my notes, but still the Israelites murmured. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and the whole congregation said unto them, here's what they said, would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God that we had died in the wilderness. They said, why did God even bring us, I mean, why didn't we just stay back? Now, they'd seen all these miracles. But had it changed them? And the answer to that was no. That's why he told the kids, don't be like your dads. Your dads were rebellious. Your dads have seen the works of God, and they're a rebellious generation. So again, the third thing is that they, again, when we was talking about it, we said number one was that they might set their hope in God. Number two was that they might not forget the works of God, and the children of Israel did. Now you and I have seen God do some amazing things in our lives. But isn't it kind of funny that after God has done a lot of stuff in our life, something comes up and we doubt God? Now I realize we haven't seen water come out of a rock. I don't think anyone here has seen water come out of a rock. And I've never seen that big a cubby of quail, okay? And I've never seen an ocean parted, okay? So the children of Israel saw some bigger things than we've ever seen. But by the way, just like the children of Israel, we can see God work and we can see God deliver. And the next time we have a problem, guess what? Sometimes we doubt. wonder why God is not doing something. So again, the third thing is it that they might keep His commandments. And I must very quickly notice there in Deuteronomy 6, 17, You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies, and His statutes, which He hath commanded thee. Verse 6 of chapter 8 says, Therefore thou shalt keep the commandment of the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, and to fear Him. He said that's Old Testament. Yes, it is. Notice the New Testament right below it 1st John 5 2 & 5 3 says by this We know that we love the children of God when we love God and what? Keep his commandments for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous So again, he said I want you to teach them to keep his command keep the commandments now You can't keep them if you don't know them That's why we have to come to church and that's why we have to read the Bible because that way we can see what God wants us to do I don't know about you, when I first got saved, I didn't know all the things a Christian was supposed to do. I didn't know what was expected of me. I had never been a Christian before. When you join a sports team, or you go to a private school, guess what they have? They have a rule book. Liberty Christian Academy, we always read it word for word every first day of school for years I almost had the rulebook memorized because I read it I read it at the PTA meeting the Friday before then I read it Monday the first day of school So I read the rulebook in the in the 39 years. I've been here the last few years I haven't read it word for word, but for years. I've read it word for word so I mean I read it 70 or 80 times and Now, understand, if you get pulled over by a police officer, sometimes they'll say, do you know how fast he was going? And you'll say, no. Maybe you even know how fast. They'll say, do you know what the speed limit is in this area? And you may think, oh, I got him here. No, I don't know what the speed limit is. If you think that helped you or saved you, it did not. You are expected to pay attention to the signs. Your ignorance of the law does not deliver you from the penalty of the law. They'd be like, you walk in and rob a bank, and then the police get you, and they say, I didn't know I couldn't rob a bank. Try that, see how far that gets you. All right? When you call me from there and say, do you know a good attorney? Do you know a good lawyer? I'm in jail. Why? Because I robbed a bank. Was you stupid? No, I didn't know you couldn't rob banks. People would draw money from the banks all the time. I didn't realize I couldn't do it with a gun. I just, I mean, we have, you know, we can open carriers, so I just thought it was okay. Again, we need to know His commandments. We can't keep them if we don't know them. By the way, we won't keep them if we don't love God enough. Now, I don't know about you, but when I love somebody, I try to make them happy. And again, what that means is you try to do the things that they like. You try not to do things they don't like. That's why if husbands want to be a good husband, we try to keep our wives happy. If wives want to be a good wife, they try to keep their husbands happy. Kids want to do the, I mean, they want to get anywhere with mom and dad. They want to keep their parents happy. By the way, if we want to have God's blessings, we want God to give us stuff and answer our prayers. We got to keep God happy. We got to keep his commandments. He says there in John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. If we love Him enough, we'll keep His commandments. Again, underneath this, keeping His commandments. If we obey and keep His commandments, we reap benefits. Malachi 3.10 talks about a financial benefit we reap. 1 John 3.22 talks about a prayer benefit that we reap. Notice the prayer one. Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because what? We keep His commandments. Now there are a lot of folks that say, I prayed and He didn't answer my prayer. They think that God should answer every prayer that they pray. You say, does that happen? And the answer to that is no. I can tell you that if you don't have a correct relationship with Him, He doesn't answer your prayer. By the way, He also tells us if we don't have a proper relationship with others, He doesn't answer our prayer. He tells husbands and wives, we don't have a proper relationship with our husband and wife, He doesn't answer our prayer. Now, understand, if we obey Him and keep His commandments, there's some benefits. And I have here in my notes, God has good benefits. Now, many times when you're looking for a job, the benefits that they have are important, because sometimes the hourly wage is pretty close, but you're looking for the one that has a fairly good hourly wage and good benefits, especially when it comes to insurance and things like that. So again, we want to make sure that we keep His commandments. Then the last thing, and I'll be done, He said this, He said that they might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation. That came from Psalm 78, verse 8. Now, I do hope that God doesn't Look at you or I and say, you know what? I hope nobody turns out like them. That's why as parents and as preachers or teachers or anyone else, we're supposed to be an example. Now, when I say an example, it is something that someone can pattern their life after. How many of you have ever had a pattern that you either use for sewing or for woodworking or for something else? Now, if you follow the pattern, You'll end up with the right sizes and shapes. Some of you bought a building, or you bought something before, and the hose were off. I mean, they pre-drilled the hose. But if the hose are off, it is a mess, because it's not easy for you to fix it. Say, what happened? The guy just was off a little bit. And by the way, you don't have to be off very much for that screw not to fit in that hole. But if that screw don't fit that hole, it is really tough. And by the way, it also means probably the next one's off, and the next one's off, and the next one's off. So a lot of times, it's not even a screwdriver. It's a little, I don't know what you call it, an awl or something. You stick it in there, and you'd wall it around, and then you put that screw in there. And then you'd have to, I mean, it could have been an easy job, but it's not an easy job because somebody didn't cut the pattern right. When I was in shop class, and I enjoyed shop class. Shop class and PE were my two favorite classes. The rest of them were all school, so they weren't near as much fun. But in shop class one time we made flower boxes. And they had a pattern. And if we laid the pattern down and we drew stuff around the pattern. Now here's what you don't do. You don't take the pattern and draw that one and then take the pattern and set it over there and take the one you cut and now use that as a pattern. Because if you keep doing that, when you get down here to this ways, you're a long ways from the original pattern. You know why? Because you got off a little bit and then a little bit more. Then you say, how do you know? Because that's what we did. And then our flower boxes did not match up right. Now, if you use the same one as the pattern for this one, and then you take the pattern over here and use the same one as a pattern for that one, and you take the pattern over here, I mean, then you're going to be okay. But again, understand Christ set a pattern for us. Again, Notice 1st Peter chapter 2 verse 21 my favorite verse my life verse and what it says in 1st Peter 2 21 for even here into where you called Because Christ also suffered for us. What did he do leaving us an example that you should follow his steps now? It is easy to follow a trail By the way that trail tells you a couple things One someone else has already been through there to it usually means it's a little clearer than if now if you ever had to make your own trail and Not near as much fun, a lot more scratching, a lot more, I mean, sometimes you get down on your hands and knees and some, I mean, but when there's a trail, for instance, wherever my cows walk, my cows make a trail, because my cows, I mean, and by the way, they don't care if stuff scratches against them, so they, and they're a little wider than me, thankfully, so they, usually if I get on the cow trail, I can keep from getting in trouble. Now, if you try to follow a rabbit trail, that's going to be a little bit more difficult. Now again, Christ said in the example, why that we should follow His steps? You say, but yeah, but that's Jesus. I'm nothing like Jesus. Well, I'm glad the next guy out. You don't have it in your verses because of the fact that I didn't want to run off another page for just three verses, but let me read it to you. And you can turn over there if you'd like to. In 1 Corinthians chapter four, we're going to look at a verse there and then we'll look at one also in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. So 1 Corinthians chapter four, verse 16 says, wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. Now you would think that this is a proud thing, but he wasn't saying it as a proud thing. What Paul was saying is I'm trying to, I'm living for the Lord. Follow me. Now that, by the way, that puts a lot of pressure on you. Okay? And it's a good pressure because it means I have to do right because there's folks watching me. There's folks following me. How many of you have ever led a group someplace? How many of you wish you never have to do that again? You know why? Because almost always there's somebody that you lose. I mean, especially if you leave early in the morning, we used to go to youth conference. We'd leave at three or four o'clock in the morning and we try to keep track of people's headlights. Uh, but if we had like six cars, I couldn't see all the cars behind me. So I was always hoping that the folks behind me, the folks behind them were watching the folks behind me and the folks behind. I mean, if they were all watching it, but it never fell. We had somebody that got lost. And we'd pull over. Or somebody would think they had to go to the bathroom. And they're not good at math. Now, if you're good at math, you have to understand, if you pull over, and you say, well, he's only in there for five minutes. I understand that. But if you know math very well, if you're five minutes behind them, if they're traveling 60 miles an hour, in five minutes, they went five miles. You say, yeah, but they're only five miles. That's not very far. Yeah, but for you to catch up five miles means you're going to have to go really, really fast. or you won't ever catch them. And here's what happens. Someone will pull over and they go to the bathroom. We'd check and we couldn't find them. And then they said, so we need to all pull over so they could catch up. Or they would say, no problem, you just keep going, I'll catch you. By the way, by the time, before they catch us, usually someone else had to go to the bathroom. So now the whole group pulls off, we pull off to the bathroom, the car that was trying to catch us, now they're going down the highway. So we're all going to the bathroom, we get back and we say, where you at? What marker are you at? Now they're five miles in front of us. And it's very difficult to travel like that. And I used to have some that would ride right on my bumper. And so they would scare me. I'd think, if I slim on my brakes. I'd had others that would say way back then, I'd say, you've got to pull out. I can't stop at every light waiting for you to catch up. So again, being the leader is not only, so again, it'll make you work to live for the Lord, because if folks are watching, if your kids are watching, your husband or your wife, or your relatives are watching, it puts some pressure on you. But Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4, 16, wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. In 1 Corinthians 11, 1, he said, be ye followers of me. Why? Even as I also am of Christ. Again, Paul wasn't saying, look at me. Paul was saying, you follow me, because I'm following Jesus. So what that was saying is, brother block's in the front, I'm following brother block, you follow me, because I'm following brother block. And by the way, if they were following brother block, and then you follow the guy following brother block, and that person followed the one that's following the one that's following brother block, I mean, and you know what I'm saying. Now I started sounding like Kamala Harris, I mean, saying a lot of stuff that you think, what in the world did he say? But the truth is, what Paul said is, you follow me, because I'm following Christ. So by the way, if you're following me, guess what? You're also following Christ, because that's who I'm following. So again, and by the way, that wasn't Jesus, Paul was, And you say, well, Paul was what he called the worst sinner. He called himself the chiefest of sinners. So if you're wondering, if Paul had a lot of growing to do and Paul had a lot of change to do, yes, he did. But again, Paul was an example. And by the way, also Lois and Eunice were, because again, in 2 Timothy chapter one, verse five, Paul himself commented about how, Timothy, if you just have the faith that grandma had and you live like grandma did, and you have the Christian life like your mom did, You're going to be a good Christian because they got the real thing. They've got their genuine people. They're not the fakers. They're not movie stars. They're not pretending to be somebody. That's really who they are. They're good folks. So again, you and I are supposed to pass down a spiritual heritage. In order to pass it down, we have to have it ourselves. So it means that we have to work on having a spiritual heritage so that we can pass that down to our kids. And then we have to get to them, make sure we drive home the importance of them passing it down to their kids. Because what a blessing. Again, I said this the other day, we have some families here that they're second and third generations at Liberty. And some other folks, your kids don't attend here, but your kids are faithful in church someplace else. By the way, that is a blessing when we have second and third and some fourth generation young people. And when I say young people, some of them are 40 years old now, but I mean, or 50, living for the Lord. Young people that grew up here that had godly parents and godly teachers and preachers that pointed them in the right direction. And now they're pointing their kids in the right direction. And some of their kids are getting married and they're trying to point their kids in the right direction. That's what Timothy had. He had a grandma and a mom that was doing right. And Timothy was trying to do that as well. And by the way, he probably got married, had kids, and then taught that to his kids. And again, the goal for him would have been for his kids to teach their kids and so on and so forth. A godly heritage. He's passing it down to the next generation.