Alright, now we're going to pick it up in Hebrews chapter number 11. I'm going to read you, unusually so, I'm going to read you one verse and I'm going to try to develop a thought. I'm dealing with a friend of mine. His name is Sean. I won't give you his last name, but he is dying right now, stage four cancer. He's up in Kansas City, and he got his life straightened out, and he's trying to live right and live for the Lord, and then got the even worse news about his cancer. It's not well. There's nothing they can do for him. Tried to give him pain medicine to help him, and so he's in the process of stepping from this life to the next. And I talked to him yesterday. Talked about funeral arrangements and different things like that and discussing the things. And he said somethings very profound and he said, you know preacher at the funeral just mentioned to them don't waste their life. He's a young man, he's in his 50s. And he came over to a meeting I was at in Missouri and they made a special trip over there. He's in severe pain and he came to the meeting every single night and didn't want to miss it. And then he came down to Pensacola, he didn't want to miss it. And he wanted to be here because his sister's gonna graduate from our school in about 10 days now, it's the meeting, and she's gonna be graduating. So we're gonna film it and make sure that it's online where he can watch it if the Lord allows him to hang on, he's that close. He's very, very weak and doing all that he can. She sent me a video the other day. Some men went over there and he started singing about going home where there's no pain and there's no sickness and there's no disease. And it really makes you realize where life really is and where it comes to all of a sudden everything has stopped for his daughters and for his mom and his sister. All of a sudden everything just hit the brakes and life as they know it has changed. And so all I did was mention to him, you know, sometimes the biggest mistake you make in a situation or a time like that is you say too much. Sometimes people say some really stupid things at a time like that and it comes from experience and they bark and all that. Sometimes it's just good to say, I'm right here if you need something, you know, and that kind of thing. And so all I said to him was, I said, don't focus on the past. Thank God that all they remember is how you finish. And so that's the thought behind where we're at here, is thank God it's all that matters is how I finish. Hebrews chapter number 11, look in verse number 21, then Brother Larry's going to pray and we'll try our best to preach a little bit. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Brother Larry, you pray, would you please? Amen, thank you. You can be seated. Would you like to turn back to the first book in your Bible, come all the way over to Genesis, just so you can follow. I'm going to try to sort of give you this in kind of storybook form, I guess you might say. I'm reminded of the passage in the Song of Solomon, chapter number 8, where the Bible's talking about the bride there, and she's leaning upon her loved one. If you're going to finish things the way that God would have you to finish things, you're going to have to have something to lean on. When you start getting older, the Lord helps you to recognize that you start realizing what's in the book of Job. You start realizing your teeth fall out. You came in with no teeth, oftentimes you leave with no teeth. You came in with no hair, you oftentimes leave with no hair. You came in with no clothes on, and before they lay you in the box, you go out with no clothes on. You're the only animal, if you were an animal, you're not an animal, but you're the only one that can't create your own fur. They all have their own covering. You need a covering. That's why you look in the book of Genesis and you see the Lord come up there and he recognizes that Adam and Eve, he says, Adam where are you? He realizes that Adam is out of fellowship with the Lord and he's messed up some things and he says, hey listen, Adam you messed up and he made coats of skins and covered him. Have you ever considered how many years Adam lived after he had the covering? Most everybody talks about Adam and the failure that he had. First of all, he's naming all the animals, walking with God, then he gets a woman, and then the woman leads him in the wrong path, and that kind of stuff, and he has a bad kid who kills his good kid. But beyond that, most people don't talk about him. Man, there's a whole several hundred years that Adam continues to flourish, even though he has to earn a living by the sweat of his brow, and he has to plow things out. But most people don't talk about the end of things. They just remember the bad things that have taken place. Jacob's getting ready to die now and he goes over there to Pharaoh and he gets there in about Genesis 46 or so. And he comes up there and Pharaoh says, man we've heard about you, the patriarch, the great patriarch of Israel. As a matter of fact, your boy Joseph, he's the second in command here, and he married my daughter. Boy, he's a real special this and that and the other, and so on and so forth. He said, man, tell us something, boy. Enlighten us. Show us some things. You know what he said? Few and evil have been the days of my pilgrimage. You know what happens when you come to the end of life, oftentimes the things that resonate with you are the things that you did wrong. You know one of the hardest things that you can do is to recognize you can't outrun your past. I remember an old preacher one time, his brother Mac is what they called him. I cannot think of his last name to save my neck. I've been looking for him, but he was an old preacher. And he was preaching to preachers, and one of the things was, is he said this, you can't run fast enough to outrun your life. And then he said, and you can't outpreach your life. He said, I don't care how great you are as an orator, I don't care how much command you have of the English language, you can't outrun your life. And then he went on to use an illustration of a guy who had been known as a great preacher and he messed up and he did some things that he shouldn't do. And he used that as an illustration that said even though that man lived for another 40 years, all they remembered was the time that he messed up. You know what can happen sometimes is you and I begin to race toward the finish line, and it's coming whether you want it or not. The finish line's there, it's coming. It's coming at you, you're not going to it. You're going to finish one day. If the Bible's right, the Bible says that upon unto the man once to die, After this, the judgment. You say, well what's going to happen? Unless the rapture occurs, and I believe in that, but if you don't know when it's going to take place, if he postpones it, or if he delays it, or he winds up coming when he says he's going to come, and that kind of thing. Every one of you under the sound of my voice, you know what's going to happen? You've got an appointment coming with death. The issue is, is how did you live your life? Not how did you die. By the time you die, it's too late. It matters about what you did. How'd you finish? I remember my dad was dying. I had some time there with him in the hospital before we moved him over there to hospice and those kind of things. And he was giving me all these instructions about what he wanted done. He knew he was dying. He knew he was fixing to step out and those kind of things. He wasn't acting crazy or acting silly or nothing. Completely lucid. Knew exactly what was going on. And I said, Dad, what about this? What about that? And he said, make sure that you give me something if I wind up saying something crazy or do something stupid or if I hurt your mom or if I begin to say things that aren't doctrinally correct. You're dying. Why would you be worried about that? And I said, Dad, I don't care. It'd make no difference, man. I'll just as soon whoop on his look at him if they have anything to say about you. I mean, that's my dad dying. The audacity of somebody coming in and saying he was doctrinally incorrect. You know what he said? He said, hey boy. He said, you don't understand. All they will remember is how I died. How you go out does matter. You know what Jake said? I didn't make it to the end without something to lean on. You're not going to make it to the end without recognizing you need, first of all, the Lord Jesus Christ to lean on. You need His church and His word to lean on. And you're going to need other Christians in order to lean on. You ain't going to make it by yourself. This idea, this individual rebel, rabble-rousing, maverick, I'm on my own, I can make it on my own, I'm self-made and all that kind of stuff. You ain't self-made, you're God-made. And you're not going to make it without somebody helping you along the way. You just well get accustomed to it. You are not going to make it by yourself. Jake said, man, I got something to lean on. You know where he got something to lean on? He got something to lean on because he realized the arm of flesh will fail you. And God made sure he knew that lesson. He gets ready to go over there after he's had all the junk going on. By the way, when he left over there and went across there to Bethel and then on down there to get his wife Rachel, he fell in love with Rachel. He's in his seventies. He's not some little boy. The birthright got sold out when he was a boy, about maybe 15 to 18 years of age. But by the time he's leaving there, he is a full-grown man. He's not making childhood foolish decisions. No, uh-uh. He's making those decisions as a grown man. And he takes out across that area, and he gets on the back side over there, and he gets deceived. I mean, the Bible says that when he saw Rachel, he lifted up his voice and wept. She was so pretty. He fell in love with her. I mean, you talk about, I mean, looking at her and falling in love at first sight. He fell in love with her. He fell so much in love with her that he worked for her for 14 years just to be able to call her his wife. And then on top of that, she winds up being barren for a long period of time. And the weak one winds up having kids. God's got a funny way of turning the screws, doesn't he? And he's getting ready to go out there, and he puts his wives out there in front, and Leah out front, and Rachel out front, and the kids out front, and the gifts out front, and all that. and he goes over to the cornfield over there, and he's out there in the middle of the night out there, he's getting on up in age now, and he's over there talking to the Lord, and he says, bless me Lord, take care of me, watch over me Lord, Esau's gonna kill me, I need you to do something for me, and the angel of the Lord comes down there and starts talking with him, and he latches hold of the angel of the Lord, and he says, I'm not letting you go till you bless me. Which is kind of foolish if you think about it, to think that you could out-wrestle the angel of the Lord. But it's funny how you get sometimes when you get in a position where you think you can outdo God right and make Him work for you. Are you sure you want the blessing enough to be crippled the rest of your life? You know what He did? He crippled Him. You say, well no, He blessed Him. He blessed Him by crippling Him. You say, what does that mean? He started walking out of that thing, crawling out of that thing, and all of a sudden the Lord said, well, there's an old stick there, an old crooked stick. I can draw a straight line with a crooked stick, but you're going to need something to lean on. Boy, you can't even walk anymore. What are you dragging back there behind you? I'm dragging a dead leg, Lord. I can't even put no weight on it. I've got to have something to lean on to take the place of what happened. Lord, you blessed me by what? Crippling me. Who would have ever thought it was a blessing? That's what he got. You say, oh well he blessed this and he blessed that. Forty years he was without his boy Joseph. Forty years he thought that boy was dead. At the end of that story right there, that other little young one, the youngest one of the group there, he winds up being taken and Joseph holds him over because he knows what Ben means to him. And he says, I'm not sending him back. And he tears his clothes and he said, the same thing that happened to Joseph has happened to him. Just disregards all those kids. You sure you want that kind of a blessing? You say, what happened? That happened to him while he's leaning on that crutch and saying, God said he'd bless me. God said he'd bless me. Forty years I'm having to lean on this thing. I'm not talking about he could walk with a limp. I'm talking about dragging a foot behind him and in order for him to make it, one step out and plant that crutch and drag that leg up. And one step up, plant that crutch. Drag that leg up. Lord, I'm not leaving until you bless me. I'm not going to turn you loose until you bless me. Let me go. And he touched the hollow of his thigh. You know, sometimes God can touch you and do things in your life that you don't ever get over. You say, what is it? God says it's a blessing. So I'm going to bless you, Jake. But boy, the blessing didn't come to Jake the way he thought they'd come to Jake. You know what can happen sometimes to you? You get so consumed with the things that have occurred in your past that instead of looking back at the past blessings, all you see is the past pain. You don't look in the past and see how good God was to you when he got you through the Jordan rivers and when he took care of you and when for 14 years you've been working for something. He gave you the desires of your heart in spite of you being despicable and deceiving and doing all those other things. You don't recognize how God was watching over you the whole time and redirecting you in spite of you being out of the will of God. God said, I'm gonna bless you. It's gonna take me a while to get you where I need to get you to. I mean, nearly 80 years go by. Bless me, Lord. Bless me, Lord. I'm going to bless you, all right. But you're going to walk with a limp, boy. You're going to put weight on that. You're going to put weight on that crook. He says, few and even. You know what the Bible says? That Bible says in the last days, he said, leaning upon. You know what the last word in that verse is right there? Leaning upon what? The staff. You're going to have to have Jesus to lean on the staff. You're not going to make it through. talking about all the things that you did. You say, well, didn't he have some successes and things like that? Yeah, but it's funny if you read the passages that I'm talking about in 45 to about 50, it's real strange how many times you find out that Jake looks back there and he sees all kind of regrets in his life. Well, who doesn't have regrets? I mean, I did okay where I used to work and things like that, was up a little bit there and stuff along that way. And they'd have people that wanted to put in for transfers and things like that. I'd always ask them, bring me their internal file. You say, well, what do you want their internal file? They got all these qualifications. I just want to see their internal file. Well, why do you ask for that? Well, because I realized that somebody that's trying to do something is going to have some regrets in his life because he doesn't always do things the right way. And I want to see, did they bounce back from the correction? Or did they get bitter about the correction? Did they get mad about the correction? And now they're just mad all the time. That's not an individual that should be rewarded and move them out of a situation. That's an individual that hasn't learned from the situation. Everybody fails. Everybody messes up. Nobody wins all the time. Nobody gets it right all the time. You don't get it right with your kids. You don't get it right with your grandkids. You don't get it right at your job. You don't get it right in your marriage. You just well get accustomed to having some regrets in your life. But the truth of the matter is success is measured not by how many times you fail, but by how many times you bounce off the bottom. The idea, well, God's blessed me, I've never made a mistake. No, God couldn't trust you with a mistake, because you'd take your doll baby and go to the house. You'd put out your little lip and get pokey, and you'd take your little bottle and your binky and you'd go to the house. You say, why? Because you're the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral. What I wanted to see was, is okay, I see where they messed up, and unless it was illegal or immoral, I want to see, what's he like now? What's she like now? Did she learn from the mistake? Did she own the mistake? Or did they try to step out and get a union rep in there to try to see if we could reduce it, to make it something it's not? Hey, own it! I always believed, and I had to do it a few times, unfortunately so, I always believed that if you were going to arrest a policeman, that that policeman should plead guilty, and he should get more than anybody else. I believe that. I still believe that. You say, why? Of all the people that should know better, he should know better. Could I get a witness to that? Well, a Christian ought to know better too. When you mess up, you know what you ought to say? Lord, it's me. It's me, O Lord, standing in need of prayer. I did wrong. You know what David said? Hey, you do what you want of me because you know how much I can take. But I deserve it. I'm in your hands. David didn't do like Saul. Well now, hold on a minute. Can we work out a plea deal? You know what Jake was always trying to do? Work out a plea deal. He comes at the end of his life, you know what he says? Few and evil have been the years of my pilgrimage. Man, I realized all along the way, if I'd have learned to lean a long time ago, we used to sing that song years ago up there in the mountains in Tennessee. You know, learning to lean, learning to lean. That's how you sing it up there. I'm learning to lean on Jesus. Yeah, sometimes he has to kick the slats out from under to get you to lean, doesn't he? Sometimes instead of you recognizing you need to lean, just, I got it! I got it! I don't need no help, I got it! I don't need no church, I don't need no pastor, I don't need no Bible, I don't need no prayer, I don't need none of it, I don't need none, I got it! You better learn to lean. You better learn to lean. Joseph winds up, or Jacob winds up realizing, I've had enough failures in my life. I deceived my daddy. I'm hated by my brother. I'm living in the present instead of living for eternity. Not realizing my name has been changed from Jake to Israel. That's pretty big, wouldn't you say? I mean, to have your name changed and you become the father of the nation of Israel. I mean, everywhere you read that Bible, you know what you read right? Isaac, Jacob. Jacob. Jacob. What's his name? His name's Israel. You know what he has, what you have to learn to do? You have to learn by the time you get to the end of your life, try to reduce the regrets to as many as you can. And the ones that you have, learn from those things, and then put them in the past, and put them in your rearview mirror, and don't look back there at them ever again. Some of you folks have messed up, but you're still living in the past. Some of you are still bound to your past by something that happened to you 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago and you're still looking back. Well, I can't do this because I've done that. And I realize the brethren will hold you to that. Well, I did this. Well, I did that and all that other kind of stuff. You know what you need to do? You need to call out Satan on that one right there and say, listen, the Bible says the Lord put my sins in the depths of the sea. He put them as far as the east is from the west. He remembers them no more. They're behind his back. If you can trump his word with what you're telling me, I'll listen to you. and shut up and leave me alone about my past. I'm not condoning past sins and saying they don't have repercussions, but you know what I've learned? I've learned that oftentimes, guilty consciences cause those things to remain relevant, and they cause them to resonate. Why? Because you haven't come and asked the Lord to forgive you. You know why? You won't admit you were wrong. You wouldn't dare. Ma'am, you are tearing up your household right now for one reason. Why? You won't admit you were wrong. He's more wrong than me. See? See? You can't ask God to get on to him until you get right with God and then God will take the place of you. But you know what? It won't happen. You ever read the story about Abraham and Sarah? When Abraham came to Sarah and said, hey, if they come to you, make sure you tell them I'm your sister. And you know what happened? God intervened. because she was doing what her husband said. You ain't got that much faith, do you? To believe what the Bible said. You want God to intervene in a miserable marriage for you right now? Shut your mouth and talk to God as much as you try to talk to Him. You're not going to change Him by running your mouth. You're going to change Him by running your mouth to God. God, I can't do nothing. I tell God about it. He's an idiot. He's an imbecile. He ain't got any sins. He's selfish. He's no good. He's rotten to the stinking core. I can't do nothing with him. The Lord said, okay, sister, get out of the way. I will be more than happy. I can't stand to see abuse here. If you get out of my way, I get it. As long as you stay in the way, sister, you're going to get smacked when he gets smacked. Why don't you get out of the way, if it's that serious. You know what Jake said? Man, did I mess up. Boy, I've looked in my past, and guess what happens? His favorite wife, Rachel, dies. You know why? Because sometimes the past can be painful. Sometimes, you know what happens is, we think more about the past failures and we think more about the past losses than the past blessings. I may not get past this point right here, because that Bible, we have a song, not the Bible, but we have a song that says, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. It's funny how short that list is when you get in trouble, ain't it? I mean, when was the last time you just sat down with a legal pad and said, you know something? I'm not going to put anything on here except the blessings that God's put in my life. Like air. Like a heartbeat. Like eyesight. Like being able to hear. Being able to speak. Being able to think. I passed a little kid the other day in the airport. I don't know why. I guess they might have been flying him for treatment or something. I mean, he's twisted up like a pretzel, man. I'm all bound up. Got all kind of hoses and pipes running there to him, man. He's sitting there. His teeth are all cattywampus in his head. His mouth is there. He's got on an oxygen mask trying to breathe. And I just stood there. I just stood there at all. And I watched that kid come by there and watching everybody, you know, kind of, and they pushed the kid onto the plane and they're making, and I'm thinking, Goodness, man. And the Lord said, well, that could be you. This is him talking to me. I know he'd never talk to you that way. And the Lord said, why weren't you born like that? Well, I began to think about old Herbie, you know. Grown man when I met him. Been living that way all of his life. And the Lord said, well, if you were like Herbie, could you sit on the second row and you can't read, you can't sing a note, but you're in church every time you turn around. do anything in the world for you and can't even serve the Lord? Why? You're too busy taking what God did give you and using it for yourself instead of for Him. That's just the truth of the matter. Well, I hate to get to the end of my life and realize I used whatever God gave me for nothing but myself, nothing for my prosperity, nothing but for my political gain or for whatever it might be, nothing but me, me, me, me, me, and come to the end of your life and go, man, they're going to remember how you died. Hey, what about the regrets? What about the past I should have? You don't get another chance when it comes time to kick off. You don't even know. You mean that could have been? Your prayers probably prevented it. That could have been it for the big boy. He's been fighting against that and had horrible accidents. He's got all kinds of heart trouble and stuff like that. He went into a hospital one day and nobody told me anything about it. Nobody knew anything about it. And I called him, he's witnessing to the nurses and all this other kind of stuff. And I called him and I said, what in the cat hair are you doing? And he goes, what are you talking about preacher? And I said, you're in the hospital, you got heart trouble, you almost died. And he goes, yes sir. And I said, why didn't you tell me? He said, home, you're busy man. It ain't no big deal. I know where I'm going." Now, you may think that's funny. Man, I got mad at him. I'm like, why didn't you tell me? He said, "'Cause I'm ready to go." I said, well, I'm not ready for you to go. Boy, he's got the right idea. I'm ready, I'm now ready to be offered, Paul says. I'm not trying to be hard on you, but by the time you get to the end of your life, and your end of your life is coming, and you don't know when it's going to be, now you're going to have to allow me to rely on it, whether you like it or not, you're going to have to suck it up and drink it, because I have a little bit of experience. I've seen people's lives cut off from the time they were born until the time they die, and everything in between, and every kind of way you can imagine in between. And that reminds me to say, you don't know what your expiration date is. None of you do, but you live as if you know tomorrow you're not going to be in the graveyard or somebody making plans. I watched that deal yesterday. I'm talking to Sean on the telephone and he's talking and he's having a real hard time. He's real, real weak and he's all heat up and he's trying to breathe. And I'm sorry, he said, I can't talk real plain. I said, I can hear you. What do you think I'm going to tell him? Hey man, pick up the pace. I've got things to do, places to go, people to see. What do you want, man? He's dying. What did he say? I'm ready to be offered. Tell them not to waste their life. Boy, this thing right here came running true and I thought, man, that's what my dad said. That's what the old man said, the old preacher. I don't say that disrespectfully. I remember him walking in the old preacher's house one day and I'm over there watching some things going on and he's laying and I could see his mouth moving. I figured he was praying. And then I went in there and I said, hey preacher. He said, just a minute. And he kept on talking and that kind of a deal. And then he got through and I said, how are you doing? He said, pretty good. And I said, well, what are you praying about? Just curious. You know, somebody's fixing to pass on. Don't you get curious? What are you doing? He said, I'm thinking back in my life if there's anything I need to confess. Is there anything I need to get right? Is there anything I need to get fixed? I'm fixing to see Him, he said. Why do I remember that? I mean, I remember when he went on. Brother Donovan and his wife were there and a couple of the kids there and they're singing a song when he goes from that. I'm there just a couple of days before. How can I remember that? Boy, what a thing. He said, man, I'm fixing to see him. It was real to him. Some of you, you live your life. You know how you live your life? You live your life like you have tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation, but today's the day to make short accounts with God and get the thing fixed up and live as if today's going to be your last day on the face of this earth. You don't know what tomorrow's going to hold. You've got no way of knowing that. Well, but you know, we're just kind of planning for this and that and the other. Are you planning for the judgment seat of Christ? No. If you were, you wouldn't be squabbling with somebody that you don't like, or somebody that did this, or somebody that did that, or somebody this and that and the other. You know what you'd say? I ain't having that brought up there at the judgment seat. I'm going to fix it now. You don't think about it, don't think about it. You say, how do you know? You'd be here tonight if you thought about it. You ain't coming tonight, you're going to make up your mind. You say, why man? I go to church, people fall out over there. I ain't going back to that church, man. People died in that place over there. You ever think about the past blessings? Not just the fact that he lost her, but also about the fact that when he met her, he fell in love with her. Can I say this to you? It hurt. Are you hearing me? It hurt. I'd rather you hurt when somebody goes because you have experienced what it is to truly be in love with somebody and to truly care about somebody. And when they pass from this life, you're going to miss them, boy, and it hurts. You say, why? Because you loved them. You know what they said about the Lord when He wept? Oh, how He loved them. Right? It's a great experience. You say, what is that? That pain that comes along. It's just evidence that you must have really cared. It's not just a passing, fleeting moment in life. It's not just an affair. It's not just something for selfishness. It's an investment. You're sad because you're going to miss that individual. Like David would have missed Jonathan. Like Elisha would have missed Elijah. You pause and think about that for just a minute. Man, you know what he's thinking? He said, boy, I remember when I first met that girl. I thought the sun rose and set in her eyes. Didn't you work for her for 14 years? Psh, seemed like 14 minutes, man. I was so much in love, man. I was blind in one eye and couldn't see out of the other. Boy, if you'd have seen her when she walked up there to the well. We didn't see in her what you saw in her. Yeah, but boy, did I see it. He's weeping over right off the bat. You know what? You ever think about the past blessings? How good God's been to you? Hasn't He provided for you? What in the cat hair are you doing sitting here today? Why are you in a Bible-believing church? How come you know the truth of the Bible rightly divided? Why'd you get that? Don't you say it's because of a preacher. No, it's because of God. God brought you to the right place at the right time. How come you learned the truth of the King James Bible? How come you learned the truth of salvation? How come you know about eternal security? How come you know about the judgment seat of Christ? Countless thousands will go up to the judgment seat of Christ. It'll be the first time they ever heard about it. Man, I didn't know this was going to happen. and all that foolishness going on and all that running around between all of the minnows in the pond trying to drag you down from doing something and you spend all the time swatting minnows instead of, hey, I just got to do what the Lord called me to do. See you at the judgment seat. Have a nice day and move on. I mean, hadn't God been good to you? Did you ever look back at Calvary? Did you ever pause for just a minute? You ever just think for a second, man, how great it was to meet Jesus for the first time and see Him face to face, and boy, it was just as real as if He had on eyelashes and fingernails, and He came down there, and you got saved. And you know what you did, man? You thought everybody in the church had to have been an angel, and you thought a choir full of angels fixing to take you to heaven. You witnessed to a telephone pole. I mean, you got excited, and you know, and then after a while, it sort of rubbed off on you. Did you ever just go back and think what a nut for Jesus you were when you got saved? What happened? It didn't wear off. You're still saved. If you spend more time looking back at Calvary, you know what it would do? It would eclude, it would eclipse, it would prevent you from being able to see the brethren in another light. You'd be surprised when you see them in the light of Calvary, all you see them is blood-washed, stinking sinners just like you are. Boy, when you look at somebody through the cross of Calvary, it sort of changes your perspective of them, sort of changes your perception, doesn't it? I think it does. I think we oftentimes don't look back into the past. I think he looks back and he says to him, man, you know, God's been good to me, man. I mean, He delivered me from Esau over there. He even took me back to Bethel. Oh, He took you back to Bethel, the place where you first met Him? Yeah, but I had deviated along the way. I messed up there and made an altar where it was comfortable and convenient for me, like my bed in the morning I don't want to get out of. There's my altar. A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands. Well, you're going to fold your hands one day. They're going to put you in a box or a pen, a case. You know what they're going to do? They're going to haul your body out there and put it in the ground somewhere. And guess what's going to happen? You know what happens to Jake? The Bible says it's unusual. You don't find it very often. You know what the Bible says? By the time you get to chapter 50, when Israel died, you know what the Bible says? They embalmed him. You mean they preserved him? You mean He was eternally secure? That's a picture of your salvation. When you got saved, your soul's embalmed, it can't ever die. They pulled an old woman out. She'd been in the ground 40 years, man, 40 years, and they pulled her out, and the doctor over there at the morgue, they started doing investigative stuff and things, and the woman's body had been underwater and had been over there, and there was some mold and mildew and stuff on that. You know what that doctor said, the individual that does the coroner's stuff? They're trying to look for evidence in her lungs, I mean, in her insides that they didn't look at before, and all that. She said the embalming process preserved them quite well. Well, I got embalmed by the blood of Jesus Christ. And I'm preserved and I don't have to worry about it. You can pull me out of the ground anytime you want to. You say, what? Preserved? You ever pause and think about that he not only preserved him over there, but he's looking back there and he's saying, you know something? I did get the chance to go back and make things right at Bethel. This is a trip many of you won't make. You say, why? He had to admit where he was making his altar wasn't the right place. He had to be willing to give up his comfort and his convenient. He had to admit he was wrong for making more out of life. He forgot. He forgot. The reason you're here, boy, is because of God. You got out of the bed this morning and the Lord gave you a stick to lean on, boy. You wanted God's blessing? Get your hind end up and get back to Bethel. Isn't that enough for you? You haven't seen my hand already. You've got two murdering boys. You've got a raped daughter and an idol-worshipping wife. Ain't that enough for you, boy? You're in the wrong place! Get up and get back! Bury that junk at the bottom of that oak tree and get back over there where you should have been 17 years ago! But it was just a little too far for you to go. A little more sleep, a little more slumber. You know, preacher, I'm going to one day. Yeah, you're going to one day. One day they're going to roll you right down here. We've done it so many times, it ain't even funny. Or over yonder. We got double doors over there too, for two reasons. Casket and big heads. You say, what happens? Independent Baptists are funny, man. They always got to have a door. You say, why? Because number one, they eat too much, and number two, they get the big head. They're going out to get a hat big enough for their head to fit. So you've got to have double doors for them to be able to get their head out. But I know what's going to happen when we bring your old fat behind right through them. They say, what happened? Got to open up. Wide load coming through. Live life for himself. Live life for herself. Oh, don't she look natural? No, she don't look natural. Her way that she ended was how she lived her life for herself. Oh, don't worry, I'm going to say some nice things, and I'm going to be kind, and I'm going to be sweet, and I'm going to lift up Jesus and talk about salvation and all that kind of stuff. But the evidence speaks for itself. You better close that casket. You ever had a funeral where you had to close the casket? Sometimes you got to close the casket because you don't want to be reminded of what the remains are. I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm trying to give you something real. I'm pretty sure if I wasn't you, well, you ain't me. And you don't realize how close you are to things coming to a close. And it's time you get real with something besides the news media, and with your social media, and with all the other stuff that gets you cattywampus and jacked out. God hasn't ever touched you, and you ain't walking with a limp, and you don't know nothing about God's touch. All you do is talk about, well, I've got to do it. You're always looking for a reason to get out of doing what God wants you to do. Well, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. You're going to hit the judgment seat of Christ one day. Guess what's going to happen? This thing you spent all this time taking care of, you're going to leave it behind. The Lord said, man, that stinking rag, you ain't bringing it up here. You say, why? It ain't no good. You ever realize how selfish it is? See, I'm not worried about lunch today. I've got cinnamon rolls on my desk. And now I've got an excuse. Well, I've got to go to the hospital, so I guess I need to go ahead and eat one of them instead of having a good meal, you know, and you all would understand, right? And then all of a sudden I wind up dying of a heart attack and you can't even get me in the casket, man, you're trying to stuff me down. And hey, doctor, when you do that and cut the Y there, can you take a little bit of that out there so he'll fit in there and that kind of a deal? You can't outlive your life. Can't out-preach your life. Everybody knows what you are. You scoundrel you. Everybody knows what you are. You think you got it covered up. You ain't got it covered up. You think, I got it all fixed. Yeah, Jake thought the same thing. Comes to the end of the thing and the Lord said, how about it, Jake? Let me hear you testify. Tell Pharaoh, I mean, you are in the king's palace, boy. You are talking to the number one honcho in the world, Jake. I mean, I have brought you before him. Let me hear you testify, Jake. Tell me how it is. 140 something years of age and few and evil have been the years of my Pilgrimage. You can't see it. You can't look past all the things in the past. Secondly, could I just say this to you? Sometimes you spend so much time looking in the past, you forget about the present provision. I'm trying to hurry. I know we're running a little bit behind. Sometimes we forget that most of us had a meal this morning if we wanted it. unless you're intermittent fasting. Okay, good. Praise the Lord, then you'll be hungry at lunch. Well, I'm not gonna do that. I'm keto and I can't have, okay, then you have supper. But I bet you there's nobody in here that's starving to death. I bet you a couple days ago, I mean it was snowing up there where I was and didn't stick, but I mean it was coming up, you know, quite a bit, enough to really enjoy it and that kind of a thing. And I understand it got a little nippy down here in Florida for us Floridians. It got a little nippy, it dropped below 50. Man, out come the mink coats and the stoles, and out come the big old heavy coats and the earmuffs. And you know, you got to put on your things so your nose and your mouth don't freeze and all that kind of a deal. And I bet you went over there and you flipped that thing from cool to heat and turned that thing down. And that thing came on emergency heat. It smelled like your house was on fire because it was so covered with it. I said, man, what happened? I got to get warm up fast. Hurry up, hurry up, man. You go in there in the morning, kick on the water, it's like, hurry up, get hot, get hot, get hot. Hang on, you're waiting on it. Get hot, man. There it is, boy. Man, I'm freezing to death and all that kind of stuff. Boy, it was real rough, wasn't it? You had to turn up the heat and wait for the hot water a little longer to get hot. Wait for the coffee to drip out of the pot. I mean, back in the old days, you know, you had a coffee pot, and you put the paper thing in there, and then you put the coffee in there, and then you had to wait it go, and then they got to where they got pretty sophisticated, where you could pull the latch out, and it would hold the rest of the stuff in there. Back in my day, you had to pull it and put a cup under it, and then do the switch, and then they realized that's just too much effort for people to do, and so then they fixed it where you could get it, and it would back it up so you could go ahead and pour it, because the thing's got just enough for a cup. You can't wait for it to fill. I gotta have it now, man. I gotta have it now. You're like a crackhead, man. I gotta have that coffee, I gotta have it now. And then what they did, they went to single serving Keurigs. So now, it's like... I don't have to wait for the whole pot anymore. You say, what? I'm waiting on my single serve. 8, 10, 12 ounces. Yeah, gotta have that caffeine, boy. God forbid electricity goes out. I know what you did, you went and got a generator. You didn't get it for your refrigerator. You got it for your coffee maker, man. You're not fooling me. Preacher, I got battery backup coffee maker. Okay, man. Funny, isn't it, how we forget how good we got it? When preacher gas went up to $5 a gallon, you still had enough to put in your gas tank, didn't you? I mean, it cost you a little bit. You go to the store now, and maybe you can't buy all the dainties that you used to buy, but you're still able to buy something. You say, how do you know? The evidence speaks for itself. You ain't missing no meals. If God cut this country to one meal a day, or three meals a week, boy, you talk about a revolution, man. Dog eat dog. I mean, people would be knocking on you in the head just to get a loaf of bread. It's funny how you take things for granted that are happening now. When's the last time you thanked God for a meal? Or do you just, when you get ready to go to the meal after church on Sunday, you're in your Sunday morning meet-and-close, you know? You sit down at the restaurant, you know, drop the napkin on the floor, God bless the food, thank you, appreciate it. Or maybe you say a prayer, good bread, good meat, amen, let's eat. Or you say, God, I realize if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have the money to pay for this. I wouldn't have the taste buds to taste it or the digestive system to digest it. I just want to thank you for this good food, Lord, and I sure do appreciate it. And you get the glory for provision. You ever wonder why you're still married? You say, because you're a fool. She thinks it's her and you think it's you. And it ain't neither one of you. It's him. Oh, I know when you was down here at the altar saying, I do, you know, it's always all about him. Oh no, it's all about her. Yeah, until you got done. And the second, sir, you said, I do, as soon as you stepped down the stairs, you started to walk down here and you got her by the hand. And she says, honey, can you hold your shoulders back just a little bit and walk a little straighter? And you're like, and she said, oh, we married now. Where was that when you were dating? Mm-hmm. And you'd go out and you know what you'd do? Oh, you wouldn't take her to Crystal or McDonald's. Oh, no, no, no, uh-uh. You're going downtown to the Chart House. We got some of them things there. Some folks gave us. You go down there. That's a highfalutin place down there. Or you go out there to the big steakhouse over there to not chop place the... That's a good one, too, though. Capital Grill. That one. And then you get married. Hey, baby, you want to go to Pizza Hut? Before you got married, you know what you said? Where do you want to go? After you got married, you said, hey, don't you reckon a crystal will do? Think we can split a meal? Untrue for now, ain't it? I done quit preaching and gone to meddling. Funny how things change in your relationship with the Lord that way. Boy, you don't want to go to hell. You are screaming bloody murder. You don't want to go to hell. I don't want to go to hell. God, don't send me to hell. Please don't send me to hell. Thank God He saved me. Let's get back to living life we used to. But we don't smoke and drink anymore. We just talk about everybody that does smoke and drink. Sometimes it's hard. You know why? That staff, we forget Lord hasn't really made us limp and we forget we're leaning on a staff. The Lord's letting us get there. You say, what? We're leaning on Him, the finished work, the finished blood atonement of Jesus Christ. What are you leaning on this morning? Oh, preacher, I'm leaning on Jesus. I'm leaning on Jesus. Do you ever pause to think about leaning on the future? You ever think about it? What about the promises he has for the future for you? You ever think about it? Well, Ms. Barber does, but the rest of you are thinking, who cares about that? I'll tell you who cares about it, he does. And what he's trying to do is prepare you for where you get there, no matter what your age is. You say, why? He wants to give you something. Now it's all about you, is it? Okay. Have you surrendered your life? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, you present your body, a living sacrifice. There's your limp. I no longer get to do what I want to do. I'm a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable unto God. It's your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world. There's your limp. but be transformed. There's your limp. By the renewing of your mind that you may know that which is good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. You know what he just said? He said, you're going to limp. You say, why? You don't fit in with the world. You're out of step. Say, why? Because of where I'm going, I want to fit in when I get there. I don't expect to fit in down here. Why? Because I'm an arrogant Pharisee and I'm always about pants and pork and haircuts. You're an idiot if you believe that. I've been to many prisons in the state of Florida and other places. They all have the same dress code. They all have the same hair link. They all have the same dietary practices and stuff like that. And the majority of them are going to hell. I've been in churches, man, and they're so straight, you'd think that their gun barrel is just absolutely perfectly straight. It is straight and exactly that empty also. They got everything just right. I mean, man, it's so tight in there, man, you can't even hear a squeak. It's so cold, you walk in with milk, it'll be ice cream by the time you hit the altar down there. And this is cold as it can be, and just as pious, and just as uppity, and looking at them, making sure their tie is straight. And I've been in churches where if you drop your coat while you're preaching, you're considered to be an apostate. And you're not supposed to walk away from the pulpit. You've got to stand in the pulpit and be dignified and bring dignity to the office. You're a pastor and the way that you're told how you're supposed to hold your Bible as you approach the pulpit and they teach in that stuff. I don't care if you carry it on your head. It doesn't make no difference to me. Can you preach? Well, you can't preach if you ain't never been through nothing. God says, you want to be a minister? Good, I'm going to give you a thorn. Jake, I'm going to give you a limp. You're so afraid of Him coming in and doing surgery on you and making you walk with a limp or putting a thorn down in you and you losing some of the things you had before that you can't be the minister God wants you to be because He can't trust you with trouble. Paul's twisted up. The rest of the people the Lord called had all kinds of problems and difficulties. And boy, you talk about shaking more than just two continents. You talk about shaking the world and continuing to shake it all the way up here in 2022. You say, why? Lord, I'm not my own. I'm bought with a price. Do me what you want. What if he bankrupted you? What if he showed you the only reason you got all that there is just because it's your reputation, because you're looking to that for safety instead of him? What if he asked you to put it on the altar? We already took up the offering. Don't worry. I'm not asking you for that. I'm just saying, what if He did? Oh, it all belongs to Him. What if He asked you for it? What if He said, I'll take it now? What if He asked you to give up your career right now and go to Bible school and be a preacher or a missionary? Oh, preacher, I'm too old for that. Moses was 80. What makes you think God quits? He has a retirement age. Where do you get that? You know what God's retirement plan is? It's out of this world. You know, when you get it, when God calls you home, you do what you can until you drop dead. Retirement plan. I think I'm going to retire now, you know? There'll be a day where I have to step down when I'm no longer effective in the pulpit. I understand that. I'm not stupid. I don't want to stand here and make you suffer. One preacher said, you know, you want me to preach to you about the tribulation or just start preaching and let you live through it? That's funny. It's okay. There'll be a day when you're sitting there saying, man, he repeated himself like four or five times, about 10 times. Preacher Lackey got up and he was preaching toward the end. He was starting to lose his mind and things were beginning to happen to him. Great old preacher, man. Great old preacher. Kicking the bride. Messages along those lines. Pick, pick, pick, man. I mean, all kind of messages. Upside down, smiling. He never smiled a mountain. He'd tell Brother Lent, Red, you get up and preach. He said, you see that woman sitting down there? She ain't no good at all. Preach her out of my church. I don't even want to be around here. She gonna live like that, not unpreached at it. She don't wanna get right, get out. That's what I say. You can get up and preach to him, Red, talking to Brother Lent. See that old guy over there? He say he a deacon. He a deacon, he don't never put a dime in the offering plate. Preach him out, Red. Preach him out, Red. He said old scoundrel ain't good for nothing. Old reprobate, he called him. Reprobate, reprobate. Not reprobate, reprobate, reprobate. Old reprobate, yeah. Preach him out of the church. He's up there preaching one time and a guy got up and started to say something. And he said, you better not stand up and leave out of this church. And he starts to leave. He says, you better not leave. I'm telling you right now, you better not leave. And he kept walking, big church, he kept walking out there. And he starts out the back door. He said, deacon, lock that door and don't let that man back in this church ever again. Now, you couldn't take that. He had a microphone he wore around him and a long cord and had a little boy follow him around like he was on a chain to try to keep him from getting hung up because he couldn't preach standing still. That's old time preaching. That's where the old preacher used to go, man. The harder you preach, the more they love it. They get down and get writing and come back and get something else right, man. I mean, you'd have them repenting over things they didn't do. You ever... I mean... I mean, I'm talking, it got to the point, man, you chewing chewing gum in church, oh, you gotta go to the altar, you chewing like, he'd get up and say, y'all in this church, God's house, y'all chewing chewing gum like a cow chews cud. And then he'd look right at him. I'm talking to you. I bet you don't chew gum in your schoolhouse. I bet you don't chew gum in your mama's living room. You don't think nothing of chewing in God's house. People repent and you must not be saved if you're chewing gum at church. He had that kind of power on him, man. Not much anymore. You say, why? You don't see him walking with a limp. Boy, he had been shot at and had about everything he had taken away from him and his wife almost died two or three different times. You say, what happened? The power comes from the pressure. Ministry comes from misery. You have to experience it. You got to walk with a limp. You want to be effective in the ministry? Grab ahold of the Lord and hold on to Him until He makes you limp. What you doing, Joseph? Or Jacob? I'm leaning. What you leaning on? The staff. That's the last word in that verse. You say, why? Because the whole thing, you know what Jake's saying to you? It's always been about the staff. I thought it was about me until He made me realize this whole time I've been leaning on Him. The last time you gave glory to where glory was due. The last time you recognize that you have to be honest with Him one day, if not here at the judgment seat, and recognize if you accomplish anything at all, whatever it may be, it's because God put you in a position to experience it. I'm sitting there talking to a fellow the other day, didn't know it was this late, but anyway, talking to a fellow the other day and he brought up some things that occurred. I had forgotten all about them. One of them was a pretty bad accident and a couple other things that had happened. And I thought back and he said, man, you know, it's amazing you walked away from that thing. And I got to thinking about it and I looked back on it and I thought, yeah, it absolutely was. And then it began to register in my mind how many times that the Lord had stepped in and intervened. You're young, you're stupid, and you think you're almost bulletproof and that kind of a thing. And then you look back, man, at my age, and you start shaking and you start realizing, man, if God hadn't intervened there and there and there and there, I wouldn't have even met her, let alone live, pastor a church. Why, the only reason I'm here is It's been about him the whole time. He'd been trying to get me in the spot where he could use me. And then I began to realize, you know, the only reason I'm where I'm at is the staff to lean on. I'm here because of my staff. Otherwise, I couldn't walk straight. I couldn't even get out of the bed. Some of you are a little too independent. You're a little bit too much, I can do it on my own. You know what Jake would tell you about that? you better realize right now that if He don't help you, you ain't gonna make it. And you better just start learning to lean on Him right now. Otherwise, you got a hard lesson coming. I think it'd be great if we had a congregation, three or 400 people, and the one thing that was note about our congregation, spiritually speaking, do you know something about that congregation? They walk with a limp. They're leaning on a staff. But boy, they're still going. Few and evil might have been the years, but they're still going. Yeah, they're wounded and they're bleeding. They're walking with a limp, but they're still walking. Doing what? Leaning on Jesus. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm not going to even give an invitation per se in the sense of playing. If God spoke to you, I want you to come on right now. If you want to come, you come on right now. I'm not going to play the piano, the organ, or whatever. Just give you a chance to come in the silence of the hour. Just thank God for providing a staff. Don't be mad at God for crippling you. Thank God He provided it. After He crippled you, He provided you a staff to lean on. God spoke to you. You come. We're going to give you some time to pray. I'm going to shut up here in just a second. I'm just trying to make you feel comfortable. God spoke. You come. We'll wait. If you've got to go, we understand. But I'm going to wait. Let them pray. Thank God for the limp. And thank God for the staff He provided to help me with my limp. It's not always physical. Sometimes it's mental. Come on, folks are coming. Come on. We'll wait on you. If you're here today while these folks are praying, and I say this to you, if you're lost, you don't even understand anything I said, you just will not even try. The only way you can understand things of the Spirit is you have to be saved. If you're not saved, it means you don't know where you're going when you die. You say, all them people up there are walking with a limp. Yeah, they may be, but they're going in the right direction. They're headed home to heaven. And whether you like it or not, in spite of us all walking with a limp and having all the trouble we're having, we're still going in the right place. We're in the plane and it's going to make its destination one day. If you're not saved, time for you to get on the plane. Time's short. Give these folks here an opportunity to pray.