Good morning, and thank you once again for joining us as we go through the book of Amos. Here we are on our fourth week going through, and we're going to be in chapter four this morning of the book of Amos. What we've been looking at, for those who are new, we've been looking at Amos, the whole book of Amos, and we're looking at it from a perspective of, yes, we're looking at it as he wrote it to the Israelites, but we're also relating it to how Amos could be writing this book to America today. So how is Amos, how is this book relating to America today? And we're looking at it from the standpoint as if Amos is actually writing this today because folks, we all know that part of the Bible and part of the canonicity is that it transcends all time frame. That the Bible was useful for then and it's just as useful today. That's part of the canonicity of the scriptures. So all the books in the Bible, all of them from Genesis to Revelation are relevant, just as relevant today as they were when they were written. That's not what I'm saying is that some books like Amos are more specific. What I am doing is just showing and we're going through and looking and picking it out and go and picking it apart and showing how, just how much it relates to America today. And I could have picked many other books and went through them and done the same thing, but we chose Amos to do this with this morning. I remember the last few weeks and several weeks to follow, we're going to be doing that. So if you would, if you turn to me in the book of Amos chapter four, we're going to get started off again recap where amos came in and we saw last week he had asked us several questions and uh which was reply with the answer was the judgment that was going to come and we saw that he was saying we left out last week where amos was saying hey this is all your stuff all this beautiful beautiful fine stuff you have from the houses the house of ivories they're all going to be gone Alright, so don't put your wealth and your, don't put your worth in these things because I'm fixing to come and destroy them because you chose those over me is what God was saying. So as we continue in chapter 4, let's look. Chapter 4 verse 1 says, Hear this word you cows of Bashan, who were on the mountain of Samaria, who oppressed the poor, who crushed the needy, who say to your husbands, bring that we may drink. First of all, what is he saying here? He's calling them the cows of Bishan. Just to give an example of what he's talking about by the cows of Bishan, Bishan was a little region. It would have been right about here. And the cattle there, the fields were immaculate. The cattle were fattened. They were luxurious. That's where all the fine beef came from. Today, when you think of fine, we see it on all our menus everywhere. They're using the marketing scheme of Angus. We're not just regular beef. This is Angus meat. It was the prime, the cream of the crop beef was the cows of Vichon and they were held in more steam over the other cows. Basically those cows could eat the other cow's grass and people wouldn't say too much because that was the the cows that the rich people ate. So a poor farmer couldn't come and say, hey, this cow stuff is coming over here on my land. No, because those were the cows that the kings and the rulers would have in there. And again, the luxurious people would have eaten. So the cows of Bishan were special cattle. And we see that. So he says here, what does Amos say about it? Hear the words, cows of Bishan, And he says, they are those who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, bring, that we may drink. Basically, he's referring to people. He's saying, look, you're enjoying all this luxury, you cows, all these nice green fields, and if you go into them and wipe it all out and eat it, there's nothing left for the poor to have. And you take advantage of them. It's not just that you're rich, but that you take advantage of the poor in order to do that. These cows can't get fattened because you're going over here and eating all their stuff. You see, that's what he's trying to say here. That there's nothing wrong with being rich and there's nothing wrong with being poor. Alright, again, we've said it already and I'll probably say it a couple more times before we throw this book. And that is that God, there's nothing biblical about being rich. There's nothing biblical that says rich people are bad. There's nothing biblical that says poor people are good. But we tend to think that, don't we? We tend to look at rich people as though they're evil and they're greedy. And poor people are all in neglect and they're taking advantage of them. Well, that can be the case. And God hates it when the rich takes advantage of the poor and the afflicted. But friends, we have a lot of poor people out here because they refuse to get off their couch. They refuse to put down their video games and their TV remotes and they refuse to quit taking the handouts and get a job. God doesn't say those people are biblical. But then there are the rich people who do take advantage. They use any means they can to gain, whether it's to take advantage of the rich or the poor or whatever. And God says he doesn't like that. Those are who he's talking about right here. Just because you're rich or poor does not make you good or bad. But he's saying here, O cows, you're taking advantage. You're oppressing them. Church, is this not America? Will we oppress the poor? We don't mind doing, look at all we have around here. Look at our brothers and sisters in Christ in other countries. Friends, this is something we've got to stop doing. And again, and that is thinking that the church is only in America. We look around and we say, oh, everybody's just like me. What about these other countries? We forget about these other countries, don't we? Oh, well, yeah, we got to take care of our own country first. You know what? I do agree. We have to take care of, as an American citizen, I am obligated to take care of Americans before I take care of other countries. But let's take this a step further. I am not just an American citizen. I am a citizen of the kingdom of God. My brothers and sisters that are over in Africa, over in Asia, that claim the name of Christ, they are also citizens of the kingdom of God. And guess what citizenship trumps which one? Yes, my citizenship into the kingdom of God trumps the citizenship of America. So therefore I, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, have a responsibility to reach out my hands to my poor and my less fortunate brothers and sisters in that kingdom. But we don't think of it that way. We look at that and say, oh, that's another country. No, we're all one big church. It doesn't matter what part of the world, if you're one side or this side or over here, over there. Friends, when we're a part of the kingdom of God, it stretches around all the world. It doesn't matter what country you're in. And again, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with having nice stuff. You'll never hear me say that if you drive a Lexus there's something wrong with you, or anything like that. What I will say is, and ask, have you prayed about that? Have you prayed about buying that before you did, or did you just say, this looks nice, I think I'll go get it. There's no prayer. And I know many of you are going to say, yes I prayed about that, we prayed about it and God said go get it. I mean, have you seriously prayed? Not just, God, should I get it? Okay, yes. No, have you bathed it in prayer about whether you should spend $50,000 and $60,000 and $70,000 on a car? Or whether you should take some of that money and reach it out over here and build a church? Guys, do you realize that if you go out and buy a luxury car, you can buy a regular car plus plant one or two churches in another country that's going to spread the kingdom? Again, I'm not saying you're wrong for having the Lexus, but have you prayed about it? Have you looked at it from that perspective? Again, I don't want us to walk out of here with class envy and thinking, oh, these rich people are just so bad. No. You know what? That rich person may have really prayed about it. We don't know. Before you look at your brother over here driving the Lexus, he may have built three churches, okay? And he's still got enough, because God has blessed him, to drive around in his car. So you see, we can't look at people and point and say, you're doing this, ooh, ooh, you're bad, you're bad. That's not what I'm doing this morning. What I am asking is, have you prayed about it? Have you looked into your own heart? You know your heart. I don't. You know your budget and your bank account. I don't. I'm just saying, we've got to stop forgetting about our brothers and sisters over here. I must say, I have been guilty. I am not the best at that. That is something God is dealing with me on. These are our brothers and sisters and we cannot forget them over there. Do we take advantage of the poor? I could give a whole list of other ways of how we did it. You can walk into any Again, Southern Baptists, you walk into a Southern Baptist Church, all around here, and if you were to ask the question and they gave you honest answers on in the last week, how many of you have bought a lottery ticket? They would, hands would go up. If they were honest, now most people would never be honest unless they won, then all of a sudden a hundred million dollars makes you kind of honest, doesn't it? You don't worry about what people think when you're winning a hundred million dollars. But that takes advantage of the poor. How do you win money? Where do you get your money from? Those who have put in. Therefore, when families keep putting in and putting in at the cost of their children going hungry and you win, your winnings are coming off the back of these children who are hungry. Friends, the lottery is wrong. Let anybody fool you and tell you it is not. It is taking advantage of the poor. The winnings come out of the bellies of the hungry children. And that's about as bluntly as I know to put it. I've watched it with my own eyes. I've seen people go through that. I've looked into their eyes and saw the agony of them realizing they just gambled away their children's meals for the week. It is not pretty to look in somebody's eyes when they're asking you for $10 so they can buy some cheap food for their children. And that's not taking advantage of the poor. I don't know what is. But God is serious about this. We've already looked already and we'll even go further into it about how the rich takes advantage of the poor. It's a reoccurring theme throughout the book of Amos. But guys, this does not just apply to the physical poor. You know, I've taught this scripture, I don't know how many times, and I've always taught it about the physical. But the more I study it, the more I look and say, what about the spiritual poor and the spiritually rich? He said, well, who's spiritually rich and who's spiritually poor? Well, those who are new in Christ versus those who are mature in Christ. Do we take advantage of that? You know, God, as I was, God was dealing on my heart. Look at our churches nowadays. How is it geared? You raise your children, you get your children out of the house, and these so-called empty nesters, which by the way, is a saying that is new and is unbiblical, okay? Y'all will hear me say that again, that empty nester is an unbiblical and ungodly term. We won't go into that today, but do the research on it. Do your math, do your homework, and you'll find out that the word empty nester is ungodly and unbiblical. But in our churches, we bought into that concept that when our children leave, we begin, we get this freedom all of a sudden. To where instead of ministering to those who are younger, we congregate over here, we have senior meetings, we have senior dinners, and we separate ourselves. We've got the youth over here, we've got children, we've got youth, we've got young couples, we've got middle-aged couples, and we've got the elderly and the senior couples. and the older couples are supposed to stay with the older couples. You know what? There's times in my life when I need an older person, I need an older man to come down and tell me I'm doing something wrong and show me what the Bible says about it. There's times when my wife needs an older godly lady to come in and walk beside her and say, honey, this is not the way it's supposed to be. There are women and young men out here thirsting and dying of hunger of spiritual hunger and neglect while we are sitting up here who have some of the answers and we refuse to give it to them. Why? Because we have done our time. And like these cows that are out here grazing in the fine grasses, we're going over here and living the fine life because we're better than that. We're deserving of this over here now. We've already went from this pasture over here and we've moved across through here to the greener grasses and we're going to enjoy it even if it means those in this pastor over here are going to wither and die folks look at our church it is withering in this country it is dying the mature in Christ need to come and I don't care how many years you've served you don't get to stop serving when your children move out of the house You get new ways to serve when your children move out of the house. You still minister to them, but reach out. I ask you, younger, older ladies, I use that term lightly, but more aged ladies, mature ladies, look around you when you're in your churches. Go out this morning and look around what you will find. You'll find young ladies who have just, maybe she's a single mom. Alright, let's not even get into the circumstances of how she got there. She's there. What are we going to do about it? Don't look at her and say, well she shouldn't have done what she did or she wouldn't be a single mom. You know what? That's okay. We can deal with that later. But right now she's a single mom that needs your help. She's coming to the doors of the church because she needs your help. She needs to know how to grow. She wants to know how to biblically raise her child. But we can't do that because we've got our own little stuff over here to do. Our fun times are ahead of us. And younger people, this goes to us too though, if we're going to fuss at the older people for not doing their part and for not stepping out and for continuing their ministry as they grow old, not to reach down to the younger generations, Young people, when they do reach down, we gotta receive it, okay? We gotta realize the biblical wisdom that is coming down to us, and we've gotta say, please, let me just come and hang out with you. Let me just come and be with you so I can learn some of this stuff. young moms, maybe you just want to say, hey, you've been there, you've raised your children, I see the godly fruit. That's the thing, before you ask somebody, look at the fruit of their life, before you ask them to come and give you godly counsel, okay? But you see this person, she's had godly children raised. Why don't you ask her, look, why don't you come? I would love for you to spend the day with me when you get a chance, and show me maybe some of the stuff that I'm doing wrong. Come into my house, I want to open my life up to you. Me, I'm doing the same thing. What am I doing? Am I being too hard on my children? Am I being not the right way to my spouse? How is it you've been married for 60 years and you still hold hands when you walk through the door? What is your secret? What is it that you do that I need to learn? But instead, what do we do? Oh, they're just old people. They don't know what they're doing. Young people, we've got to receive what they give us. But y'all got to step to the plate. I'll move off this topic in just a second. But years ago, my wife tried to start in a church we were in, a Titus II ministry. And it looked like a good idea. And they said, yeah, this is a great ministry. We want to do that. And the church got behind it. The church jumped on board and we started it. And the ministry was started. They asked older ladies and mature Christians to sign up as a mentor. And then they gave another list of all the younger ladies who wanted somebody to come in and be a Christian biblical womanhood, to mentor them in biblical womanhood. And it was a very lopsided list. The list that were of all the young ladies who said, yes, please, someone come in and show me. Please, I'm thirsty for this knowledge and this wisdom. The list was great. But there was only like two that said, I'll be there to mentor. That list was small. That can't be the case because we're going to look at the next verse and we'll see in verse two. The Lord God is sworn by His holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fish hooks, and you shall go out through the breeches, each one straight ahead, and you shall be cast out into Haman, declares the Lord. You see, these cows thought they were privy. They thought they were better than the other cows. They thought they were deserving. They've already, where they're at now, they're more deserving of this lush lifestyle. What is he saying? He's saying, you crazy? Look, this lifestyle is fattening you up so you can be eaten. What you think is good is actually bad and it's going to be the death of you. Destruction is looming because of the pleasures. You fail to see that the ways of your pleasure are leading you straight to the slaughter. We fail to see that don't we especially when we look at the spiritual side of it Older generation when we don't come and mentor to the younger generation When we don't mingle you see that's the thing we've got to be together, okay, if we're gonna mingle we got a mingle I We can't put our groups over here and say, you do this ministry, you over here, you over here, you over here. This is your part of the church, this is your part of the church, your part of the church. Every church you walk in today, you're going to hear, where's the youth room? Every church has a youth room. You know where the youth room ought to be? The youth room ought to be in the sanctuary with the older generation, with the parents learning how to be biblical men and biblical women. That's where the youth room ought to be. Again, I'm not saying that young people can't do things with other young people or can't have fun. But we've got to quit dividing or we'll never come together. But look where it's going to get us. We think it's good that we've separated and that young people can be with young people and old people can be with old people. And we think it's good that once you've hit this milestone, you can stop doing ministry and stop mentoring and stop teaching and stop being a parent figure. And you can go over here and enjoy the plush luxuries of life. But look what it's going to do. Just as Amos said, we're going to wake up one day and realize it has led this church to the slaughter. We're going to wake up and we're going to realize that the church is no more existing in this country. Why? Because we failed to pour ourselves in to those that were spiritually less than us. And we refuse. We've taken advantage of the poor. And we're going to realize that it's all these things we fall after. We've taken advantage of the poor so we can have a nicer house. We took advantage of the poor so that we could have this and that. Our children can have these nice things. And what we're realizing are these things are sucking the life out of you. You say, well, there's nothing unbiblical about an Xbox. No, there's not. I've got video game systems in my home. There's nothing wrong with having a video game system. But when your child, and especially you men who are in your 30s and 40s, can sit on those for hour after hour after hour, day after day after day, you are wasting time that you could be spending learning or teaching about the Lord. And Satan knows that and he uses it just to suck us right in. Television, internet, they suck you right in. Not that you're necessarily doing something bad, but you're being sucked right in so that you can't be effective for God. And yet we pour all of our emphasis into getting these kind of things. So we take advantage of the poor. We have all these luxuries. While our brothers and sisters in other countries don't even have running water. They can't even afford a church building. They meet somewhere in secret so they don't get killed. They don't have Bibles. They don't have the clothing they need. Proper medical supplies. And yet, we are over here playing Xbox. Folks, we've got to get this together or we're going to wake up one day and realize all these nice things destroyed us. We're going to wake up one day, our children are going to wake up and there's not going to be a church in America. We're going to wake up and there's going to be a day if God doesn't come back, if Jesus doesn't split those skies and come back soon, there's going to be a day when churches in China are sending people over here. They already are, but it's going to be the norm for other countries sending missionaries to our country to plant churches in areas that have heard the gospel. Folks, we're not that far off because we've put our emphasis on the rich things of life. We put our emphasis on the luxuries. Verse 4. Moving on, he says, come to Bethel and transgress to Gilgal. Multiply the transgression and bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened and proclaim freewill offerings. Publish them for you so love to do, O people of Israel. Declare the Lord your God. What's God doing right here? Gilgal was a place that was known for its pagan worship, known for its idols. God is saying, Go to Bethel. Yes! Transgress. Go to Gilgal. Multiply the transgressions. Go right ahead. Take your sacrifices every morning. Go sacrifice to the idol. Build your idols. What did God say about the sacrifices? They were to have leaven in it. What does He say right here? Offer sacrifices of thanksgiving of that which is leaven. Offer the leaven. Pour it in. I don't care. Go for it. Folks, God was mocking Israel right here. He's not giving them permission to do that. He is mocking them. He said, if you want to do it, go for it. Go right ahead. You see what the church had done. Israel had taken the ways of the world and mixed them in with the worship. God specifically gave Israel ways to worship. Folks, that is something we've got to learn in this church. There are ways to worship. How many of us, show of hands, how many of us have ever heard this? It's not about the method, it's about the message. You can change the methods, as long as you don't change the message. How many of us have heard that? It sounds good, but when you really think about it, it's wrong. Because there are methods that are wrong. There are methods that are right, and there are methods that are wrong. The Bible teaches us how we are to worship. Now there are some gray areas in there. I'll give you that. But everything is not, it's not everybody do whatever you want to do. It doesn't matter as long as you don't change the message. Folks, we're doing a lot of stuff in our churches today to have no business being in there on Sunday morning. Is there a time when kids can do certain things and have fun and in a biblical light? Yes. But not on Sunday morning. We don't need five puppet shows, a skit, five songs, and a three-minute message that doesn't even open the Bible. Folks, there are ways of doing ministry and worshiping, and there are ways that the Bible doesn't give us the leeway to do. Again, that's a whole other series. But that's what Israel done. Israel decided that we're going to do whatever we want to, and we're going to bring the ways of the world in and mix it in a little bit. God said, uh-uh. I told you no leaven in my sacrifice. And you're going to mix it in. Why? Because the world uses it. Look around us, folks. There are things we're doing in the church today that if a hundred years ago somebody had done in the church, we would have been ran out on the rail as a heretic. I know that just because they did it a hundred years ago doesn't make it biblical. And just because they didn't do it a hundred years ago means that it's okay. But folks, we've got to look back and say, there was a reason they would run you out, because they still believe in that word holiness. And they still believe in the sufficiency of scripture, is that everything we want to know about worship, about life, is in the scripture. The scripture is sufficient for everything that we need. Even worship. You want to know how to worship? Go to the scriptures. We don't need to add the ways of the world into the church. Folks, we bought this thing that says the world needs to look at us and say, hey, that's familiar. I'm going to walk in. No, no, no, no, no. What we need to do is we need to get a place where the world looks at us and says, hey, that's different. I don't know what's wrong with it, or I don't know what's different about it. I'm going to go find out, because I like what I see. You say, oh, but there's a lot of people who when you do that, they won't ever walk in the door. You know what? You're absolutely right. There's a lot of people who are going to look at the church and say, I don't want anything to do with that. I'll look at it, and I see the good. I see all that. I don't want anything to do with that. You know what? The Bible tells us there's going to be people like that. We've got to pray for them. Reach out to them the best we can. But we can't alter God's way of worship for them, okay? We can't change what God's Word says for the lost. We can be burdened for that lost person. We can love that lost person. We can continue to reach out to them. But there comes a time when we can't mix the world with our services and the church in order to win them. What are we winning them to? We're winning them to the world they're already in. Verse 6 says, I have given you cleansing cleanliness of teeth in all your cities and the lack of bread in all your places yet you did not return to me declares the Lord basically saying I've taken your food away that's a good way to put it isn't it clean teeth otherwise you're hungry your teeth are clean because you haven't been able to eat anything nothing there to dirty your teeth up he said I took away your food I gave you you know famine in the land you did not return to me Verse 7 says, I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest. I would send rain on one city and send no rain to another city. One field would have rain. The other field, which did not have rain, would wither. So two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water and would not be satisfied. Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord. God said, I sent drought over here after drought, and it didn't change your mind. Folks, have we ever experienced a drought? Look at it. Where are we at? We're sitting in South Carolina this morning. Have we ever experienced a drought? I think everybody in this room can shake their head yes. If you've lived in South Carolina over the last few years, we have experienced a drought. What have we done? We've cried out to God about it. We haven't really sought Him on it. We haven't changed our ways. We say, oh, that's not God. It has nothing to do with that. Well, does he not? It says right here he sends droughts. We saw the other day that no calamity strikes the city unless God knows about it. Unless God allows it to happen. Of course, God controls the weather. From the smallest storms to the biggest droughts, to the biggest storms. God controls it. He says that he would send a drought, but instead of praying and repenting of their sins, they would just move to somewhere they could continue in their sin that had water. Don't we do that? God starts judging us in one area, and instead of repentance and falling on our face, we move to somewhere where we're not guilty. How many of us have been in a church where the church has called us out on sin? The church calls you out, and instead of repenting, you get mad and you leave and go find a church that doesn't care about that sin. Folks, I can name you four or five churches in this area, within a 15-minute drive, that are full of people that I've gotten offended because their sin was pointed out, and now they all flock over here because they refuse. Folks, you say, oh, you shouldn't talk about it. You know what? Yes, we should not badmouth our brothers and sisters in Christ. But folks, there comes a point when we've got to say, you know what? What they're doing is wrong. That is wrong. And we've got to call it out. Verse 9 says, I struck you with the blight and mildew, your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees. The locust devoured, yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord. Pestilence was sent to devour the crop and mildew. Mildew back then was dangerous. It still is dangerous today. Mildew is just as dangerous today as it was back then. People say, oh, back then, mildew was a bad thing because you could breathe it in and die. It's just as dangerous. You could still breathe in mildew, and you will still die just as much as you died back then when you breathed it in. The fortunate thing for us is we have medicine that can counteract mildew. And we have ways of ridding ourselves of mildew once it's there. Back then, you didn't. You had to burn it. Once mildew sat in, you couldn't just take it out and clean it. You had to burn the stuff and get rid of it. And God is saying right here that I have sent the pestilence, I've sent everything down to you to devour your crop and your mildew. I sent disease to you. And what did you do? You still did not return to me. Are we seeing an overlapping theme here of the last few verses? God is sending in small minor judgments as a reminder, kind of, you know, shocked across the bow. Hey, look here, guess what? Worst things are coming. You gotta change. Yet they did not heed his warnings. And they did not return to him. God said, I sent among you a pestilence after the manor of Egypt. I killed your young men with a sword and carried away your horses. I made the stench of your camp go up into the nostrils and you did not return to me. God destroyed our people and made that stench of the burn go up into us. And we did not return to them. He's telling Israel, you went to battle and you've lost. And the stench just went up as you smelled it. You sat out there and you smelled that stench, both. I can think of a couple of times in our recent history where we have smelled the stench. We have lost people. And the stench has went up in our nostrils. I can imagine after 9-11 the stench that surrounded New York City. I know the stench following Katrina. As I went down, weeks after it already came through, as we were going out and ministering and praying and talking with people, the stench was still there. It was such a stench that was in our nose. Yet, America, we did not turn back to the God that has blessed us and brought us to where we are. He says, I overthrew some of you. And when God overthrew Solomon Gamorrah, you were as a brand. plucked out of the brink, yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord. Therefore, I will do to you, O Israel, because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel." You know, we've seen that movie, that line, you see it in the movies, prepare to meet your God. You know, that's harsh, isn't it? We know what's coming when someone says prepare to meet your God. They're fixing to kill you. You know, it's bad enough. Imagine someone is pointing a gun at you and they say, prepare to meet your God. That's kind of scary. I'd be shaking in my boots if somebody was pointing a gun at me, telling me to prepare to meet my God. But as scary as that is, how much scarier is it when God is giving you the message, prepare to meet your God? I have given you all these times and evidently you don't believe in me because you haven't heeded my warning. Well, guess what? Prepare to meet your God. Folks, I don't know about you, but I don't want God coming to me and telling me, prepare to meet your God. We're going to close up here in verse 13. It says, For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness and treads on the heights of the earth. The Lord, the God of hosts, is his name." Folks, he tells us right here in verse 12, he tells Israel, prepare to meet your God. And then he goes on and explains who this God is they're about to meet. America, we've got to get to a point where we realize God has warned us, and he's warned us, and he's warned us. God is up there telling America, you better prepare to meet your God. And then he reminds us who God is. America, if we ever have needed a reminder of who God is, it is now. He said he is the one who formed the mountains and creates the wind. The very mountains we see and the wind. God created it all. And he didn't just chisel it away over millions and millions of years. He spoke and boom, just like that, it was there. He controls the wind. He can move it this way. He can move it that way. And He declared to man his thoughts. Guys, church. God says, I form the mountains. I create the winds. I make the morning darkness. I tread on the heights of the earth. I do whatever I want, wherever I want. I made it all. And yet, I still give my revelation to you. I have the power to create everything. And I've given you my revelation and told you this is what I want you to do. Yet Israel would not heed His warnings. Folks, God has told us what He wants America to do. He has told us what He wants His church to do. And time and time again, we did not heed His warnings. And he is not just somebody who is smart. He is not just a wise person. No. He is the one who created the mountains and the wind. He is the one that gave us our very breath. And yet, friends, we think we can do whatever we want to. Folks, we can't even breathe on our own. You bend over and tie your shoe, you can't even bend over and tie your shoe without God giving you the strength to bend over and tie your shoe. Whether you believe in Him or not, God gives you that strength. If we can't even tie our shoe, we can't breathe, we can't do anything without God. What makes us think we can run our church without God? And folks, that is what we are doing. We are running our churches based off what culture and what business practices say we need to do. Our churches line up more with Six Sigma than they line up with the 66 books of the Bible. And it's high time we say no more. It is high time we take all these things and we say, you know what? They may be good. They may have their place. But we're going to go off of Scripture. Church, we're going to go and if Scripture says it's good, it's good. If Scripture says it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care if the world says you can't build a church this way. If the Bible says you can build a church this way, you can take it to the bank that you can build a church this way. I don't care what the courses say. Folks, it's time we remember the name of God. He is not, again, we said earlier, He is not your buddy. He is not the man upstairs. He is not a higher power. He is Yahweh Elohim, God Almighty, Creator of all the universe. And folks, I pray this morning, that God it is spoken to your heart again you won't just go out of here but that you'll fall on your face you see it's easy to sit here and say yeah he's right yeah the Bible oh that that that's right yeah amen but don't let it change your life all the amens in the world mean nothing unless you're gonna let it change your life or are we gonna have to sit here and wait until God tells us meet your God. Folks, I would rather meet God on my knees crying out to Him in repentance than to meet my God standing there and being judged for the way I've turned my back upon Him. How is it you are going to meet your God? Would you go to me in prayer? Or go with me in prayer? Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you'll be with us this morning. Lord, If we've looked at your...