You'll turn with me, please, to the book of Jeremiah. He was known as the weeping prophet. The reason is because he had a burden, and he loved people, and God called him to preach, and he was put in the dungeon. Because he told the truth. You know, somebody handed me this about a week ago. I finally read it. It's hard to believe that this could be so. The question is Church of Prayer House or Holy Ghost Entertainment Center. said to attract declining members of flamboyant gimmick ministries growing in all branches of Christianity, especially in numerous Protestant denominations. The aberrations and excesses are not confined to offbeat evangelical sects, cults, fads, and with-it movements that appeal to today's youth who are turned off by organized religion increasingly They are spreading to mainland churches, including my own Episcopal denomination." Now, that's the preacher that's writing this. This sorry distortion, erosion, and lack of restraint in religion is clearly evident in electronic preachers, beer and pretzels communion. Folks, when I get through reading this, you might, or everybody get quiet and see if you don't hear the trumpet sound. Maybe step outside a minute and see if anybody is coming down from above. It's got to be nearly over when it gets like this. The Lord will not put up with this much longer. Let me read to you. Of course, the Bible says, Let everything be done decently and in order. And they are saying, we don't know what to expect in 2000. Well, I expect Jesus a long time before then. One lady said, I don't attend anymore because the church has gone nuts. On TV, a Baptist minister recently played the guitar with his toes, explaining that God had given him this gift, which brings me closer to young people. Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a Methodist minister got dressed in a clown costume with a clown face to help his congregation concentrate. And similarly, Mainline Ardmore, Pennsylvania, at St. George's Episcopal Church, it is now commonplace to be confronted by clowns in the service. Northern California, a pastor took 20 young people, 21 young people, to a snow camp where they were baptized not with water but in the snow. Their snow-covered, coffin-shaped bodies were buried after their baptism. They burst out of the snow in what their minister called a resurrection. This past Ash Wednesday, the well-known Ark Street Methodist Church in Philadelphia ministered gold ashes. The Rev. John Roth of Miami, Florida used volcanic ash on the heads of his St. Thomas Lutheran church members He kept a coffee can of ash from his visit to Washington State. On Ash Wednesday, his people got a dusting from Mount St. Helens. In Woodbury, New Jersey, a Baptist clergyman admitted that he stood on his head for his youth during a Sunday service. I won't forget old Dr. Connor. When the preachers in the class said, I'll do anything to draw a crowd. I want people to come. He said, I'll even stand on my head. Oh, Dr. Conard didn't have too much humor, but he said, I'd suggest you keep the light in. In Garrytown, Iowa, A Roman Catholic priest was so irritated when people left his church during communion that he had electric locks installed on the sanctuary doors, which he could operate from the altar. If individuals started to leave, he simply locked them in. One way to hold them when you can't preach. My own Episcopal Church, likewise, has exhibited some shenanigans in recent years, including joggers' masses and Saturday night church, so that Sunday can be reserved for God. At the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., a canon attempted to hire from the Ringland Brothers circa six clowns and a unicycle act to participate in an Easter service. Fortunately, the clowns, showing commendable reverence, declined the invitation. San Francisco, you couldn't expect much out of that. San Francisco's Grace, really ought to be Grass Cathedral, a special, if somewhat less than dignified, service was conducted for 3,000 worshipers, featuring incense mingled with marijuana, acid rock music, and recordings of wolf howls. That's the reason I say it ought to be called Grass instead of Grace. You know, this is a strange thing. Hard to believe that this could be so. I'm going to skip this one, that's not fit to read in church. Earlier, an Episcopal convention, Euclid's service, the clergy, consecrated bottles of cold duck, and the congregation smoked, chatted and joined in a snake dance while singing, Let the Sunshine In. Even former and new church buildings are undergoing a changing character. Ballet, who some churches, as if they were nightclubs, are bowling alleys. One more, and I'm through. In Lake Arthur, New Mexico, a woman preparing flour for her husband's tortilla reported that she saw something which looked like a face. She took the tortilla to church. The face was adjudged to be that of Jesus, and the tortilla was blessed by the priest Nearly 8,000 people made pilgrimage to view this shrine of the divine tortilla. The writer says, will someone see Jesus on a McDonald's hamburger? An ice cube floating in vodka tonic? A pancake, a pizza, or an Atlantic City roulette wheel, one wonders. Music, once deemed sacred, has assumed a secular note in numerous services. Some songs are indistinguishable from disco. Then you wonder. Folks, it's not the President, not the government. It's a bunch of lute-legged preachers with no conviction. Let's see what Jeremiah has to say. Chapter 1, the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived in the day when God called people, anointed people. Verse 5, "...before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, O Lord God, Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord." Verse 10, see, I have this day set thee over the nations, over the kingdoms, to root out, pull down, destroy, throw down, to build and to plant. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee. Be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. For behold, I have made thee this day a defensive city, iron pillars, brazen walls, against the whole land." Now notice who he is against. Against the kings of Judah? That's government. Against the princes? Against the priests? against the people. Now, that is what gives a prophet a bad reputation. Well, he's against everything. He's against the government. Well, if the government is wrong, sure. I don't know how anybody could be for the government we've got going today. We may have a little improvement. All we've got to do, dear friend, is just cut off the salary from the hirelings. I'm going to share something with you. What do Frank Thompson, John Murphy, John Jenrette, and Charles Diggs have in common? They all have served as members of Congress. In addition, they all have been convicted on charges ranging from bribery to taking payroll kickbacks, no matter. They will find their private lives in risk by federal pensions to which they remain entitled, regardless of their convictions. For instance, Thompson found guilty on bribery charges in connection with Avscam, will receive a federal pension of more than $48,500. Murphy, convicted of Avscam-related charges, will get a pension of more than $42,000. thousand dollars. Every one of you is going to get the pensions. You know where the pensions come from? Right out of your tax books. And then you think I'll be for government like that? That's rotten as hell itself. We need some prophets that will stand against things like that. So he said, I've made you a defensive city, I've made you an iron pillar, I've made you a brazen wall against the whole land, against the kings, against the princes, against the priests, against the people. Verse 19, how true. They shall fight against thee, but amen, I like the rest of it, they shall not prevail against thee. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee. Now, you ask me a question. We've been in the fight. Do you expect to prevail against them? I really do. The very fact that we're here tonight means we've prevailed against them. They've tried to stop us every way on earth. There's no way for them to stop God's work. The least of my worries is seeing these homes close again. Now then, skip with me, please, to another chapter. I want, first of all, to give you the secret of his deliverance. I want you to turn with me to chapter 15 and verse 16, and this will be the key to the entire life of Jeremiah. He found something. I found it. You found it. We have access to it. Thy words were found, and I did eat them. was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced. I sat alone, because the secret of anybody's life that overcomes, you must find the Word, and it must become the joy and the rejoicing of your heart. Now turn to chapter 6, please, and I think we'd better stop at chapter 3 and verse 23 for just a moment. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of mountains. That represents religion and the government. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. Now then, turn with me, please, to chapter 6, and we are going to see if we are any different today. Jeremiah, chapter 6, and verse 16. Thus saith the Lord. That is the way the prophet begins his message. Stand ye in the ways, and seek, and ask for the old paths, wherein is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls. Now, we'll pause there for a moment. I want you to go to the book of Matthew, chapter 11. And this will be the context, and the message will be very brief. Jesus is standing looking over a tired and weary religious world. Pharisees, Sadducees, Christ rejecters and haters, people that were religious, they went through their schedule and all sorts of religious activities. And this is what he said, verse 28, "'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, And I will give you rest. Amen. Now, Jesus says, I rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your soul. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. You don't say that about the devil's yoke. I talked to a man a while ago, saturated with liquor. His eyes wouldn't focus. He was dirty. He smelled bad. I said, you look like an idiot. Talk like an idiot. Act like an idiot. He said, that's what liquor does for you. If we were to be so inclined, he'd face at least ten to twenty years in the penitentiary because of his record. That's what liquor does for you. Listen, God knew what he was doing when he said, The way of the transgressor is hard. I think we need to renew our prayer life for the lighthouse in the city. We've got too many of them running away down there. Now, fellows, I want you to hit them old prayer bones. And I want the rest of us to pray for them. I know they're a bunch of toughens, but we need to help them. And we can help them. And we will help them. And I'm not going to confess or charge our people for being to blame that runaway defeated, unless we've done our best for them. I believe that we ought to knock ourselves out to help these people that nobody's ever loved because they've been unlovely. The only person who can love an unlovely person is a Christian. And we ought to be glad to do it. Especially when you see how they come out. And then they are helping somebody else. When you hear them sing and see them testify, and of course the world is looking for our failures. Boy, they rejoice every time we fail with one. We are not going to fail with them if we will trust God. And I want to call my people, we are preaching on getting back to the old paths tonight. You know what they are? Number one. Reading the King James Version every day and going through it every year, one time at least. That's the old path, right there. Wherein is the good way. There's not one good way. He said, stand ye in the ways, that's plural. And wherein is the good way. And then you read that Bible through. Number two, everybody needs to have a time of private prayer and devotion every day. I know you can pray without ceasing, that's good, and then I would always pray not to faint. But I believe that this church and all of our people, seeing the crisis that we face, and the burdens that we bear, and the attacks of the devil. Did it ever dawn on you that the devil don't have much to fight anymore? He's already got all the churches they're read about. You think the devil would, why listen, he's got them lock, stock and barrel. But suppose we believe the Bible. Please, get people born again. Why, the devil spends 24 hours a day here. Folks, we're going to have to renew our prayer life. I want to renew mine. The fact is, I wish I could go somewhere and stay two weeks with nothing but the Bible and prayer. I mean, just read and pray and soak my soul in prayer. And yet, the other burdens that press in, and the many things that we face, more than you have any idea about, some of them cropped up today, out of the most serious things I've ever faced in my life. But I believe the Lord is going to hear an answer. I tell you, you know, when I get to the place where I can't budge, and I can't move, and I have no answer, and my faith seems to be locked, Brother, I know Jesus is going to come and do something about it. I promise you this, this time next Sunday, I will not face what I face tonight. I can't. There's no way on earth for me to go seven days facing what I face tonight. There's no way. Brother, when it gets like that, and there's not one thing I can do about it except, Lord, have mercy and come on and help me. I mean, either raptures, are coming to help us, and he's going to do it this next week. He's got to do it. Brother, I tell you, when the burdens get too heavy to bear, and when you can't carry them, then you're going to have to load yourself on him. Stand you in the way and ask for the good way. Where is the good way? And walk therein. Now, here's the sad thing. They said the greatest preacher of that generation was named Jeremiah. I said, Jeremiah, were the Siamese twins of the gospel trail in those days. I mean, they, listen, they preached, they wept, they begged, they pleaded. He said, where is the good wind? Walk therein. But they said, we will not walk therein. That's it. Did you wonder why he wept? He never changed his mind. He kept preaching. I want to give you one more thought about him. He finally came and said, Jeremiah, why can't you be like the ministerial alliance? Why don't you join us? Why don't you come on now? I mean, you're a troublemaker. I mean, you're just a rabble-rouser, always a-hollering and a-hooping, and you never do line. You can't get along with anybody. Now, come on! Tell it like God gave it. Of course, God called me. I told him first I couldn't preach, I'm just a little child. He said, don't tell me you're a little child. I'm sending something to work on your lips. And brother, when he carried him through the lip factory, he'd come out of there preaching. And you boys that are being called to preach, God didn't call you to preach without being able to make the preacher out of you. You can preach. Anytime God calls you to preach, He'll make a preacher out of you. If you saturate your soul, little old boys come up to me all the time, go over to around schools and say, Brother Wolff, God's called me to preach. What's your advice? I said, Memorize the Bible and get after it. As far as I'm concerned, the main thing we need to live in, and I say this, people come to me all the time, and they say, Brother Wolff, I'm here to look the home over. I want to start one like this. I say, get your standards straight. Do you have the King James Version? Oh, yes. I said, do you have a television set? If you do, get rid of it. Don't try to build a home like this with a television set. It won't work. Do you take a newspaper? Burn it. Hang it. Get rid of it. Man, you get in work like this, it'll take 24 hours a day. Not in the quarter of time to the King James Version. Get in the Word of God. Stay with it! Folks, I say again, with that old unworthy hand lifted up, I'd have never made it to the last eight years. And we wouldn't be standing on the shores of sweet deliverance. You'd say, but how do you know? He don't make a deliverance to me. You'd say, how do you know the judge is going to rule? I know how God's already ruled. God's already assured me these homes will never close again. He won't let them. And I told the judge in his office, I said, Judge, I found the cause worth living for and dying for. And brother, anything that you can't die for, you have no business living for. Jeremiah said, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old path, wherein is the good way, and walk therein. But they said, We will not walk therein. But wait a minute. They finally came to him and said, Jeremiah, if you don't go ahead and line up, And if you, you know, we're living in the generation of get-along-ism. Get along with everybody. I mean, just kind of pitch in. See, it doesn't make a lot of difference. You know, people say it doesn't make much difference what church you belong to. It don't make a difference what you believe. That's the only thing that does matter. So finally they came and said, Jeremiah, we've had it with you. We're going to go tell the King on you. You're against the King, see? I mean, you're You're subversive. I mean, you're sowing seeds of national discord. You're hurting our nation. That's what you're doing. And so they got a little conspiracy going. They said, throw him in the dungeon. Throw him in the dungeon. Put him in the dungeon. And brother, it wasn't like the old Nueces County Jail, as bad as that was. It wasn't like this New Ages kind of jail, as good as it might be. They threw him down in the dungeon, in the dark. And he was down in the mud and the murk and the filth and the varmints. And it was a horrible place. And death was sure. I mean, there wasn't one ray of light so far as we know. And there he was down in the dungeon. And would you believe that somebody got down there with him? Oh, yes. Somebody got down there and said, Jeremiah, He said, yes, call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest I, Jeremiah 33. You say, when did he get that far? He was in the dungeon. If he hadn't gotten in the dungeon, I probably wouldn't have gotten Jeremiah 33. Brother, he called on the Lord, and it wasn't very long until the command came and said, first Jeremiah, he's in the dungeon, get him out! We run out of ropes. He said, make some ropes. They said, we don't have anything to make them out of. He said, yeah, just take some rags and old dirty clouts and whatever you can get. And boy, can you see them putting them together, tying them together, until they thought, well, this will be strong enough to pull him out. Can you imagine that day when those little homemade ropes went down? And he said, Jeremiah. He said, yes. He said, put these old clouts under your arms. And he put them under. And brother, they started pulling him up out. You know why? God was with him. And the Lord is going to be with us and with you. Listen. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me I once was lost Was blind but now I see