God loves you more than I do. He sent his son down. I couldn't do that. I couldn't send my son down to die for you. I couldn't send him nowhere to die for you. But God loves us enough to do that. I love my wife. I love my mother. My mother, God bless her. She'll be 87-year-old. My daughter, she's gonna live a good life. She's lived a good life. She's taught me the Christian way along the way. You know, I've been thinking about what a good Christmas I've had with my family. I hope each and every one of y'all did. I hope every one of you had a good New Year's Day with your families and everything. that heart attack, he got up and he loaded a shot, if any of you know the best search of mine, they had big bags of powder, 50 pound bags of powder, 80 pound bags, and he got up and loaded a shot after he'd had a heart attack. He'd went to, and his brother, Roger Freemans, brother Dave Freemans, who it was, and he had went to the doctor actually, they told him, was so soft in it that it had a hole in it in his heart. And they said, you've got 24 hours. If you've got anything that you need to go ahead and get it right with God. Well, one of the doctors was an atheist. He was telling me all this there that day. And one of the doctors was an atheist. And he knew that he had a higher prayer. He knew that prayer was one of authority. to the x-ray room for the x-rays, and lo and behold, through the prayers, that that hole was gone. They told him he had 24 hours, and he spent over 10 years just being blue. Now that's the power of God. And that atheist stopped him that day. He knew that there was a higher power that had healed him that day. So he couldn't deny God. And that was such a blessing to me to hear that on that Christmas evening morning, Brother Bill. So I come outside, and I don't want to try your patience, but I come outside, and another old boy I worked with on another surface mine for A&G was there. He said, I've been in the house for about two years. He said, I had a kid to remove. He said, I don't get out much. He said, I don't even know why I got out tonight. I said, I know why you got out. I said, well, you're supposed to run into me. I said, because it ain't a coincidence that God allows people to run into each other. And I started testifying to him about everything he did. And I was preaching now. And I started talking to him about how he needed to get back in church, where he said he hadn't been going. And he talked about how he really needed to and everything. But then he ended up, I told him, I said, I'm like Shanghai Nichols anymore. I told him, I said, you need five people to get in and start worshiping God. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And we need to know that today, that we need to have that fear among us, that God is amongst us here today. We need to know that God is going to be with us all the time if we know God and if we've been saved. And if you fell into it, you need to have fear about that. When we're living in a world of darkness, seems like there is no fear. You don't fear nothing. If you see people that's living in a world of darkness, they don't care. They don't have no care about them. They will do anything. You take back in my day, evil can evil. The man that I ever knew, whether he was saved or not, but he would take chances. How many chances have we took while we've been in a world of darkness that if we would have died in that condition that we would have been going straight to us, burning him? How many times has that happened? I thank him so much that there's been so many times that I think it took my life. But he did good. He kept me because he needed me. He wanted me. I wasn't done with him. I was a messenger for him just like Brother Bill is. We've got a job to do up here today to preach you the words and to bring the Word of God to you. It's just like if you go to a doctor and you go to a doctor and you've got some kind of condition going on that you want to know about that you don't know what's going on in your life. Don't you want that doctor to tell you the truth? So our preacher, as us coming up here standing as preachers and telling God's Word, we need to tell you the truth, and we need to tell you the truth of God, and that's what we're standing up here for. We don't need false teachers, we don't need no false prophets, and if we get on your feet somehow or another, we step all over your feet while we're preaching, so be it. Because it's coming out of God's Word. If Christ said it, and we're preaching it, it needs to be said. Amen. But it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And you take Jonah, for instance. You take Jonah, for instance, and when he knew God, but God tells him a commandment to do, and what's Jonah do? Jonah runs. He runs from that commandment, where to go to. He gets on the boat, and he gets with these other men, and he's going to a different place. So when they're out on the ocean, God brings a storm up. The boat's going to capsize. But John, he's not worried about it. He's laid over the side. The ones that he's with, they worry. And they wanted to know what was going on, what brought this on. So they cast lots. They cast lots to see what was going on. And they asked him, why did you bring this on us? And how do we get rid of this? We're gonna perish, we're gonna die if you don't do something. And he told them, he said, cast me overboard. So they cast him overboard. And God had prepared a big fish for him. It don't say whale. A lot of people like to believe it's a whale. He said he had prepared it for him. So we don't know how big that fish was. We don't know when it swallowed him. We do know that he was in there for three days, but look what happened to Jonah. Jonah had left his faith in God. He had left his trust in God, but he had, after this had happened, he knew that that fear was there. He knew that what God could do. And that's what we're talking about today in this fearful place to fall into the living hands of God. But let me tell you something, God will be there with us all the way. Even though we may fear Him, even though we may be in that condition, that we might be in a place that we might separate from Christ, from God. But we need to get back with God through prayer and supplementation. Jonah prayed for three days. Can you imagine the fear that would be in you if you was in the belly of a gigantic fish in total darkness? The fear that would be in you and the fear of dying. We all have a fear of dying when we're lost. But it seems like when we get saved, even though we're in that hands of the fearful God, that fear of dying will go away if you don't go. And if you want to get close to God, because we know that we're going to a better place. That this is just a passing through place. And you take David, for instance. David. was a man after God's own heart. He knew, he feared God until one day, one evening, when he seen the sheep. And he had to have it. But it didn't stop there. David kept on with his sins. And then he had to cry out to God when he finally got so broken, he had to cry out for him to restore the joy of his salvation. To not to take his spirit from him because he knew how precious that spirit was that God had given him. And he knew if he got taken away, what would he be? that we should be fearful of the God. We should be fearful about when we walk out into this world. We should be fearful when we walk back into this church. We should be fearful of anything that's in this world, of God. Not of the world, but of God. Be fearful of him. Because the world can't hurt you. But God can. God will allow Satan to do so many things He did it to Joe. He allowed him to do so many things with you. And that's what happens in people's lives, where they can't stand it. They can't stand the things that's happening to them, and they turn back into the world. They'll turn back into the world because they feel like there's nothing there for them. But let me tell you, my God tells me to endure to the end. That the ones that endure to the end shall be saved. We have an obligation, we have an obligation as Christians to worship God. If you look over into Philippians, it's up on the board there, John. Philippians 2 through 12. Read what it says. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. But here's the key to it, church. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. There's nothing that we can do for ourselves other than with the help of God and with the fear and trembling that we have for God to be able to worship God the way that we need to worship God. We cannot do anything on our own unless it comes from God. Jesus Christ owns everything. He owns everything. And as I was thinking this morning what Brother Paul said, he said, I count everything as done. And then I get to thinking about the people that's out here fishing today. I get the people that might be in their hunting season, and I don't know if it's still hunting season or not because I don't hunt. That's out there on Sundays, hunting. That they're out there on Wednesday evening Bible studies, hunting. And you know what, what Paul's saying when he counts everything he's done? Those guns that you have, those fishing rods that you have, they're going to be, in so many words, not this way, but they'll be flushed down the toilet. It'll be flushed down the toilet because it's going to be burned. It's going to be burned one day. Everything. You make out your house, your car, or whatever that you have, anything that you may own, your possessions, as such good possessions. But what did the young rich man do? What did the young rich man do when he asked Christ what he should do to be able to enter into heaven? And he told him to sell everything that he had. And the man went away sorrowfully because he couldn't do it. There's nothing on this earth that can hold us here on this earth that's going to be worth losing our soul over. Go ahead and flip on down there. Thank you, God. For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Do all things without murmuring and disputes. We see it so many times in the church. People will murmur. They'll dispute things that's going on when the only thing that really matters is Jesus Christ. They'll leave churches because they get puffed up a little bit because of something that somebody did. They'll stay away from church because something that somebody might have said to them. They might have heard something here. And that's not right. If they come to church, and if they're truly saved, and if they get down, and they're truly saved children of God, they're not going to let anything hinder them from going to where they want to be. And they're not going to be getting hindered. to start with that they're not doing, and you've got so many so-called Christians in the seats today that don't want to do that. I praise God today. I lift my hands to Him today. And as I preach down at Lick Creek by Sunday, we need to get up off of these churrs, and as I call them, or as God called them last week, He's the one that put it in me, these are church puberty finders. We need to get up out of them, and we need to start worshiping Him, praising Him like He needs to be praised. Today, today's churches are falling apart. They're falling apart. You got too much, you got too much false preaching out there today. There's too many ears being tickled today. We don't need that church, we need Christ. That ye may be blameless and harmless to sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. Among whom ye shine as lights into the world. Boy, what a crooked and perverse nation we have today. And we can't shine that light well enough for God to get that perverseness out. I mean, He says it in His Word. Everything that's happening today, it's over in His Word. Holding forth the Word of life that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain, So we need to remember, Church, yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I join and rejoice with you all. For this same cause also do ye join and rejoice with me. A lot of faces today that don't look like they're rejoicing a whole lot. I hope they're rejoicing in here, because I don't see it up here. I don't see it up there. I'm on, I'm on. That's the only thing I've been able, been taught to do, is to talk straight when I was taught by my mom and dad. And even listen to Brother B-Boy and other preachers. I've been taught to talk straight to people and tell people, you know, where are you going to if you don't change the place? If you don't, I mean, and they're good people. I mean, I've got so many good brothers and sisters in here. I don't know your heart. But I do know that there's probably some in here that don't know God. Any church you go to, you're gonna have that. You know, I believe it even says it over here in this Word. But let me tell you something, church, we need to refrain. We need to refrain from defiling this body. We need to refrain. We need to uplift God in it all the time. We need to refrain from it because this body is the temple of God. This body is the temple. It's the temple of the Holy Ghost. It says that in His Word. It says it in verse 19, I mean in chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians. Verse 19 says, know not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not of your own. You get that, church? Not of our own. We're not of our own. You know, I think about myself and how I have failed him so miserably all the time. And I thank him for his mercy that has come upon me. But to know that we belong to Him, to know that it just disheartens me so much to know and to see people doing what they're doing. The murders that's going on, the stuff that's going on, the senseless stuff that's going on in the world, it disheartens me. But, you know, God's in control of all this stuff. And it tells the citizen Tell us, for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. They're not ours. Our bodies are not ours, church. The Spirit, when He comes into you from God and God dwells in you, you need to show Him that love. You need to show him that love that you have for him by teaching other people like we try to do, like Brother Bill has said so many times, to try to get you just to come to Bible study. You know, Bible study is just as important as preaching to the Word. We are begotten by the Word, and Bible study is the Word. It's the same thing. You know, I felt even in Sunday school. I don't know if, I guess it's because I preach more now. I would love to come to Sunday school, I mean, but when I'm preaching other places and stuff, it's hard to get everything into a routine, but I felt it there. I'll be the first 10 minutes, I felt it there. Yup, it was. If we look over into Chapter six of John, in verses 61 through 69. But listen, after Jesus had told them that they must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, they started murmuring. They started murmuring about themselves. And he said, what? Then he said, what Jesus knew of himself, he knew in their heart He already knew, just like he knew at the woman's will, and he had the husband's, that his disciples murmured at what he had said because they didn't believe of what he was saying because they was looking at everything in a fleshly manner. This is of the Spirit. God is of the Spirit. Christ come down in the flesh. He was in the flesh at the time, but he was trying to speak to them about the Spirit. He was speaking to them what he had been teaching them and had taught them along the way the whole time, but they didn't understand. And he said unto them, does this offend you? Let me ask you something, today, church, Why don't some of you come to foot washes, to the services that we have? Why don't some of you come there? Because that's what we do. We do it in remembrance of him. We take of his blood and we take of his flesh. We take of it in remembrance of him of the way that we do it. So, does that offend you that you might come and do that with us? If it does, you know, you'll probably be just like the ones right here when it goes on down and talks about it. But if it don't, I beg of you to come and do it with us. You know, you get such a blessing out of coming and being with us. You get such a spiritual feeling out of that. There's a God there that wants you to. If he didn't want you to come and do it, he wouldn't have said to do it in remembrance of me. Verse 62, what? And ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before, but listen, It is the spirit that quickeneth the flesh, profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. This old fleshly body is going to die one day. We're going to be put in a grave. The spirit's going to leave. The spirit's going to go to either one of the two places. He'll come and he'll be judged first to start with. and then you'll be going to one of the two places. You'll be going and you'll be living and residing in heaven with Christ and the Father and the three that's in one, the Holy Ghost forever and ever. Or you'll be going to a place of damnation. Jesus, but there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, therefore, said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him by the Father. We preach the word and we try to encourage you to come up and give your life to God. We do it out of love. Anything that you might have heard of me saying this morning, even though it may be harsh to your ears, I do it out of love because God first loved you. He first loved me. And that's why we do it. We do it out of love for you. And he said, therefore, said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given to him by the Father. We need to chew on that, Bob, church. From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. What does he say in the end of times? That they'd be great, that they'd be falling away? They're falling away right now. They're not walking. People's not walking with him like they used to. People's not listening to him like they used to. Some's wanting to get back in church like they used to. But they know how to do it if they've ever listened to the word of God and really paid attention to what's going on. That they can come back to God. As we were taught in Bible study the other day in this condition that we get in, whether it's a condition of sins that comes into our lives or, you know, there's a backsliding condition that the Bible talks about. Me and Bill were talking about that there yesterday, about David. But then where he said to not ask for God, not to take the spirit from him. So if the spirit hadn't been taken from him, there's no backsliding there. We know if we see it, we know what to do. here today. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will you also go away? But listen, Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words to eternal life. To eternal life. Where do we go? If we leave Christ, church, we have nowhere to go. We have nowhere to go. We can go on a lake and fish. We can go out in the woods and hunt. We can do anything we want to do. We can go to another church and try to get back with God, but if we leave Christ and We are making Christ an embarrassment if we leave Him and leave out of here and don't want to worship Him no more. Because He died for our sins. He put our sins under His blood and that's the very reason that we need We need to keep on going toward God, looking toward God, looking toward Christ. We have nothing to turn back to. This old world has nothing to offer us. So we need to keep our eyes set on Christ. And we believe and are sure that there are that Christ, the son of the living God. Amen. I believe it with all my heart. And I know the ones of you here today that love him, that you believe it with all your heart. 1 John 4 tells us this, said beloved. Verse one. We ain't going over there. So beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God. Because many false prophets are going out into the world. We see false prophets teaching on TV all the time. We hear them on the radio all the time. We see them in churches around here all the time. We know that there's false prophets out there. We know what God's word says. And when we try the spirits, and if we're trying the spirits today, we know if it's of God. We know that if it's good, it's of God. We'll get to that in a minute, but I'm telling you what, if we do something and we know, as he says on down in his word, I'll get to it right now, he says, to do good and to do it not, to him and to sin. So we need to try the spirits. And if the spirit, if it's not good and it's bad, then it's sin. If it's bad and if it's evil, it's sin. Hereby, verse two, hereby know ye the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard, that it should come, and even now, already is in the world." Get that, Church? Already is in the world. He's going around, and it says in His Word, He's going around seeking who He may devour. It's in His Word. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. That's what we went over a while ago. He's a temple that lives inside of us that we don't need to defile. We don't need to defile this body over anything because God lives inside of us. Ain't it a blessing to know that God lives inside? The living God lives inside of you. But if you're lost, you don't have that today. If you're lost, you're in a dark world that is teaching you that there's something out there better than this here church today. But let me tell you something here today. God brought you to this church today because He wanted you in this church today. And He wants to bring you back to this church because He wants you as one of His children. If you're here, you're lost today. But listen to what verse six says here, church. This is for us. We are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby, know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Talking about the same thing right here. If you know to do good and to do it not, to you it is a sin. And if you can sin, and you can sin freely, and to get by with it here, yeah, you might get by with it here on this earth. But let me tell you something, we got a Savior that knows your every move. He says that in His Word more than once. He said it a while ago. He knew the disciples, what they were murmuring, before they even come over to where He was at. He knew, and He asked them, does this offend you? He asked him, does this offend you? So, we see, thank you brother, we see in his word that we are of him. We are of the spirit. We need to act like we live in the spirit. We need to pray tonight. When we get to heaven, We're going to be praising Him. We're going to be worshiping Him. We're going to sing a song that says that the angels cannot themselves sing it. So we need to start praising people. We're not just through singing. We need to start praising. We need to start praising God. We need to let that Spirit come into us when the preacher's preaching the Word. When Bill's up here preaching the Word. When Travis is up here preaching the Word. We need to let that Spirit come into us. We need to be praising Him through hand praises. We need to be coming up here. If we need to, at the time, we need to come up here while the preacher's preaching. If we need to, if you need Christ in your life, it don't matter if you're saved or lost. If you need to pray, well, sometimes pray. I don't care if it bothers me a bit. Won't bother Brother Bill, it wouldn't bother Travis, I'm sure. But we need to know who our Savior is. We need to get to know Him. We need to study His Word. Because Brother Bill's talk has been trying to tell everybody here lately. We need that. Everybody needs that salvation. I hope you come back because I don't preach all the time. I hope I don't step on your feet so much that you won't come back and listen to Brother Bill if you ain't been here before. But he'll probably step on your feet too. But anyhow, how many times do we see the world boast the time. And can I tell you that we will not even see tomorrow unless God allows us to. I can stand right here right now and most of you say, well I'm going on vacation in June or July. I've got this planned, you know, I've got all this planned to go here. God may have different plans for you. God may not allow that. God may not allow that heart to beat one more beat. And as I say that, I'm thinking about the young man that's playing football, and he hit that boy. I say just about everybody, if everybody don't know about it, just about everybody knows about it. And just at that very second when he hit it, it stopped his heart enough to give And that's the same way that we should feel about our bodies. That God, that we don't have the promise of the next heartbeat. And neither did that young man. But let me tell you something. I was so relieved to see that his family was thanking people for the prayers for him. And I'm so thankful that he's doing as well as he is now. And he'd ask the doctor, he'd ask the doctor, he said, doctor, did we win the game? Did we win? He said, yeah. He said, you won. He said, you won that. He won life for the time being though. He won life for the time being, but that life's gonna end one day. That life's gonna end and he's gonna have another life. He's gonna have another life, a spiritual life one day, and then we all will one day, because God says it in his word. That we all are gonna face, we all are gonna face death. There's no way around it. There's no way around it. If we go through James chapter 4, 14, 16. I don't know if I give it to you. You're not built to put up. Jays 417. Back to what we said a while ago. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him is a sin. And if we know God, and we don't do His work, And it's the good thing to do to come to Bible study. It's the right thing, and it's a good thing to do. Believe me. Believe God. Don't just believe me. Believe God. It's good. Would that be considered sin if you don't come? go here and do this or do that, and I know there's other things that happens in your life. I know there's children that's in your lives that's got things that they do. But for those that do that, I would encourage you to watch it online. You know, the ones that's got the children, I would encourage you to watch it online. But if you don't have no excuse then I would encourage you to be here on Wednesday nights. I would encourage you, if you don't have no excuse about it, to be here on Sunday mornings. Not just for your sake, but for your children's sake. The Bible says the way that you bring up your children, if they're here, they'll come back to Him. So let me tell you something that you do do when you come to Bible study. You get a closer walk with God. I got a closer walk with God when I started coming to Bible study more. I got a closer walk with God when I was listening to Brother Mike teaching something or Brother Carlos teaching something or Brother Bill or anybody that teaches Bible study. I got a closer walk with God and it enabled me to study more when I got home. If it was something that I didn't understand that we went over, I would open my Bible up. I would open it up sometime through, maybe not that night, but through the week, and would study it out for myself to be able to, and to ask God to let me understand it better. And that's what we need to do, church. We need to just trust and believe in Him. I've got one other thing. And it's over in Revelations 22, 14. You can turn there if you want to, and I can tell you what it says. I'll wait for you to get there. But this is how we, all this that we went over. If you've been listening, Do work out those spirits that's in us that we know that to do good, we know to try the spirits. If you've been listening to everything that God's been saying today, Revelation 22, 14, blessed are they that do his commandments. And I think it's the fourth commandment about the seventh day. It talks about God rest. It talks about the seventh day in the Mosaic law. In the Mosaic law, church, if you don't know it, if you've done something on the seventh day that was out of order, that was out of God's word, they killed you for it. That was in the mosaic block. And that's because they were sinning, and they killed them for it. But let me tell you today, we don't get killed for it. But let me tell you today, sin still sin, no matter how you look at it. It's still sin, no matter how many ways you cut it up, it still spills its acid. He says that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city. Keep this commandment, sir. If anybody's here today and they're lost, I encourage you to come to Auburn. If you're lost, if you've heard, you can hear, it's the way it was for me. I heard a loud voice that kept saying, no, you don't need to go, you're gonna embarrass yourself. You used to be an embarrassment. But these people in the church love everyone who we are. If you're here and you're lost, And he'll speak to you in a loud, loud voice. God, he'll knock on your heart's door. And if you know that he's knocking, and you may hear a little knocking there, but then that knocking will get louder. He'll knock. You ever notice if you're at the house and you're in one room and somebody's knocking on your door and it sounds like it's real light knocking? Well, that's the way it is with God. He'll start out knocking. The way it was with me, he started out knocking real loud when that big, strong voice was speaking to me. That voice of the devil was trying to keep me from coming to life. But it kept getting louder until it just about beat out of my chest, it felt like, on that knock from God. So I encourage you, if you heard that today, that you would come and you don't have to say it out loud. You can face it in your heart to Christ. to realize that he is our savior, that we need him as a savior, that we come to him with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. That's how we're saved, through the blood of Christ. And he speaks of taking up his flesh and drinking up his blood. That's what we're doing when we do that, when we get saved by his grace. But if you've got that boy today, I beg of you to come to him because That's all I have there for you.