Editor of The Sword of the Lord introduces our speaker. Our speaker tonight is a bus kid, really. Believe it or not, he rode a bus to Highland Park Baptist Church and got saved. His brother, who will speak later this week, is also a bus kid. If the bus ministry in the United States of America all combined produced no more than a Clarence and a Tom Sexton, it would be worth all the dollars we ever spent. All the buses. God called him to preach, went away to college. Joined Dr. Robinson at Highland Park Baptist Church, worked there in that ministry, Sunday school, bus ministry. Then went away to New Jersey, Madison Avenue Baptist Church in Patterson, New Jersey. Stayed there a few years. I don't even remember the years. I have so many numbers in my mind. But I know that while he was there, they broke every record in the 100-year-old history of that church. Every baptism record, every salvation record. Bought nearly an entire city block downtown. And the church was going by leaps and bounds. Folks said it couldn't be done up north. Clarence Sexton was doing it up north. And then God called him down south again to the Temple Baptist Church in Powell, Tennessee. He didn't want to leave New Jersey, really, I may tell you about it. But God brought him down here and they started Crown Bible College. And the church there, great soul winner, great preacher. on the board at the Sword of the Lord Foundation, our friend, your friend, too, and you'll hear him with joy and profit, our friend, Dr. Clarence Sexton. Thank you. God bless you. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you. What a privilege to be here. I love Dr. Hudson. I love the Sword of the Lord. I love Brother Bobby. It's great to find your crowd, isn't it? I mean it. Praise the Lord. Great to find your crowd. Good to see you folks. God bless you. Well, I feel a little bit like somebody's about to turn the lawn sprinkler on after a thunderstorm, you know? How would you like to preach after Isaiah 53? After Isaiah preached Isaiah 53, how would you like it? I'll tell you this, when you go around these meetings and you're asked to speak second and you think, you think every once in a while, you think you're gonna be able to sit and think about your message, but when you get in the deep water like that and start enjoying swimming yourself, I just put this aside and just got into it, you know? Got in me and I got in it. Praise the Lord, I said, Lord, you just helped me. And I'm enjoying myself too much to be thinking about anything but what he's doing. I started, I'm ready too, amen? And praise God for that. Amen. Well, do two things for me. Will you, number one, pray for me? I need it. And number two, pray for yourself. Ask God to speak to your heart. I'm praying the Lord will. I hope you will pray for our work in Knoxville, Tennessee, and pray for Crown College. We're entering our second year. And we had 121 students this past year. We have a lot of young people coming to us from different places around the country. About 16 or 17 different states last year and some other folks coming. For 10 years I have known this is what the Lord wanted me to do. And I'm glad the Lord has allowed us to get into it. We need your prayers. Hope you can come by and visit us. Knoxville is a good meeting place. Lots of roads cross through Knoxville. So I'd like you to come by and see us sometime. I appreciate what is going on in this place. God bless you. I was looking for you folks while ago. Good to see you up there. I see you got right smack dab in the middle. Amen. Glad to see you. God bless you. Amen. And grandmothers up there too. Amen. I'm surprised you didn't jump out of the balcony while ago when Dr. Seidler was preaching. You started to. Amen. Good. I remember one night I was in a church meeting and all the lights went out and Dr. Seidler was preaching. And somebody asked him if he needed the lights on. They couldn't get them on, needed a sound assistant, no power. He said, I don't need it. And I happened to be in the balcony. I thought I was gonna leave the balcony, honestly. He got to preach on the grace of God. You ever heard him preach on the grace of God? And I thought, I thought like that drunk, I thought I could fly, I tell you. He got into that. Amen, let's bow and pray together. Father, we thank you for this day and for the opportunity to be in this place. Lord Jesus, I pray you'd bless and help me to be a help and blessing. I want to please you. I pray you'd use me. Bring to my mind the things that need to be said and keep from my heart and mind the things that need not be said. Lord, I don't know, I don't know when I have just, I felt in my heart I just must cast myself so completely upon you. Guide me and help me. Help me not only to say the right thing, but to say it in the right spirit. I thank you for what you've done in my own heart this week already. My life has been touched and changed, and I thank you for doing this, Jesus. Please, dear Lord, help me to be a help and a blessing to all the people who are here, to the dear pastor and his people, to Dr. Hudson and his family, and to the work of the soul of the Lord. Help me to lift up high the name of Jesus. In His name I pray and ask these things. Amen. Take your Bibles, please, and turn with me in the Old Testament to the book of Proverbs, the 22nd chapter. And I'll give you one verse from Proverbs chapter 22. It is the 28th verse, Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 28. Not many months ago, Dr. Seidler was preaching at the Temple Baptist Church over in Powell, Tennessee at our place. And he brought a great message. God blessed him, used him. He was so gracious after the meeting to stand around and greet people and sign Bibles and speak to children, answer questions. And I waited for him to finish. And when all the people had gone and he and I were left alone on the platform, he leaned on the pulpit and looked me in the face It's just he and I were standing there very close to one another, and he said, I'm not long for this world. I'm glad you've started this school, Brown College. I want you to tell me, are you going to stay with this stuff? He said, I want you to tell me, eyeball to eyeball, man to man, heart to heart, are you going to stick with what you know is right? And I said, yes sir, by the grace of God, that's exactly what we'll do. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 28, remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set. This is an old text. Somebody, somebody often in every generation will bring a message from this Bible text. And I've heard some of these men who've been in the race a long time refer to this Bible text and elaborate on the landmarks. I was listening carefully to Dr. Seitler a moment ago. And for maybe the second or third time in this conference, he said he'd been preaching 53 years. Last month, I just completed 25 years preaching the gospel. And I thank God as he got that word out of his mouth, that he's been faithful 53 years. I praise God for that. And I thought about this Bible text that says, remove not the ancient landmark. And I want to share from my heart what God has put on my heart about this Bible text. Don't move the landmarks. Don't move the landmarks. Don't move them. Don't move them. As a generation on our heels, I'm 43 years old. I feel like I've come to a place in life where I can speak a bit about some of these things. There's a generation on our heels. And if for no other reason, we must not move the landmarks for that generation. May God help us not to move the landmarks. Just to understand a bit about what stands behind this Bible verse, I want you to turn with me to the book of Genesis for just a moment. As God makes a promise to Abraham in the 12th chapter, of the book of Genesis. And the Lord says, Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great. Thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Now I'm not going in detail to this promise God made to Abraham, but I want you to notice the first of these three things God says. In verse 1 he says, The Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. God said, I want to give you a land. It's a gift from God. This land is something I'm going to give you. It will come directly from God Almighty to you. The only way you can receive it is to receive it from me. I'm going to give you this land. If you'll turn with me, please, to the book of Deuteronomy for just a moment, to the 19th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy and the 14th verse. You want to make note of the fact that the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 19 and verse 14, Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have said in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it. If you take the time to underline this expression, the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it. The land is a gift from God. If you turn once again in Deuteronomy, the 27th chapter, and mark the 17th verse, the Bible says, And all the people shall say, Amen. And all the people shall say, Amen. In that covenant God made with Abraham in the 12th chapter of Genesis, we find an enlargement in the Palestinian covenant, the Davidic covenant, the New Covenant, But in particular, in that first part of the covenant, God says, I'm going to give you a land. We came to that reference in the book of Deuteronomy, and God says, this land is a gift from God. And you know how God's people came into the land. After God promised them a land, they came into the land. And finally, after Joshua brought them in, the land was dispersed among the tribes, and from the tribes to families. And families among the tribes claimed certain portions or parcels of land. And the land for each family was marked by boundaries. These boundaries were landmarks. So to understand what we're dealing with in Proverbs chapter 22, God says, I'm going to give you a land. Without me, you won't have it. It will come from me, directly from God to you. When I give the land to you, it's dispersed to tribes, and then the tribes dispersing it to families. It will go from God to man, and then from man to other men. And I want you to notice with me, first of all, this trust we have been given. This trust we have been given. You see, everything we have in the work of God did not originate with man. It originated with God. God gave us what we have here. We've been entrusted. It is a sacred trust, a holy trust, but we've been entrusted with it. We need to realize that God Almighty has put His work, His wonderful work, these things that we enjoy and know, God has put them in our hands. And from one generation to the next, Men trust other men not to move the landmarks. If you'd lived in the land of the Bible in the day in which that proverb was given, God said that you'd be cursed. It was a crime, a crime indeed to move such a mark as a landmark. This was a sacred trust. This land had been given to God's people from Almighty God to his people. And when the land was given to the tribes, the tribes Dispersed it to the families and the families from one family to the next and they knew what land was their land because these marks marked the land and Generation after generation generation after generation the landmarks were not to be moved Because this was a sacred trust from God to man and from man to man to man from generation to generation There was a time that God revealed himself God made his will known to us. And now from God Almighty to man, it has come from one man to another man for us to bear those landmarks. We're entrusted with it. God's entrusted us. Back in my day when you said God had called you to preach, you just started preaching. I remember calling my pastor one evening and saying to my pastor that God had called me to preach. And he said, that's wonderful. I'm on a radio broadcast this week. I want you to preach in the morning. You know, now I run into a lot of boys who say God's called them to preach and they won't spend two or three years preparing and then they're going to preach. So early the next morning, the pastor came by and picked me up and we started out to the radio station and I preached my first sermon. The next Sunday, he said, I want you to preach Sunday evening. And I preached Sunday evening. It wasn't long until they licensed me to preach. He was out of town one day and a pulpit committee came and I thought that they'd hear my pastor. And when the service was over, I apologized to them because the pastor was gone. And they said, we didn't come to hear the pastor, we came to hear you. I could hardly believe what they were saying. And the pastor, when he returned, found out about the pulpit committee being there and he said, well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, I'll meet with you. And there I was, just a kid, a preacher and the pastor of the church meeting with the other pulpit committee and he was telling them what they're gonna do for me. My pastor, he said, now this is my son, the minister, and I'm going to take care of him. And if you want to be your pastor, you can let him preach a trial sermon. And sort of like Dr. R.G. Lee said, any fool could shoot one big gun. And I went and did the best I could on a trial sermon. And I was tried and they convicted me. They called me as a pastor. I was 19 years old. and my home church wanted to ordain me. And I remember when I was ordained on a Sunday afternoon back then, and the country church like I was in, people came in from other churches and they had a large group of people examining you, and they'd ask you all kinds of questions out in the public, and the preachers would put you through the third degree, and old gray-haired men would stand up and ask you what you believed about the Bible, this, that, and the other. And I can remember my pastor standing by my side and saying to me, I wanna ask you a question. He said, do you realize that you're being entrusted with the most sacred trust in all the world, that there's nothing greater a man can do with his life than to preach the word of God? And he said, I want to ask you something. If you ever turn from this blessed book or deny any of the things that you said you believe today, he said, will you promise God and promise this crowd that you'll quit trying to preach, you'll just give it up? And I'll tell you, I can't explain exactly what came over me. But something came over me. Something strong came over me. And I realized that I was being handed something that had been handed from one generation to the next. And God had entrusted me with something precious and holy and true. And it was my responsibility to make sure that I did not move the landmarks. So the next man I hand it to would know where to stand within the boundaries that God had established. Now we've made some mistakes, but God help us not to monkey with moving the landmarks. God help us. You see, this book is the Word of God. It's the Word of God. All of us have to settle that. We believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture. Every word of it is the word of God. All of it is the word of God. We believe it's God-inspired. We believe it was divinely revealed and divinely inspired and divinely preserved. When I hold it in my hand, I have no problem saying, this blessed book is the eternal, infallible word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. I want you to turn with me for just a moment to what Paul wrote to Timothy as he's charging Timothy as he's about to go to heaven. In the Bible, the Word of God says in 2 Timothy, if you'll notice please, as Paul writes in 2 Timothy chapter 3, he says in verse 12, Yea, in all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. To continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. And that in the child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which able to make thee rise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. The holy scriptures, all scriptures given by inspiration of God and is profitable. for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. The work of the Word of God is to make men wise unto salvation. The work of the Word of God is to teach men doctrine. All of our beliefs and teaching come from the Bible. All of them come in the Bible. The work of the Word of God is to reprove people. The work of the Word of God is to correct people. The work of the Word of God is to instruct people in righteousness. You know, I don't have a message. God has a message. All I am is a messenger, boy. I'm to give out His message. I've been entrusted with the sacred, blessed book of God. I'm never to move the landmark. This is a landmark. God help me not to move the landmark. To stay within the boundaries and preach the Bible and live the Bible and teach the Bible. God help us to stay right there. We've been entrusted with that. It's a landmark. The local church, the pillar and ground of the truth is a landmark. We've been entrusted with that. It's a landmark. Look what the Bible says, if you would please. As the word of God tells us in 1 Timothy chapter three. In verse 15, but if I tell you long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The Lord Jesus established the church. The Bible says, when he came to Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I, the son of man, am? And they said, some say thou art John the Baptist, others, and they went on, Jeremiah. Elijah and then he said but whom say ye that I am Simon Peter stepped out and he said thou art the Christ the Son the Living God and Jesus Christ said blessed art thou Simon Barjona, but flesh and blood have not revealed unto thee but my father which art in heaven and upon this rock I'll build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it the only place that God has deposited the truth the place God has said is a pillar and ground of the truth and a local church, a group of baptized believers who voluntarily joined themselves together to carry out the great commission of God Almighty. That's a landmark. We're not to monkey with that. We're not to move that. God helped us to see that we've been entrusted with something. We've been given something. It came from God and people have given their lives blood to make sure that mark was never moved. God help us to be faithful in this sacred trust we've been handed to keep this landmark where it ought to be. The fact that the Christian life is a holy life is a landmark. God help this generation not to foul that landmark up. It's a holy life. A holy life. We believe that biblical separation is from the world unto the Lord. We believe according to Romans chapter one, verse one, it's a secret of power. I believe that at least. Now when our Lord established his church with his disciples and said, upon this rock I'll build my church. It is his church. And we're working for him and laboring for him. But his church is to be a holy people. A holy people. I want you to look at what the Bible says as Paul wrote the church in Corinth. I want you to look what the word of God says. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6, the Bible says in verse 14, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers? What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? But ye are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. There will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. I want you to turn again, please, to what Paul wrote the church in Ephesus. As the word of God says in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 11. If you don't have this verse marked in your Bible, I'd like for you to mark it. The Bible says, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Now, I'm trying to lay a little groundwork for something. We have been given a sacred landmark in the fact that the Christian life is a holy life. It is a holy life. I want you to look again, please, at what we find in God's word in the book of 1 Peter 1. Verse 13 says, Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the form of lust in your ignorance, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And friends, there's just nothing else to make of that except that God wants us to be a holy people. That's God's desire, to be a holy people, separated from the world and to the Lord. I believe in personal separation. I believe it's taught in the Bible. I believe people ought to live like Christians. They ought to look like Christians. They ought to dress like Christians. I say this as kind as I know how. I grew up in a broken home. My father was a professional gambler. I grew up in a nightclub. I lived in the back of a bar. And I believe in loving people. I thank God that he's a God of a thousand chances, not just a first and second. And I believe we ought to be long-suffering and patient with people. But there ought to be some people in this world who've learned this lesson, that God's people ought to be a holy people. There might be some people even in an audience like this that ought to go home and clean some of their clothes closets out. Let me tell you something. You think about your own life. You think about your children. You start moving the boundaries. Start moving the boundaries. A holy life. I understand what people are saying. They're saying under their breath right now. It's a heart matter Yes, it is. I Understand that separation from the world to the Lord, but I do believe that we have a testimony The fact of the matter is there ought to be a difference in God's people a difference your little son and daughter don't have much of a chance if we keep moving the boundaries around and May God help us to understand that. There ought to be some people in this world who believe that they ought to look like Christians. I still believe the Bible teaches old-fashioned modesty, don't you? We need that. We need that! That's a landmark! I thank God when I travel around the country. I know when I'm with my crowd. I know when I'm preaching the kind of people who believe what I believe. I know when I see the kind of folks who've come to rally around and fellowship around the things we have in common. The truth of the matter is, as an independent Baptist, I don't think anybody has the God-given responsibility to speak for us, but many people can speak to us. But we find fellowship among people that we have things in common with. That's what fellowship is. And God has established in His Word that the Christian life is a holy life. I believe in personal separation. I believe in ecclesiastical separation. That verse of Scripture in Ephesians I gave you is the verse God used to get me out of the Southern Baptist Convention. I make no apology for that when the Word of God says no fellowship. I made up my mind I wouldn't write a check to the cooperative program and support people who didn't believe the Bible. Now, I want to be kind about it. I'm going to be very kind about it. And I'm not trying to start a fire to fuss with anybody. But I'm just saying to you that God has established certain landmarks. He's entrusted us with them. If we move them, if we move them, we've violated a sacred trust. that men, good godly Christian men, and good godly Christian women ought to have with the next good godly Christian men and women who are coming behind them. May God help us to realize what kind of trust we've been given. The fact that people get saved because somebody that is saved tells them how to get saved is one of these landmarks. You see, we are minimizing personal soul winning today. You don't have to get up and attack something to kill it. Things don't die always because they're under attack. Things die because of indifference. Indifference. Now look, I'm trying to plead with you about some things. Indifference. How were you raised? Were you raised in a good godly Christian home? How many of you were? Would you raise your hand? That's the best. That's the best. Were there certain boundaries established that your parents had learned and they passed on to you? How many of you had that? You know what I'm talking about. That's the best. But we ought to try under God to keep those landmarks for our children. That's what it's all about. I got saved because somebody told me about Jesus. This isn't a suggestion. Friend, it's a command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. This isn't just a good idea God had. This is the way God said it's supposed to be done. What happens to this world? We've lost sight of the fact that we've got a whole lost generation. We've got a biblically illiterate generation. They don't know the truth. They haven't heard the truth. And it's God's plan that God's people tell people how to be saved. That's the way the Lord designed for it to be done. And the Word of God says, remove not the ancient landmark. We've been entrusted with some things. I hear all the politicians talking, and they're saying, we don't have the same America we used to have. Well, we all know that. And they go on to say, we have given our children an America that we did not receive. We've given our children a debtor nation. We didn't receive a debtor nation, but we're giving our children a debtor nation. They said, we're giving our children a nation that's no longer financially solvent and no longer financially stable. That's not the nation we received. That's the nation we're giving our children. They said, we received a great exporting nation. We're giving our children a nation with tremendous imports and weakness. And on and on they go about our nation. I'm concerned about that. I'm a red-blooded, flag-waving American, and I imagine most of you are. Let me talk about the church, though. I'm afraid we're not giving our children the same church we received. Someone says, I've given them better facilities. I've given better equipment. Our boys and girls have better Sunday school classes and better rooms. I'm happy about that. There's something more important than that. Something so much more important than that. I just took an article out of the Wall Street Journal just today. A little review and outlook. A certain man wrote about Hillary Clinton and Anita Hill. I'll make no comment about the women, but just a comment about one statement the man made. And if a secular writer for the Wall Street Journal has this much discernment, then it seems to me that God's people ought to have discernment. The writer says, The issue is concerning Mrs. Clinton, not about what she does, but rather what she believes. Now you think about it. The whole article is about what she's doing. But he said the issue is not about what she's doing. The issue is about what she believes. And we become so enamored with what we're doing and how we appear to the rest of the world. I'm afraid we've forgotten what's really important. It's what we believe. What we really believe. What we believe. Gentlemen, I can use this if you're having trouble. Help me out, please. What we believe. This trust, this trust that we've received, this trust. Think about it. The land given from God to His people. The land given from those people to other people. A sacred trust. The land given. A sacred trust. Secondly, I want you to look with me, please, at our time. Our time. Notice in the Word of God, the Bible says, Remove not the ancient landmark. Remove not the ancient landmark. There's a time, we have a time, an amount of time, a measure of time that's allotted to us. That's not forever. You understand that? It's not forever. Only a short time, not forever. When I was a little boy, I grew up across the street from a high school. I used to watch them play football all the time. There's some monitors, gentlemen, they're having problems with. I think if you just want to turn them off and you keep me running, we'll be all right. All right? You got it there? Wave at me or do something. I'm trying to be good for you. God bless you. I know you're trying to scramble to find out what's going on here. We don't have forever. We don't have forever. When I was just a boy, I used to walk across that street many times and watch them play football. I couldn't wait till the day I got to high school and I became a football player too. I thought it'd never come, I thought it'd never happen. Year after year, I'd go there and watch them practice and get involved in what was going on. I thought it'd never happen. Then when I got to high school, got involved in playing ball, I got to be captain of my team, enjoyed all that so very much. As I thought back on it, it came and it was gone so quickly. So quickly. I remember, Dr. Hudson, the first conference I attended was for the Lord. It was in Atlanta, Georgia. Now, I remember the conference was in a big convention hall of some kind. And I didn't know anybody there, I didn't know anything about anybody, except just the names of some people. And I'd follow people around in that Sword of the Lord conference. I'd go to the sessions, hear the people preaching, I'd follow people around in that conference. I remember following Dr. Bob Gray and not touching around in that conference. Just trying to watch them and see what they were doing. I never imagined, never once did I ever imagine, back then, that I'd be doing what I'm doing this evening. But to think back about that meeting and now, and where the time has gone, it's just so quickly. It passes so quickly, doesn't it? The Bible says, if you want to make note of it, in the 89th Psalm, the 47th verse, remember how short my time is. Remember how short my time is. May God help us to get hold of that. How short my time is. When that land was given to those people, they had a time that they stayed on that land and worked that land. Someone had the land before they came. Someone would have the land after they left. Someone worked the land before they had opportunity to work it and someone would work it after they left it. They had their time, just their time to work that land. and to regard those landmarks and not to move them. Just their time, that's all they had. And the truth of the matter is, in God's work, we have just our time. Just our time. Someone will sit in that seat after you're gone. Someone perhaps sat there before you got there. We come into this world and we plug into our opportunity, our time, that's all we have. God helped us to make the most of it. And while we're here, may God help us not to move the landmarks. May God help us not to move them. This is a day where people want to belittle what we're trying to accomplish. That leads me thirdly to share with you the idea of our temptation. Our temptation. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Acts. There's a tremendous verse I want to call your attention to in the book of Acts. I'm gonna share something with you that leads up to it. If you look in Acts chapter 20, the Bible says in verse 17, and from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. And when they would come to him, he said unto them, ye know from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons. Serve the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations, which befell me by the lying and weight of Jews. Now I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there. Say that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. Verse 24 says, But none of these things moved me. Neither can I myself dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Even the Apostle Paul says, I was tempted to move. Tempted to move. Tempted to change. Tempted to vary. But he said, none of these things moved me. May God help us not only to think, oh boy, we've got to live within these boundaries, we've got to stay within these guidelines, we've got to live this way. May God help us to say, oh, I thank God for these landmarks. I praise God for his word. I praise God for his church. I praise God for holy living. I praise God for the glorious way the gospel is shared from one man's heart to another. May God help us not to be tempted to give in, to compromise. May God help us. not to be moved. May God help us. Men have always had that difficulty, always. The book of Jude says, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. He says we're to earnestly contend for the faith. May God help us not to be yielding to every temptation. I thank God I'm an independent Baptist. It cost me something to be an independent Baptist. But I thank God for that. I remember when I was a pastor of a fine church in Lenora City, Tennessee. And the association mission was a member of our church. I remember when the Lord led my wife and I by conviction to leave the convention to become independent Baptists. I remember the little fight that we got into with the Association of Missionaries. I explained the church, they loved me, wept and cried when I left. What a wonderful thing that we had a great love for one another. But this man didn't understand it. He didn't understand it. His whole world was wrapped around worshiping a denomination. And when I said, I'm gonna trust the Lord and the Lord only, he said, you'll never have a place to preach. You'll never have another friend in the ministry. None of that will ever be yours. And I thought, what shall I do? What shall I do? And I considered the landmarks. I just returned from a convention meeting in Dallas, Texas, and around every corner they were arguing about whether the Bible's the word of God. And I said, well, the Lord's already established that landmark. Why argue about it? That's not my idea of serving the Lord. I've always felt I didn't leave the convention, they left me. I really mean that. You see, the truth of the matter is, as long as you live, you're going to be tempted to move the landmarks. Don't move the landmarks. Don't move them. What shall the next generation do when we start moving the landmarks? What shall we do in this generation when people are trying to find the way when we move the landmarks? What shall be done? Our trust, our time, our temptation, our testimony. What will it be? What is it now? What is our testimony? What do people say? Is some off-the-wall, crazy, wild-eyed crowd? Did we all look and act like we just walked out of the woods yesterday? Well, I'll tell you, if that were the case, if we believed the right thing, I'd say, thank God we just walked out of the woods yesterday believing the right thing. What about our testimony? Is that important to you? Is it? Is it important that people say they don't move the landmarks? I have some friends that I started out with. God bless them. I pray for them. I love them. Pastors I'm talking about. Pastors I'm talking about. who aren't where they used to be with these landmarks. Just not there. What is our testimony? I love reading the book of Hebrews and God's testimony about His people. I just want to share just a small portion of it with you. I'll trust the Lord to do the work in your heart. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 32, and what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets." who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, had the weakness, were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sewn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskin and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all having obtained a good report. Why? Because they would not move the landmarks. They would not move the landmarks. They would not. They would not. Years ago, on one of the first trips I made to Israel, we went down to Masada. Many of you have been there. And the guide was a military man. He said, I want to share something with you about what happens here on occasion. The Israeli army inductees on occasion come to the top of Masada, this mountain plateau that Herod the Great built as a fortress, and where the Jews held off the Roman army until finally they took their own lives rather than yield to the invading force of the Romans on top of Masada. And he said, when the army brings their fresh recruits down here, and every 18-year-old in Israel must serve, man and woman, in the Israeli army, he says, you must remember, people, and he was a Jewish guy, that we're surrounded by 250 million Arabs. And today, it's a matter of survival for us. And he said, we equate Israel with Masada. And he says, when the troops come, they line up across this mountain. And I was there on one occasion when they came. And he said, we put a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other. And we tell them now, they're grown men and women, that the future of this nation is in their hands. They are now responsible for protecting this country. He says they raise high the rifle in one hand, the Bible in the other, and they shout, Masada shall never fall again. I don't imagine for one moment that we have gathered inside this church building all the people in this world or in this country or in this area or in this state or even in this immediate area who are standing for God. But I do imagine that we have people representing vast groups of people all around America and different parts of the country gathered in this place. And we need to decide. We need more than a message. I may make a weak feeble attempt at one message and someone else succeed and I fail and someone else succeed. We need more than a message. We need a movement. And I believe we have a movement. But we need a movement on fire. We did a movement ignited by the Holy Spirit of God with determined young men and women, not just those who are gray-headed and silver-haired and been in it for 50 and 60 years. We need young 17 and 18 year old boys and girls and young families 25 and 30 years old with children by their side. We need young adults who'll say by the grace of God, I will never move the landmarks that God has given me. I will not move them. I will not move them. I'll live and die within the boundaries that God has established for my life. We need a generation that'll do that. who will say, I will not move the landmarks. I will not, I will not. I will not move the landmarks. The first meeting I was ever in in a sword conference to preach, I told a story about my brother as he and I grew up on the main street in Maryville, Tennessee. And my mother would send my brother and I out, send my brother and me out to do lots of things. And on one particular occasion, she sent us to town to get something near the end of the day, the close of the day. And when we got to town, I was in such a fury to get through the thing, so hurried, I said to my brother, Tommy, you wait here on this corner by Eagle's Department Store, Eagles 5 and 10, while I cross the street and go to Rose's, and I want to Come back and get you in a minute, and we'll go home. I got so busy, I got what my mother sent me for in roses, and I went home, several blocks away. When I got to the door, my mother looked at me. She didn't have to say a word. She just looked at me, and I knew I was wrong. She said, where's your brother? Without answering, I turned on my heels, and I started running to town. And by the time I got there, The stores that had been open were closed. Many of the lights that were on when I was there just a while before were now off. But when I got near the corner of Eagle's 5 and 10 cent store, my little brother, 13 months younger, who'll preach here Thursday morning, was standing there as I saw the silhouette of his body on that corner waiting for me. And I got him, and we went home. I don't know any other way to say this to you but just to say what I'm about to say. I am one and only one, that's it, just one man. I thank God I've been entrusted with some sacred things. And I would to God that everybody would know the joy that I have known and know serving the Lord. And to find out that his commandments are not grievous. They're not grievous. But God has required me to do and asked me to do. Brother, it is a joy. It is not grievous. It is not grievous. And I pray to God that when He comes, He's coming soon, amen? When He comes, though some who once stood with us may not be standing, when He comes, He'll find us. right where he asked us to be for him. May God help us not to move the landmarks. I walked out the door, coming here, my 21-year-old son, who's a preacher, said, Dad, I love you and I'm praying for you. I said, son, I'm having a hard time and I want to preach. He said, Dad, I'm following you. If you feel led of God, Dad, I wish you could preach a sermon from the book of Proverbs, the 22nd chapter, the 28th verse. He said, "'Cause, Dad, our generation needs to see clearly those landmarks.'" He can't hear my voice, but I thank God someday he shall see all my life. I'd like to tell Matt, God help me. May God help you. Let's determine for them and for our Savior, we are not going to move the landmarks. We're not going to move. Let's bow and pray. Father, we thank you for what has been given to us. As from one generation to the next, we've been entrusted And I pray that you'll do a mighty work in our hearts, a mighty work. There's so many things, Lord, could have been said that were not said. I pray nothing was said that should not have been said. But I pray you'd help us with great joy, with great joy and determination to say in our hearts unto thee that when we see your blessed face and lay down this robe of flesh and soar beyond the stars to be with you forever, that we'll meet you, Lord, and be able to stand before you, knowing in our hearts that we did not move the landmarks. Help us to be a faithful generation. Never was there such an hour in our lives when it was needed so desperately. Help us to be faithful. In Jesus' blessed name we pray.