I'd like to say that I've always just trusted in the Lord in every single situation, but sadly I would have to admit I've probably leaned on my own self often many times. But God will teach you. You will learn to trust Him if you're His. And so thank the Lord through it all. I have great respect for these missionaries and their wives. I know what a pastor and a preacher's wife goes through. A missionary's wife, I don't know. I can imagine some things, but I don't have any first-hand experience in family or anything like that. But they are greatly to be praised and honored as well for the sacrifices they have made Young ladies, it'll be something in your life when things are being mentioned about being called to the mission field, and God's not gonna call any of you to preach, I know that. But he does prepare a lady's heart to serve in the ministry, just the same. She has to deny herself of her desires, just the same as he does, and surrender just the same to the will of God. And so it's my prayer for each and every one of you that you would seek the will of God for your life and not be satisfied with anything short of what God has for you. And I would say, if you were to ask Ms. Smith tonight, if she would go back and change anything other and do something other than to serve Jesus, would she rather have, anything else in this world but what the will of God took her through, which I'm sure included, and I don't even know them. I can say this because I know the Bible. It probably included many, many trials and tears and temptations. I would say that I would be good bet to say that she would say absolutely not. And so I pray that you young ladies also will prepare yourselves and ready yourselves to serve the Lord in whatever ministry that might be, you know, I know a lot of ladies, young ladies that want a preacher husband. and that's a good desire to have, but I would just settle upon the husband that God has for me, and just whatever that may be, and I wouldn't have anything else other than that, and it'll all be okay. If you'll just prepare yourself, just as a man has to do, you have a great important matter part in the work of the ministry. We know that because the Bible says, if a man be the husband of one wife, having faithful children that are in subjection with all gravity, so must the wives also be great in temperament. And it gives a list of qualifications for the wife. A man cannot be much in the ministry if his wife and his family are not. And so you have to prepare your hearts, prepare yourselves now. Wouldn't it be wonderful for God to let you marry a missionary and go and just win people to Jesus and serve on a mission field? Why would that be something that our young people would be afraid of, you know? I want to be a nurse when I grow up. I want to be a doctor when I grow up. Well, I mean, I'm not against any of that. What about if God lets you be a preacher's wife and serve on the mission field, and you can nurse some little children that have been abandoned in some foreign country. There's all kinds of things that you could do for the Lord. I'd just rather serve the Lord than anything else I know, and I pray and hope to God that that he uses every one of you young people in the work of the ministry. And if God, Ravenhill's mother prayed when he was born and the midwife went out, she prayed according to her own testimony that God would make him a preacher and not let him live. And boy, what a prayer, to pray over your own son and desire that she had to go. Preaching the gospel is a great blessing. Being a part of the ministry is a great blessing. And it's not a horrible life. With all the knocks and beats and everything else we've been through, I wouldn't change what I'm doing for Jesus than anything else in this world. And so I don't know why it gets, I hope God calls some men from this church and uses them up in the ministry, but I pray he raises you young ladies to deny yourself and to serve in the ministry as a helpmate to a husband to get the job done. Amen, because it is few pickings out there to find a godly man or a godly woman. I would hate to be looking for a wife or a companion in today's market. Can I call it a market? I would hate to be looking for one nowadays. But thank God there's still some few that want to serve Jesus. And so I pray God fills your heart with the desire to serve Him whatever capacity that is. I got to thinking about what if something happened, God forbid, happened to Ms. Snow? What happened to young ladies learning how to play instruments? Brother Jones was telling me, he was in a meeting when Brother Smith, nobody knew how to play an instrument. And Brother Smith stood up and played for him. So there's been so many things you young people can do. Life's more than playing video games and going around and seeing how much you can get by with and get away with. And there's more to life. You can do something for God if you want to do it in these days. My favorite quote of Billy Mitchell, God's looking for some people he can't get rid of. And you just need to stay faithful and hang in there for God, and pray God uses you in the ministry. Use you up in the ministry, because He will, if you want Him to. If you're willing, He'll use you. Now I didn't say, definitely call you to preach, I don't know that. But there's so many things needs done. These instruments that needs played for God. These people that need to get on fire for God and sing with their voices and be a blessing to people. There's all kinds of things that need done in our day. And in our day, we're busy running to and fro, accomplishing nothing. We think we are. We've sold out for health insurance and double time. And we've taught our young people to do the same. God help us. Well, okay, 1 Peter. I'm stirred up, I really am. I'm honored. That first verse, the Lord counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry. I believe that's the same word as counted as imputed. I'm not sure that he looked at you and saw you faithful and decided to call you. But either way, you want to preach it, it's fine, I guess. But I do know this one, this much I do know, as one who has obtained mercy to be faithful. Wonderful. You say, well, I'm having trouble being faithful. Well, you've received mercy. That's a little bit we're going to look at tonight in Peter. He's going to talk about the Lord being gracious. So I just want to look just for a few minutes. We've got a few minutes together to continue on in Peter and just look down through some verses here in chapter number two. As we've been dealing with, we left off chapter number one in verse six goes through. We began looking at the manners. It runs all the way down, in my opinion, down to chapter number 2. And it's going, we're actually continuing that thought in dealing with our manners and how we are to live in this world, having enduring affliction, enduring hardness as good soldiers. And He gives us so many things, the work of Christ, the Word of God, the working of the Spirit, so many tools in which to live the Christian life. And we come on down to chapter number two of 1 Peter and verse number one. And we begin to see under that same instance, he begins to show us it's got to begin in the heart and in the will. We don't clean up the outside, we clean up inside and God works it out. God cleans us up in and he works us out. So we see the putting off of those things in verse one, Then we see the pouring in of the right thing in verse number two. And so that is still dealing with the manners. And then we'll look just for a moment in verse number, let me read verse number one. Wherefore laying aside all malice, all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings. Verse number two, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. And so we see the putting off, we see the pouring in, and then we see the purpose. And the purpose is that we grow. And so that's a wonderful blessing. We gotta have both emptying out and the pouring in in order to grow at all. And so it takes both. He's dealt with our pride most of in verse number one. And then in verse number two, I'm gonna say a couple of things and we'll go on to verse number three and look at this presumption. But in the purpose of verse number two, that we may grow. So as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby, this is what God has chosen to feed us with. And so you separate a Christian from his Bible and he will never grow. He will go backwards. He will back up. He will not make any progress in the Christian life without the reading and the consuming of the Word of God. You cannot separate yourself and your life apart from your Bible. This blessed book is God's revelation. It's absolutely perfectly preserved exactly the way God wanted it to be in our English language for you and me to know exactly what God wants us to know. And so if you, that we may grow thereby. So God shows, it's like he charged me as a pastor. He charges me to feed the flock. thought of God. And so anything else that we desire, here's what happened in the church in the wilderness. The Bible talks about in the book of Psalms, the Bible says that God fed them with angels' food. God was feeding people. Right after he had delivered them, newborn delivered people, he decided to feed. And what did he feed them? He fed them angels food. And they called it manna. What is this? God chose a particular type of food, Cody, to feed them. But what happened? As they went along in life, whatever happened in their life, they got discontent and they began to provoke God. They began to complain and murmur against God. They didn't like His provisions anymore. They got to remembering what it was like back in Egypt when they had meat to eat. And so they cried and cried and belly ate and complained. And they desired to be filled with something else. And so God gave them what they asked for. He allowed them to have some meat, but the Bible says this in the book of Psalms. He allowed them to have the meat. He sent the meat and he honored their request just like he did for a king, but he sent leanness into their soul. It will cost us if we feed ourselves upon anything else in this world but on the Word of God. This is our lifeline. This is why it's so important that it cannot be tainted with the opinions of any man. It must be the Word of God. For man shall not live by bread alone. but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You leave one word out and it's corrupt and it's no good. God was able to preserve his word just as perfect as he did when Moses destroyed the first set of tablets. He preserved it and put exactly what was on the first ones, he put them on the second one. Jesus held scriptures in his hands, though they were copies of copies. We have the word of God today and we better feast ourselves upon it. Feed yourselves upon the Word of God. Stay in the Word of God. This is so simple, I know, but it's just what's burning in my heart. I'm telling you, there is nothing at the end of what's going to happen to you that's gonna be any good if you separate yourself from your Bible. You cannot get away from the Bible and grow as a Christian. You've got to have the word. God chose for you, for your spiritual food to be this blessed book. and anything outside of that that you desire to be filled with is just gonna send leanness into your soul. You may get what you want, but it'll cost you every time. You can feed on Hollywood, you can feed on the internet, you can feed on pornography, but it'll destroy you when it's done, that it'll bring forth death. You must and you cannot be satisfied with anything else in this world as a Christian, but on the Bible, on God's blessed book. And I hate to scream on a Wednesday night, but I don't know how else to put it. People are running to and fro trying to be satisfied and fill voids in their lives in this day. And I'm telling you, the only hope you got is to open a King James Bible, take you up the book. We have a more sure word of prophecy. God will fill your heart. He'll fill your life. You'll have contentment. You'll have joy. You'll have peace. Just get in your Bible. I don't know any other, I don't have any remedy. I don't have a 12-step program. The Bible says it's new born, but God, when I got saved, put a deep burning desire and love in my heart for the Bible. And it has carried me through. I will tell you, I know no other way. I don't know any other way to live the Christian life apart from this blessed book. I know of nothing else in this world that'll help you to steer yourself clear of the darkness of the depravity that you carry around in your mortal bodies, but by the Word of God, by the washing of water by the Word. Just if you've got a cut and you're going to clean that wound out, you subject those hands to running water and you better subject your soul to the living running water of God that's alive and it's forever settled in heaven. You better subject your soul to the Bible or you'll be just as corrupt. You're liable to do anything that you was able to do before you got saved. Your only hope in keeping down the lust of the flesh and the desires and the filth of the old man is to stay on your knees and stay in this book. You young people, I don't know, they may be 10 steps to a better you. I've seen some crazy stuff out there. And what we're looking for is a pill to swallow to make us better people. God's not got a pill for you to swallow. We want the quick, easy way. We're not gonna have a quick, easy way. God didn't set it up that way. It's a daily denial of self and a daily absorption of this book. And if you get out of your Bible, we'll be setting up here. You'll be like those, the Bible said that people will go and they'll shake their head at you. You know what it's talking about there? What hope they had to be a terrific, nothing but opportunity. Raised in a Christian home, born under great preaching, great parents that loved God, a pastor that tried to love them in priesthood. None of that'll make any difference. And they'll just shake their head at you and say, boy, what a shame. Say, not me. I'm gonna prophesy here. Get out of this book and you're as good as gone. I don't care who your daddy is. I don't care if he's a preacher. I don't care if he's a missionary. I don't care what church you go to. I don't care who your mother is. I don't care how she prayed. I don't care anything about how your families loved God and stood faithful. If you yourself get out of this Bible, there is no hope for your soul. You might be saved, but you'll wreck your testimony. You've got to stay in the Word of God. The only hope you have, you've carried a good testimony. The only hope you got to carry it on is to stay in the Bible. You get out of this book, you young people, you can go to camp meetings. You can shout, you can run the aisles, and you'll go home and it'll never change you. You'll be the same ungodly person you've always been. And I'm for shouting, I'm for praising, I'm for camp meetings. I've looked all over this world to find anything. Like she sings that song. All my life long I had thirsted. I've looked all over the place, Brother Tony, and I've never found the only answer that I know, the only way I know to keep that old man under subjection is by this blessed book. Boy, we better stay in this Bible. I pray you young people get a hold of that if you don't get anything else. I don't care if you ever shout. I don't care if you ever sing a song. If you don't stay in this book. Here's what the next As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. You know why we're so shallow. You know why spiritually we have to sit in our mind and actually contemplate whether we should go on to church or not. The fact that even comes up in our brain shows us how messed up we are. I don't know, I can't name one other place in this world I'd rather be tonight. I'm not trying to look spiritual, I'm telling you before God, my honest to God's heart, I'm telling you the truth, before God I lie not. I'd rather be here than sitting on my couch at home. I'd just rather be here with God's people, worshiping God around the things of God. And my soul longs to do that in eternity. I hope you young people are listening. I've stood before people just as wonderful seeming as you. And within a week of preaching messages, they've just thrown it all away. It wasn't that moment of time. If you wait till the moment of desire, when lust meets opportunity, you are in trouble. The only thing keeping some people from messing up is the opportunity to do so. That ain't just young people. There's some men that are so dirty in their hearts, the only thing missing in the equation of an adulterous affair is a willing woman. You young people can't play around with sin. Because when the opportunity presents itself, you will fall. And if you stay out of your Bible, and you spend your whole week just filling yourselves with nonsense. When that moment comes, and that temptation comes, and that moment of time comes where your life gets determined because it's nothing more than the sum of the choices that you've made, when you're faced with that choice, if you have waited to become spiritual till the moment of choice, you've waited way too long, friend. The breakdown, the problem was not the bad decision here as much as it was the bad decision two weeks ago when you got out of the Bible. And your soul got lean and you got malnourished and you began, just like Billy Kelly said, you brought up Billy Kelly. There's two dogs inside of me fighting and they said, which one? The one I feed is gonna win. You can't feed the old man all week long and Joe up at a choice to determine your future and do the right thing. You've got to steadily, daily, every day, just stay in the Bible. Subject your ears to the right kind of music. Subject your soul to the preaching. Subject yourself and say, God, by the mercies of God, I present my body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is just my reasonable service. I won't even get a cookie in heaven for it. It's just reasonable. Nobody gets a crown in heaven for living holy. Presents your bodies a living sacrifice. New Testament Christianity is far beyond signing a card and raising your hand and showing up at church. It's a way of life. Christ is your life. And if you separate yourself from Him and from the Bible, you will make shipwreck of the faith. The only hope you got is to stay in your Bible. I can't tell you the number of times God has brought my soul up out of darkness. How many times, Brother Jones, have you just prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it? Prone to leave the God I love. But boy, you can get in your Bible. Hallelujah. Man, God will give you something. If I had the number of times to tell you, one of my darkest hours in my short Christian life. God used this verse to, I'm telling you, it was like somebody turned a light switch on. I've read it, I don't know how many times I've read the Bible, read through this verse. And the verse he used in my life was, fear not, Abram, for I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And I thought, man, if I've got God, like you said about that fellow, what am I down here in the depths of depravity for? Depression, I mean, get up. You got God. God will just do something. You know, I was always afraid to miss church. Church is optional for most people these days. Most churches you go to, if they got 100 on Sunday morning, they'll have 50 Wednesday night, it's the way it goes. And it's sad, but that's, we've accepted that, it's the way it is now. It's optional. It's just, it's should I go or not? I hate to think that things like that are optional. I've never seen it as optional. I was scared to death that God would have my pastor to preach something that was gonna help me. I don't know how many times I've drugged in there and I've never said my flesh never wanted to go. Never said that. There's times I got to working and I was about half mean and mad and in the flesh, but I knew if I would just go, there was never a time I regretted it. I always got help for my soul. Desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Purpose, look at, well, we'll look at verse number three here and we'll go, I have I don't know how many times studied through this precious chief cornerstone, and I've intended to get to it for weeks, and I just can't get to it. But I want to, but it doesn't look like we'll get to do it again. But now here's what he says. He follows that empty air, pour the word of God here that you may grow thereby. Now verse number three is a presumption, and I call it a presumption, not an assumption, because I believe that's the way the wording is there. He's saying, since you have tasted—let me say this. The only person that can do what's just been commanded to do is a person that's been born again. This is a charge to Christian folk. A lost person cannot put aside malice and hypocrisies and guiles, and they have no ability to get down. That's a work of the Holy Spirit. Now, if so be, so you have an if there. If you've not tasted, maybe that's why you can't put all that stuff off. Maybe you've never been saved. See, you know what brings doubt to salvation in a person's life when anything in this world is sin? How can I think like this? How can I do that and get by with it? How can I? To the point I don't even know if people are saved sometimes. It just brings confusion in your life. But if so be you've tasted that the Lord is gracious. So I wanna just touch on a couple of things in this verse. So he gives the if. No other way that we could possibly do this but by the Lord. Jesus said without me you can do nothing. And I'd say any person in this building have to be honest and say the only hope they had to stop living the way they was living before they got saved was to be born again. You've got to be made a new creature. I found no other way. The world does not have in its capacity what's needed to help you to live right, to get out from under the load of sin. It doesn't have it. There's nothing that exists in a bottle, be it a prescription or anywhere else. The world doesn't have it. You'll never find satisfaction by being, by any other human being. You'll never find what you need from a mom or dad. You'll never find it from a husband. You'll never find it from a wife. Not what it's talking about here you won't. The only hope you've got is in Jesus Christ. He'll fill the longings. Can I say this? That brings great hope into my life that I don't have to... If you came to me and said, in the condition that I was in before I was saved, and say, well, you know, here's what they'll tell you at AA meetings, you're always an alcoholic, you need to accept that. You just need to accept it. I believe I'd about blow my brains out if that were the case. Who wants to live like that their entire life? Who wants to live? You're just always gonna be that way, deal with it. There's nothing that could be a bigger lie in all the world than you'll always be that way. I use alcohol just because it's something I can use out here in a mixed congregation, but there's all kinds of sins out there in the world. You don't have to just be that your whole life. There's an abundance of grace in the arms of a loving Savior that will empower, that will enable, that will save you from your sins. And I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I don't have to live, I've heard men used in bondage to their depravity. That almost makes you look like a victim, you're not a victim of your depraved nature. You're not just a sinner because you are one by nature, you're one by choice as well. You chose to do what you're doing, and the only way to get out is another choice, to receive Him. that if you'll receive him, it won't be easy. You won't be made perfect as far as down here and be able to live. I'm not talking about that, but man, I'm telling you, you'll have the help from another world. You got the natural man to receive another thing. You say, God, neither did they be because they're spiritually discerned. But you take a saved man with this blessed book, he can go to Brazil, not another Christian there. He can start churches, he can just start giving that same power right back to somebody else and they get saved before you know it. There's four or five churches started, men getting raised to preach. That's the power that's in the word of God. To change a man's life. That can take a man that was so down and sorry that he'd sell the shoes of his baby for another drink and call him to preach the word of God. That excites my heart. I don't have to just continue the way I've always continued. I can change. Hallelujah. If so be, can I say something here? That word tasted there. It's not like this. It's not like, That's what we get, the picture in our minds of tasted. Well, let me just see. It's the same word that the Bible says in Hebrews, he tasted death for every man. I'm gonna tell you what happened. I say it a lot, but I'm gonna tell you young people something. Night I got saved, I didn't do one of these numbers. Well, let me just see a thistle. I don't think so. I plunged in head first and grabbed two handfuls and double fisted them. I consumed everything I could have got. You ever shared something with somebody that was so good, you wanted them to have it? You remember when Ruth, when he reached her, parched corn? You ever had something so good that you wanted somebody else to have it? Same thing with salvation. It's so good you want other people to have it. You know what I'm talking about? You ever done that? You ever had something that was so good and you were so excited for somebody else to taste it? You might even do this number. Close your eyes. I want you to taste this. You're not going to believe it. And wait for them to take that by. And you're just sitting back looking to see how they react to that thing. Well, what do you think? Is that not what you'd say? How good is it? What do you think? You're just waiting on their reaction to see what they'd say. And if it's really good and they'll say something like this, they'll say something like, wow, that's fantastic. Wow, that's great. That's marvelous. That's wonderful. Or if they're like me, they'll grab the rest of it and won't say nothing. Brother Jones, this has filled my heart today. 12 years ago, on a back porch in Kingston, I consumed, and if you wanna hear what I've got to say about it, how did that taste, Brother Clem? What was it like? What was he like? Gracious. I have found him to be nothing but gracious every time I've gone to him. Pardon and iniquity, forgive us faithful and just. Brother Clint, what was that like? Well, how could you describe gracious? And if you've tasted of the Lord tonight, you know what you've found? You know what you'd have to say to that same piece that you, that same bite you took? You'd have to say he's gracious. He saved an old sinner, never deserved nothing from God. Who's lived about as vile and low down as a human being can live. And God picked him up out of the miry clay and set his feet on a solid foundation. Established his going. If so be you've tasted that the Lord is gracious. Now that happened that night, but I can tell you this. When I woke up this morning, you know what I found, Brother Smith? I found the Lord gracious. He's never changed one bit. He's just as gracious tonight as he's ever been. He's forgiven me, he'll forgive you. I change not, is what he said. You found him gracious. Christian, can I exhort you to something? When you got saved, you found him gracious. Maybe you've gotten away from him. Can I exhort you to one thing? He's not changed. He's just as gracious as he was when he saved you. Boy, he's been good to us, Brother Nathan. Maybe you're not saved. Brother Reed, why don't you come on? Have a song, then we'll go home tonight. I'm finished preaching, if you wanna stand to your feet just a moment, stretch a little, bow your head just a moment, we'll have a song, we'll give one verse. If you wanna come, you just mind the Lord. And I can tell you one thing, you'll find a gracious God. Just mind the Lord if you need to come.