Why people just can't praise Him? You know, I guess it's just that old pride. You know, and I tell you, we get so frustrated, our kids, because we want our kids to praise Him, but we don't do it. We don't respond. Now, I want to challenge you, if God preached your heart, man, I don't have to preach. I got over that a long time ago. I sure wouldn't want to mess anything up. And, you know, if I didn't get to preach at all, it wouldn't bother me. I've been, I was at Brother Kevin's Mass the first time I ever went to his church. They got to singing that song, I've Been Blessed. Now the altar's filled up, the preachers called me up. I said, what am I going to do? God's already done it. I said, I'll catch you over next time. But, you know, I know the preacher, you know, you come to altar any time God touches your heart. So take your Bibles, go back to the book of Jeremiah. If you were not here in Sunday school, I preached the introduction this morning, and I'll just briefly tell you what we said. Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 16. I'm just going to read one verse, and you can stand for the reading of God's word. Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 16, it says, Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way? And walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Father, we ask the Lord to help us this morning. Lord, thank you for the good spirit. Lord, thank you for the tears. Lord, don't ever let us lose our tears. Lord, I pray God that you would be in the midst of us this morning. I feel that you're already here. Lord, maybe this can be a help to someone, encouragement. Lord, I love you and I thank you for what you've done in my life. Lord, I cannot believe I'm standing behind this pulpit. You've been good to me. You deserve all the praise and glory. I didn't make myself. It's all you. Lord, help us now in Jesus' name. Amen. If you're not here at Sunday school this morning, I started with the outline, we will not. The nation of Israel, the man of God, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, I could just imagine in my mind the Jeremiah message was given to him to proclaim to Israel that it wouldn't a time go by that his voice didn't quiver, tears didn't run down his face as he stood over God's people and he pronounced the Word of the Lord. He had seen them go into idolatry. He had seen them go into adultery. the nation of Israel, and there he's known as the weeping prophet. We know later on in Jeremiah's life that he got to a point he wanted to quit. I guarantee you he probably got to a point in his life where he said, I can't cry no more. He said, matter of fact, I won't even speak your name no more. But there was something down in him. He said it was like a fire. He said that he couldn't hold his peace, and I know I'm kind of butchering that a little bit, but this morning, I'm telling you, as a man of God, as your preacher here, I'm telling you, America's in trouble. And it's not because of the Democrats and the Republicans. It's not because of that. It's not because who's running. The problem in America has been the preacher. Now we want to blame it on the peer. But if the preaching had been what it ought to be, the peer would have been what it ought to be. This morning we looked at the stand in verse 16. Where do you stand on the Bible, on boundaries and the brethren? This brother over here in the vest gave me another B. Where do you stand on your beliefs? Why are you a Baptist? I don't know. One year at camp, not this particular camp, another camp I was doing, I brought out the Baptist distinctives. And I taught them children why we were Baptists. Baptist is not something you need to be ashamed of. Heard an old time preacher say this. A man came to me and said, Brother, if you wasn't a Baptist, what would you be? He said I'd be ashamed. The reason that I have no problem saying I'm a Baptist is because I believe that as best we can we got the book right. We got our beliefs right. We believe the right book and the right beliefs. Can I tell you I still believe in the blood atonement? Can I tell you I still believe in Holy Ghost conviction? I don't believe in this 1, 2, 3, repeat after me, 5, 6, 7, raise your hand if you want to go to heaven. Let me give you another one, 9, 10, 11, you're going to have to do it again. Amen. I'm a Baptist. I'm not ashamed of it. Let me go even further, I'm an independent Baptist. And I ain't ashamed of it. I'm not a terrorist. I might be a terrorist when you preach something that they don't like, then you're terrorizing them. I hope I terrorized you. It ain't going to be as bad as what God's going to do when He terrorizes you. I'm not ashamed of that. I don't want my kids to bury their head in their hands when they say, what are you? Well, I'm a Baptist. I'm preaching about Baptists this morning. And by the way, I ain't a Baptist Bride. Before y'all start saying, well, I bet you he's a Baptist Bride. No, I ain't a Baptist Bride. You know, I believe there's some saved folks in the Catholic Church. I believe there's some saved folks in the Assembly of Gods, in the Southern Baptists, and I believe, be honest with you, I know this is going to shock you, I believe there's some saved folks in the Independent. Where will you stand this morning? I mean, if the preacher gets up and he mentions eternal security. Well, I've never preached. I believe in eternal security of the believer. I believe I'm going to heaven whether I want to or not. Well, you believe that you've got a license to sin. No, I don't. I live in First John 1-9. Well, I don't. Well, man, I want to go home with you, Holy. I live in First John 1-9. I've heard people say, well, when you get saved, you never have to repent again. Where are you living? Do you go to Walmart? Where we're from, man, you can't go to Walmart unless you've got blinders on. You can't go through the checkout, where do you stand? Say, well I stand where the preacher stands, praise God, one day the preacher ain't gonna be here. You know what's happened in our church, Glory Land Baptist Church, so many years people have said, well I stand where Brother Charlie stands, guess what? He ain't gonna be standing there no more. So it's time for you to, I've always wanted to preach this, I ain't never got the liberty, step up or shut up, I'm tired of hearing it. It's time for me, it's time for us to just step up. This is what I believe. We talked about staying and then we talked about sin. We didn't go in depth about that. Getting your spiritual eyeglasses on, going outside the four walls of these churches. There are people hurting right here in this community. They need to know that there's a God. in this church. I'm gonna say this, the old time churches, you say, well, I'm tired of hearing about the old time churches. Well, that's, I'm old time church. The old time church is the one that drove the dope dealers out. They weren't calling the law to preach. Well, stand up and preach against that. He preached against alcohol. He preached against smoking. He preached against all that. And today, God forbid you preach on that. And now you see where our communities are. In Birmingham, we are now fifth in the nation in murder. They have now coined the phrase about Birmingham, it's called murder ham. I'm telling you, since I've probably been preaching, somebody's been shot and killed in Birmingham. What happened? We lost our grip. Because you know, we didn't stand for something. I'm not trying to get anybody mad, but in the South, especially in Birmingham, everybody wanted to stand with civil rights. Now don't give me no feedback. I ain't a racist. Amen. Don't give me no feedback. Brother, can I get amen, Brother Ted? Amen. But I'm going to tell you, what has civil rights got to do with their soul? Hey, I believe that we were all created equal. What was done to them was not right. Help me out. It wasn't right. But I'm telling you, when the preachers in the South, all they do is stand up and preach about Rosa Parks, they are damning their race to hell. When a little black boy in Huffman High School can stand up to me and say, I've never heard a clear presentation of the gospel and I've been going to church. I said, what are they preaching? He said, civil rights. Hey, I'm telling you, we got to get outside the four walls of this church and get in our community and see what's going on. We gotta let them know that there's a church that stands for something. And that we can see what's going on in our community. Then we need to seek. He said, ask. Ask. You know, the Bible said it was the good way. I used this illustration the night I had to preach. I had to come up with a lot of illustrations because I didn't have much. When I preached this message at the church. How many of y'all know of a good restaurant around here? All right, just one person. Boy, y'all must have some sour eating down here. Up here. Got a friend back at home. He's 330 pounds. We get along good. We tell each other how to lose weight. Hey, brother, I tell you what you do to lose weight. Yeah, amen. It's working for you, I see. He called me back up about a day and said, hey, brother, when's your birthday? I said, man, it's July the 6th. Hint, hint. Y'all want to send me a card? He said, I'm going to take you somewhere. He said, don't eat that whole day. I knew at that time we weren't going to Walmart. We weren't going to the Bass Pro. We were going to the eating house. He said, I'm telling you, don't eat. And that week leading up to it, he said, I'm telling you, don't eat. He texted me that morning. He said, did you eat breakfast? Well, I'm thinking, man, I'm eating breakfast. I can throw down some food. It ain't going to matter to me. He texted me at lunch. He said, did you eat lunch? I'm going somewhere with this. I said, yeah, I ate lunch. I ate Chick-fil-A. He picked me up that night, he said, we got reservations. I said, man, reservation, you ain't going, you go in a reservation, when you got reservations, you get like three bites and a sniff. And you got four different forks, you gotta know which fork to use, amen? I said, man, where are we going? He said, don't worry about it. He said, I'm picking you up, we got a reservation, five o'clock. We went down to this new place downtown, they've called it Uptown. We got there, brother. And it's a place called Texas de Brazil. Any of y'all ever heard of that? Good, I'm fixing to educate you. I said, brother, what newfangled, I can't even pronounce this, I ain't going to eat it. If I can't pronounce it, I ain't eating it. I said, tell me about it. He said, I'm going to tell you what it is. It's the finest cuts of meat in the world. And it's all you can eat. steak, lamb, pork. And he said, they got a little cart. And that little cart has got one side is green and one side's red. And as long as that green cart's up, the meat keeps flowing. And when you turn that red cart over, you said you had enough. Can I tell you, when we went in there, it's a good restaurant. Matter of fact, I am a spokesman for that restaurant. And I'm going to tell you, if you ever come to Birmingham, you need to go to Texas Day Brazil. It's a good restaurant. And I'm trying to tell you, just like it's a good restaurant, I've been telling everybody how good that restaurant is. But can I tell you about a way I found on February 11, 1996? I found a good way. Amen. And ever since then, my friend, I've never had to take that car from green to stop because I said, God, give me all you can. Give me all you can. It's the good way. Evidently, y'all ain't got no good restaurants y'all can recommend. But I want to look at three things this morning out of this passage. Let me get my spectacles on. Number one, I want to look at the waves. The waves, plural, look at verse 16 again. The waves, thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the, plural, waves. Evidently, there's more waves. Well, we hear people like Joe Osteen, he don't know which way to go. Is that y'all's ear roll? He ain't got a clue which way to go. So evidently, I ain't gonna listen to him. Because he don't even know which way he's going. Back last year, the Houston mayor was a lesbian. She got upset. Them preachers were preaching on sodomy. And so she subpoenaed five preachers. I guarantee you, Joe Olsteen, he'd get a subpoena. Boy, I want to go preach in Houston, and I'm going to preach this thought, Houston, we got a problem. Wouldn't that be a good thought? Houston, we got a problem. This was the same town that passed the Hero Law. Y'all know what that is? It's where a pedophile who thinks that they were born a male but now they're a female can go into a woman's restroom without any retribution. That's probably not the word or whatever. They ain't getting in trouble for doing that. See, when I get them big words out, I mess up. Amen. There's many ways. Go to Proverbs chapter 14. proverbs chapter fourteen now listen i'm a simple preacher so i don't know i don't know if this will help you or not you preach to kids you can't be using big fancy words like i just tried to i have some adults in here i said well they'll think i'm smart then i open my mouth and remove all doubt so here's a way look at verse number uh... chapter uh... uh... proverbs fourteen look at verse number twelve there's a way that seemeth right unto man But the end thereof are the ways of death. Can I say, number one, there's a deadly way? There's a deadly way. I got a little bit of this this morning about kids wanting to go their own way. Well, you know what, a lot of those kids go their own way because their moms and dads go their own way. See, I'm convinced, I've been doing this, preaching to kids for a lot of years. I'm convinced, brother Chris, I'm convinced of this. You ain't gonna change my mind. I'll give you 30 minutes after church to change my mind. You ain't changing it. I am convinced in my heart is that kids rebel because mom and dads rebel. Not all the time. There's exceptions there. But I've seen kids come to an altar to camp and get right with God and get there and say, hey, I'm going down the wrong way. I had a girl come to camp one time and her mom had spent all this money on this wardrobe. And it was in modest apparel. And she got right about dress. We never preached on dress. And she got right about dress, brother. And she went back to that church, and she went back home and stood up and said, hey, I got right at camp. And the next Monday, she went down there in her clothes and began to take everything that was immodest and put it in a trash bag. And her mama said, what in the world are you doing? She said, Mom, I got right with God. This is immodest. I'm not bringing glory to God. And she said, you take every clothes that you put in that bag and put them back in the closet. Cause I paid a lot of money for those. Wind the world with mom. When a girl gets convicted of God's convicted him, wind the world. Hey, she's going down a deadly way in God. Put a man in his way, a man in the way and say, hey, don't go that way. I seen him come to an altar. and cry their eyes out, and you think, man, what kind of sin they're in? And they look up and say, I ain't got no hope. Sure you got hope. Say, no, I got to go home to mom and dad. In Christian church. And fundamental independent Baptist churches. God forbid anybody, any adult in here that's got a child that goes to camp, God forbid that when they come home from camp, and I know what you say, well, they just got caught up in emotions. Well, thank God they got caught up in something. We don't get mad when they get caught up in the world, but when they get caught up in emotions now, they just stirring them down there. Yeah, we are, we're stirring them. Hey, there's a deadly one. There's a lot of kids in the graveyard this morning because of a deadly way. We was at a mission conference two years ago. This guy preached an excellent message. We just went to tell about our work. Guy got up and he preached an excellent message about mom and dad leading the home and mom and dad doing right and how mom and dad's looking, you know, your children are looking at mom and dad. After the service was over, good altar call, the preacher says, you know, is all hearts cleared? And this man stood up. He said, I got something to say. He said, I can't lead my child no more. Because when he needed me the most, I went right with God. He said, the only thing I can do now is go to the tombstone. Boy, you tell me, he stood, he sat right behind me and my wife, and there was a dagger put in my heart. There's a dead the way. We got to move on. I'd be here all day like Brother Carpenter over here. Look at Matthew chapter 7. I want you to come back tonight. Matthew chapter number 7. I got to get to preaching here. Matthew chapter 7, there's a deadly way. I could go all day on that. Now Matthew chapter 7 verse 13. Let me read that. The 13 and 14, we'll just hit two at the same time. Matthew chapter 7. We're at 13, let's see if I wrote the right reference down, amen. 13, in a ye, now listen, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you. God done took care of sodomy right here. In a ye, in at the straight gate. The straight gate. Amen preacher. Enter ye in the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. And many there, watch it, and many there be which go therein, thereat. You know what, there's not only a deadly way, there's a destructive way. And I'm tired of seeing kids mess their lives up. I'm tired of it. When are you going to stop preaching hard when they stop messing up? You know, it's so sad. When we started in that juvenile ministry, you see the cuts all over their arms. They come up to us and they say, Brother Justice, would you adopt me? I ain't been preaching down there a year, brother Todd. I ain't been down there a year. And my wife come back on a Monday night and she said, hey, a girl wanted me to tell you something. Boy, I bet she's going to say I'm the best preacher she ever heard. Well, I can't wait to hear this. I said, what was it? She said, tell your husband he's the first man that ever loved me. You know what, they got on that destructive way and they want nobody to sit there and say, hey, what are you doing? A destructive way. Kids, I'm going to tell you something. You're going to rip your mama's and daddy's hearts out. If you don't get away from those influences in your life, you're going to rip your daddy and mama's heart out. And they're going to be sitting up in churches and they're going to be weeping and crying. I tell you, who's raising the babies now? of a destructive way grandma is. Grandma is. Not only are you going to break your mom and dad's heart, you're going to break your preacher's heart and your preacher's wife's heart. You're going to break Brother Ronnie Wayne and all these people that love you in here. It's going to break their heart. And you know what the devil is going to tell you? Nobody cares. Nobody cares. I'm telling you, we care. We care. It's a blessing to see you kids that come to camp. It's a blessing to see you sitting in here on Sunday morning. Look at verse 14. There's a deadly way, a destructive way. I've got to hurry. Look at verse 14. Because straight is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life. And watch what it says, few there be that find it. There's a direct way. I'm telling you this morning, there's a direct way. But you know what the Bible just said on verse 13? It said, broad is the way and many. Hey, there's thousands of people right now going the broad way. There's millions of people going the broad way. There ain't a lot going the narrow way. I get this all the time. Preacher, you're just too narrow-minded. I sure am. I'm narrow-minded because God's narrow-minded. I think the preacher said yesterday, it's black and white. I mean, God ain't giving you multiple choice. He didn't say, well, you do this commandment if. He said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. It's a direct way. John 14, 6, I'll quote it to you. John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, the life. Not only is there a dead way, a destructive way, a direct way, there's a divine way. I'm going to tell you, I'm glad one day I got on that divine way. Every time I preach, people get on to me and say, you tell that story how you got saved. I sure do, man. I had a girl tell me not too long ago, she said, hey preacher, every time you tell that story, it's exactly the way you told it last time. Thank God, because it ain't changing every now and then. I thank God for the day I got born again. Every time Paul stood up and changed bond, he said, let me tell you about the day I was on the master's row. Hey, I'm going to tell you the divine way. Amen. It's the way of God. It's the good way. It's the godly way. Them ways speak of paths. I'll say this and move on. I've already had several preachers say, I'm going to check back with you in two or three years. Now that's not negative. But you know what the preachers have seen? I'm coming down to preach now. I just feel like preaching right here. You know why they say that? Because they know what Brother Charlie, with God's help, built. They knew what he built. It was built on preaching and praying. It wasn't built on peanut butter. Amen. It wasn't built on a contemporary group. It was built on the old-time way. It was built on old-time hymns. And what they're saying is, are you going to change the way? I like what Brother Charlie said, we're on the same bus, bless God, but he'll be the one driving this one. We ain't changing the bus. We ain't changing the footers. We ain't changing the foundation, my friend. It's old time way all the way. And I'm going to tell you something, my friend. If it's just me and my wife sitting in there and everybody's gone, we're going to be singing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, to save a wretch like me. And I'm going to be preaching the devil out of her. I ain't changing, amen. I still believe in the old time way. I still believe in the old time worship. And I'm not going to do all these changes. There's a divine way. Go back to Jeremiah 6.16. Look at verse 17. That way is talking about the path. Why in the world do I want to change the path? Matter of fact, that path's been worn, and I can see where they went. I know you go out in the woods, you ain't got a path, you got a problem. That's why I don't go in the woods. So I'll be out there, I'll be crying, help me, mama, mama. My luck, I won't even have cell service. You call Ronnie Wayne, come and help me, help me. Look at verse number two. See, the first thing they rejected was the paths. We don't want that way. Look at verse 17. Also I will set a watchman over you. Now I'm going to go ahead and help you. What is that preacher? Let me give you what it's translated out of the Greek. It's a watchman. And in the Hebrew it means watchman. In Old Country Hick it means preacher. He said, I've set a watchman over you, saying, hearken to the sound of the trumpet. I don't like these preachers that speak. I can't get no help out of that. I mean, you see their mouth moving, but nothing's coming out. I need somebody to lift up that trumpet and blow. I need somebody to walk around and skip around like Brother Joe Coley, amen. We call it the Coley kick, amen. Brother Carpenter's got a little bit of that in him too, amen? He didn't get loose the other day. I don't know what was holding him back the other day, yesterday. Hey, you got a preacher, don't you? You ain't got a compromiser, do you? And listen, I didn't write the verse down, go home and look it up, amen? It'd be your Bible reading for the day. You know what God said? I believe it was in Isaiah. He was talking about, there were some watchmen that were mute. There were some watchmen that didn't have a bark. I'll tell you who those are. Remember those 65 preachers that get in the pulpit and they got their little cufflinks on? And they got that little matching scarf. And God forbid they glisten. They don't sweat, they glisten. And God forbid they do. Hey, I got in trouble preaching on cufflinks, but God, I think it's bringing attention to yourself. Amen. Man, I ain't gonna send in nobody with no cufflinks. Man, if you got cuff links on, I pray you lay them on the altar this morning. But I'm telling you, I grew up under a preacher. I mean, literally, he's run people off in announcements. He got up one day and he said, hey, this is how we, this is where we stand in the church. He said, you see that door right there? You go out that door, you take a left and take a right, bam, you out the door, we won't have to fool with you no more. And one Sunday, we went in there and it happened. He stood up in the pulpit. He said, I'm against the ultimate fighting. He said, what it does is you go and get in that atmosphere and everybody's all this drunkery and doping and all that. He said, I'm against it. Four families got up and walked out. You know what? We ain't missed them. You know what that Washington was doing? He was blowing that trumpet. You know what a watchman does? Well, duh, he watches. I mean, I ain't that bright. He watches. He's out there in the parking lot. Hey, we just had safety training at our church. I'm going to get one of the little things to come down, amen? They're going to let me know when a predator's coming towards me, amen? Brother Justice, somebody's coming and running, you know. And we just went through safety training. He said they got them people watching the parking lot. And they got a code for it, DLR. DLR. Thinking, man, put that in Alabama language. DLR, don't look right. That man was going, DLR. You know what God said? That's what the preacher does every Sunday. Hey, DLR, DLR, DLR, don't look right. People say, well, should I gamble? DLR. Should I smoke? DLR. Should I take a little wine for the sake, amen? DLR. Hey, should I sell my pills? DLR. That's what the preacher does. He watches and he's looking for the predators, amen. And he's watching over the flock. He don't want somebody to come in here and steal the sheep from the flock. DLR. Well, if you've got to go ask the preacher, it's probably wrong. You already know. I mean, I could get on a lot of stuff. But listen, if you're visiting, I ain't going to be here no more. I'm taking the church and I won't be up this way no more. I might come to camp. Hey, I'm coming whether he books me or not. You know what I'm going to be saying at camp? DLR. There's too much invested for a man of God not to stand up and say DLR. You know what you can't tell a man? I'll tell you what you can't tell a man. You can't tell a man how to spend money. Dear God, they'll cut you in a heartbeat. And you can't tell them how to raise their family. But when that preacher comes to you and says DLR, that don't look right. I'm telling you men, you better humble down and say, alright preacher, you're my watchman. You're overseeing it. Hey, listen, because when it comes to your family and your finances, most of us, including this preacher, we're blind to it. Am I killing you? Do I need to quit? I'm telling you, we're blind to it. Don't look right. Don't look right. I'm sorry, ma'am, that don't look right. Hey, you ain't gonna find me getting up here and saying you have to have a dress down to the floor, and you know, I mean, we ain't Amish. If you are, I'm sorry, I'll pray for you. That don't bring holiness. But I'm gonna tell you, I'm just gonna preach on this, and I am stopping at this point and going to the next one. I'm telling you, ladies, if you knew how men thought, you'd do different. Amen, preacher! One time now. No, I better not. Move on, move on. The Lord said move on. Brother Carpenter did too. Move on, I'm watching. DLR don't look right. You know what they do? Just write this verse down and look it up. Hebrews 13, seven for me. They watch for yourself. They're over you. You say, well, I ain't gonna have nobody over me. Well, then you ain't gonna listen to God. The watchman watches. Number two, he warns. He warns. Look at Isaiah 62.6 real quick. I'm surprised my daughter ain't gave me the Baptist salute yet. Y'all know what that is, don't you? What page is that on, Tanya? No wonder I can't find it. What page? Don't look right. Don't look right when the preacher can't find the scripture. I normally have all these written down, but Brother Carpenter wouldn't let me borrow his computer. He said, you might find something on there that don't look right. Look at 62.6. I've set a watchman upon the walls. Oh, Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day and night." When's he going to stop preaching? Hopefully never. Never. It goes on, "'Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silent.'" When's he going to shut up? When's he going to get off that? When's he going to move to this next point? I've got the watchman point. I'm just trying to make it look right. He watches, he warns. Now, listen, don't come to me after, I'm using this as an application. Go to Song of Solomon. This is the one that kills it though, Song of Solomon. What else does a watchman do? Alrighty. Song of Solomon. Look at chapter 5. Look at verse number 7. 7, 7, 7. The watchmen that went about the city found me. They smoked me. They wounded me. I tell you what, sometimes the watchmen will wound you. That's when most people quit church. they get offended at the preaching. Sometimes we wound. And I'm going to tell you a lot of times it ain't because we want to wound. It's like when, hopefully y'all still do this, when you discipline your children. I'm telling you, you're wounding them. If you're like this, now I can't stand abuse. I've seen too many kids abused. But when you go in there, we've always said this, it's gonna hurt me more than it's gonna hurt you. I've said that to my, one time my mom said that to me, I said, well, let's switch places then, hallelujah. It ain't been one time that I've ever had to diss my child or children that it didn't rip me up inside. But it had to be done. One time, Connor decides he's a little fella. He don't run. He gets away from him. He was real little. He run. And there was oncoming traffic. Mamas, your kids ever got away from you, scared you half to death? I guarantee you he didn't run no more for a while. That backside was on fire. Hey, what were you trying to do? I was trying to wound him a little bit so he wouldn't get killed. Tired of preachers, all they do is get up in the pulpit and apologize. And I'm sorry I got to preach this morning. Well, you telling God you're sorry He gave you the message to tell your people? You know what? The first thing they rejected? The paths. And then they said, we don't care what kind of watchman. We ain't hearkening to them. We will not. They rejected the preacher. Last thing and we'll close. Go back to Jeremiah. Look at verse 19. And then we're done. I don't have no sub-point for this, so y'all can take a sigh of relief. Verse number 19. Here, O earth, behold, I will bring evil upon this people. Why is He going to bring evil? They done rejected the past and the preacher. Have you ever read Proverbs chapter one? Anybody in here ever read Proverbs? I know what it's telling you, it's talking about rejecting wisdom. But you know what God said? He said, when calamity comes upon you, I'm gonna laugh at you. What about that loving God? Would that loving God try to put wisdom in your life through a preacher? And he tried to put wisdom in your life through the paths somebody's worn. He's already tried to do all that. So God won't be up there, that's what he said in Proverbs. Do you believe God's the same today, yesterday, and forever? Well, that's the Old Testament preacher sure is, but I'm just telling you right now, I'm sure won't want God up there laughing at me this morning. Watch what he said. He said, Here, O earth, behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts. Don't go there. Read Romans chapter 1. They became vain in their imaginations. And this is what it says, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor my law, but rejected it. So when you get to a point where you ain't going to walk in that path and you ain't going to listen to the preacher, that book ain't going to mean nothing to you. You're going to reject his words. You're going to get to a point, and I've seen it. I've seen it, brother Chris. I've seen a young man that I knew that grew up in our youth group. I've seen a young man get so far out of the will of God I used to take this boy, Brother Ronnie Wayne, I used to take him with me to juvenile detention centers, and he'd preach the house down, they would stand up and clap. He got to fool around on the wrong ways. And I'd go to him, I'd say, hey, listen, I felt like, and Brother Charlie always gave me liberty, I never crossed his bounds. But I went to him, I said, hey son, listen to me, that don't look right. That don't look right. You know what he said? Well, that's what Brother Charlie tells everybody else. See, what he got to do, he got to fooling around with these guys that pump iron. You know what it was? It was pride. Hey, listen. Well, I say I'm all for working out, but evidently it ain't working for me. But if you want to go jog, have at it. I mean, if you want to go jog, have at it. I'll keep the timing. About all I can do is walk now. He said, man, that don't look right. He said, man, just leave me alone. These are good Christian boys. Next thing I know, it wasn't a month. That man's done got pythons. Now, he didn't get that working out. Somebody done gave him something to shoot up. And he start coming to church. He's supposed to be a preacher. And at our church, you're a preacher, you wear a tie. We don't care if it's men's breakfast, you're wearing a tie. Oh, you ain't preaching in the pulpit. He starts coming to church, brother, and he's got these tight-fitting shirts on. Hey, I think we ought to preach to the men, too. Hey, we ain't going to preach on the women about wearing ties. Hey, I don't want to see somebody's tight arms, amen, and all that. I don't want to see that, especially in this day and age, men. You might not want to do that. You might have a boy in the locker room looking at you. Covered up, man. DLR, don't look right. Walking around, blowing kisses at his car. He got so arrogant. And then he started fooling around with some other people that didn't believe the way we believe. Next thing I know, he don't believe in eternal security. Next thing I know, he's a Calvinist. He grew up in our church. Next thing I know, he's out the door. Me and my wife prayed and fasted for that boy every Tuesday for one solid year. He wouldn't return my phone calls. But you know what he said many years ago? I know that's the right way. But here's another way. It don't seem that bad. I mean, there's Christians on this way. So he got off the path and started walking his way. And then the men, the watchmen that God put in his life, he said, hey, he ain't talking, that ain't about me. I've been preaching since I'm nine years old. Me and her prayed. I used to say, I used to call his mom and say, you heard from this young man? No. We were at some youth meeting. We took the kids out. His mama said, he got a message through me. He wants to talk to you. I said, all right. I said, where is he living at in his truck? He said, all right. I knew where he was living at approximately. I said, tell him to meet me here, here at a certain time. And I ain't seen that boy in a long time, over a year. He walked in there, had hair down to here. had gauges in his ear that big. He used to stand in the juvenile detention centers and preach with a touch of his tongue. And I sat in that restaurant, tears running down my face. I mean, I couldn't even eat. He looked at me and I said, son, what are you doing? You know what he done? You know what the last thing he done? He rejected the past. He rejected the preacher. He said, I'll tell you where I got in trouble, brother. He said, when I closed that Bible. He said, I shut that Bible, and I put it under my seat, and the man was selling dope. And he said he got a call, and he reached under there, and he had hid some dope under the seat, and instead of grabbing the dope, he grabbed the Bible. Pull that thing out, and he opened the Word. And he said he began to deal with Him. You know what I done with that young man? He had a repentant heart. He had nowhere to live. I said, you come live with me. Get your life right. I want to tell you something, kids. You say, oh, that ain't gonna never happen to me, preacher. Hey, mom and dad, ain't gonna never happen to me. You get off the path. And when you get off the path, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, I gotta close. When you get off the path, you're gonna find every problem in the world with that preacher. You're gonna run him down on social media. You're gonna run him down to your family and your friends. You're gonna run down the best thing outside of God. When God puts a preacher in your life, you're gonna run him down. And once you turn your back on that path and that preacher, well, I'll just do it on my own. I have my own devotions at house. Let me see your Bible, son. Yeah, one day you're gonna do this. Stick it under your seat. Put it on the coffee table. And one day you're gonna end up calling that preacher. And by the way, that's just one example. There's a lot of them that ain't never come back. You know what they said? We will not. By the way, Jeremiah wasn't preaching to the heathen. He stood over the nation of Israel and he said, seek ye and ask, stand we will not. This morning, where are you at? You cross ways with the preacher? You got off the path a little bit? You're questioning the old time way? You're one step from being totally out. Well, I'll just do it on my own. Try it. It ain't gonna end up well. And brother, the carpenter told me this and I'm closing. The saddest thing for a preacher, is that mom and dad listen to me, the saddest thing for a preacher, it is sad to see you walk out It's even sadder when you take your kids with you. Because you know what? There's been a lot of times I've seen mom and dad walk out and tears in those kids' eyes because they didn't want to leave. And I'm going to tell you, we've had families in our church do that. And their kids grew up to be complete hellions. And you know what's so sad? They didn't want to get right with God. Then they want to come back to the church, and then they want everybody to pray for their children, and the church will. Father, we thank you, Lord, for this opportunity. Lord, I preach what I thought you wanted me to preach. Lord, I don't know the hearts of your people, but I know this is your heart. This is what you want to preach. Lord, maybe there's some that they're coming and altering. Lord, they're not crossways, but they're praying to build a hedge. in their families, in their hearts. Pray, God, that you would move in this service. In Jesus' name, amen.