Thank you, Pastor, for giving me a chance to fellowship with these young people. All are busy studying and getting their life in order. It's amazing, when you were in sixth grade, you weren't thinking about what you'd be putting up with at this age, right? And truly, time flies. I thank God for each of you. Some of you I've met for the first time. But your life is very, very precious to the Lord. And you know, 85% of the high school graduates end up leaving the church. And that's a serious thing, I think. that something went wrong somewhere where the people, either the parents didn't portray Christ like they should to where the kids were turned off. There are hypocrites in the church. They're also at the gas station, but you still go there, right? But there are hypocrites everywhere. And the key to learn, the thing you can learn from a hypocrite is to get away from them and get around them and get to Christ. That's the key. And I want to take you to the book of Colossians, chapter two. Colossians, chapter two. I really, I really thank the Lord for the millennials. I think all of you are pretty much millennials, right? And you are the, the generation of our lifetime. Really, because, you know, a lot of times we think about, you know, what will and just take them out of that. They're either kids or they're married adults. And somehow, between the time you graduate from high school and the time you get married, you're kind of in a no-man's land, in a sense. We call it a college and career age. But really, often you're underestimated, and often you may even be misunderstood. You're trying to find your way in life. You're trying to find out what it is that you want to do. And I think a profession is very important. You know, we were talking with some of the guys about, you know, most college-age students, they switch their major two or three times just trying to find out where they ought to go. And I really think it's important that if you know the Lord as your Savior, that you get alone with God, you say, what do I mean to get alone with God? Well, that means you get on your knees and get your Bible and you get alone with God and you pray and say, Lord, what do you want me to do with my life? God doesn't call everybody into full-time Christian service, but he calls all of us to be faithful as Christians, as lay people in the church, as deacons, as Sunday school teachers, and really, your influence right now is very important. Because every one of the kids, from the littlest right up to the kids that are graduating from high school are looking at you and saying, I want to be just like them. And that could be a scary thought, couldn't it? Especially if you don't have an interest in spiritual things yet. But I hope all of you do and will have that. Go with me to Colossians chapter 2, and I want to show you there's a battle raging in this culture between the philosophy of man and the theology of God. And I want to show you something here. You'll notice in verse 7 of Colossians 2 it says, rooted and built up in Him, that is Christ, and established in the faith. That means you've got your faith established. You know where you're at. As ye have been what? Taught. Now some of you may have come from Christian homes, maybe not. If you did come from a Christian home where your parents taught you the Word of God, then you could honestly say, I know what I should believe. But your parents' faith will never be yours. You have to have your own faith. See? I remember when I was a teenager, I told my dad, I'm never going to Bible college, and I'm never going to be no preacher. I told him that. I wanted to be a state trooper, you know, drive fast, carry a gun, pull people over, you know? And I was just, I had my mind all made up about what I wanted to do. And because I was thinking about me. I wanted to have nice things. I wanted to drive a nice vehicle. I wanted to have a beautiful home. And my dad always struggled starting churches. So there was a lot of things that our family went without because he was in the ministry. And I don't think God did that on purpose. I just think that's the way it happened. And I had a misconception of the ministry. and uh... but god changed all of that so really if you notice for some but let me finish that first as you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving and those first eight beware lest any man what's spoil you through what's philosophy and you might just want to underline that just philosophy is what man thinks. Okay? Everybody has an opinion, right? And if I were to ask any one of you a particular question, I might get four or five answers. Because you're different. You grew up in different backgrounds, and you've had different circumstances, so the philosophy is going to be a lot Let me illustrate it to you. A missionary was over in the Baltic states, and the parents over there really didn't want to have anything to do with church, but they let their kids come. And so the kids were coming to church, and man, some of those kids were getting saved. Well, they had a big game night, and they were playing games, and one of the boys cheated during the game. And the missionary said, well, you can't really enjoy the fact that you won because you cheated. He goes, nah, it doesn't matter how you win. You see that? That's a philosophy. There was a group of people that used to teach their children that it was all right to steal things. If somebody has something that you want, then you can take it. That was just the philosophy of stealing. It's okay. If somebody has something you need, you can have it. Well, these kids grew up stealing, okay? They didn't feel bad about it. See, here's the thing. The conscience, the Bible says, either accuses you or else excuses you. It's all how you're taught. So if you're taught that it's okay to steal, then no big deal. If it's okay to rob, no big deal. If it's okay to kill, it's no big deal. See, so we're living in a philosophy of life and the question boils down to this. Is our philosophy from our theology or is it from what man thinks? I mean, man, man believes that we evolve. not created by God in six days of creation, that your life evolved and all of that. Well, there's a philosophy of life that lost people have, and they teach it. And they criticize us for biblical creationism, that we were created by God, and that we were created in His image. by God. And that brings me to the last part of the verse. Notice it says, through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of what? Of men. It's interesting, men have traditions. And after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. So there's the philosophy of the world, there's the philosophy of Christ and godliness. Go to the next verse. If you go over to verse 20 it says, Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? So what he's saying there is that if we are dead to the things of this world, and we are alive to Christ, we're going to make decisions that are going to benefit mankind. If we take the philosophy of the world, ultimately there's going to be complete anarchy. For instance, any laws that we abide by, I stop at red lights. Amen. It's cheaper that way, right? But there was a law established that a red light is to stop people so that other people can go. But when we start to break the laws of any law that is created that makes sense, that we would say, you know, the Bible says, rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, to God the things that are God's. Therefore, we believe that it's our responsibility the laws of the land unless they tell us to go against God. And, you know, the Bible says that those that are in authority were put there by God. And God can put them there and God can take them out. Now we may not like always the authority that's in our lives, but if we realize that we are really under the authority of God, not under the authority of man, then we're going to have no trouble submitting. Now, I'm a married man. I have a wife. I'm the head of my house. I'm going to stand before God and give an account for my marriage, right? The Bible tells me to love my wife. And the Bible tells my wife to submit to me. Well, she's not going to have any problem submitting if I show her love, and she's precious and important to me. You understand that? That's the biblical truth of having a good marriage. Just like it is for you to be obedient to your parents, even though you may be out from under their roof, or maybe you're not. You will always be blessed when you don't violate the truth of God's word. And many people in your age group often say, man, I've got some wild oats I want to plant. There's some things that I want, I mean, I want to live it up. You know, I want to have this freedom loving, you know, gusto life. And I want to, I want to just have fun and do what I want to do. Well, there are consequences with every decision you make. And as a Christian, it's important for us to say, now, Lord, what would you allow me to do? all right for me to do. How about going to church? Would that be okay? I think the Lord wants us to go to church. I think that you have a very important role. in in the church because people look up to you and what an example you can be if you're actively faithfully serving the lord in the church you you can have an influence for good on many people even at your age and that's what i think is so beautiful some people don't want to listen to old men like me you know he's an old old fogey and you know honestly 30, what good is he? You know, I mean, but you know what I mean? But you're going to be over 30 one day. How do you want to be perceived? Right? So we have to think about that the philosophy of what does God desire of me? And that's what we call theology. You know, we believe that this Bible was given to us as a gift from God and it was given to us to guide us into all truth and ultimately will take us to heaven. And I think it's important for us to realize that we are under pressure to do a lot of things. And I want to take you over to Proverbs. Do you want me to Proverbs for a minute? I want to give you five things out of this passage real quick. Dealing with the subject of influence. You could use influence, the word influence, outside influences, or what we would call peer pressure. How many of you ever felt like you were under pressure by your peers? All the time, right? I remember that growing up when I was a kid too. I wanted to be accepted by everybody. And often we want to be accepted by those that are popular. And that comes with a price. And the truth is that most people, if you try to please them, Ultimately, you could never please them. Okay? You may please them for a while, but ultimately their loyalty is going to go from you to somebody else. right? So you have to be careful that you don't allow their influence to direct you in the wrong way. And I want to give you some really neat. There's five things here out of the book of Proverbs. Look with me there in chapter 23. Okay. Chapter 23 verse 17. Well, it really begins in verse 15. My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice even mine. Yea, my reins shall rejoice when my lips speak right things. Now look at verse 17. This is the first one that I want to give to you. Verse 17 says, let not thine heart envy of you know people that are sinners. And he says here, in this passage, he says, let not thine heart envy sinners. Otherwise, don't wish that you could be like sinners. And I use the phrase, and if you're writing things down, you can write this down real quick, be careful who you admire. I know a lot of celebrities are admired because they've climbed the ladder, so to speak. They've been successful, as we understand success. A lot of sports figures and so forth. But you must be careful who you admire because some of them crash. They end up wrecking their lives. How many of you know any sports figures that have messed up? And that's happened. I've known preachers that have messed up. So it can happen to people in the Christian service also. I have five people on my list right now that I'm praying for that are preachers that are away from the Lord. So it happens. And a lot of it happens because they admired the wrong thing. else's wife, he's going to be in big trouble. You've got to be careful who you admire. If it's money, sometimes we admire money, possessions, nice clothes, nice, you know, people that we want to be drawn to. But if that person, as nice as they may be, draws you away from God, You better be careful who you admire. See? So it's a matter of saying, Lord, I'm not going to just admire people because everybody else is. I want to reason why I can admire them. Do they exemplify Christ? Are they living a life that is pleasing to the Lord? Could they, by my admiring them, help me to be a better Christian? That's the people we need to admire. I think that there are many people that are abnormal. They have set forth a good example. I'm talking about young people. I'm talking about millennials that are on fire for God. Let me tell you about something that happened at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. There was a young college student She'd come to college, and she noticed that this Bible college was, it was not only that, but it was a liberal arts college as well. But she noticed a real worldliness among the kids, and it bothered her. And so she went, she got alone with God, and she started praying, oh God, send revival to our college. Well, one of her friends said, I noticed you've been praying. What are you praying for? And she said, well, I'm praying for our college to have revival. She says, can I join you? And so the two girls started. Before they knew it, there were six girls that were praying for it. Well, the faculty found out about it. They said, hey, would you girls like to get up and give a testimony about what you're praying for? And they said, sure. So they got up and they gave their testimony real quick. And the president of the college said, how many of you students out here, over what, 1,400 students? No, I think it was 3,000 students. It was a very large college in Wilmar, Kentucky. Anyway, he said, how many of you would like to join these six girls and pray for revival? Out of all of those kids, only 30 of them joined in. And you know, God began to move in that crowd. And they decided to have an all-night prayer meeting. So they got permission. They went into Hughes Auditorium, which was the large auditorium where they had chapel and everything. And they just all came down to the altar here, and all 36 of them started praying. These are kids, man. These are college students. And something very unusual happened. All of a sudden, God revealed himself to each one of these people individually and said, just go back to your dorm. I'm going to show up in chapel tomorrow. God speaking to them. So they just stopped praying. They all went back to their dorms and they were like, wow, they knew God was speaking. Have you ever, have you ever felt God speak to you? Is that a neat thing or what? Sometimes God convicts us of things and that's not so neat sometimes. But if you've been convicted by the Lord, convicted of something that maybe you were gonna do wrong or you did wrong, you ought to thank God for that because that's a sign that you really know the Lord. Anyway, so they all went back to the room. The next morning they came back to chapel and chapel started at nine o'clock and it ended seven days later. The lights never went off in Hughes Auditorium for seven days. People were coming, the radio came, the television people came, they took pictures, they put it out. Truck drivers were coming by, coming in and praying. People from churches were coming all over that area, Lexington area, coming and praying. A great revival spread because of one college student. Think about that. Don't tell me you don't have influence. You have a lot of influence. And the key is to say, you know, we think so, so often, man, I can't wait till I get out of this singleness. Hey, enjoy your singleness, okay? My dad always said it's better to be single than to wish you were. Amen, right? So singleness is a time for you to get really close to God and really experience his presence in your life and he'll give you wisdom to make the right decisions. decisions in your career, it'll help you in every area of your life, and who knows, he may even point out the one that God has for you. But you know something, if you're always thinking about, who am I going to get? Get God. You get God, and during this singleness, just enjoy the things of God, and then when that time comes, all of a sudden, there your spouse will be and you'll be, wow. God always, remember this, God always gives his best to those that leave the choice with him. And you want to find someone in your singleness, when that time comes, you want to find someone that loves the Lord more than they love you. Okay? Because if they love the Lord, they will not disappoint you. When we walk with God, we are a blessing to everybody we touch. And the more we love the Lord, the greater our relationship is going to be with those that we are connected with. Now, so, be careful who you admire. Number two, quickly, I gotta go through this quickly. Examine your thoughts constantly. Look at verse 17, the latter part of that verse says, but thou be in the fear of the Lord all the day, what? Long. What does it mean to fear God? Fearing God means to have his presence with you to the point where you would not want to offend him. Okay? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the Bible says. But fools despise wisdom and instruction. There are some people you can't talk to. They will not listen. Because they're what we would call foolish. They're going to have to go out and mess up their life in order to find out that's the wrong road. It's interesting. You can take a man, a father that's a drunk, and he can have two sons. One will be a drunk and the other will never touch it. What's the difference? You tell me. What would the difference be? Okay. One saw the father said, man, I do not want to be like that. And then he's a total abstainer. The other one uses his father's sin to sin himself. And what usually happens in a case like that? blames the father, he doesn't want to take any responsibility for his actions. So he'll say, the reason I'm like this is because of my dad. It's always easier to place blame than to accept blame and get corrected from that blame. So what should a person do that goes that way? They must say, you know what? My life is exploding in front of me. I'm seeing it start to disintegrate. I've lost jobs. I've lost relationships. I'm broke. I'm stealing now. I'm trying to get what I want, but, and then they come to the place where they realize, wow, I need to, I need to get some help. And some go into rehab, some meet the Lord. It's wonderful when a person comes to church that's got all kinds of problems, and then they find out Jesus can solve those problems. All of a sudden, man, the greatest thing in the world is the church, when before it didn't mean much. The church will mean more to you when you become a part of what it does and function within it. And I want to tell you, there are so many opportunities to serve the Lord. And there's such a great need. This generation is a hell-bound generation. And they need someone to stand up. and say, I fear God, and I hate my sin, and I'm gonna serve the Lord all the days of my life. So it's important to examine your thoughts and say, am I making the right thoughts? Am I going in the right direction? Lord, are my thoughts okay? Am I thinking in the right direction? Does this honor you? See, you have a personal relationship with God when you're saved, and you have direct access to God 24-7. You can talk to him anytime you want. And he's right there to listen, I can guarantee you. Number three, accept responsibility for guiding your own heart. Don't be, you know, be... Every person, every boy, every girl, every man, every woman, are either followers or they're leaders. Now you know what I'm talking about when I say that. When you see people leading, They're usually taking somebody with them. And it's not always good. But you get a leader going in the right direction. He can lead many people to the Lord. And so it's important that you accept the responsibility to guide your own heart. Look at verse 19. It says, Hear thou my son and be wise and guide thy heart in the way. always be saying, Lord, did I make the right decision? How many of you have used GPS? What did we do before that? We got lost. Well, when GPS first came out, I found myself on some back roads that came to dead ends. They didn't know about that then, but they figured it out. Right? But, you know, I'm I use it all the time, and it does pretty good. The only thing about New York City is it'll take you the quickest way to get there, but there's 7,500 lights between when you get off and you get back on, you know? So they don't always work that well, but God is our GPS. God is the one that will literally walk us through life. Make this decision. Make that decision. Don't make that decision. And I've never... I'm 62 years old and I've never found the Lord to ever lead me astray. Ever. I mean, He's got a great track record. He's perfect. And He will guide you. But you're responsible. Don't blame your future on the past. Don't live in the past. starves many people from being successful is that they're always thinking about how bad it was back in their past. Or they blame whoever. And they're bitter inside. Get rid of the bitterness. Say, I'm not going to be bitter toward anybody. I've got the Lord. He's enough. He's all I need. And I'm going to trust Him. I've got my roadmap. Here it is. And I'm not going to violate this. And I'm going to find out how great my God is. And if somebody could get up and say, I've never had the Lord disappoint me. Have I been disappointed in life? Yes. A lot of them, that was because of my own decisions. But whenever I have followed the Lord, I have no regrets. And I'm glad I can say that to you. Number four, choose the right company. Verse 20. Notice in verse 20, it says, be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh, for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and the drowsiness shall clothe a man with what? With rags. Choose the right company. Make sure, my dad told me this one time when I was a kid, he said, now Daniel, if you never take a drink, you'll never be a drunk. And you know, some people have a problem with that today. They say, oh, I just drink socially. I've got it under control. Well, you might be able to have it under control, but wait till something happens that's bad. It'll become, it'll become a God to you. Anything that takes the place of God is a God, little g. And people have all kinds of gods. Sometimes it's food, comfort food. Sometimes it's money. Their god is money. One Frenchman told my brother, he said, when this is full, I'm happy. When it's empty, I'm sad. I mean, that's just the way I live. It's all according to what I make. Money doesn't satisfy. Some of the most miserable people in the world are money people. Really? So it's not, it's not, see God created us with an emptiness and it's that only He can fill. Well let's let Him fill it. Let's let Him have that proper place. Ask the Lord to give you friends that will help you to be all that God wants you to be. Get around people that are living the Christian life and are being successful at it. And if you can't find any, be one yourself. Amen. You can. I know your pastor cares about you and I'm so glad he's had this get together tonight because it gives me a chance to really try to fellowship with you and talk to you about things. But he's there for you and his wife and they want you to be strong in the Lord and they want you to Serve the Lord with gladness. They want you to experience bringing others to Christ. There's a lot of Millennials out there Who have been taught secular humanism to the point where they think church is all about people stealing money from from people They think it's all about Oh, yeah, you got a bunch of hell-bound sinners and and their Bible thumpers and they don't have no fun Well, you don't have to be drunk to have fun you don't have to be drugged to have fun and You know, and you can have so much fun when you know that God is pleased and that the person that you may possibly marry is clean and upright and godly. You know what I mean? You don't want to marry someone that's been used and mistreated and not appreciated, that's looking for the wrong things. You want someone that has standards in their life where they keep their life clean and pure before God. Amen? There was these guys that were in a youth group and there was a new girl that came into the youth group and boy, they were looking her over real good. And the youth director said to the guys, which one of you is going to try to get with her? And the guy that was the most promiscuous said, oh, he said, no, no, no. He said, she's too good to touch. And what he was saying was, if there was ever one that I wanted to settle down with, I want somebody that's clean. She's too good to touch. And I think that's very important because when a person comes to the place, they realize that that person that you're interested in is God's gift. You're going to treat God's gift correctly. You're not going to misuse God's gift. You see? And I think it's important for us to realize that when we come to choosing the right company, we're going to be in a situation where you're going to find those people that will help you to be all you can be. You may be a follower for a while, but followers that follow the right people turn into great leaders. And some people say, well, I'm not that great a leader. Well, you will be as you learn to lead. See, people that are followers must learn at the feet of others. And that's why it's so important to have good spiritual leadership in the church. The people that are here that are teaching are good examples. And they say, wow, that's a person I would like to emulate. Number five, the last one. And this is a two-inch sword here. Let's go to verse 21. It says, verse 22, hearken unto thy father that begat thee and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth and sell it not. Also wisdom and instruction and understanding. The father of the righteous shall greatly what? Do you hear that? The father of the righteous. A father whose children are righteous. They're very happy. The great happiness of my wife and I is our two kids. They're both living for the Lord. One's in full-time service, one isn't. But they're faithful. And he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. You know, it's so funny, I used to say to my son, Josh, when he was just a little kid, I'd put him on my knee and I'd say, Josh, are you going to serve the Lord all the days of your life? And he'd go, yes, Daddy. Like he was all excited because he just thought I was something else when he was little. And he got to know me, you know what I mean? And then I said, say that to me when you're 17, you know? And then the older he got, like 13, 14, I'd say, hey, Josh, are you going to serve the Lord all the days of your life? He goes, yes, dad. You know, like he was tired of hearing it. Well, this last Father's Day, a year ago Father's Day, he gave me this card and it said, thank you for asking that question, even though sometimes it really annoyed me. He goes, "'Cause now I have four, four children." And now, see, he's thinking about, what am I gonna get kids gonna be like? I'm responsible to train them and to nurture them in the admonition of the Lord. Notice also here, it says, thy father and thy mother, verse 25, shall be glad, and she that beareth thee shall rejoice. You wanna make mama happy, amen? You want mom to, you know, many parents, some parents cry themselves to sleep at night because they've lost their kids. And they're brokenhearted because what they taught them, I could give you a perfect example. I was in a church recently where a mother came up to me and she said, you know, Brother Knickerbocker, I have four daughters and they're all in their 20s, one's in their 30s. And she said, we lived in the Philippines. And she said, all of my daughters were on fire for God. They'd all gotten saved, baptized, faithful in the church. She said, then we came to the states. And she said, I can get my kids to come Sunday morning. That's it. That's all they come. They won't come Sunday night. They won't come Wednesday night. And she said to me, she gave me a piece of paper with the names of her girls. And she said, would you pray for my girls? My heart is broken because that's not what we train them for. If you go back to that verse, look with me in verse 23, buy the truth and sell it not. You know what godly parents do? They are willing to make any expense necessary for their kids in order for them to live in truth. in order for them to live for God. That they'll go out of their way and whatever it costs, they'll buy the truth and they'll not sell it. And then you know what happens? Then the kids get old enough and then they sell out to the enemy. They say, Mom, that's good for you, but I don't want it. That's not what they planned. But the influence, the peer pressure, was so strong that it just drove them away from even their parents. And now their parents are brokenhearted. I have heard of, and I've been preaching in many churches in the last 19 years we've been in evangelism. I've been in hundreds of churches. And one of the saddest things that I hear is parents who say, my children sold out and now I'm a bad person because I want them to do right and they don't want to do it. And it's so sad. And what's real sad is when the kids break fellowship with their parents because they don't want that influence because it makes them feel guilty. You ought to thank God that someone's trying to help you to do right. Every time your pastor gets up there to preach, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, what's he doing? He's trying to instill in something in you that will last you for the rest of your life and will cause you to be a leader and one that absolutely loves God and loves his church. That's the purpose of the preacher. And pray for him. If he's not strong, you won't be. Correct? And pray that God will empower this church, the Bible Baptist Church will. will grow and many more will come to know the Lord. Listen, this area, there's so many people here. I've been taking walks every day, and so I've been taking tracks and wrapping them up, sticking them in chain link fences and, you know, door handles, and if I see people up there, I'll talk to them. But I just thought, if I'm gonna walk, man, I'm gonna try to influence somebody for the Lord, amen? And I hope that you will get involved and that you will say, Lord, help me to do these things. You'll notice here it says we remember the regrets of sin, verse 21, where it says the drunkard and the glutton. We remember the regrets of sin or we, or the reward verses 24 to 26, when we surrender ourselves to the Lord and say, Lord, whatever you want, I throw up my hands and surrender. Lord, I'm yours. Take me and use me as you see fit. And you never, you never can go wrong when God is guiding you and directing you. Do you have any questions at all? Maybe some of you might have some questions. Just take a moment or two, if any of you have any Maybe something that I didn't maybe some of the battles you're going through or things that