1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Can you all hear me all right? It's good to be here. Good to see Brother Jeremy tonight and Sister Kristen. I haven't seen them in a good while. It's always good to see friends and family. I feel like I'm a part of the family here. I don't feel like no outcast when I come. I feel like I'm loved. Amen. It's always a joy to go when you feel like you're wanted and loved. I have been some places I didn't feel wanted or loved. Amen. You ever been there? That's the way I felt before I got saved. I kind of sat on the back row like Cornbread does. Just kidding, Cornbread. Yeah, way back there in the back. In the balcony if he could get up there. I feel like an outcast and a stranger because I was. But when I got saved, I walked in and I felt like I was at home. I said, this is my family now. Ain't that something? Amen. 1 Thessalonians chapter number 4. I was studying this a while back. God gave me this message after I quit pastoring. I want to give you five things tonight that I want to be found faithful in. when the Lord returns. Now, I don't care what you know and what you think you know, but if you ain't got these five down, then you need to find out why. We can run a race, but we need to be looking tonight. The Bible said, look up, lift up your what? Head for our redemption, draweth nigh. We're living in a world where there ain't nobody looking for God to come back. They think He's died or gone on a journey and lost His way back. But as He went up, He told them old boys when they stood by Him, as they looked up as He ascended up, the angel of the Lord stood by them and said, Hey, boys, y'all go to where you're supposed to go. This same Jesus that went up is going to come back in like manner. Just like He went up, He's coming down. Amen. Ain't you glad one day He looked down? And he didn't like what he saw. A bunch of renegades, and the Bible said that imagination, everything they were thinking about was continually evil. And God said, I think I'll just go down there and kill them all. He was looking down. Ain't you glad there was one seated on the right hand of the Father that said, Lord, I'll go for them? I'll go down there. So he looked down. Amen. Thank God he came down. Amen. And then he walked around and was rejected of men. Come to his own, his own received him not. But then he laid down. Ain't you glad he got up? Amen. So what did he do then? He went up. He's looking down again. Guess what? He's coming back. Amen. I want you to look with me for just a moment. I'll be brief. And Brother Edward took an hour in the singing because he knows I'm a short preacher and he knows, you know, that He needs to keep y'all two hours, so y'all won't get unused to what he's used to. Amen, Sister Faith. He said, I know, in his planking, he said, Bud, you ain't gonna preach 15, 20 minutes, and we usually hear two and a half hours, so we gotta do something for an hour and a half. Praise God, that's my friend. I'll tell you what his wife said when I asked him, I was serious, I said, you're gonna cry. Matthew and his wife said, He'll wail. Cornbread, you're going to have to put handcuffs on him when I die, son, I'm telling you. Furthermore, I looked up that word furthermore, it means to advance, to increase more and more. I said, Lord, what do you want me to increase in? What do you want me to get more of? Look what he said in verse number one. Then we beseech you, brethren, to exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as you have received of us how you ought to walk, and to please God so you would abound." How much? You ought to underline that. More and more. That means you ought to be preaching in some things I'm going to preach about tonight. It ought not to be less and less. It ought to be more and more. Verse number 2, he said, for you know what commandments we gave unto you by the Lord Jesus. Well, this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you abstain from fornication. Now, we look at that and say, well, I'm not running around on the line. But fornication is a drawing away of the flesh. It's a pulling away from God. Not being able to feel God's presence like you used to. Remember when you got saved, how you could feel the presence of God? If you got saved, you felt the presence of God. And that presence ought to be always available with us and to us, more and more. He says, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, which know not God. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any manner, because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we have have forewarned you and testified, for God hath not called us unto cleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore doth despise us, and despises not man." By the way, if you despise man, you're despising God. That's why he's staying here. He doesn't despise us, like we said now, despises not man, but God, my Lord, who has given us His Holy Spirit. God gave us something. He gave us part of Himself. He gave us the third part of the Godhead to live in us. And my friends, I'm going to tell you something tonight. I want God to occupy every space of my heart. If I'm going to be able to do cornbread when I'm going to preach to you tonight, I'm going to have to have God occupy every space of my heart. Me and Cornbread come back from meetin' one time and I put on a tape, I said, I want you to hear this song. It's such a fate, I wish you'd have sung it tonight. A heart has many rooms. It's like an house. And it had me, Cornbread wept all the way home. Because Cornbread knew there was some places in his heart God didn't occupy. That's the reason the song touched my heart. There was perus in my house that God had never occupied. The Holy Ghost lives in this heart. For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness. That's when God puts in Himself, in you. I was telling Brother Edward, I'm going to get into the message. It's a short message, so I'm going to talk a little bit. Over in Genesis, God created what? Man. And He breathed in man, and he became a living soul. Hands-on with God. He spoke everything else in existence, but mainly hands-on. But God ain't no more hands-on, He's heart-in. He's in the heart if you're saved. Out of the heart proceedeth all our emotions and all of our wickedness. What does it say in Jeremiah? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? But God knows it. It tells you something tonight. You don't want to know your own heart, but God knows it. But you ought to know this one thing. Be not drunk with wine where it says, be filled with the Spirit of God. That is not no suggestion. That is a commandment. To be filled. It's a sin, brother. It's a sin against God Almighty not to be filled with the Holy Ghost. I pray every morning, God, fill me! If you don't fill me, Lord, I'm going to fail you for the days out. I need to be filled with the Holy Ghost. And to be able to do what I'm going to preach to you tonight, I must be filled with God. Your flesh didn't get saved, and honey, it's just as wicked as it's ever been. If you ever think you've gotten to the place, my friend, that you're holier than thou, that's the reason the Bible says, take heed where you stand. Any man think himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. Boy, you just don't know how much you need God right here tonight. Are you listening to me? I read this, Corbett, and I wept. I said, God, I want to be fair and faithful when you come back. I want you to be looking in my heart, God, and I want you to find some things that this chapter is talking about. And I looked at it, Brother Edward, and I looked at verse number 9 and verse number 10, and I read it, and he said, but it's touching brotherly love. You need not that I write unto you. For you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. Verse number 10, he said, Indeed, you do it towards all the brethren which are in Macedonia. And we must teach you, brethren, amen, that you do it and increase. How much? More and more. The older I get in God, the more I ought to love you. I know you love me tonight, preacher. You know why? Because that boy loves me. I know you're loving tonight, sister, because that boy loves me. And God knows you love him because you love his boy. I want to be found when God comes back loving the saints. My friend, I need to love you, but I want to love you. I ain't talking about walking in the church house and have to bend my head. I preached in the church this morning, and my friend, 99.9% of the people who loved me, there was one person there that shunned me and walked away. And my friend, my heart was dreamed of. I wanted them to love me. I want to love them. Some junk had happened years ago, and they're still mad with me. And God gave me this message this morning when I was preaching. I broke my heart because I want people to love me. I'm like Brother Jack Howard, I can't make you love me, but you can't stop me from loving you. I want to be proud and thankful of God, Brother Edward, loving you. I don't want it to have to be some kind of emotion that I have to go through. I want to know when you walk up, like me and you walking in a camp meeting, they say, them two boys love one another. I don't love people. I might not have all my doctrines straight, but bless God, I want to be found faithful when He comes back loving the saints of God. And if I don't do that, my friend, I'm going to have to be filled with the Holy Ghost. And my friend, you've got a problem loving the saints, you've got a problem with your salvation, because I'm telling you, the first time I walked into church, after I got saved, I loved everybody. How can a man say he loves God whom he has not seen and say, hey man, hey this brother that he has seen is made in the same likeness and same similitude of God? Hey, it's impossible, my friend, because if you love God, you'll love this place of God. Brother Stanley always stands up and quotes 1 John 4, 19, we love him because he first loved us. My friend, the very fact that I love you, God is love and him that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. We live in a day and hour, my friend. That's the reason the church house is empty because people don't love one another. And the reason they don't love one another is because they ain't never been born again. You say, Preacher, you haven't had people to hurt you. Oh, yeah, I've had people to hurt me. But that didn't stop me from loving them. I had to get along somewhere with God, my friend. I had to get along down there with God, my friend. It'll cause you to take wrong. It'll cause you, my friend, as me and Corbett was on a Friday, my friend, and God was moving in the church and God was saving people. But deep down in my heart, deep down in my soul, there was something wrong with me. I told Corbett, let's go to the church and pray. I went to an old fashioned altar and knelt down in the altar and I said, God, there's something wrong with my heart. And God said, I'll show you what it is if you really want to know. God showed me that day, my friend, and I stood up and walked outside, and the very person that my friend that I had out with drove by. I hadn't seen him in two or three years, and he turned around and come back. And when he got into the parking lot, I fell on my face and begged him to forgive me. I said, God, I didn't do him wrong. God, I didn't do him wrong. God said, it's better to take wrong than to offend the brethren. God taught me about loving people. That's one thing George got. Boy, he loves people. They've used him and abused him. And my friend, he just went out and just give and give and give. And they just think like the worse he gets, the more he loves them, the less he'll be loved. But he still loves them. Church that don't love one another is not going to exist. He's coming back. I want to be found faithful, loving the saints. Look at chapter 3 and verse number 12. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one towards another. And towards all men, even as you do towards us. To the end, he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even the Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. You see what that love does? You see what it does? Makes you to increase and abound and love one towards another, even as you do. It causes you, my friend, to get better at it. Why? Because man, your heart. I got to get full of God to do that. I got to get full of God to love you. I won't be found faithful when he comes back. I got to be found faithful, loving the same. Number two, I want you to look. I want to be faithful, living honest for the sinner. Verse number 11, look what he says. And that you study to be quiet and do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you walk honestly towards them that are without, that you may have lack of nothing. I want to be found faithful. Not only loving the saints, but living honest for the sinner. We live in the day and hour, my friend. I went to a bookstore here in Jacksonville A few years ago, not a book store, but it was buying stuff from them down there. I forgot, oh yeah, tapes. Cassette tapes, you remember? We was buying them from down there. I went down there and bought some tapes. I asked the lady, I said, will you take a check? She said, not a church check. She said, I got a drawer full of them. Careless to shout and run the hour, my friend, sinners is watching you. When he comes back, we need to be found faithful, loving the saints, and living honest with the sinners. But number three, I want to be longing to see the sleeping. Every time I read this, I think about Sister Ashley and Brother Babies. Two little babies. He said, well, they was just here for a moment. You went in that hospital room and I seen Ashton holding that little baby, talking to it. I thought to myself, my heart yearned inside of me. I mean, it just, it broke. I've never seen that before, holding a little baby and talking to it. You know the reason he's talking to it? Because it's just sleeping. It was just, Ashton's just sleeping. Hey, that was a soul. That was flesh and bone. And flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone. That's like little boys. Brothers and sisters or two boys. That was your two little brothers. Look what he said, verse number 13. How would you not have to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep? That you saw or not, even as others which have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus. God don't bring them back to you. I broke my heart that day. I had to turn around and walk outside because of my heart. I got to thinking about Brother Scopes. I was longing to see the sleeping. They said, Lazarus is dead. Jesus said, he's only sleeping. Grandma, I know you're longing to see in this sleeping. She was talking to that little baby just like it was alive. And I'm thinking to myself, this baby's dead. But I was referred back to the scripture where it was just only sleeping. Well, when you know they're just sleeping. When you know they're just sleeping. Amen, Grandma, just know they're sleeping. Your mom and daddy ain't dead if they died in Christ. They're just sleeping. Those folks ain't dead, they're just sleeping. Oh, Dwight L. Moody said, if they ever tell you and you ever hear the news that Dwight L. Moody's dead, don't believe a word of it. He said, I'll be more alive than I've ever been in my life. They won't give you room to shout. Glory to God, son. I know Brother Stokes is looking down right now. He's looking over that banister of heaven, my friend. He said, that's my little brother down there. He's still at it. Amen. I'm glad, my friend, that they ain't dead in some poor dirt. I'm telling you old son, hey, I was thinking about the cross of Calvary and there Jesus was nailed on that cross and old death was standing by and they said, he said, boy, he's going to die here in a few minutes. We got him right where we want him. He's a dying. I can hear him gasping for breath. All of a sudden, Jesus gave up the goat and old death said, I got him now. Glory to God. He said, I got him now. Oh, hallelujah. Ain't you glad my friend? Old Death said, I got him now. Are you listening to me? Old Death, hey, he had him, boy. I'm talking about the first day. He just slipped back and crossed his arms and he said, that Jesus, that Jesus man, the one that they said, the egg man, was God in the flesh, I've seen him die on a cross. Egg man. He's just as dead as he's ever been, my friend. He died like a common man. He died right beside them other things. On the second day, old Death stood by there, my friend, and he was still cutting jokes and still laughing. He said to God's man, he's dead. That's the one they said was God. He's dead. He's hanging on the cross. It's the second day. Amen. We put him in the tomb. He's still there. But on the third day, my friend, old Death, he kind of got nervous. He kind of got shaken. You know why? Hey! Life, my friend, was coming out of that tomb. Hey, he told Martha, he said, hey, Lazarus ain't dead. She said, I know, Lord, that you will raise him up in the resurrection in the last day. He said, I am the resurrection and life. He didn't believe it in me, oh, he told, oh, he was dead. Yet, child, he lived. Praise God, my friend. They dead! They're just asleeping. Going to be long in the seas of sleeping. Praise God, they ain't dead, son. Don't go to the graveyard and talk to them. Lift your eyes up and say, hey, boys! Hey! Hey, boy, look up and tell them boys, hey, I'll see you for too long. They won't look like they did when you hold them in them arms. Praise God. Longing to see them sleeping. But you know what? Number four, I want to be listening for the shout. Every time I heard a horn blow coming over here, I didn't think I was going to make it. I thought the rapture took place. Glory to God. Amen. Look what he said in verse number 16. Hallelujah. For the Lord himself. Ain't you glad he ain't sending no angels to get me? Hallelujah. Angels didn't die for me. I like old Gabriel and I like the rest of them, Michael, but I'm telling you, he didn't die for me. For the Lord himself, God, the sin from heaven. Hey, with a shout, that's God. You say, how are you going to know that the rapture took place? Because I've been looking for the Sprout, listening for it to go. My friend, when He comes to call, He's going to do like He did in Elijah 2. Elijah's come for us. He's going to say, Joseph, say, I'm here, Lord. The Bible said He's coming down, for the Lord Himself shall ascend. Where's he coming from? Heaven with a shout. He's going to cry out. What's he going to do then? He's going to carry us up. You ought to be listening for the shout. Praise God, son. He is going to shout. With a shout. I like that old song, Didn't I Cry. I can almost hear the voice. You don't know it? Now, y'all quit listening to me preach. Verse 17, 18, I'll be loving the saints, living honest with the sinner, longing to see the sleeping. Listen for the shout. Verse 17, I'll be looking for the Savior. Look what he said. Then we which are alive and remain. Shall be what? Called up. Called up together with the who in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Well, ain't it a great comfort to know When Jesus told His disciples in John 14, let not your heart be troubled. He takes the lead. I don't know about you. If I seen the Lord and He walked with me like He did them boys, I'd kind of hate for Him to lead too. I mean, just to be honest. Wouldn't you like to live with the Lord? Sleep with the Lord? Lay your head in His lap? Him feeding you every day? Taking care of you? I mean, them boys had it made. They had a need. Amen. Peter said, Lord, we've got to pay our taxes. He said, go fishing. Yeah. Get worried about your taxes, just go fishing. Peter said, Lord, they said we owe some taxes. Just go fishing, Peter. Peter said, all right, Lord. So he goes down there fishing. He gets down there and Peter said, I've done this before. I know how to fish. So Peter throws his line out there, son. God talks to this big old bass fish. Big Red, went to Big Red. He said, hey, Big Red, go over there. He said, there's another fisherman on the other side of Peter fishing in another boat. And he said, he going to drop some money. And he said, fish, I want you to swallow that money. Then I want you to run across on the other side of Peter's boat, and I want you to bite his hook. He said, it didn't work like that. Just like that. Just that way. Old Peter sat there, my friend, with his hook in the water, and the cork went bump, bump. Old Peter pulled him up and said, look at there, big red. Pulled him up, bunch of money coming out, go pay the taxes. He said, it's that simple? Oh, yeah. That's just the way God works. Are you listening to me? I remember one Friday evening, hadn't worked all week, had two young'uns sitting in the back, old wreck of a car. No money. We didn't have no grocers in the house. My wife said, I don't know what we're going to do. I said, don't neither. And I wouldn't call nobody. Man, I had too much pride to ask anybody for a nickel. I mean, I just did. And I went home and lived in that old six-gate lamplighter trailer. And I was nervous, you know, because I ain't had no money and no grocers. And I got two young ones to feed. I know what it is to be poor. Corbett, I walked around that old house, that old 68 Lamp Rider trailer, and I said, Lord, mercy, what we going to do? I wasn't even saved. I walked around that house, but I got to asking, Lord, what am I going to do? I mean, I got worried. I had two yearlings. I mean, there was no food in the house. I mean, we was in bad shape. And I went over where the house box was, and they took a little cabinet up there like that there, and I never opened the doors on it. And that day, I went there and opened the door and looked up there, about two $20 bills. You say, what'd you do? I went fishing. Amen! How about you tonight? You say, I have a hard time loving people. You have a hard time knowing God then. You don't know the God I know. One thing I do know, buddy, I don't care how wicked and ungodly you are, there's one thing that God can't resist. Are you listening to me? And you'll never be full of God because you won't humble yourself. You won't be on your knees and humble yourself before an almighty God. God said, I'll resist the proud. Or he said, I'll just pile a bunch of grace on you. One of the wickedest men in the Bible, Ahab and Jezebel. And old Ahab was wicked as 400 devils. The prophet went to him and told him, said, Ahab, God's going to kill you. And old Ahab, the Bible said, he humbled himself. And God looked down and said, look at there. He done sent the man of God to kill him. He said, look how old Ahab's humbling himself. He said, come back. He said, I ain't gonna mess with him right now. God won't resist humility and God won't fill a prideful heart. It'll do you good to erase your mind of everything you ever thought that you was and could be and come to an old-fashioned order and ask God to fill you. But he will not fill A man with pride. God resists the proud. When God walks up to you, He sees the pride in your heart and He turns around and walks the other way. You know what pride will do? Pride will not take long. Pride will always say, I'm right. Pride will destroy your family and destroy your relationship with God. If it's better to take long than to fend the brother, that means you ought to stand up and say, I'm wrong, knowing you're right, and still take long. Why? Because that is humility. What about that? Cornbread, you remember that day? I went out there and that rich man, I was right. Knew I was right. But I bowed before that rich man and begged him, I said, sir, I've done you wrong. I just want to know if you can forgive me." And that man broke down and started crying. Can I take five minutes to tell this? Take your time. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. He hugged my neck and forgave me. One of the richest men in Waycross. He called me up crying on the telephone the next day. He said, He said, I told everybody in Waycross. I tried to buy land from him one time to build a church when I first started. He said, I give land to churches. He said, I wouldn't sell Joe Chancey one grain of sand. He called me on the phone. He said, can I come to your church Sunday morning? I cried. I said, yes, sir, you can come. And he'd come. He'd sit back there while I preached and squalled and cried. And he got up behind the full 50, and he said, can I say something, preacher? I said, say on. He said, I told everybody. He said, I got a million friends. He said, and I told them every one, Joe Chancey ain't no man of God. He said, he ain't no preacher. Don't have nothing to do with him. He said, but I called them all back. He said, I've been on the phone for two days, and I called them all back and told them I'm a man of God, John. Hallelujah. So he brought his equipment down there, and he dug in ponds. He took that dirt, and he leveled all that yard with his equipment, his men. Then he called me up, and he said, I want you to go to the clothing store. I want you to buy you some new suits and some new shoes and new shirts and new ties. Sent me to one of the highest dollar, $50 ties back there in 1990. He said, I want you to, I said, how much, you want me to just buy you one suit? He said, no, spend four or $5,000. He said, just get, he said, I mean, you better spend that much. I went and bought suits and ties and clothes and I'm still wearing some of the shoes I bought. I walked out the door that day and his wife was standing at the back door. Honest to God, she was squalling. She looked at me, she said, Preacher, I don't know what you said to my husband, but it's transformed his life. He started a ministry out there at his big place. And he'd buy all the men there dinner if they'd come and hear me preach. Wow. I'd go out there every Thursday and preach to them men. And he'd buy them dinner if they'd come hear me preach. Wow. What did it do? There's a lot of benefits in taking God will give you grace. Boy, my heart needs to be filled with grace. I'll tell you something tonight. You can't raise your kids without it. You can't raise your kids without it. That boy needs a daddy that's full of God. That boy needs a mama that's full of God. And when you feel this much, if you could ever talk about somebody in the least wrong of a manner, I mean just a word that sounds wrong, you need to deal with it then. You need to deal with it then. Growing up, my daddy didn't even profess to be a Christian. There was nine ahead of us, and all us boys slept in one room, and Daddy and the girls slept with Momma. Had a little house. Momma and them girls would stay up at night, and you know how women are, they get to talking. Nothing, just running, talking like Mommas do with daughters. But Daddy would pick up on the conversation, and I don't know how many times, how many times I heard Daddy say, Yes, Leonard. I done told you. If you can't say something good about somebody, he said you need to keep your mouth shut. I don't know how many times he never could, but daddy knew enough about God. I never heard him say nothing bad about anybody. Never, because you know what? That heart. does not want to take one. Ain't you glad Jesus took Rome? No, I'm not. He said, Father, I know they've done wrong. And I know they're sinners. And I know they ain't worth nothing. I take their sins. I take the wrong. He that knew no sin became sin for us. That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Oh, it's a sin against God. I go to churches and I hear people. They're talking about the pastor and they're talking about wondering the church. I'm saying this ain't God. This ain't God. God's people, God's people don't do this. Can at the same fountain come fresh water and bitter water? How can these things be? Blessings and cursings? This, because this is attached to this and have the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaketh. And when this ain't right, it'll always show it right here. You're right. This right here is the very thing that gives us away. At the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Let's stand for prayer.