I've enjoyed my day today and got to see some new parts of Kentucky. I saw a lot of the eastern part, but I got to see some of the local backwood country. Made me homesick. When you look off down the hollow, that looks like my place. Amen. All right. Well, if you will turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and we'll read from the first verse. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved. if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scripture. and that he was seen of Cephas and then of the twelve. After that he was seen of about five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain under this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James and then of all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due season. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do humble ourselves this evening, thanking you, O Lord, for this wonderful day of freedom, and Father, the opportunity once more to gather here in your house, and Father, once more, lift up your Son, Jesus, Father, He might draw all these that are here closer to Him. And Father, if there's one here that's not His, dear God, we pray first and foremost for that one that they might come under conviction tonight and realize above all the needs of life, the greatest need is to be born again. Father, I pray that You forgive me of my sin and use me for these few moments for Your glory. For it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. We're living in a time of great change. In the recent past, of course, that was a great political slogan, change, vote for change. And of course, you and I might kind of balk at that thought. I hope we have. First and foremost, a lot of the changes that the communities are seeking and our nation are seeking are in direct contrast to the Word of God. And that's what's bringing about a lot of this feeling of wanting to change. Because if we do away with the Word of God, we do away with conviction. Okay? So we've got a lot of folks out there that want this kind of a change. And when we look about that today, you know, we think first and foremost about the changes that they want in religion. You know, right today I'm not allowed to, where I live, because of my stand on the Word of God, I'm not allowed to be a chaplain in the local hospital. I'm not allowed to be a chaplain or to conduct services in the local nursing home. Because I'm not going to change where I stand to humor mankind. I'm going to stand with the Lord. And, you know, when my folks go to the hospital, their families know where I live. A lot of other families that go to the hospital know who I am that don't attend church, and they send for me. And I'm willing to make that stand that I'm not going to change where I'm at on the Scripture. Okay? We see road signs along the way. You know, when I travel to come here, I look at every church sign because most churches are going to have an advertisement of some sort about themselves, whether they realize it or not, honestly. But one day I was riding through and liked how it read. The church was called a Reformed Baptist. And I'd like to have an explanation about that. What did you reform? First and foremost, I'm very thankful to God for hearing the truth. I was raised up in a little community of about 99 folks. I do some research about my family and sometimes I'm embarrassed on the research that I do. I close that chapter, let's go somewhere else. You know, our little community had 99 folks in the census the year I was born. But we had a Methodist church, we had a Lutheran church, we had a Catholic church, we had an Episcopal church, and we even had a Pentecostal church and a Jehovah Witness outfit. And I'm going to tell you what, we were in problems. Now, I didn't attend a Jehovah's Witness. I didn't have to. My grandfather was the speaker there. He came to my house until Dad threw him out, but anyway. See, my dad was a drunk master. I mean, master. And he was not going to tolerate no Jehovah's Witnesses. Trying to sell him a book for a quarter. You know, Pop had better use for that, he thought. In those days, you could come home with something in a little bag for a quarter, but anyway. What I want to share with you, I attended most of those, and I didn't get nothing. I saw a lot of religion, and religion means to practice something over and over and over. That's religion. I don't know about you, but I religiously put on my stockings. Now you tell I was raised by a horse man, can't you? I don't wear socks, I wear stockings. My dad said my legs and feet were bigger than a horse, and I needed stockings. I put my right stocking on first, religiously. And now that I got a new left hip, I got a machine to help me put on my left stocking. I have to load it first, then pull the harness, and it goes on, yeah? And then I got this little hook, and I hook it and pull the rest of it away. That's part of the deal, yeah? But it's worth it, believe you me. You know why? I'd still stand up here and tell you some of these changes are not worthy. They're not worthy. We've got people today, even in politics, that want us to go away from where you and I stand on the issues. They don't want to have a two-party system or a three-party system. Right now, they're encouraging everybody to get rid of all the folks who stand way on the right. Get them out of your party. I want to tell you something, friends. We are the ones who are trying to continue America as America, okay? And that's why they want us out of the party. They want us out of all the parties. And I guarantee if they could do it, they'd take away our vote. Because we're dangerous at the poll. We're dangerous there. And that's why I encourage my folks, if you're not registered, go register. God can use you to make the difference. Friends, changes in these kind of procedures, they have no place. We need to resist the change. How many of us have noticed about the lives of the average American and how the world is trying its best to change us, to accept certain things that the Bible has outright told us are an abomination to God. Now, they want to take down the barriers of marriage. Can you imagine taking down the barrier of marriage after we read Genesis? When God had every opportunity to do it exactly what was perfect, and again, believe you me, He created perfectly, He created a man and a woman. And that constitutes marriage. But the world is wanting you and I to accept changes, whatever is good. Now friends, it's not going to go with me. And I don't think it's going to go with you either. Because we've got the Word of God that has stand the test of time, and it proves itself over and over. As we've seen, in our economy, there's a great push to make a one-world economy, one-money system. But I'm going to tell you what, friend, I watch what's going on in Europe. It's not working. It's not going to work. You know, these are the things we look at. How about in education? How many of you youngsters have been away to college? I call you youngsters now. If you're under 40, you're just a child. Okay? And probably in two more years, it's under 50. You're a child. How many of you went to a place of higher education and the first thing they wanted you to do was leave your religion at the gate? And they wanted you to totally discount even any thought of the creativity of our Almighty God. One of the first things they wanted you to do was to put that thought out of your mind. And friends, we want to keep that thought prevalent in our minds. God created. How many of us, like today, can look around us and find God? Way out in creation. We have a wonderful Bible, but we don't have to have it. We can look at what He's made and see Him. But they want us to change and they want us to do away with that thought. To give man the go-away. That sounds a little bit familiar with the temptation of Christ, doesn't it? The devil wanted the go-away. And he was tempting. And these are just temptations to you and I. He wants us to give in, of course, even to the point where they want to legalize things in our neighborhoods that you and I know perfectly well are totally detrimental to society. When we think about the legalization of something as harmful as heroin, You know, just before I left to come down here, Sunday afternoon I was watching a program and there were a couple places in America called wet houses. Well, you know, I used to be right tickled that I lived in a dry county. I loved it. It's not dry anymore. There's liquor to be bought there. There's liquor by the drink. See, I'm fighting that battle where I live right now about liquor by the drink. I can't stop beer sales. And I can't stop the state, because the state sells the whiskey. But I do have the authority to pull a lever to say, I don't want liquor by the drain. If you're going to drink that trash, take it to the house and drink it. Don't go to some public house and drink it, and then drive on the road where my children or myself are going to travel. See, these are the things that we look at about the law that wants to be changed. A web house. Well these men have been away for treatment and it was ineffectual. So we just give them a place. We don't provide the alcohol, we just give them a place that when they have it, they can come here and drink it. I'm going to tell you all something. The world, especially in our nation, they want us to think about alcoholism as a disease. Alcoholism causes disease. You know, liver, kidneys, pancreas, diabetes, all kinds of different things. Plus, you know, 100,000 broken homes, 250,000 hurt children. Call it what it is. It's seen. And it's a decision that people make about whether or not they're going to consume it. And friends then, they don't want to take the consequence. What's somebody else's fault? Have you ever been around somebody that it's always somebody else's fault? No. I used to get tickled at my mother-in-law. My wife, Dan, once in a while would pack a dram too many. And he couldn't find the doorknob. Maybe he had a couple too many. But she'd always want to blame somebody else. It was always so-and-so's fault. He got him drunk. I'm going to tell you something. When that man's already got the bottle through his mouth, it's hard to make him drink it. Because he's on top of it. He's there before you can get it. Okay? People make decisions about these things. Ask the Veterans Administration whether it's a disease. They'll tell you right quick. It's not. And you don't get no pension from Veterans Administration for alcohol death. You'll get treatment. I know you'll get treatment because I'll tell you a little quick story. My dad had a problem with alcohol. He's been like that ever since World War II. It was his crutch. He didn't want to face up to the realities of war. Okay? He didn't want to make friends with a ghost. He thought he could drown me. So one day I came home from work and he had been home all day and he'd been drinking almost all day and he told me about seeing a snake. in the house. And I said, okay, daddy, let's take a ride. You start seeing snakes, it's time to come. So I loaded him up and took him to the veteran's hospital. Oh, yes, we have a place for Mr. Hartman. 21 days later, they let me come get him. They totally dried him out. They give him psychiatric help whether or not he wanted it. And it was an entirely different man when I went to pick him up. He was sober. And we had him got off the lot of the VA hospital and he said, did I tell you about that snake in the house? I put Papa in the booby hat for nothing. But it done him good. It sobered him up and he died a sober man. Because he finally learned to live with his ghost. He finally learned to live with war. Friends, these kind of changes that our world wants us to make, we can't do it. When we look at the Word of God, the Gospel, What is the gospel as we look at it? He says, I preached unto you what I received. See, Paul's telling them what he has. And friends, when you and I go about our work as Christians, that's what we're doing. We're sharing a witness. We share what we've got. We don't need to tell somebody else's testimony. We need to give our own. Because every one of us here that are saved tonight, we have a unique testimony to share. None of us have the same story, even though it eventually goes to the same place. And where is it going to go every time? It's going to go straight to Jesus, isn't it? But they want us to change that. Have you ever been around folks that talk about their faith and it's not like the Bible teaches that they're saved through baptism. They're saved through Church membership. They're saved through some kind of religious activity. Friends, know that's scriptural. Know that is the Word of God. You and I have a testimony that we're saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we don't stand around hoping it. We stand around... Just this past Saturday, I preached a funeral and had a fellow with me, and all he could talk about was the hope. He hoped. He hoped. He hoped. And I hope you tune shut down. And then it was my turn to share the faith. I have faith in Jesus who cannot lie. When I lay down the last time, I know I'm going to stand up. Amen. And see, these are the things we've got to look at. The gospel is what he's sharing. He says, we, ye are saved if you keep in memory what I preached to you. He said, I delivered to you what I received. He said, Jesus, Jesus was buried, and He rose again the third day. According to what? According to the Scripture. We always go back to Scripture. Because we've got something to back us up. And the Word of God cannot fail. And tonight when we look at that part of our Scripture text, we see that the Gospel is the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus. But it's more than that. It's the good news. It's the good news. For folks who are not saved, they don't understand. How could it be good news for someone to have died? But friends, you and I tonight that are saved, we're rejoicing in the fact of Him dying. Because if we would have died for ourselves, we all would have lifted up our eyes in hell eventually. But because Jesus, who was identified by John the Baptist, John said, Behold the Lamb of God, As a sacrificial lamb for God, He said, that take away the sins of the world, whence we see who Jesus really is, even by His kinfolk. You know, sometimes the whole community loves you, but your kinfolk talk bad about you. Now this is what Jesus came for, because He only had good to say about Him. Amen? And He said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. So when we see that death, we see the death of the Lamb. All throughout the Old Testament, we see the sacrifice of that Lamb. Over and over. But it's a picture of the Lamb of God! And friends, when we share the Gospel, that's what we're sharing. We're sharing how Jesus, even though He knew our sins, still went to Calvary. Because what does the Scripture teach us? While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's what it teaches, amen? And when I share the Gospel, I want them to understand that. Because I've talked to people about Jesus, and one of their first things was, I'm too far gone. He can't save me. And then that's when I can jump right on the line with that and say, yeah, but where sin abounds, His grace much more abounds. In other words, if you're super, super bad, He is super, super good. And He'll overcome your badness with His goodness. But first and foremost, you've got to believe. And you know there's a whole lot of religions out there today that are trying to teach you a lie. They agree that Jesus died for our sins. They agree that he was buried. They also agree that he rose, but they've always got that catch. But not bodily, only in a spiritual realm. Well, the last time I read my Bible was on that particular scripture on Easter Sunday morning. The first Easter Sunday morning, he wasn't there. The body was not there. Some people say, well, they had to roll the stone away for him. No, no, no, no, no. He'd come out, then the stone rolled away. He didn't need the stone rolled away. Because friends, in that time and order, he was glorified. In fact, when he came in the upper room, I don't think the door opened. He said, come on in. You know, I got an incision marker over my heart. But you know what? Jesus didn't put that in. When I asked Him into my life to forgive my sins and save my soul, He came right on in and didn't leave a mark. I look just the same the next day as I did the day I got saved. But I wasn't. I wasn't the same. Friend, I'm going to tell you what. When I think about the changes that are wanting to be made to the Word of God and to our way of life here in America, friends, it gets all over me. We need to hold on to the truth. We need to share the truth. First and foremost, the New Agers tell us we need a new Savior. They've been hearing about this one for a couple thousand years. We need a new one. I'm going to tell you what, there's only one problem. They've got to find one who is identical to ours. Who is He? He's the Son of God. He's the Savior of men. He's the sinless Lamb of God. He's the indestructible Christ. Satan couldn't entice Him to sin and nor could he kill Him. And when we think of it from that standpoint, we've got a Savior worthy of praise. Amen? Because friends, He's there for us today. He overcame the laws of gravity. You think about that just for a minute. God created the law of gravity. Somebody else found it and wrote a lot of books about it. But God created it. when this witness of him ascending that we talked about last night, friend, when that group stood there and watched him go, can't you imagine how big that gap was from their upper teeth to their lower teeth? The first time I heard a full-blood Choctaw Indian tell me that if I didn't get saved I was going straight to hell, my chin dropped back that far too. And I tell you what, he didn't stop there. He went on to share the gospel truth with me. He shared with me that no matter how far you think you've gone, the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for you. Friends, that's what I want to talk to people about. That's what I want to share with folks who have a problem with alcohol, who have a problem with drugs, who have a problem with the right thought process about marriage, about homosexuality, about those kind of things. I want to tell them about Jesus. I want to tell them about the Word of God. Because friends, as much as society wants you and I to think that all these folks are born messed up, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I'm not going to say that through chemical abuses and different types of exposure throughout life that there's not birth defects. I know there are. I have two children who I just dearly love in my heart. My brother's son and my brother's daughter. My brother was exposed to Agent Orange to a point that he has had five stents put in his heart. He has COPD to the point that he can barely get across the parking lot now without help. And his wife bore him two deformed children who were linked directly back to Agent Orange. I know those things. are out there. But I don't believe that folks change to that point to the very nature of humanity. I don't believe that. I also know God doesn't make a mistake. And I can stand tonight and just give Him all the praise. Because this Jesus that we're talking about tonight, friends, first and foremost, He's the King of Kings. I got tickled the other day with all the hubbub about the marriage over in England. The prince will become a duke. Oh well, so much for that. But I'm going to tell you what, whether that duke wants to do it or not, he's going to answer to the king of kings. One day he's going to be a king, but he won't be the king of kings. He'll only be a king. And one day, he will meet the King of Kings head on, face to face. And there's only one thing going to help him. He's been born a royal. He was born a prince. Now he's a duke, and one day he'll be king if he lives. But I'm going to tell you one thing, there's only one help for him. If he ever thinks he's going to enter the kingdom, he will come in under Jesus Shadrach. He'll come through the King of Kings. And there's no change in that. God's Word is immutable. I like them big words. When a hillbilly can say words like that, he's got something going. I passed it that five times before I got killed. I heard a, well, I better just let that one go. When a man stands up and says that he's infallible, I'm saying to myself, whew, you better try that word again. And I heard it Saturday from that fellow who was hoping he was saved. And he said, now men are infallible. I said, oh. Where'd you come from? Where I come from, we're real fallible. In fact, they're about a foul ball, but anyway. The gospel is the saving grace of God. Romans 1.16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation. And friends, that's sometimes something that you and I need to focus on. You and I may even make a rough estimate of someone sometime and say, My gracious, there ain't no way God saved that heathen. The Word of God is the power unto salvation. No question. God can do it. God can do it. Our part is to go out and share that truth. And not be afraid. I'm not telling you to go out and exploit your sin. But don't be afraid to tell somebody where you came from, okay? I tell people about my life before I was saved. I tell people what the Lord did for me. And if He'll do that for me, He'll do it for anybody. And tonight as we go, let's not make the changes. Let's stand with the Old Book. Now, if there's some changes to be made, it might be in our hearts. There might be a need for us to change our attitude about witnessing. There may be a need for us to change our attitude about God's ability versus our inability. It might be that time. Maybe you've been thinking about getting saved. You've been thinking about it. Maybe tonight the Lord touched your heart and said, it's time to quit thinking. It's time to act. It's time to act on it. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, God said, and I'll give you rest. Because I'm going to tell you what, if you know you're lost, if you know it, you're going to have no rest. I'm telling you for about two weeks that Choctaw had me tied in a knot. He had me amassed. Why? Because every time I stop going a hundred miles an hour, my shield must start rolling over to me. This is what you got. You want to keep it? I don't want it. But you know I was afraid. I'd never been to a Baptist church. I'd been to all these other churches and finally God sent a missionary Baptist to our community. And I'd never been in a Baptist service, so I had no idea what was going to take place. I'd head over to the railroad back and watch them Pentecostal a little bit and I'd say, uh-uh, I ain't going up there, they ain't knocking me down the floor. They was going to lay holy hands on me and I was going to fight back. I was afraid and I wouldn't go down at all. And I knew I needed to and I was afraid. So I called the pastor and I talked to him about it. He came to my house and I knelt down in my old kitchen and I asked God right beside my kitchen table if He could forgive my sin through Jesus' head blood I'd be most appreciative. And believe you me, I stood up and saved man. And then, you know, the next Sunday it wasn't any problem for me to come down the aisle from back there. The Lord doesn't give me strength. Doesn't give me encouragement too. If I'm with you, if I'm for you, who can be against you? Seriously. Who can? We won. We won. We walk around sometimes like we got beat up and defeated. But we won. And I don't know about you, but I think a victor ought to strut his stuff. Amen? Lift up the banner of Jesus. See, I'm nothing, but I've got a Savior's everything. Amen. Brother Paul.