Wow. Some things you just can't put into words. Not a gifted enough speaker to do it, Pastor. But it sure is good to be at Calvary Baptist Church tonight. I've enjoyed the music. The other special song was one of my favorites. It's felt the spirit of God here, and I wanna say thank you for praying for us, praying for Health Ministries. It's been challenging to say the least. I found out today we suffered our first loss of our missionary, and pastor doesn't even know this, because I found out this afternoon, and I opted just to not bother you with it, preacher, this afternoon. But a gentleman from Panama, named Modesto Hernandez. He died this morning and it was from COVID. Years ago, I don't know if you guys remember, we went to a prayer event several years ago. It was the one that we, there was snow and we had to come back early. Any of the guys remember that? We had to come back early on Friday. I had prearranged somebody to put Modesto on a bus and send him to Nashville, Tennessee. But he didn't make it there. And Saturday morning, they called me of that snowstorm and said, he's not here. We didn't pick him up. And I thought, well, he's stuck somewhere between where we dropped him off in Winston and Nashville. I thought, well, it's probably Charlotte. So there was a lot of snow on the ground that day. And I said, honey, I've got to go to Charlotte. Do you even know he's there?" I said, I don't even know he's there. I said, but I can't sit here in the comfort and he could be there. If I go there and he's not there, we'll be good. I'll come back home. She said, well, I'll go with you. I said, well, come on. I had a black Dodge, just single cab pickup truck. We jumped in it. Four hours later, we made it to Charlotte. I walked inside the bus station in Charlotte and sure enough, there was one guy in a suit and tie. And I never met him before, but I said, that's my man right there. And I went up, are you Modesto? He didn't speak any English. He hadn't had anything to eat. They had run out of food. It was absolute chaos in that bus station. And I'm here to tell you, I mean, short of seeing Jesus, when he just saw him there this morning, I was probably the second man that he was the happiest to see in his lifetime. But Modesto went home to heaven this morning. So you pray, our men around the world are facing such difficult challenges and I couldn't even, it would take more than the time allotted tonight just to share those challenges with you, but suffice it to say, they need your prayers. So please pray. Turn with me in your Bibles to Daniel chapter number three. It's funny, the pastor mentioned me preaching earlier in the week, and I heard him preach on Wednesday night. And I said to myself, man, as strong as he was on Wednesday night, I don't have a chance in the world of preaching on Sunday. Well, I didn't plan so good on it. And then he called me this afternoon, texted me, and I thought, well, I should have spent more time during the week than I did. I'm regretting that just a bit now. Daniel chapter number three. I wanna begin reading verse number 14 while you find your place, but let's set the stage. And I will say this, this is a topical message, so we'll look at a number of passages this evening, a little atypical for what I usually preach. I like sticking to a particular text, but this is what the Lord has laid upon my heart. Nebuchadnezzar has set up the golden image, and he's given the command that at the sound of all kinds of music, and they're listed in the text there. I'm from West Virginia, I can't pronounce half of them, so I'm gonna leave them to you. But when you hear it, he said, you're going to bow down, you're going to worship the golden image. Everybody did that. Well, everybody but three Hebrews. Now, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that wasn't their Hebrew names. That was the Chaldean names that they were given. Actually, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, I believe, is their Hebrew names. And they had already before this made a decision that they were going to serve God and bow to Him and to no one else. And so when it came about, there was folks that saw that these three were not bowing down to the image. And verse 14, Nebuchadnezzar has now found out about this news, and he's going to give these guys a chance to make it right. In verse 14, and Nebuchadnezzar speaking to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Do not you serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Nope. Now if you be ready that at that time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackcloth, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made? Well, but if you worship not, you shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace, and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said unto the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand. But if not, be it known unto thee that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship thy golden image which thou hast set up. Father, we ask you now to Encourage our hearts tonight. Lord, it's been good to be in your house today. Lord, this morning was just refreshing. Lord, the service on Wednesday night, outstanding. The music, Lord, it's brought us to the point to really tune our hearts into what you would have to say to us tonight. And Lord, we need encouragement this evening, no doubt. We pray, Father, that you, through your word and through the spirit of God, will do exactly that for us. Lord, I know not the needs of anybody here save my own heart. Lord, you know. Father, would you meet the needs? Lord, would you be with our missionary friend that went home to be with you and his family, his church in Panama? Would you be with our men around the world who are facing the most extreme set of circumstances that they've ever faced in their life up to this point? God, would you give them grace? Be with pastor, Lord. and we thank you for what you've done and for what you're gonna do and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. He was born in 1934 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. What a place. He was a man of average height. If you looked at him, you wouldn't think anything necessarily about him, but he was bigger than life. He fought in the Korean War and he'd come back home to the little town that he lived in, Raynell, West Virginia. Now there's a church in that town, Reno, West Virginia, that he would pastor and it's a Soul Valley Baptist Church. On a side note, Freddie Fryer, who was here before, is the pastor of that church now. But when I grew up as a boy, he was in the western end of our county and I was in the eastern end, God's country. A guy named Eddie Goddard pastored the church. You wouldn't probably know him. Maybe a few people would know him here. But he was a legend when I was a kid in church. I mean, most people called him Brother Eddie. Some people called him Eddie Ray. A few people called him Preacher Goddard, but he was just Brother Eddie. And he had this uncanny ability to take the scriptures and meld them with life stories and things that happened and illustrations, and he would beat you with that thing for about 45 minutes. And I mean, he had three to four points, and he was like an attorney in a courtroom. I mean, he hit you from so many angles with it that you might not have liked what he had to say, but when you left, you knew the three points that he wanted you to know. He would slam it. Well, I also grew up in Greenbrook County, West Virginia. When I was a kid, we lived 20 miles from everything. I mean, there was nothing. There was one gas station when I was a real young boy, and I could run about 300 yards, jump two fences, and I could go to the gas station. Well, the gas station closed down. When the gas station closed down, I thought, well, there's nowhere we can go to do anything. But my uncle planted a church in the gas station. Grace Bible Church. And then Eddie Goddard used to come and preach meetings in that church. And so I used to jump two fences, run 300 yards and go to the gas station, but then I jumped two fences and run 300 yards and go to church. And we had preachers come through and revivals of all those meetings. And back in those days, man, God was really, I mean, revivals were 50, 60 people would get saved. I mean, just getting right with God. I remember that as a little boy, even in a small country church. Brother Eddie would come, and my favorite meetings was when he preached it. He pastored, I think, only 11 years and went in evangelism and ministry of scriptures, but he preached a message one time, and I, you know what, I don't know the title of the message. I don't know the verses that he used. I don't know the text that he used, but I remember the three points, and I want to share them with you, because they've impacted me. Never forgotten them. It's funny, I preach now, and some of this, Brother Eddie used to preach missions conferences in some churches up in West Virginia, and when he went home to heaven, preacher, they called me, and I'm preaching some of those meetings now, yearly. What an honor. And I remember asking them, hey, do you remember this message? And you know, people have their signature messages, and they got some messages that they preach a lot, and you know them, and I would say such and such and such, and they'd be like, no, I don't remember that one. And I'll go to the next church, do you remember this message? No, I don't remember that one. But this thing has stuck with me my whole life. And so I want to give it to you. Three necessities for those that want to finish well. Do you want to stand before God one day and have him say this? Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Do you want that? Well, I'm telling you, if you want that, then you need these three things in your life. You say, preacher, can you guarantee me that if I have these three things, I'll hear these words? No, but I can guarantee you that if you don't have these three things, you won't hear the words. First thing he said in his message all those years ago that you need to have, you need to have a big God. You need to have a God that's so much bigger than anything else that you face in life that you never find yourself at a place to where you wonder if He's able. A God that's bigger than your addictions. A God that's bigger than your problems. A God that's bigger than your past and bigger than your future. God who specializes in taking small numbers and doing great things. A God who really shows himself strong when things seem to be the bleakest. In our story here, we have three men that had that outlook, that God was big enough. And sometimes I'm afraid that God is just not big enough. It's interesting, these men, they come before the king and they weren't going to decide then what they were going to do because preacher, they'd already made the decision. You know it's good to go ahead and make the decision before the crisis? Because if you haven't made the decision before the crisis, sometimes you'll make the wrong decision, but it's good to go ahead and purpose in your heart before the crisis what you're going to do so when you find yourself there, you're ready. It's interesting though, they found themselves in a place that we find ourselves now. They said, King, we're not careful to answer you. We don't have to think about it. We've already thought about it. They said, King, if it be so, our God is able. But if not, here's what they were saying. You know what? God is able to deliver us out of this fiery furnace. Now, we're not sure if He's going to do it or not. We have no idea what He's going to do, but we know this King, if He wants to, He's got the power to do it, and that's good enough for us. And here we are. I'm going to be honest with you, preacher. I don't know what's going to happen. I probably, and I hate to say it, but I find myself at the point where I'm probably more concerned with our country now than I've ever been in my life, and I'm in my 50th year circling the sun, and I spent those years here, and I have enjoyed 50 of as good a years as anybody that I've ever known. Maybe we'll get 50 more good ones. I'm not sure what God's going to do, but I know this, He's big enough to do it. He's big enough to do it. And I'm just going to trust Him. These men said, we're not sure how it's going to work out, but we believe that God is big enough and we're going to trust Him. David had that same mindset. When he stood before Goliath and the rest of Israel, everyone else was afraid of one man. And they had the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on their side, and yet they're afraid of this Philistine. He's big. Yeah, he was big, but he wasn't bigger than God is. And David said, look, the lion, the bear, God gave me the victory over them, and this Philistine's no different. So there's, the Bible is full of people that had a big God. Then there were some folks that didn't have a big God. Early on, Abraham. God wasn't big enough in Genesis chapter 12. Because he showed up there and he thought, man, there's a problem. My wife's beautiful and they're gonna kill me for you, honey. And why don't you just, okay, yeah, that's a good plan. That's a terrible plan. Sometimes we think God's not big enough and so he needs our help. That's what Abraham thought. God's not big enough, he needs me to help him out. No, he doesn't. He doesn't you have to manipulate the situation because God's not doing it the way you You think it needs to be done and and Abraham poor guy he at this point in his life He just God was not big enough, but boy he later on in his life. He'd be big God He'd get to the point where he failed here, but he would pass the test marvelously with his son Jacob His father was dying. Isaac was dying. He wanted to bless his brother Esau. His mother calls Jacob in and says, Jacob, your father's fixed to give the blessing to your brother. Now, here's what I want you to do. You know the story. I want you to go out and kill one of the goats. We don't have time to develop that. You know this text, and it's interesting. Jacob could have said this. You know what, Mom? That's not true. This is not God's way. This is not God's plan. This is not God's time. But here's what he said. But Jacob's a hairy man. See, his mom threw the idea out there, but he didn't have to run with it. He could have said, but wait a minute. You remember the dream? Hey, in God's timing, in God's timing, and sometimes God has to be big enough to wait on him. And for Jacob, God wasn't big enough to wait. Maybe you're here, and this thing hasn't happened as fast as you think it should. Just trust God, and in His time, in His beautiful way, it'll come to pass, and it'll be so much better than if you do it yourself. It can still be good God, still gracious to forgive, but there's baggage that we carry and we can never leave because of decisions that we make because God was not big enough. And God is not so small that we can't wait on it. Peter. Pastor preached on this maybe three, four weeks ago, five weeks ago, I'm not sure now. Peter, the Lord told him his plan, what he was gonna do, how he was gonna be crucified. And Peter began to rebuke God. God needs to be so big that we never come to the conclusion that we know more than he does. Are you kidding yourself? Who are you gonna talk to and rationalize and think that you know more about it than God does? That your plan is better than his? If you're even entertaining these thoughts, God is not big enough. So what happens if we have this big God? Well, it'll make us wait. It'll keep us from manipulating the situation. It'll keep us from worrying. We'll be careful for nothing like the Bible says, but by everything in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we'll let a request be made known unto God. And He'll work it out in due time. The peace of God which passeth all understanding, God will usher that into our hearts. Do you remember when Abraham and Sarah got the news late in life that they were gonna have a child, a son of promise? And Sarah was in the tent, and she laughed within herself. And she was called on it. And she said, I didn't laugh. Oh, but you did laugh. But the question was asked, is there anything that's too hard for the Lord? Sarah, God is big. But he wasn't big enough. Boy, I've failed this thing miserably, preacher. this Christian life. But there's one thing most of the time that I've, thank God for it, I've just been able to trust him for what he said that he wanted me to do. And if he said, go do it, I didn't have all the answers, Randy, he's gonna be faithful. He's gonna do it. We started at our church in Germany giving the faith promise. And back in those days, we had very, very little money. We were broke all the time, and we started just giving $20 a week. And I remember in those early years, we would get $20 bills. We would find them the exact amount of money that we were giving to missions. And we began to increase, and then God began to bless us more. And we got to the point, preacher, where honestly, I didn't have to look for the $20 increments, because God had already provided it in some other way, some bigger way, some way that I didn't necessarily see it. But I never forgot. I never forgot those times that, you know what, if God needed to do that, He still could. I remember about ten years ago now, we had moved up here to North Carolina and I was going to preach a meeting in Hickory. And I have this thing that I always keep my vehicles full of gas, but for whatever reason, I didn't do the plan that I normally do. And we left the house that day, and I was gonna get gas in Statesville. And we got to Statesville, and I pulled up there to the tank to get gas, preacher, but I didn't have my wallet. And now I'm on empty, and I'm supposed to preach. Now, what kind of stupid man does that? You're looking at him. So I said to myself, well, now this is a good one. My wife doesn't have any money. She doesn't have credit cards, because she just works off cash. I'm the only one who has any credit cards. She works off the cash. And I thought, boy, I wish, if I could get a hold of Dave Ramsey right now, I would slap him. But he wasn't there. So I thought, okay, I'm walking into the gas station preaching, I said, I know what God's, I'm gonna find it. I'm headed in, I just know, I just know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's gonna be a $20 bill laying, somebody's dropped it, or somebody's gonna drop it on the way out, and normally if they dropped it, I'd say, hey, you dropped something, but on this day, I'm about to take it and run. But no, nothing. Nothing so then I go in I thought well, okay. All right. I get in line. I said Lord Okay, I'm gonna get in line here. Somebody's gonna turn around say hey, do you need $20 for gas? And that's what I'm thinking in my mind. This is what I'm thinking is gonna happen, but it didn't happen. I Got up to the all the way up there and I thought Lord is this what it's come to I'm going to tell this guy what I've done Yes, sir And so I told him He said where you going? I said Hickory. He said I This should be enough to get you there. He gave me the money. But it really wasn't quite enough to get me there. We got out on the road. We got to go on. I'm thinking, I'm sure if we're going to make it to church or not. And I called, and I couldn't get ahold, the preacher couldn't get ahold of the church, and I thought, well, my goodness, what are we gonna do? And there was a lady in the church named Linda, and Linda said, hey, I'll tell you what to do. She's the only one I could get ahold of. She said, we have a gas station that the church gets their gas from. Just go there and tell them you're from the church, and they'll just give you the gas. And so I remember Susie saying, you're just gonna go in there and tell them you're from the church and you've never seen them before, and they're gonna give you the gas? I'm like, that's pretty much how it's gonna have to work if we're gonna get the gas. So I walked into gas station, I'm fixing, I'm nervous at this point because nothing has worked out like I thought it was going to. And I go to step up to the counter to tell them this plan. And I did have my suit and towel, so at least I look like a preacher. As much as I can look like a preacher, most places they don't think I'm a preacher, they think I'm undercover FBI or something like that. But I get up there and I'm getting ready to tell the story. And you know a lady walked in the door and she said, hey preacher, you're coming to our church to preach this morning, aren't you? You don't know how glad I am to see you. And she told the clerk, and guess what they did? They filled me up with gas. Now get this, if I'd have had my wallet, I'd have had to pay for the gas, but I didn't even have to pay for the gas. And that's what God'll do. But not only do we need to have a big God, we need to have a bad memory. Genesis 50. Genesis chapter 50. Story of Joseph. You know the story well. Sold into slavery by his own brothers. You know what's so funny about the bitterness that I've had to deal with in life, preacher? It wasn't the world. You know who it was? The worst problems I've had, that I've had to really work on bitterness issues, are the people that have been the closest to me. Even Christians. Not unsaved people. Here are his own brothers. They sell him into slavery. He goes to prison. Even there he's mistreated. You talk about a guy that could have gotten bitter, I mean this would have been the guy. But he didn't. The father dies, and after the father dies, he's treated the brothers well, but after the father dies, the brothers are like, oh, we're in trouble now. I mean, our dad's gone, and boy, old Joseph's gonna get us, and so they're already devising their plan, and in Genesis chapter 50, verse 15, and when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will paredventure hate us, and we will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall you say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren and their sin. For they did it unto thee evil, and now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face. And they said, Behold, we be thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, Fear not. And he asked a question. For am I in the place of God? There's somebody's business to get revenge, but it wasn't Joseph's. There's somebody's business to get revenge, but it's not me. There's somebody's business to get revenge, and it's not you. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Now, you say, preacher, I'm supposed to have a bad memory? Yes, sir. For some of us, that's not even a problem, is it? I've shared this story before, but if I didn't tell you because of this bad memory issue, you wouldn't even remember it. I started working on the farm when I was 12 from my grandfather. And no more than he paid me, it'd have been a shame just to pay me by the hour, because you know, however many cents that was, it would take a long time for it to add up to anything worth, you know, anything. So he, at the end of the summer, so I worked all summer, Monday through Saturday, went home for Sunday, go to church, come back, did it all over again, all summer, from 12 all the way up till graduated. But that first summer, I got a check at the end of it, preacher, $400 check. Now to a 12-year-old, that's a lot of money. Truth be told, as much as I ate, my grandfather went in the hole. No more work than I did. He had to pay me and feed me too. But he gave me a check. I put it up in a safe place. So good, in fact, I forgot where I put it. Being a 12-year-old kid from West Virginia, not all that smart, not because I was from West Virginia, just because I was a 12-year-old kid, I never thought about the fact that, well, they wrote one check, they could write another one. I just said to myself, I've just lost $400, and I'm too ashamed to tell anybody that I've lost it. And so, for about a week, I was the most unhappy young man you've ever seen, because I had worked all summer, and I had forgotten what I did with the check. I never found the check. But my grandfather did ultimately write me another one. I got the courage up to tell him. But you know what, there's some things that we need to forget. You say, did Joseph forget this? No, but he didn't hold it against him. He just said, I'm just gonna let it go. And that's what we need to do. Just let it go. I bet you there's people here right now, and if you're honest with your own heart, there's bitterness there with somebody. I'm gonna tell you, not gonna finish well. You're not gonna do it. God's not big enough, you're worried about everything? Might not finish well. Bitterness. He said, am I in the place of God? But as for you, verse 20, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive. He did not hold this against his own brothers and so he just forgot about it. Let it go. If you'll have a bad memory, you won't grow bitter over difficult people. As I mentioned earlier, it's incredible. For me, some of the biggest problems I've had to deal with with bitterness have been people that were very close to me, people even in the ministry with me. You won't grow bitter over difficult circumstances. I see folks, and I mean, they're dealing with a set of circumstances, preacher, that honestly, I mean, if anybody had a right to be bitter, it's them. But you know what? Maybe that's you, but it won't do you a bit of good. And I feel terrible for you. And if I thought saying, hey, be bitter would help you, if any, I'd give you a pass on it. But you know what? It won't. It'll eat you up on the inside and render you ineffective as a Christian servant of God and steal the joy from your life and cause you to be less than what God wants you to be. So you need a big God. You need a bad memory. This message I've never forgotten, and I wish I could say I've always kept all these things, but there's been a lot of times when I haven't. But if ever I got to a point where I felt like I was struggling in one of these areas, I would fix it. Everybody does wrong. Don't kid yourself. Everybody does wrong. It's what you do after you do the wrong that makes the difference. Not everybody gets it right. You need a big God, a bad memory, and a broken heart. Joseph was soft-hearted. I want you to turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 34. Josiah, I believe Brother Eco, Made mention of this a couple weeks ago of Josiah. Josiah was a young king, young boy, assumed the throne. Country was in disarray. Temple was torn down. The book of the law was nowhere to be seen. They began to repair the temple and they cleaned it out and they found the Word of God. They read the Word of God to the king. And the king said, man, we're in trouble. Because our fathers have not obeyed the commandments that were in this book. And this wrath that God has spoken of, that's promised us, that's prescribed us, is going to come due. Verse 23 of 2 Chronicles 34. There's a message from God to give to Josiah. Verse 23, and she answered them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, tell you the man that sent you to me. So here's a message for the king. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book, which they have read before the king of Judah. Now verse 25, because they have forsaken me and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore, my wrath shall be poured out upon this place and shall not be quenched. And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so shall you say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard. Look at this, Because thine heart was tender, thou didst tumble thyself before God. When thou hearest his words against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, and humblest thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes and weep before me, I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to the grave in peace. Neither shall thine eyes see all this evil that I will bring upon this place and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again. God had a message for Josiah. Yes, I'm gonna do everything that I said I was gonna do, but Josiah, you're gonna escape it because your heart was tender. See, God resisteth the proud, but he giveth grace to the humble. You know the biggest battle I'm facing right now? is remaining tender-hearted. Because my blood's boiling in about five minutes. And the flesh likes that, and the flesh can think on that thing for two hours and envision yourself going and doing something about it, as I have done. But the Spirit is 100 miles away from that. so we need to remain tender. There's been times in my life when, Thomas, I've gotten hard. Circumstances, constraints of the ministry, not knowing this and that, and you trust God, but boy, it's just, every time you turn around, you're slapped in, you know, this angle and that angle, and if you're not careful, You can, the defense mechanism to that, you know what it is? You know what the body wants to do? Strike back. And when you do that, you become rigid, firm. And God wants you to remain tender. And he'll just keep pumping in his grace to help us deal with the situation. And think of it now. If we're having such a difficult time with things that are happening in our land, you know the lost world's having the same problems and what an opportunity we have. But if we join in on the bashing and the social media whiplash, we're gonna miss our opportunity to separate ourselves and to be the witness and to have spiritual sensitivity enough to know that God's trying to deal with somebody and do something even through this difficult time. You want to do it well, God needs to be bigger than anything else. You need a big God. You need a bad memory. You need a broken heart. Let's pray.