We've been looking at the dangers regarding the local church, as I said, not just the adversary, the devil, but our adversaries in life. The devil is not going to show up. He's going to send somebody to get us off track and kind of diminish the local church in our minds if he can. Another danger, we said, was a lack of appreciation. Christ died for the church. It's very, very important. Apathy was another thing we need to be careful of. We can just get apathetic about our responsibilities in the church. lack of action, and also we talked about the just plain fact that there's apostasy, and as a result of the apostasy, we can get discouraged, and when we get discouraged, the result of that is a lack of appreciation, apathy, and a lack of action, and we all sit down and just quit doing anything. That's what the devil would like to have happen as far as our local church is concerned. We don't want that to happen. We said apostasy is prophesied. Now, you can do one of two things regarding the fact that the apostasy of our day is prophesied. You can panic or you can prepare. And it's simply a choice. There's no sense panicking about the situation the way it is. I mean, it's happening in our circles. I never thought I'd see it happen again. Forty-five years ago, I watched the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches take a dive and go away from the things that were that were fundamental, and we were members in that situation at that time. I didn't think I'd see it happen again, but it's happening, and it's happening very fast, where our so-called fundamental independent Baptist churches are drifting away at an alarming rate. Now, you can panic about that, or we can prepare. The Bible says that we ought to get ready in advance. That's what preparation is, to get ready in advance. So 2,000 years ago, Jesus said that it's going to happen. Read Matthew 24. Paul the Apostle said it's going to happen. So we don't need to panic, but we do need to know how to prepare. Since we're living in an age of apostasy, we need to be prepared for it. Now turn, if you would, please, to Luke chapter 14, and we'll see what Jesus said about the whole thing. Luke chapter 14. It says in verse 25, and there went great multitudes with him, great multitudes. You look and you say, well, that's what we want. We want great multitudes of people to come and hear about God. What did he do? He turned and he said unto them, if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and his mother, and his wife, and his children, and his brethren, and his sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Now think about that. Now he's using a comparison here. He doesn't want you to go out and hate your family. But what he's saying is this. If your family is more important than I am, then you cannot be my disciple. You cannot be my disciple. I remember when my dad got saved, his brother used to come and drink with him every weekend. They got together and got drunk every weekend. Then my dad got saved and all of a sudden my uncle wasn't coming anymore. Why? Because my dad was preaching at him all the time. Now, you don't have to worry too much about whether you're going to fellowship with your family or not if they're unsaved. All you got to do is preach at them all the time. Just preach at them all the time. That's all you got to do because that's what you're commanded to do. So Jesus said this very plainly. He said, if your family is more important to you than I am, you cannot be my disciple. Well, that'll thin the crowd down. Then he went on to say, not only your family, but he said in verse number 27, and whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple. So he's got this crowd, and you would think crowd spells success. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Toronto Maple Leafs gets a crowd to come and watch them very unsuccessful players playing all the time. A crowd does not spell success. But he's looking at this crowd, and he said, all right, if your family's more important to me, go home. That's pretty blunt. Then he said, if you are not going to take up your cross and follow me, Now, you take up a cross and follow Jesus. I mean, at that time, hundreds and hundreds of people were being put on crosses. The Romans thought there was going to be an insurrection. And anybody who was doing that, a lot of people were. They were crucifying him. So he says, you take up your cross. You tell everybody where you stand. And if you're not going to tell everybody where you stand, you cannot be my disciple. Well, that's in the card a little bit more. Then he says in verse number 28, For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he has sufficient to finish it? Are you going to count the cost? Because if you cannot count the cost, you cannot be my disciple. And if you're going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it's going to cost you something. If you're going to just follow him and take advantage of everything he has to offer, and not be a disciple, it won't cost you a whole lot, and you won't get a whole lot out of it either. But anybody who is saved is going to want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It's just that simple. You're going to be saved, you're going to be a disciple. So he said, count the cost. Count the cost. And then he says in verse number 31, or what king going to war against another king, sits not down first, he says, and counts the cost, and see if he has sufficient to battle against that other king. So likewise, thirty-three, likewise, thirty-three, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." What kind of a way is this to treat the crowd? Well, today's churches are just the exact opposite to that. And I'm not talking about modernistic churches. I'm talking about our so-called fundamental churches. There's no cost anymore. Just come on down here and sign the card, and we'll put you into baptistry, and 95% of you can sit at home on Sunday night and do nothing, and there's no loyalty, and there's no commitment to the church. There's nobody... I mean, 95%. All of our churches. It is a fact that 5% of the people do all the work. Well, there's something wrong with that picture. Is that acceptable in the Lord? No. Well, then why do we make it acceptable in our churches? Well, because we want the crowd. We want the crowd. So, we're not going to count the cost. We're not going to tell people, if your family is more important to you, you can't be my disciple. If your cost is not going to be taken up, if you're not going to count the cost, if you don't realize this is a war, then you cannot be my disciple. So, are you in or out? Are you in or out? Now, this series is about the local church and standing in the age of apostasy. This is not a time to fill churches with pussyfooters who aren't going to stand up and do what God wants them to do. This is a time to re-examine the situation and say, we're living in an age of apostasy. Am I willing to count the cost? What is more important to me? I said recently that there's two things in this town that are most important to God. Number one is your family, and number two is your church family. So your family's either getting saved or they're going to hell. It's just that simple. So we need to make sure that when it comes to our family that we're preaching about what the Bible says to do. All the time. Not just sitting around having pleasantries. This is what the Bible says, now what are you going to do? Same with our church. Now, we are looking at, and we'll see this more, we've seen it some, that in the last days the Bible says very, very plainly that there will be a remnant who will count the cost. There will be a small group of people who will say, I will pay the price to follow Jesus Christ no matter what it is. All right, that's nice, but those of us who will do that, we have a responsibility. The responsibility of the remnant is very plain in the Bible. We'll be looking at it as we go through it. What is responsibility? It is having a duty to deal with something. That's what a responsibility is. We have a duty before God to deal with something in this age of apostasy. To deal with something. A responsibility is the state or fact of being accountable or to be blamed for something. That's what it is. You're responsible, you are accountable, and if it's not going the way it's supposed to go, you are to blame. So, when we bring this into our homes, we've got to look and see what is acceptable unto the Lord. We are responsible, we are accountable for our homes. Not only that, we are responsible and we are accountable for our church. We are accountable or we will be blamed if it's not done right. So, we need to make sure that we're going to do it right. Now, to be accountable is to make decisions regarding something. To make no decision is a decision. You just can't make no decision. You just can't do that. To decide not to decide is to make a decision not to decide. So, you can't do that. That's a no, okay? Because God says, are you going to do what I tell you to do, or are you going to not do what I tell you to do? You can't just blank it out. We decide. We have to. There's no such thing as just letting it go. So, to ignore our responsibility is a decision. to decide that, okay, I am going to take that duty that I have, and I'm going to deal with that duty, I'm going to be accountable, so therefore I better figure out what it is. That's a decision. So when it comes to the local church, it is not just something where we get together and sing the nice songs and listen to the nice number on the piano. That's such a blessing, that solo this morning. But there's a whole lot more to it than that. If that's all we're going to do here, Mark it down. There's not going to be a church here for your children or your grandchildren. It's not going to be here. The only way it's going to be here is if we figure out what our duty is and strive together to maintain what we need to maintain in order for there to be a church here five years from now, 10 years from now, and 15 years from now. So Jesus looked at that crowd. He said he did not commit himself unto them. He knew what was in man. He said, no, you can't be my disciple. Your family is more important to you. You won't take up your cross. You won't count the cross. You won't fight the war. You cannot be my disciple. So we said last week, your home in the age of apostasy, your home is under attack and your church is under attack. There are wolves in sheep's clothing. There are snakes There are lions sneaking around thinking whom they may devour. I don't mean literal snakes. I don't mean literal lions. God said that was a type that he called them. Watch out for those lions. Watch out for those snakes. Watch out for those wolves in sheep's clothing. They're the harder ones to spot. And in this age of apostasy, the Bible says in the last days, the attack will be intensified. It will be intensified, and it is intensified, and that's why even fundamental pastors are falling apart today. Churches are compromising today. The only reason a church will compromise is the pastor compromises, or the people won't listen, one of the two. So what we have to do, number one, is face the facts, and number two, we have to face the future. It's just that simple. I've just written an article on what do you do when your pastor compromises. There's a lot of sincere people out there who are in that situation, and they are in a situation where their pastors are compromising. Now, what do you do? And I've written an article on it, and I hope to send it out tomorrow, because there's sincere people out there that are in that situation. My wife and I were in that situation when our children were very young. we couldn't find a church where we would be happy, where we would be content, where God would be satisfied with us to take his little children into and raise them there. We couldn't find one. Now, you've got to understand that Fundamental Independent Baptist Movement in Canada, they were few and far between 40 years ago. We couldn't find one. So what will we do? And I'm going to send that article out. So I'm not going to tell you the whole article. You get it probably tomorrow or sometime this week. But it tells you what to do. You don't have that problem here. We're not, by God's grace, we're not going to compromise that we can help. But what do you do? And I said in the article, number one, you got to face the fact. You have to face the fact. What fact? The fact that fundamental, independent, Baptist pastors are compromising. They're falling like flies. They're falling all over the place. They're just giving up on what they used to preach years ago. That's a fact. You can bury your head in the sand if you want to. That won't help you. You've got to face the fact. And then I said in the article, you've got to face the future. Now, the same thing is true even though we have a church where we're going to do the best we can to do what God wants us to do. We have to prepare. We have to plan. We have to face the facts. Apostasy is setting in in this world. It's prophesied. So, what are we going to do? We need to face the future. Now, I've said many times God has a purpose for you. God has a purpose for you. Did you get that? God has a purpose for you. Now, if I said Pastor Kirkland has a purpose for you, that's not nearly as important as God has a purpose for you. Can we understand that? God has a purpose, a purpose, something that he put you in this world for, and it's specifically for you, for you. Now, we said you need to determine that purpose, you need to develop that purpose, and you need to be doing that purpose. To determine something is to have made a firm decision being resolved not to change it. Okay? That's what it is when you determine something. Having made a firm decision, being resolved not to change it. The Bible puts it this way, I shall not be moved. This is where I stand. That's what it is to be determined. So, you better figure out where you stand. And best what we need to do is stand where the Bible says to stand. Prove what is acceptable under the Lord. And what is it? Then we need to, once we make that determination, we need to develop that purpose. What's that? To develop something is to have advancement in the decision that you made. You've got to develop it. No matter what area of life, you can determine you're going to paint the bedroom, but you don't paint it unless you go buy the paint and get some brushes and get some trays and Take the curtains off the wall and everything else that you have to do in order to paint the bedroom. You've got to develop what you've determined to do. So if we determine that we are going to live in this age of apostasy, and you either determine you are or you even determine you're not, you can't leave that decision neutral. If you determine, I am going to discern what is God's will in this age of apostasy for me, then you have to develop it. You have to have some advancements. You have to make some decisions, like, do I take the curtains off to paint the wall? Okay, what do I have to do in order to develop God's purpose for me being in this world? You have to do it. You will not do it because you come to church and sit down three times a week and listen to nice solos on the piano or someone sing a solo or a pastor preach a sermon. That's not it. That's just giving you the strength to go out and develop what you're supposed to develop. People sit in church year after year, year after year, year after year. Oh, it wasn't that nice and develop nothing. That's why we have what we call in the Bible apostasy today. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is a good man do nothing. But we need to determine what we need to do. We need to make a firm decision being resolved never to change it. We need to develop what he wants us to do. And then we need to be doing it. The activity in which a particular person engages. That's what doing is according to the dictionary. We give it to you again. Doing is the activity in which a particular person engages. You are the particular person. What are you doing? Well, are we determined? Are we developing, and are we doing what God wants us to do, both in our homes and in our church? Because we can't talk about what God wants in this church unless we take it back to the home, because all this is is a bunch of homes getting together, and here we are. We call it a church when we get together. What am I doing? Now, I preached all of this last week. I haven't said anything I didn't say last week. Now, my question is, What have you done in the last seven days to determine, develop, and do what God wants you to do with His purpose for your life? What have you done? Now, if you can't write that down on a piece of paper, you haven't done anything. The devil doesn't care if we sit here and push it into our brain cells and get it all figured out. This is what fundamentalism is, as we call it, or this is what is acceptable with God. You can figure that out. He won't care at all, as long as you don't do anything. What are you doing? If you're not doing it, you're not doing it. It's that simple. Week after week, the devil says, that's right. Get it all in your head. Learn about the apostasy standard. Figure it out that, you know, your family is more important than I am. What are you doing about that? You haven't counted the cost. What are you doing about that? If you aren't prepared for the war, what are you doing about that? Oh, nothing. Just heard about it. That won't cut it. All we have to do is keep acting like that, and there won't be a church here in five years. Because the apostasy is being intensified in the last year like it has not been in the last hundred years. You'll understand that as we go through this series. We are living in an extremely dangerous time, and all we have to do is go to church three times a week, sing the nice songs, wow, that was a good message, and do nothing. And we're gone. It's got to be an effort on everybody's part. Now, in our age of apostasy, the command is clear. The Bible says when the enemy comes in like a flood, you lift up a standard against him. When the enemy shall come in like a flood. I'm sure you have seen what the flood did in Calgary, Alberta, the last couple of weeks. We used to live there. I've walked those streets. And then you see it on the news. And the enemy, the floodwaters, the floodwaters came in. And that's exactly the destruction that you see in the town. And you look and you see all the rubble piled over here and their basements all flooded with water. That is a very good picture of where our churches are today spiritually. The enemy has already come in like a flood. And the damage is already here. Now, we could just sit around and say, well, I don't see any mud in our building. Oh, yes, there's a lot of spiritual mud running around in our circles. But, you know, there's people working and working and working and all over the country of Canada, people are going out there. They're sending people out. They're sending supplies out. They're coming together. They're helping them clean it up. They're coming together to fix what the flood did. Well, we better do that as a church, or we're in trouble. We better do that. So what does he say? I will lift up a standard. Now, that verse sometimes gets quoted, I will raise a standard. That's sort of like bringing something that wasn't there. No, it's already there. I'll lift up a standard. The standard is not, again, we use the word standard like we have a standard for dress, we have a standard for music, we have a standard. This word is talking about a banner. I'll raise the banner. Okay, it's in the mud. Let's get it out of the mud. Let's get it standing up there. Go with me for a minute to 1 Kings chapter number 17. 1 Kings number 17. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is about Elijah. And the Bible says in 1 Kings chapter number 17 and Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Now, get the picture. Here comes a nobody from nowhere. If you wanted to be from nowhere, you would be from Gilead. He's a nobody. We don't know anything about him. We don't know anything about his ancestry. All of a sudden he appears on the pages of the Word of God here in verse number one. And the Bible tells us in the first Corinthians 10, 11, that these things are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. The word admonition means a authoritative warning. God said, now these things are written for an authoritative, don't get more authoritative than God, an authoritative warning. Now, in Ephesians chapter 6 the word is used and it says, and ye fathers bring them up in the nurture and the admonition, bring them up in the nurture and the warning of the Lord. So, you know, especially in this age in which we're living. It is necessary for fathers to do these two things. Bring them up in the nurture. That means you've got to feed them on the things of the Word of God. That's great. I like the positive part of that. And warnings of the Lord. And the warnings of the Lord. I've said before, I'll say it again, any father who allows his teenagers access to the Internet without the Internet being right there in the living room where they can see everything that is going on is foolish. That is just foolish. Any father who will allow their teenagers to have a phone and not monitor that phone, it's foolish. I think they should have phones. I think they should have internets. It's part of life. We're not going to get by without them. But if I had a teenager with an iPhone, I would make sure if I had to pay $5 extra a month to get it, I would know exactly who they were talking to, how long they were talking to them. All of that can be given to you from the place where you get your iPhone data place, whatever you call that. All of that can be yours. Not only that, if I was the father of a teenager today, I would say, yes, you have to have an iPhone, but you have to pay for it. Well, not an iPhone, you can get any kind of phone you want, but you are paying for your own phone. I would say, if I had teenagers with a phone, I would say, you are allowed to text your friends, but understand that I will see who your friends are every month. And if you text the wrong people, your phone is gone. Do you understand that? That's pretty simple. Now, it's that or no phone? Which do you want to go? That's what I would do. Not only that, I would say, now, this phone is a tremendous privilege. Tremendous privilege. In the texting department, you are allowed 15 minutes a day. That's it. You don't sit on there playing games and texting people all day. That is insane. You are allowed 15 minutes a day. This is what I would do. You do what you want. This is what I would do. And if you go over that 15 minutes, you can text whoever you want to text. If I find out you're texting bad people, you don't have a phone. If I find out you're texting good people and it's 16 minutes a day, you also don't have a phone. You cannot give these young people... Just give them a phone, give them an internet, give them all this stuff and expect that the devil isn't going to trap them. You can't expect that. You have to police it. Oh, yeah, he said, but my young people are good. We don't have any young people here that aren't good young people. We have good young people. That's why you have to protect them. This is so important what I'm telling you here today. So it says, and ye fathers, bring them up in the nurture and the warning of the Lord. God says, if you do this, you're going to pay the price and they should pay it with dad to set the rules. But now we're afraid we're going to lose them, so we don't set any rules. Well, you're going to lose them if you don't. It is extremely important. And I'm thinking here that the young people, you may not have as tight of rules as I would put on you. You've just heard about them. But you're sitting here and you're saying, I do have pretty tight rules. Thank God you have pretty tight rules. Thank God you have parents that care about you that much. Thank God. And ye fathers, bring them up in the nurture and the warning of the Lord. A warning, that's what that word admonition means. Oh, man, why? Because all we are here, if I could only get this across to everybody, all we are here is a bunch of homes coming together. And if we don't have solid homes, we don't have a solid church. This church is only as solid as the homes. It's nothing more than that. We may look a lot like we're solid. We're not any more solid than your home is. So, let's make sure that we're going to have something that Jesus died for, that is solid, and he fathers. Well, then in Titus chapter 3, he wasn't talking to fathers, he was talking to pastors. Now, I get a double whammy on this one, because I am a father and I am a pastor. And he says to the pastor in Titus 3 and 10, a man that is a heretic, after the first and second warning, admonition, reject! Reject! Now, keep in mind, there is nobody in the Bible that is a heretic. There's no verse that talks about a heretic, except where it's talking about a Christian. We think a heretic is somebody who's totally against God. A heretic is somebody who is preaching false doctrine. That's what heresy is. And you can look the word up, you can chase it through the Bible, And you will find that a heretic in the Bible always refers to Christians preaching something that is wrong. And the Bible says to the pastor, the heretic, after the first and second warning, reject them. Wow, that's pretty serious, isn't it? Why? Because God says, and that's local church context, by the way, where that is in there in Titus. Why? Because if you don't, you're going to have a church full of people who are promoting heresy. The pastor's job is not to keep the church full, the pastor's job is to keep it pure. And God says, give them warning from me. Give them warning. Warning. Now, we have this prophet. He's a great example of how things ought to be done in 1 Kings 17. His name is Elijah. He is the first prophet mentioned in the Old Testament. And if you study this chapter, we've looked at this whole story before, you'll find that he is working in the day of apostasy. And what he is doing, if you check through chapter 1 and verse 15, he is warning them of judgment. That's what a prophet's going to do. That's what he's going to do. Now, if you're going to take your position as a father, then you're going to be taking your family and saying, if you don't do things the way things should be done, there's going to be judgment. Okay. Elijah, in a day of apostasy, what is he doing? He is telling them, you are facing the judgment of God. There's very little of that in our churches today. You don't hear about it anymore. Let's just talk nice little sermons about this, that, and all the positive stuff. Well Elijah didn't. Then you get in the New Testament and the first prophet that we have in the New Testament was John the Baptist. And in Luke chapter 1 and verse 17 it talks about him coming in the spirit and in the power of Elijah. Elijah. Go to Luke chapter 1 and let's look at it. Luke chapter 1, 17. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. It says that John's responsibility. He was a prophet. What was he going to do? He's going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Hey, that's what I just spent quite a bit of time trying to do here. Make sure that we understand that the fathers and the children, there's the responsibility factor for doing what is acceptable unto the Lord. turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. The second thing it says there is the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. Now, that's the prophet's job. He's to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Number two, he is to turn the disobedience to the wisdom of the just. Now, the just one, of course, is Jesus Christ, the wisdom of Christ. There's a lot of just people walking around the face of the earth that are trying to follow Christ. Then you turn your children to them people. You say you follow them as they follow Christ. And the third thing it says is to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Because he's coming back and what we want to do as a church. The church is nothing but families. Keep that in mind. What we want to do is be ready for the Lord. To be ready for the Lord. Now, John's outstanding characteristic, if you study his life, was he was a prophet who was protesting against those who were self-righteous in their religious sin. That's what he was doing. And that's what I'm doing these days, too. Not very popular out there. He was a prophet and he was making a protest against the religious domination of the wrong religions, the self-righteous Pharisees, in their sin. A protest is a statement disapproving something. But it's not only a statement, it's an action disapproving something. You see them, people are having all kinds of protests these days. They're protesting this, they're protesting that. They're not just writing it on paper. They are, there's some action involved. And John the Baptist, he not only, you know, wrote some stuff and sent it off to the Pharisees, he got up there and he preached it. There was action. It cost him his life. He was a prophet. The next prophet you'll find in the Bible was Christ. We read about him as a prophet and a priest and a king. His priestly office is today. His kingly office is future. But when he was here on the face of the earth, that was his office as a prophet. And what did he do? He was protesting those who were self-righteous in their religious sin. That's what he was doing. That's what we are supposed to do. But in other words, people won't like us if we do that. Yeah, that's true. They won't like it. That's why I said a little while ago, you don't have to worry about your family liking you. All you have to do is do what Jesus said to do, and they won't like you. They won't invite you around. They won't want you there. Now, the things that they all had in common, whether it was John the Baptist, whether it was Elijah, whether it was Jesus, they were walking in separation from the organized religion of their day. That's what they were doing. They didn't get mixed up with those people. They didn't get involved with those people. They were walking in separation from the organized religion of their day. It says in 2 Timothy 3, 5, they have a form of godliness, but they're denying the power thereof from such turn away. Now, that's not popular. Nobody wants to do that. It's a command. 2 Timothy 4. Gives you some more to that. See, turning away is not enough. Okay, I'll turn away. I will do that. No, it goes on to say the other half of the command is reprove them and rebuke them. Oh, well, I've done enough if I just turn away. No, no, we're to reprove them and we're to rebuke them. This unsaved world out there had some respect for what is called Christianity when we used to do that. Now what we're doing is saying, oh, see, we're not so different. We're not so different. We got your same kinky music, and we got your same just kinky dress standards, and we got your same kinky this, the same kinky that, and they have no respect for us anymore. But when they used to stand and say, Thus saith the Lord, like Elijah did. Thus saith the Lord. This is what God said. I stood with God today, and God said this. Then that world had some respect for us. But not anymore. We're trying to tone it down, get off some of the stigma off the fact that we follow Jesus Christ. Well, they don't have any respect for us at all. Now, a prophet's two-fold purpose basically is this. Number one, to arouse the sleepers and to encourage the servants. I said I was starting a new magazine in my spare time, and it's called The Standard, and that's my purpose, to arouse the sleepers and to encourage the servants. Sleepers. The Bible says, while men slept, the enemy sowed seeds. The servants, those are the ones that are working. They're just saying, I will stand true. I will stand true. Now, both cases, when the Bible talks about those sleepers and it talks about those servants, it's talking about Christians. While men slept, the enemy came in amongst them and sowed seeds. And the result is the apostasy of today. So we got to wake up the sleepers. And then we've got to encourage the servants, because like I said, 95% of the people who are members of fundamental independent Baptist churches are sleepers. They do nothing. They're not servants. If you're a servant, you're doing something in a local church. You're doing something for the cause of Jesus Christ. And the Bible says so much more as the age approaches. We need to be standing firm and standing true in this age. So, sleepers, arouse. Servants, we need to be encouraged. You also need to understand, the Bible says that these things were written for our admonition. When you look at the men who served God, I mean the real men who stood up and said, I am going to serve God in the Bible. If you look at those men, and you look at their message, you will find two things. Number one, they were never heeded by the crowd. And number two, they were always heeded by the remnant. Exactly the same thing is true today. The man and his message, the crowd will not listen to them. But the remnant will. The remnant will. And God has always had a remnant. So concerning the people, the people say, no, no, no, we don't want that man and we don't want that message. What we want you to do, it says in Isaiah 30 and verse 10, speak unto us smooth things. Just tell us the smooth things. Well, John the Baptist didn't do that, Elijah didn't do that, Jesus didn't do that, and neither will I. We need to just say, no, that's not the way it's going to be. So the people said, all right, give us the smooth things. And the prophets said, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Let me close with that. Go to Jeremiah chapter 6 in verse 14 and just look at what it says there. This is so important. The people are saying, give us the smooth things, just speak unto us the smooth things. And the prophets are saying, okay, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Now look at what it says, Jeremiah 6, verse 14. They have healed also the hurt of my people, saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Now notice what it says. They have healed also the hurt of my people, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace." Did you see what word I left out? Slightly. They, those false prophets, healed also the hurt of my people, slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Oh, we all feel good. We're dealing with the emotion. Peace, peace, peace. Everything is great. Let's just do everything. Everybody's happy. Let's get going with our church. Let's sing another soul. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's sing praise saying announcements offering. We all go home and do what we want. All right. And when you get a nice little diddly and a nice little song and a nice little sermon, what does it do? It heals the people slightly. Now, you get some major disease and the doctor says, well, we really should be operating. But I'll tell you what. Here's some Dristan, take that and go home and everything will be okay. No, it won't. It might make the symptoms go away for a little while, but it will heal you slightly and then kill you. And that's exactly what happens here. We get this watered down gospel and it heals them slightly. Oh, don't we all feel good? Jesus said in verse 16 of that same chapter, thus saith the Lord, he said four things. See, ask, and walk. Go home and study that out. You can see it there in verse 16. Thus saith the Lord, Stand, and see what is right, and ask for the old paths, and walk in them. And what do they say? No, we will not. Give us the smooth things. You know what those old paths? Those old paths. Well, I wanted to develop Elijah a little more. We'll look at it another time. In the day of Elijah, there was a dark day spiritually, and he exposes their failure, he regroups their evil. He is no ear-tickling preacher, and he's very unpopular. And they rejected his message. But it was accepted. It was accepted by the remnant. The remnant. Now, I'll get into a lot more of that, but we're out of time. The remnant. God has always had a remnant. You can go all through the whole Bible. There's countless numbers of times. Noah, what do you have? Of all those crowds. The Bible says people turned unto the Lord and the Bible says they called on the name of the Lord, it says, and the flood came and destroyed them all. They were having a little slight, slightly being healed of their infirmities. And the flood came. How many people were there? Eight. Pretty small remnant. You can move on, you can look at Jesus. Jesus said, multitudes following him. We read the verse, the multitudes were there. How many did he have? Twelve. And he looked at them and said, will you also go away? One of them was a hypocrite, Judas Iscariot, a remnant. Jesus said, fear not, little flock. Fear not, little flock. Then you got all the children of Israel, and you got all that religious stuff going on, and you got all the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and the chief priests, and the captains, and all the temple, and everything. How many people were really interested in following Jesus? Eleven. And one hypocrite. Remnant. all the way through the Bible when you come to an age of apostasy, and so it is in this age in which we are living. Paul the Apostle said there is also a remnant. Jesus spent the whole chapter in Matthew 24 talking about it. There will be a remnant. There will be a remnant. So, again, in this age of apostasy, we can panic or we can plan. We can do one or the other. If we do nothing, we're gone. We are not living in an age that was the same as it was 30 years ago. When the enemy comes in like a flood, we'll lift up the banner. The Holy Spirit... Now again, I've got to stop because I could go on for five more hours. The Holy Spirit will raise up a banner. That's what it says. And it's against Him. Did you get that? The Holy Spirit. Who's the Him? The devil. The enemy comes in like a flood. The Holy Spirit will raise up a banner against the devil. How's he going to do that? He's going to use you and me. He's not going to do it any other way. Unless, of course, we do like they said, where he said to them, what I want you to do is to stand and to see and ask for the old paths and walk, and we say, no! Okay, then we can go into bondage just like Israel did. Or we can say, yes, I will stand, I will see what you want me to see, I will ask for the old paths, and I will walk in them. And God said, then I'll bless your family. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you. I put before you life and death. Choose life that both thou and thy seed may live. If we're going to see God's blessing on our families and on our church, it's only because we decide that we are going to plan and we are going to proceed. And we are going to develop whatever God's purpose is for us, and we are going to get actively doing it, or we're done. The enemy is coming in just like that flood in Calgary, Alberta. We just don't see it, but it's there. Spiritually, never has the cause of Jesus Christ been in such a mess as it's in, but it looks good. Mega churches everywhere, people raising their hands, praising the Lord, carrying on. And when our independent Baptist churches should be taking a stronger stand than ever, they're capitulating. They're falling aside saying, I'm not. First time I heard that was Jerry Falwell. He said, I'm not preaching doctrine anymore. It's too divisive. And I used to go as a young kid. I mean, early when we were first married, I remember going to listen to Jerry Falwell. He used to be at all those fundamental meetings. And then I heard him say, we're not going to preach doctrine anymore. I thought, where are we going? That's just old hat now. Now it's just a way of life for most churches, talking fundamental churches, never mind preaching the issues. Now there's a new thing and that's, let's just focus on the essentials and let's not worry about the non-essentials. There are no non-essentials in the Bible. Let's pray. Father, help us to realize if we're going to have a church in this age of apostasy, we're going to have to decide I'm going to be part of that remnant. I'm going to be what the Lord wants me to be. Help us, because unless we decide, well, we've already decided. Help us to let Him have His way. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.