I want to thank you for being here tonight. You know, in the South, we have hang-up on words. I do too. Tuesday night I was in Chicago, landed up there, snow was all piled up. I'd been so long since I'd seen any, I thought it was grits piled up, you know, and had it ready. Come to find out, they don't know what they are. But it's good to see you here, and I thank you for being here. The words that I know, sometimes the word the conference, and sometimes the word banquet, and sometimes the word alumni meeting. It makes people think it's an inclusive sort of a thing, but I appreciate you being here tonight. I couldn't help but think a little while ago, and I'm not saying this just because speakers usually tell little funny things, but did you know there's a psychological reason for that? You know, people want to know how you sound. And if you don't figure out how I sound and know what you're in for for the next hour and a half, no, I'm going to cut it a little if you'll listen fast. I believe I can get it in an hour and 15 minutes. I'll do my best. But people want to know how you sound. And after they get to knowing you, have you ever had anybody ask such idiotic questions that you knew there had to be some other reason, but you couldn't figure it out? Have you ever been going to church and have a flat tire and start to change it and you're out there ringing wet? And somebody walk up and look at you and say the most idiotic thing in the world, what's the matter, you got a flat? Well, of course you got a flat. But I think the reason they do that is they're saying, look, this is the way I sound. Let me hear how you sound and maybe we can be friends, you know. And so that's what we want to do tonight. I'm so glad to see so many of you here tonight that I know so many of you that I just got to meet and will be friends. One of the great thrills of being a Christian is to have so many friends that you haven't met yet, you know. I look out and see Brother Williamson. I'll always remember him. I've been with him several times over in Carthage. The last time I was with him, he forgot to turn the air conditioner on in the whole state. It was 102 and we were preaching in an open air. It was kind of low and he was about, I don't know what it was then. I don't know what it got. But I got in the car after it was over, and when I say there wasn't a dry thread on me, I'm talking about even the back of my necktie was soaking wet. I mean, I was drenched. I got in the car and let the window down, and I did like this, and my wife said, what are you doing? I said, I'm getting the lightning bugs out of the car. She said, there's no lightning bugs in this car. I said, there must be. I see them. She said, there are no lightning bugs. I knew then I had a problem. To make a long story short, I went straight to the eye doctor. I knew something was wrong, but I had a torn retina. And they had to take that lacer and weld it, you know. And I told the folk, I had a whole lot of trouble before. My chassis is all out of line. My front, you know, my front wheels don't work good. But I said, that's the first time I've ever blown out a headlight, you know. that I got her fixed, but I'm glad to see him. And I'm so glad to see all these other fellows. Of course, Brother Robertson, Brother Bobby Robertson has been my friend through the years and was moderator of the Great Southwest Baptist Fellowship that met in Northside. Yeah, that's it. And of course, Brother Steve has been so gracious and everything. I said to somebody when we came out here, I said, wasn't that a good meal we had? I said, I hope you don't spoil it by charging us for it. Now he spoiled it, don't you see? You know, I'm glad to be a part of these alumni meetings. I'm glad that I'm a graduate of Tennessee Temple Schools. I go all over this country, all over the country, and I tell everywhere I go, I tell them I'm a graduate of Tennessee Temple University. And they find out right then that that's not the place maybe to send a graduate that turned out like me, but I always do. I'm proud of it. I'm going to tell you why I'm proud of it. Are you listening? There are three reasons I'm proud of Tennessee Temple University. Number one, it's a Baptist school. Now you say, Brother Hudson, aren't you a little old-fashioned? Yes, I am. Brother Hudson, aren't you a little straightforward when you say that you ought to just go to a Baptist school? If you're Baptist, you ought to go to a Baptist school. Amen? If I was a Methodist, I wouldn't go to Tennessee Temple School. I'd go to a Methodist school if I was a Methodist. But I'm a Baptist and I'm glad I went to a Baptist school and didn't have my belief torn down, but rather had it strengthened, don't you see? Number two, I'm glad I'm a graduate of Tennessee Temple School because they practice what they preach. They're a great soul winning church, great soul winning. I had the privilege of pastoring one of the mission churches. We was talking about it a little while ago, Mayflower Baptist Church. It was the only church I ever pastored out of the north side. And I went to the north side, we had a little agreement, worked out pretty good. They said, we don't want much of a preacher. And you're about the nearest thing to it we ever found. And it's worked out good. It'll be 30 years now in September. But I pastored for a year to the day, Mayflower Baptist Chapel there. And I'm glad, I talked to people, I didn't know what to teach them. But whatever I learned that week, I'd teach the people on Sunday. That's all I knew. Didn't you pastor that chapel? Sure. I got to stop and say this. I didn't want to take this long. Now you folk got to listen fast. Y'all get me in bad trouble making people think I preach a long time. I told him when I was there, one of my subjects that I had to study was hermeneutics. I won't go into what all it means, but I thought that was the best word I'd ever heard, hermeneutics. I'd walk around gargling, hermeneutics, I'd sing it, hermeneutics, hermeneutics, hermeneutics. People say, what are you studying? Hermeneutics, you know. Well, I didn't know what to teach those folk, I didn't know. I'd drive that 30 miles the whole time, I'd think about what the professors had told me that day, and I got there and got me a blackboard and I wrote hermeneutics, I even knew how to spell it. Wrote hermeneutics across the top of it and I taught them hermeneutics. Well, I don't know what it was. Five or six years ago, I was invited to speak to bring the commencement address, whatever it was. It was Sunday at 2 o'clock. Well, there's no way I could get a private plane. So I worked with one of my friends there. I spoke on Saturday night. And the Mayflower then said, we want to have a day in remembrance. And they were kind enough to call it Jack Hudson Day. And I went there and spoke. And the pastor was bringing me back to Highland Park Baptist Church where I was to speak at 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. And I was making conversation. And I said, Do you go up every Wednesday night?" Oh yeah, he said. I said, do you teach or preach? Oh, he said, I'm teaching them hermeneutics. Those people know more about hermeneutics than the men who wrote the books. Did you teach them hermeneutics, Brother Steve? You didn't? God bless you. I know they love you. Would you bear with me long enough if I tell you fast and you listen fast? If I tell you one more story concerning Mayflower, I have to tell you one more. We were talking about it, and I built some Sunday school rooms. I think it's the only thing I've ever been built on in all those years, but I built some Sunday school rooms on it in 1951. We were trying to figure it out, and I built them four feet over the line. I didn't know it until just a few minutes ago. They were, you know, some kind of lawsuit or something about it. I don't know. But I remember two fellow, two friends of mine, everybody at Temple wants to go visiting for the Lord. And they said, could we go up there? And I said, sure. Now there's one thing about it up there. It's when it gets dry, it gets dusty. And when it gets dusty, you get thirsty. Well, the weeds just lay over, you know, heavy to laden with that dust and so on. My two friends went up. They told me later, I didn't see it, but they told me it was true. And they said they were visiting and said they got so thirsty and the house was a long way apart. And of course, none of them had running water unless you put it in a bucket and ran with it. It was all in the spring, you know. They went up to a place and said, as an old lady came to the door, I can see it just as clearly as I can see you. Said she came to the door and said she had her mouth was kind of tilted back and her lower lip was filled with snuff. and some of it had dripped down on either side and had hardened. And the man, this friend said to her, he said, do you have any drinking water? Yes, she said, in the spring, around the back of the house. And they went around the house, and by the time they got there, she had cut through the back of the house and was standing there at the old spring. I love country folk, and you know what, I don't have to stop and explain everywhere. I don't have to have an interpreter. They had a gourd. Do you know what a gourd is? Yeah, you as country as I am. All right. And the gourd is hanging up there. She handed him a gourd. And my friend said he took it and sloshed it in the water two or three times. And he said he looked up at her and she still had her mouth tilted back and the snuff was still there. He said he knew he couldn't put his mouth on that gourd where she had drawn. But he said he noticed while she was dipping it, water came out of the handle. And he said he dipped it up and handed it, offered it to his friend. He said, no, I'm not thirsty at all. He said he couldn't embarrass that lady for anything, so he took it and held it by the handle, put it in his handle and sucked some water out of the handle and said, she smiled and she said, you know, I'll bet fifty people have drunk out of that gourd, but you're the only one that sucks it out of the handle like I do. If you brought your Bible with you tonight, I wish you'd turn with us to the book of Jeremiah. In the Old Testament, if you have your scope for your Bible, it's page 796. I'll be speaking to you for just a few minutes now from the 23rd chapter. I won't go any further than that. I wish we could. I wish you'd go home tonight maybe and read the 22nd, 23rd, maybe the 24th chapter of the book of Jeremiah. We're living in a day where there's so many voices. It's almost like standing in a crowd and you hear voices of every kind. I've traveled and traversed the world quite a good many times, and I remember one time why this place stands out in my mind that only the Lord knows I don't. But I was standing in Madrid, Spain, waiting for a plane, and everybody, of course, was speaking in Spanish, and I've never heard such confusion. I didn't know one word they were saying, and I stood there so utterly confused. I couldn't read the signs. I couldn't ask questions unless I found a man in uniform who possibly could speak a little English. I feel like that's the way people are today. You turn on your television, here's somebody comes on with a super-duper program, charismatic. Here's another comes on and they've seen visions of Christ 60 feet tall. Here's another one comes on and they've got the answer to everything. Here's the others and here's somebody else comes on. I'll be honest with you, you look at television regularly as it is to what we call the religious programs, you'll wind up as confused as a termite in a yo-yo. We're living in a confused age, and there's voices coming from everywhere. You hear the voices of great giants like Dr. Lee Robertson, and the men of that caliber, Dr. Jack Hiles, and so on. You listen to these men over here, and I'll be honest with you, I care not how well you're grounded in the Word of God. If you're not careful, you're going to wonder, which voice do I hear? Now, we're not going to turn there. Time doesn't permit it tonight. But in the book of Deuteronomy, I read it last night, and in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 21, it says, here is the way that you can tell if a man is preaching the Word of God and is faithful to it, first of all, is what he's saying, the prophecy that he's saying, is it fulfilled? I obviously wouldn't say a name, but I heard a man say in a meeting that was held in the Northside Baptist Church several years ago, He predicted the coming of the Lord based on Nova, a star. And he said it was going to happen on December the 25th. And people came to me after and said, Brother Hudson, do you believe what it is? I said, the Lord has told me something that I believe. That no man knows, no angel knows, only his Father in heaven knows when the Lord's coming. Don't set a date. Now here's what I'm trying to say. If something somebody says is not fulfilled, you can mark it down as falsehood. The second way it tells us in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 13, verses 1 through 5. Now, we're not reading there. But secondly, is it orthodox? Now, I used the word there. I chose that after much thinking. Is it orthodox? Is it true with the Word of God? Now, beloved, today we're seeing things, some things you can't understand. Why do some of these isms and schisms, why do they grow? And why do they attract people? Why will they stand out in the cold, freezing rain and sell roses? Why do they do those things? How do you get an answer to it? You better look into the Word of God and find out. Is it orthodox? Number one, is it fulfilled? Is what they say fulfilled? Number two, is it orthodox? Now, the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah is one of my friends, I call him. I love Jeremiah. I love to read his book. I love to read his prophecy. I love him because he was human enough to say one day, I'm going to, folks are not listening, I'm quitting. But if God's ever called you, you can't quit. I said, well, you'll find it out. If you can quit, you better mark it down. God never called you. Jeremiah said, there's something bothering me. I don't know what it is. And he kept trying to wiggle his shoulders and get it to go in. It wouldn't. And he said, there's a fire shut up in my bones. and I've got to preach or I'll die. I like that, don't you? I like Jeremiah. But Jeremiah straightened us out. If we listen to him a minute, I'm going to give you, now I never do this. I tell young pastors when I'm speaking in pastor schools, don't ever do this. Tuesday night I spoke to Dr. Jack Howe's pastor school, over 6,000 people there from 50 states and about 15, 18 foreign countries as far as away from Australia. I would have told them this. Look, here's the thing to do. When you preach, don't ever tell people how many points you got. Oh, somebody preaches 15 minutes on one point and they say, I've got nine things to tell you about. You say, oh, dear Lord, I'll never finish. So I'm not going to tell you how many. But I'm going to give you a little quick test according to the Word of God on this thing about are we true or false in our teaching? Now you may be a Sunday school teacher, you may be a pastor, you may be a mother at home, but you're teaching. Whomever you may be, you're teaching. Number one, look at verse chapter 23, verse number 13 and 14. I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesy and bail and cause my people Israel to err. I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing. They commit adultery, and they walk in lies. They strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness. They are all unto them, unto me as Sodom, as the inhabitants thereof of Gomorrah." Now, beloved, I want you to think with me a minute. The first test, is that of personal morality? I'll be honest to you, in the day-to-day, you've got to keep your morals above reproach. You have to shun the very appearance of evil if you're going to be the man or the woman that God wants you to do. We're living in a day-to-day of the lowest standard of morals that I have ever seen in my entire life. If people would have told me 20 years ago that I would have lived to see what I'm seeing today happening in the United States of America, that I'm seeing happen in the quote, decent people, I would have never believed it. I wouldn't have believed it. If they'd ever told me that we'd have to weigh the homosexuality of the lesbians and immorality among people, and people begin to wink at it. People begin to think there's nothing to it. Don't get too excited. It's just part of our age. But now notice what he said in verse number 14. I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies. You know the thing about it, beloved, we cannot lower the standards of God. Doesn't matter what we think about it or say, you can't lower the standards of God. When God says it's right to do this, He never changes His mind about it. And when God says it's wrong to do this, God never changes His mind about it. Today, I think we have a kind of an easy-ism. We kind of have a thing of, well, after all, everybody else is doing it. We have a standard, well, after all, that's the way the world is today. I don't know what to do about it. That's just natural. Beloved, may I pause there long enough and say this, you better be afraid of that word. That's just natural. We're not to be natural. We're to be supernatural. We've been saved. We've been born again by the spirit of the living God. And we have a supernatural God who gave us a supernatural book. And we're to live supernatural lives and we can only do it through a supernatural understanding of the feeling of the Holy Spirit of the living God. But we're not to live the natural life as the world is living in today. I believe this too, believe it or not, like it or not. I believe that leaders, Christian leaders, are to have higher standards. I didn't say there was a double standard. I just said that don't you believe teachers ought to know more than their students? I do. And I believe if we're going to be leaders in any capacity, our morals ought to be that which can be judged. You know, I see Christians and hear of Christians. I'm talking about Christians, born again, have given the evidence. Get involved in things that you can't believe. You hear it and you know it's true, but you can't believe it. I remember I must say it very carefully, so even if you knew, it would not be identified. I won't say how many years ago, a preacher, according to the people in the church, was involved in something that was unusual. They called me, they said, would you see him? I had never laid eyes on him. I said, well, you understand, I have nothing to do with your church, and I don't, but they said, but he said he'd come and see you. I said, well, all right, we made an appointment. He came to my church, way above average in looks, intelligence, had on the finest clothes I guess that you could buy, looked immaculate. I can still see him in the line as he sat down over there. And I said, now brother, you understand I'm not your judge, but here's what I want to give you this advice. If you're guilty of what these folks say, Here's what I'd advise you to do. I said, I know preachers, and they're rough and tough, and boy, they tell people to get out of the church, and boy, they can be tough, but I said, they got a tender side just as well. And if you're guilty, and if you made a mistake, what I'd advise you to do is get on the phone to every pastor you know, and say, look, brother, I did thus and so, and there's no excuse for it. No excuse. I'm guilty. I said, I know preachers well enough to know. They'd forgive you, brother. I believe that. But because the Bible teaches it. I said, now if I were you and if I were innocent, I'd scream to the high heavens. I said, I'd walk up down the street with a sign saying, I am not guilty of what people are accusing me of. I said, I'd do it. I never shall forget how he sat there and looked at me. His eyes were down like this, as if he were deep in thought of what to do. I said, now brother, you try to cover it up and it'll follow you as long as you live. It'll follow you. You can go to the South Seas and become a missionary, but it'll still follow you. He said, no, I'm not guilty. Now he didn't convince me at all. I'm going to say when, but it was only a few months after I talked with him. He opened up the word of God to bring a message and dropped over the heart attack and died. I'm trying to say this to you. God hasn't changed his mind about morals. Do you know many of the calls I get? Brother Hudson, what do you think about, I've got a man who's been married twice. Do you think it would be hard to put him on the deacon board? Now let me pause here long enough. I love a man if he's been married twice. I love him as much as is possible for him and me to love one another. I'd assume you'd pray for me as anybody else. But there are positions according to the Word of God that you can't fulfill. And being a pastor is one of them. and being a deacon is one of them. You don't hear much about it anymore, do you? But in that personal morality, let me say this, always have room for forgiveness. For if they repent, we must. There's a test of public influence. Look at verse number 14 again. I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing. They commit adultery and they walk in lies. They strengthen also the hands of the evil doers that none doth return from his wickedness. What is it? Read it again. And they not only do these things, they not only commit adultery. Now let me stop there and be sure you understand. You see, Brother Hudson, what he was talking about was spiritual adultery. Well, that's possible. But he said a horrible thing. You won't find it anywhere else related to this. I believe it was actual physical adultery that these prophets were engaged in. And God says, now notice what it does. And walk in lies. They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen also the hands of the evildoers. You know, I don't know. Dr. Cliff Robertson here teaches Greek. He knows more about the Greek than the Greeks do. I'm still working on English. I'm still having a lot of trouble with that. But I know when I say, and I'm not making any joke, I know very little Hebrew, but I got lexicons and I look it up. I look up words. I love words. And the word in the Greek for turn is S-U-R. That's the turn. That's just a turn. Now there's another word in the Greek It's Shub, S-H-U-B, it means to turn back. One of them is just, see it in your mind, you go straight down the street, you just turn to right angle or left angle, whichever it may be. That's Sir, S-U-R. Shub is to turn again and come back. Now God's saying here, also the hands of evildoers that none doth return from his wickedness. Now do you notice what it says? People do wrong under our ministries, but he says what we need to do is to preach in such a way that they'll shove, they'll turn around and come back and start all over again. It's one thing, and we're too well-known for this independent Bible-believing, God-fearing, going-to-heaven-when-you-die Baptist. We're too known for this, brother, I'll kick you out of this church if you blink your eyeballs the wrong way. You'll never teach in this church again. Get out! And then we brag about it every time I preach. Bless God, I had a deacon, he didn't grieve me, and I told him, brother, just goodbye, toodly-doo. I heard a preacher in Florida say, anybody don't agree with me, he says, I say, toodly-doo. And he does his hand like that, toodly-doo. That's not what God said. God said, you shove them. You get them to turn back. I had a preacher call me this year. He talked to me. He said, Brother Hudson, I need to talk to you for an hour. I thought it wouldn't take an hour for me to tell you everything I know about anything, and I said, well brother, go ahead. He said, now listen, I'm talking about an outstanding, independent, Bible-believing preacher with a good, solid church. He said, I want to ask you. He said, I've never had a situation like this in my life, never heard of anybody that did. He said, but I've got to make a decision between now and this, if I remember right, is on Wednesday afternoon. He said, I've got to make a decision tonight. He said, I've got two men on my deacon board. They're in business together. They've been friends from high school. He said they both are worth over a million dollars each. They're welcoming. He said it came to me in one day about both of them, that both of them had women on the side and they were committing adultery. He said, I brought those men in and I talked to them and I said, is it true? And he said, they both broke down and cried. And they said, would God forgive me for such a thing? He said, I called the families in. I want to tell you something, that takes some grace. Did you know it? He said, I'll call the wives and the children. He said, we talked about it in front of them. And he said, now listen, you cannot be deacons in this church anymore. To my opinion, you've forfeited your right to do that. But he said, I want you to come forward in our church Sunday. I want you not to tell anybody what you've done, but to make a public rededication of your life. Then I want you to sit beside of your wives on Sunday morning. And he said, be there. He said, Brother Hudson, do you think I did right? I'll be honest with you, I hadn't studied this in the book of Jeremiah that I'm preaching to you tonight. I said, brother, to my opinion, you've done the best thing in the world. Aren't you glad God didn't kick you out when you sinned that time? Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad God is a God of a second chance? One of my favorite verses is the book of Jonah, I believe it's 4.1 or 2.1, and God spake unto Jonah the second time. You may lose and forfeit that position, but God will still love you, and God will still let you be one of His, and God can still maintain in the church, we must have that thing, we must have that shub, that ability to get people and turn them around. That doesn't mean to say, oh well, we won't say anything, just let it go, it'll go away. That's not the way it can be done. And that's not what he's saying. Number three, there's a test now. Lord, please don't let me drop dead with a heart attack till I finish this one. I'd always be misunderstood. Thank you, Lord. Now, God's going to let me live till I get through. That's the reason I'm a priest so long. There's a test of a conditional gospel. Conditional? You mean the gospel's conditional? Well, if you know the gospel, you know what it is. But Brother Hudson, I thought the gospel was unlimited. It's still conditional. You know what it's conditioned on? Your repentance. You know, I was studying the other day afresh and I knew the 17th chapter of the book of Luke. I studied the 15th and the 16th and the 17th in order to get to the 18th. To find out what the Lord was saying there in the 18th. You'll hear it on the radio. I preached it at night. I preached the message on four who got in and one who God wouldn't take. In the 18th chapter of Luke. Now I had to read those other chapters to get up to it. Listen to what it says in the 17th chapter. You know these verses. But did you miss this part? As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be as in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. He comes down as it was in the days of Lot. You say, oh brother Hudson, I know that. The Amorites, it was horrible. Boy, they did this and they did that and they did the other. I think we've missed it. All right class, here's your little test. In the days of Noah, how many were saved? Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, eight. That's all. That's all. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be as in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. And in another place the Lord said, shall the Son of Man find faith when he cometh to the earth? Now he said, as it was in the days of Noah. Now listen, he said, as it was in the days of Lot. All right, go back in your mind. How many were saved in Lot's day when God destroyed those little cities on the plains of Zohar, Sodom and Gomorrah, when God burned a hole in the ground so deep? It's still the deepest place on the face of the earth. It's 1,300 feet below sea level. How many were saved? Three. Lot and his two daughters. Did you realize that in Noah's day and Lot's day, only 11 people were saved? And the Lord says it to us, as it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be, isn't it? I told my wife the other day, I said, Joyce, pray God won't let me be judgmental, but I'm more concerned about people's salvation than I've ever been. I believe it was last Sunday, you folk know, a lady came out of our choir, the choir obon, got saved, got born again. Man, it would embarrass me if some of our deacons came. I mean, if they'd never been born again, it would embarrass me. I'll tell you, we better start preaching repentance. That's what this is talking about. Shub! We need to preach it to where people, when they get right with God, to the base of every problem, almost without exception. There's a cause, and that cause is sin. And we can't salve over it. I have said in my ministry, and I realize I fail people when I said it, Brother Hudson, I've got troubles. I've said, God bless you, brother, we've all got troubles. And I fail those people when I said that. For at the base of almost every problem in the world, whether it's direct or coming to you indirect, it's caused by sin. And we've got to preach and we've got to deal with that. I still don't believe it's hard to get folks saved. But I'll tell you the job you and I've got, men, is getting folks lost. And the way we're preaching today, that everything seems to be all right, we're not going to get the job done. We've got to come down with the Word of God. Now remember this, you can't do it, neither can I do it, but the Word of God can. All right, very quickly. There's a test of spirituality. Look at verse number 18. Let's begin spirituality. Verse number 21, 22. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken of them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my word, then they should have turned them from their evil ways and from the evil of their doings. I didn't send them, he said. I didn't tell them what to say. You know, I said Wednesday night in our prayer service, I said again, not to be repetitious, but because it needs to be repeated. There are two things you better not touch, man. You better not touch. You better not touch the glory of God. You better not. And you better not touch another man's wife. You better not. God says they have committed a horrible thing. I fly, almost every week of my life I fly. Almost every week of my life as I fly in the plane, makes its way up into the heavens. I look down, little houses about this big. I'm aware there's a problem in every home. There's a home here tonight that doesn't have a problem, some greater than others, some newer than others. Some of you know you can see the light in the end of the tunnel. By the way, don't get too excited if you see the light in the end of the tunnel. It may be a freight train headed your way. But you've got troubles. You know what he's saying? He said, I want you to spend some time with me. The disciples, the apostles, had an inner circle. They got the news first. They let other people know. Let me ask you a question. Who do you go to to get your spiritual advice? Now be honest. You don't have to answer to me. Go in a minute, go right now, down in the backside of your soul, in that trusting place where you meet with the Lord, and be honest with him. To whom do you go when you need spiritual advice? Where do you go to get your spiritual guidance? He ought to be the one. It's not just spending time... Can I say this and be understood? I have said hurriedly. It's not just spending time in His Word. It's not spending time in expending energy. It's not seeing how much you can do. Sometimes it's no more than glorified piddling. But I'm talking about spending time with Him. You ever see anything and say, Lord, have you ever seen anything like that? He says, how did you know how dumb you are? Because he made it, you know. Ever go out in the morning and look at a rose? God puts a little diamond necklace around its neck. Some people think it's dew, but you and I know what it is. And God tuned up all night long some little bird and puts him over in a tree and he begins to sing to us. And we watch and we see the morning as it begins to break and open on golden hinges. And I know that He is the one who created it all. Do you spend time with Him? Do you ever just stop and say, Lord Jesus, I love you? My wife's family is one of the lovingest families I've ever seen. I didn't really know how to express love. I'm the youngest of eight children. Brother, when you're the youngest of eight, Fred could burp louder than I could, and Ernest could sing better, you know, could gurgle louder than I could. I had to change my own diapers, make my own formula. I mean, you know, there wasn't a whole lot. There wasn't anything you could do that hadn't already been done. I mean, nothing. I got pneumonia one time. Mama went by my crib and threw in two aspirins. I had to chew them up, and that's hard. I didn't even have any teeth. I mean, you know, it's rough coming up like that. I knew they loved me, but we didn't say love much. And when I met Joyce, I think that's one of the things that attracted me to her. Her family was just so loving. They'd go in the next room, they'd say bye, and I'd say bye, and everybody'd say bye. I'd say, what in the world's going on here? They'd come back three minutes later, hey, how y'all, hey, how y'all doing? I thought they were ready for the funny farm, and I liked that, I liked that. And she taught me to say, to some degree, I love you, but I really learned to say it Every morning of my life, my first conscious thought is, good morning Lord Jesus, I love you. I had a little granddaughter, she doesn't now, she's 12, she's getting sophisticated. But when she was little, she'd go around the house all the time saying, Popo, I love you. And then she got to saying, Popo, I love you. D-E-F, don't ever forget. And I said, that's good. One morning I woke up and I guess I was still about half asleep and I said, good morning Lord Jesus, I love you. D-E-F. I said, oh, excuse me Lord. He said, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And since then it's been so easy for me to tell folk I love them. I can tell my wife I love her. I can tell my children. I can tell my church and I do. I tell them I love them. But you get that by being with Him. You don't get it just for being in the Bible. You don't get Him just being out preaching or singing or doing whatever you do for the Lord all the time. He wants you to spend some time with Him. Just some time with Him. Go ahead and brag on what He's made. Brag on a sunset. Brag on a sunrise. You can do these things very quickly. The test of theology. Now this is quick. This is real quick. Look at verse number 23 and 24. Listen to what He said. Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? How far is God off for you tonight? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord? Do not I feel heaven and earth, saith the Lord? I have heard what the prophets say. They prophesize lie in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. I saw the Lord 60 feet high, 600 feet high, whatever it was, and I'm going to build some hands just like His. You better stay in the Word. Don't go do anything on dreams. Boy, one night I went out to Brother Scheer and we had pizzas. And I had dreams. I even had visions during the night. But I'm glad I didn't put any of those things into practice. You think I'm making fun of somebody? I'm telling you what the Word of God says. Don't you? I've had people say to me, honestly, honestly, I was witnessing to a man years ago, witnessing to him. I said, sir, have you ever been saved? He said, yes, sir. I said, how do you know you've been saved? Well, he said, I was praying and asking the Lord. And he said, I said, now, Lord, if I'm saved, I don't really know if I'm saved or not, but if I'm saved, let me hear the toot of an old freight train. He said, I lay there on the bed a little bit, sure enough, toot, toot, he said, I knew I was saved. I heard something the other day. Woman's lib, you know, I mean, if anything else, it gives you good jokes, you know. Woman's lib. It's all, excuse me, I didn't mean to say that. A lady said she dreamed she died and went to heaven. She was a liber now, you know, an ERA-er. And she said she dreamed she died and went to heaven. And she said when she got there, there stood a big old tall Texan rancher. And said he was a man, said he walked up and said to St. Peter, what do I have to do to get in here? And he said, oh, it's not hard at all. He said, oh, you do spell God. He said, no, he said G-O-D. He said, go on in. He said, there was a businessman from New York, and he said, what I have to do to get in? He said, oh, you have to spell God. And he said, what, G-O-D? Yeah, that's right, go on in. And she said, I got there. And she said, I know you're going to make it harder for me being a woman. No, he said, oh, you have to spell the word. And she said, what's the word? He said, Czechoslovakia. Look at verse number 24. Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord? Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? How many of you men are preachers? Let's see your hands. Would you a minute? Yes, God bless you. Now let me ask a real question. How many preachers' wives are here tonight, full-time Christian workers' wives? Don't you feel like you live in a goldfish bowl sometimes? Can I tell you something? My wife and I have lived in it. It'll be 30 years this September at Northside. And they're as kind and as gracious and as sweet a people as I've ever seen in my life. But I've got news for you tonight. You may as well get used to it. You're going to be in a goldfish bowl till you go home to be with Him. There isn't anything that I know, there isn't anything I can think, that He doesn't already know about. That doesn't scare me. If you get to know Him, You'll clean up your thinking. The old saying is you clean up your act. And you're going to live in a goldfish bowl and they're going to criticize your kids. You know why preacher's kids are so mean, don't you? Because they're having a play with the deacon's youngins. That's what's wrong with them. Now here's the word you've been looking for. I guarantee you this is your favorite word in this whole message. Doesn't mean a whole lot, but it gives you a little heart, doesn't it? You say, ooh, you can wake up the kids now, and you ladies can start putting your shoes on. It won't be too much longer. There's a test of a quality message. In verse number 25, listen to what he says, I have heard what the prophets say. The prophets lies in my name saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. And now look some what else he says. Verse 30, Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words, every one from his neighbors. And he says, let's see, he's got another word here, but what he's saying is, oh, how we blame the Lord led me to do thus and so. Brother, the Lord hadn't led a whole lot of us to do some of the things we did, did he? And what we have to have is quality messages. And he tells us the difference over here. He comes on over. You read the rest of it. I'm not going to take the time. But he uses an illustration there of the chaff and the wheat. Now chaff blows away. There's no substance to it. But wheat has life in it. Has a little seed in it. And that wheat falls to the ground. And a little while, it gets under the dirt and then it germinates. And the moisture comes down and it begins to grow and it isn't long until it reaches fruition. It brings forth fruit. Men, I'll be honest with you. We need to get away from these book reviews. We need to get away from these motivational messages. And we need to come back to the preaching of the cross. There are two subjects God gives me more power in than any other subject. I can't preach on them all the time. But any time when my back's against the wall, so to speak, and I need power with God from on high, I preach on the cross or on the blood. And I have more power then than any other time. You remember, the reason I say that, let me close with this simple Bible illustration. You remember in 1 Kings chapter 22, there were two fellows. There was old Ahab. Ahab had a problem at home. You remember his wife, Jezebel. Well, he said, listen to Jehoshaphat. He said, let's gang up together. There's a little city up here and we ought to have it. It's in our way. Somebody's fighting and they get it and another one get it. It's just in our way. Let's gang up and go up there together. Let's join forces. We'll go up there and get it. Jehoshaphat said, no, let's don't jump on this thing now. Let's get some prophets of God and find out what God said. Oh, he said, I've got the prophets. Don't worry about that. I've got them. So he called 400 of his prophets, 400 preachers who wanted to preach something that would be tickling to the ears. He said, we're going up here about this city now. Tell us, will we win it? And the 400 prophets said, you'll win it. It's all right. We're living in a different age today. We're more enlightened than we used to be. You go ahead, go on up and get it. And Old Jehoshaphat had more sense than most Christians today. He said, I want a second opinion. He heard about the man who was a doctor, and the doctor said, you've got to have an operation. He said, I want a second opinion. He said, all right, here's your second opinion. You're ugly too. He said, I want a second opinion. So Jehoshaphat said, you got any up here? He said, oh, Micaiah up here, but said, he never has prophesied good for me. I can't stand to hear him preach. All he preaches is hellfire and brimstone and damnation, and then you must be born again and live a separated life. I'm sick of that. We're enlightened today and we don't need that kind of... Well, Jehoshaphat said, no, I want him to come down and tell us what he thinks. Now there were 400 of them, and oh, Micaiah came down and Jehoshaphat said, what about it? How's it look to you? Well, he said, now, wait a minute, fellas. I can't make that decision. He did something we're getting ashamed to do. He said, now Lord, you know these fellows are going up there. Tell me what's going to happen. By the time he said, fellows, I see you all scattered like sheep having no shepherd. You're going to be wiped out. You can't go up there. Jehoshaphat said, now, I've listened to him and there's something in his message that wasn't in the others. One man against 400. You know the difference? One of them had come from God. And I'll be honest with you, Christians can recognize it. You remember, that's the second way of giving you a little hope. I'll put it up there like I'm proof. That gives you a good another 15 minutes, brother. You know. No, we're through. We're going. I'm trying to figure out some way how I can get enough money to pay Brother Steve for that good lunch we had over there. It must have been $8 or $10, as good as it was. I'll think of that in a minute. 1 Kings chapter 18, one of my favorite characters as well, old Elijah. You remember the story? Again, there were 400 prophets, you know. And they called him up there and said, we've got to have a contest. And he said to them, how long halt ye between two opinions? If God is God, follow him. But if Baal, why don't you follow him? You need to make up your mind. And the people answered him, not a word. You know why they didn't answer? They didn't know who God was. They hadn't seen God's man working. They'd seen those prophets. And they were smooth and oily-tongued. And they said, they were on the television every Sunday morning. They said, now all you need to get a blessing, send little seed faith to me. Just bought a million-dollar place down in Palm Springs, California. Had to make a payment. Of course, they don't tell you that. But send that seed faith to me." The other one says, now, come on, help us out a little bit, you know. He said, I bought a little apartment down here in Miami, so I can go down there a day or two with $300,000, and I got to put $100,000 worth of furniture and mirrors on the walls. I got to get it all fixed up. Send me that little bit of seed faith, you know. And that was the kind of preacher that had been here. Here came old Elijah. He broke every rule that could be taught. He had no tact. I mean, he didn't have three points in a poem, but he had something we need today, fellas. We ought to stay somewhere in a corn crib and cry until God does something with us. These prophets went out there and they prophesied and they did all they're supposed to do and they prayed for rain and rain didn't fall. And finally it was Elijah's time. He said, now you fellas better go find your tree to get under. There's coming a frog strangling here in a few minutes. I'm going to pray. And old Elijah prayed 63 words and the power of God fell. Fire fell and burned up and consumed that sacrifice. And he said to his associate, he said, do you see a cloud anywhere? He said, oh, I see a little cloud with about the size of a man's hand. He said, but that's not, he said, you better go warn them down there. There's come a gully washer coming down that branch. And about the time it started raining, and the people looked over to Elijah, and they said, Oh, would the God that sat in my church on your Sunday morning, the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God. Let's stand together, Heavenly Father. May the Spirit of the Lord God be with us and upon us. Send us back to our Sunday school classes, to our bus routes, to our various ministries with a desire to do that which is pleasing unto Him. May we know Him and be made conformable unto His suffering. Now, Lord, bless Brother Cliff Robertson, Brother Doug, I pray that you'd bless him, Mrs. Howell, I pray that you'd bless Brother Steve Robertson and Bobby Robertson for opening their church and their facilities here that you might have this banquet. Bless this great school that's been represented here. May we all stay true to it by praying for it, sending students and supporting it in every way that's possible. Now Father, I pray that there's somebody here that's maybe been hearing a multitude of voices, not knowing which one to hear. I pray that this little simple test that's given from Jeremiah may be that which helps him to understand there's only one voice. It's that still, small voice that comes from the Word of God. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. God bless you, brother.