Take the Word of God, if you would, please, and turn with me to the book of Mark, chapter 11. While you're turning, a lion met a tiger as they drank beside the pool. Said the tiger, please tell me why you're roaring like a fool. That's not foolishness, said the lion with a twinkle in his eyes. I'm called the king of beasts because I advertise. A rabbit heard them talking, ran home like a streak. He thought he'd try the lion's plan, but his roar was just a squeak. A fox came to investigate, had lunch in the woods. The moral is when you advertise, be sure you got the goods. That's why I tell people I'm just a dumb old Kentucky boy that ain't so very smart, and when I talk I get mixed up, my gears are hard to start. It seems I don't have other brains like other folks I know, and when it comes to society, my dumbness there I show. But I found it don't take brains, my friend, the best in life to gain. It's not what you are or wealth you might obtain. It only takes just simple faith, eternal life to find. No matter who or where you stand, there's grace for all mankind. I went down to the jailhouse once to witness for the Lord. I told them how the Lord saved me. They sure looked mighty bored. They nudged each other. They smiled. They thought that I was dumb. But they stayed in, and I walked out when leaving time had come. So I'm still just a dumb old Kentucky boy, and I hope I'll always be just smart enough to trust the Lord for all eternity. So I'll just keep traveling on if you brains are not real smart. just a dumb old Kentucky boy with Jesus in my heart. What a privilege it is to be at Ambassador Baptist College. And Dr. Bill and Dr. Comfort and administration and staff and faculty and students, thank you for this opportunity. I like what I've seen around here so far. I like the way you look, your presentation. I like the music that I've heard here. And you have something here, don't ever take that for granted. You know, things change, you don't have to change. The Bible says don't meddle with them that are given to change. So just stay after the Lord, if you would. I'm glad that my wife could be with me today, and my wife and our oldest daughter is here. Now, this is a little scary. My oldest daughter now is herself a grandmother. And it was her husband that prayed for us just while ago. So with Miss Judy, LaDonna, and Robert, would you all stand again? Miss Judy is the one on my left, your right, and LaDonna is our daughter, and Robert, God bless you. Thank you for being here today. My daughter's husband drove up from the Greenville area. And then there's a young man here that used to go to our church years ago, and I don't hold that against him, that he used to come to our church. Tyler, not. I always called him Tyler with a T. and so it's good to see him again. I saw him a little bit ago. This is the first time that I've ever been here. I've known Dr. Comfort for years and he has never preached for me and I've never preached for him and I don't know why that's true, Dr. Comfort. It's probably obviously to our loss that we did not have him there. We had Dr. Bill and he made a great impression and then I learned that he could sing. what a blessing that was. So if you have the Bible open to Mark 11, and all of us should find Mark 11 pretty easy because it's just the second book in the Old Testament, right? Matthew, Mark, 11, if you would. In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 11, there's two events or two things in this chapter that make liberals look askance at it, and that is Jesus curses a fig tree. One guy got all upset because he said, what's wrong with Jesus cursing that fig tree? But in that context, Jesus said, have faith in God, and then he said, you could say to a mountain, mountain be thou removed, and it would be cast into the sea. And so somebody would say, why would you talk to a mountain? And then can you imagine saying to Mount Everest, be cast into the sea? And of course, they've missed the point on both of those thoughts. Now, picking it up in verse 22, and Jesus answering Seth unto them, have faith in God. Isn't that simple but powerful? For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any, that your Father also, which is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses. And may it please the great God of heaven that formed all things to stamp His divine approval upon the reading and the hearing and the heeding and the preaching of His forever settled in heaven Word of God. And would you pray with me and for me, please? Father, would you undertake for us in these few moments, thank you for what we've already experienced, just to be in this place, a holy place, a place set apart. And I pray that today we'll walk out of here better, stronger, closer to the Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. One of the things that I learned when I came in here a while ago, there's a clock back on the wall. And which is okay standing back there, but when I got up here and I'm looking back there and I'm saying, I see the clock, but I'm not so sure I see all those hands. So I do have a cell phone. I put it on vibrate, I'm gonna put it down here. And as you know, sometimes you can just push the little button and the time will come up. Your cell phone does that too, right? And so I'll put it there. Hopefully, I would remember to do that. Now you heard about a guy, he was in a restaurant, everybody had a cell phone with him. And all of a sudden, this guy sitting in the restaurant, he said, hello, uh-huh, yeah, sure, sure. And the waitress said, you're silly, you don't have a cell phone. He said, no, no, I work for the CIA, I have chips in my nails. She said, get out of here. And he goes to the bathroom, he comes out of the bathroom, he has this stream of toilet paper hanging down the back of his pants. And she says, some Mr. CIA man you are, look at that paper hanging down the back of your pants. He said, oh, I'm receiving a fax. Do I have any Kentucky people in the audience today? Any Kentucky people? Anybody from Kentucky? I'm alone? Kentucky guy, whereabouts? Okay, well I'm from Winchester, and there was an old guy in Kentucky, he was walking down the street, he had one shoe on and one shoe off, and somebody said, did you lose a shoe? He said, no, I found one. So boy from Kentucky went over to Hawaii, got off the plane, lady came, she put a flower lei around his neck, and she smiled and said, aloha from Hawaii. He smiled and said, Roy Dean from Kentucky. We do have a time constraint here, so I better stop some of this and get right into the scriptures. You have a mountain that's in your way. Now, I think a mountain in the Bible here, he's not talking about Mount Everest, as I mentioned a while ago. He's talking about a mountain that is something that would and could hinder your progress, your walk with the Lord to keep you from really serving God. It could be any number of things. It could be a mountain of debt. It could be a mountain of trouble. It could be a mountain of disappointments. It could be a mountain of burdens. It could be a mountain of heartache. It could be a mountain, am I gonna pass this course? Am I gonna get through this school year? It could be something like, am I doomed to live my life single all my life? And it's just some mountain that it's there before you. And Jesus is saying to us, you can say to that mountain, Mountain, be thou removed. Now, before you laugh at it being a real mountain, instead of a mountain of burdens and debt and that kind of thing, in West Virginia years ago, there was a church that had a piece of property that was given to them by a member in the church, and they built a building. And when they had the building built, they could not get a CO, a Certificate of Occupancy, because they did not have, now this was not true years ago, but it's true these days, if you don't have enough parking spots for all the people in your building, they won't give you a CO. And they would not give this guy a CO. And they were supposed to open in about a week or so, and the pastor said, everybody in our church, this is about 300 people, said everybody in our church who has mountain-moving faith, I want you to come to a prayer meeting tomorrow night. And so out of the 300 people, 24 people showed up. And they got on their knees and they're praying and they're asking God to move this mountain. After about three hours, the pastor stood up and he said, folks, I really believe God's gonna move our mountain. We can go home. The next day, the pastor's in his office. There was a knock at the door. The pastor goes to the door and there's a man standing there. He identified himself as the owner of a construction company in the next county. And they were building a new mall. and they ran out of filled dirt. And they needed dirt to fill up to level out this mall area. And they had heard about this church and their need and their problem. And he said, if you will sell us your mountain, which is right next to the church, we will take the mountain down. We will pave your parking lot and stripe it for you. Well, they were able to get their CO in time, and they went on with their church, and I suspect that in church service that day, there was a whole lot more people with mountain-moving faith than there was last week. When you see God really do something. Now, I jumped into that story sort of in the middle. Jesus is not too far away from Calvary. And he says to his disciples, as he has gone into Jerusalem, that's when he cleansed the temple, and that's when he cursed the fig tree. And now he is talking to his disciples and he says, have faith in God. Now this is a command. This is Jesus saying, I want you to have faith in God. He said in John 14, you believe in God, believe also in me. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. He wants us to believe in God, and He wants us to believe in Him. And the command here is, you have faith in God. You know, folks, either God is or God isn't. It's that simple. If God is, He ought to be worshipped and adored and served. Last week, thinking about the first Sunday in December for our church ministry in Fort Myers, Florida, a verse that I had known for some time, but it had never gripped my heart like it did last week. And that is in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, when the Bible says, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. And I said, you know, that's the four Gospels. That's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John just brought down in just one verse. And I preached that one verse both Sunday morning and Sunday night to our people to get our hearts prepared for the incarnation. And that is God became flesh. And here Jesus is saying, I want you to have faith in God. And you can know God, you can trust God, you can believe God, you can put your life in the care of God, in the hands of God, and trust that He is going to be the best God you'll ever have in your life. He's the only God like this God. And the Bible is saying that the concept is faith, have faith in God. Now what in the world is faith? We've heard about faith, and most of us sort of wish that we could generate some more faith. And the Bible says, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. You won't get faith by wishing for it, you'll get faith by getting in the Bible. and believing what you read in the Bible. And when you read in the Bible, you'll learn some wonderful things about your God, some wonderful things about Christ, some wonderful things about whatever God wants us to know about that he put in the Bible. The concept is have faith in God. What is faith? Faith is belief plus unbelief, but acting on the belief part. Now, that's not original with me, but I wrote it down. That's probably worth writing down. Faith is belief plus unbelief. You know, don't we say sometimes, Lord, I believe that, and yet there's this little reservation back here. It's like that man who brought his son to Jesus, and Jesus said, if thou canst believe, all things are possible. He said, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. But act on the belief part. Act on what you know. It was Paul when he was in the storm in Acts chapter 27. And that Euroclodon came up and they were in a mess for those two weeks. They didn't see the sun by day, stars by night. They were engulfed in this storm. And the Bible says an interesting expression, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. The only being in the whole universe who knew where they were, Paul didn't know, the owner of the ship didn't know, the centurion didn't know, only God knew. And he dispatched an angel who came and said, everything's gonna be all right, God's given you all them to sail with you. And Paul said, sirs, I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. When you read in the Bible, that's what God's told us. It just behooves us to believe it. He said, I want you to have faith in God. When you add faith to the mix, it's almost limitless. It's almost the sky's the limit. Have faith in God. And the consequences are, you can say to the mountain, be thou removed. Now, I told you a while ago, it's not necessarily a mountain, physical, though I just told you a story a while ago that the physical mountain got moved, too. It's like eating an elephant, you eat it one bite at a time, it's moving a mountain, maybe a shovel full at a time. But the concept is, in Zechariah, most people know the verse that the Lord said to Zechariah, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. And he said, who art thou, O mountain? Now you'd think if it's a mountain, the antecedent should be what? What art thou, O mountain? But it's, who art thou, O mountain, before Zerubbabel? thou shalt be a plain and he shall bring forth the headstone crying grace grace to it now I'm thinking of a headstone is what you put on something that's dead something that's gone and this mountain that was before Zerubbabel God said it's gonna become a plain and so the point is you know you got any mountains you can't tunnel through got any rivers you can't cross over God specializes in things thought impossible it just behooves us to believe Do you know one time that this school was a concept in Brother Ron Comfort's mind? But look at it today. It's like from this thought in his head that God put in his heart so many years ago, it has become a mountain for God's glory right here in Lattimore, North Carolina, just outside of Shelby in the United States of America. Isn't God good to do all this for us? that he would give us the consequences that you could move a mountain or maybe build a mountain, a mountain of ministry. It doesn't matter what this problem, this obstacle, this disappointment, this whatever's in your life. And everybody has mountains. Everybody has something that seems like, I cannot get beyond that. I cannot get over that. You probably can't. But you don't have to do this alone. Jesus said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Our God goes with us, and He is a mountain-moving God. I was out in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a few years ago. Miss Judy and I was on vacation, and we picked out a church, and it turned out, we knew it was the right church because when we walked into the church building, we're sitting in the Sunday school class, and the pastor walks in with a cup of Dunkin' Donut coffee in his hand. I said, we're in the right place. And we hit it off with this pastor, and Judy and I took him and his wife to lunch afterwards, and we just hit it off. Had a good time of fellowship and so forth, and he showed us what he wanted to do, and they were locked in where they were, and they needed to do something else, and they didn't know what to do, and it was a discouraging time because, you know, you need to do something, but you don't know what to do. And we got back home. It was probably just a few weeks, and his wife called me. I'd never met these people before. She said, Pastor, and she told him who she was, she said, my husband's so discouraged. would you call him and just encourage him?" I said, I will. So I called him up and told him who I was, and I said, brother, can you see Pikes Peak from where you are? He said, I can. I said, I want you to look up that mountain, and I want you to say, my God is bigger than that mountain. I said, will you do it? Yeah, I'll do that. My God is bigger than that mountain, is wiser than that mountain, stronger than that mountain, And did you know God opened up some doors for him and did some wonderful things? Now, we haven't had much contact since that time, but just a word of encouragement to know that our God is bigger than the mountain. So I'm telling you that whatever your mountain is today, God's bigger, God's stronger, God's smarter. He's the God of the mountains. You can't whip him on the mountain, you can't whip him in the valley, because you can't whip him at all, because he Now, there's a little problem with this. We have this command, we have this concept, and then we have the consequences, but there's a little conflict. The Bible says, don't doubt. Now, a while ago, I told you that faith is belief plus unbelief, but acting on the belief part. It's the idea of don't doubt. Now, doubting usually happens to us in the area of salvation. I've heard some people say that when they got saved, they've never doubted since that time. I've heard others say that they doubted and one day God gave them the victory over that. And then sometimes, you know, the devil is always good at throwing one of those fiery darts to make you say something and make you think maybe that you are not saved. You know that there's a little test in the Bible in 1st John that you can give yourself? It's an objective test. It's not subjective on how you feel. It's an objective test. Are these things true? And the Bible says in 1st John, chapter 2 and verse 3, Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. How do you know you know him? Do you keep his commandments? Now, he's not saying that you have to, he's not even talking about the Ten Commandments. He's talking about what he's told us to do. Has he told us to pray? Has he told us to read the Bible? Has he told us to be givers? Has he told us to be faithful in church? Has he told us to be a witness? These are commands for us. Now, you have never met a happy, excited, growing, healthy Christian who wasn't doing those five things. Now, you're not batting a thousand on those. Sometimes it's a little 600 on one of these or whatever, but these are your heart. You do what he says do. Now, if you're doing what he says do, that is a good sign that you know the Lord. That's what he says. Hereby we know we know him because we keep his commandments. Now, if you have no desire to read the Bible, you have no desire to pray, you hate coming to chapel here, you don't want to be faithful in church, you don't want to be a giver, you don't want to tell anybody about the Lord, then you better maybe give some thought to this. But if that's your heart, this is how you know. And then he says to us in 1 John 3 and verse 14, hereby we know him because we love the brethren. One of the ways that you know him is you love God's people. Now, I know sometimes there are people, if the preacher knocked on their door, they say, oh my goodness, the house is a mess, I'm trying to cook supper, and that's the preacher. I don't want the preacher to come in now. We understand that. But if the concept is, I don't even want a preacher around me, I don't want Christians around me, I'm not even excited about going to church, and if you don't love the brethren, that's an indication maybe you don't know him. But if you love the brethren, You'd rather hang out with God's people than the worldly crowd. And then there's a third one in 1 John 3, in verse 24, hereby we know him because of the spirit which he has given us. If you do something wrong, does it bother you? If you were to tell a lie, does the spirit of God say, that's a lie? If you can tell the lie and the spirit of God doesn't speak to your heart, that's not a good sign you know him. But if you did something wrong, whatever it might be, and the Spirit of God pushed that in your heart, and that's a good sign that you know Him. There's one more. In 1 John 5, 13, do you have a Bible verse? These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. Do you have a Bible verse? You don't have to say, you know, I think so, I hope so, I feel so. Get a Bible verse, nothing else. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's what I did. And he saved me. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him. That's what I did. Should not perish, but have everlasting life. Get a Bible verse, nail that down. So he is saying, I want you to possess faith, have faith in God. And number two, he said, I want you to pray fully. Now it is Jesus who is the one, therefore I say unto you, If Jesus Christ were able to come right here in this auditorium today in bodily form, in presence, and make a statement to you, a promise to you, would you believe him? You say, yeah, I would. Well, why don't we be like the centurion who, when Jesus was coming to his house, he sent someone. I said, Lord, you don't have to come to my house. I'm like you. I'm a man of authority. I say to this guy, go, and he goes. This guy do, and he does. Just say the word, and I will leave. You see, Jesus is not here in bodily form. His spirit has indwelt us, but we have his word. And that's all you need. You just need his word. Remember, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And so this is Jesus. I'm saying to you, then he says, whatsoever things whatsoever things. It's like this is limitless, almost cart blank. Now, you have to obviously take into account the will of God and the purpose of God. You know, you couldn't pray that the devil would be saved and expect God to believe that, because that's not going to happen. That would not be according to the will of God and the purpose of God. But you can ask the Lord for whatsoever things. You can ask the Lord for a whole lot more things than probably you and I are asking the Lord for right now. And he said, and when you pray, So you can pray morning, noon, and night. David said he was going to praise the Lord morning, noon, and night. Sometimes the burden of your heart may be heavier at a certain time of the day. And whenever it is, if you'll believe it, he said, you can receive it. Now, obviously, I suspect anybody who stands in this pulpit and says something about praying would all say, I am not setting myself up as the example. Everybody prays. And it was said of Charles Spurgeon that he never prayed long prayers. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but he was never long without praying. He'd go through the day, and he'd offer prayers, sort of like Nehemiah. He had those, Nehemiah, those little quickie prayers, that when God was doing something, he would send up this little help from God, please. And so, the Bible is simply saying to us that you can pray, and you can ask God for something. Remember, faith is belief plus unbelief. but acting on the belief part. I was in a bookstore one day, no surprise, we're preachers being in a bookstore, and I was just looking through books, and I came across a book written by a guy by the name of Harvey, it wasn't Paul Harvey, and it had something to do with miracles, and so I'm just thumbing through it, and I think it cost me a dime. But I got this story out of that little 10 cent book. There was a university that there was a chemistry professor by the name of Dr. Lee, and everybody in the school had to take Dr. Lee's class. And around Thanksgiving, he did three lectures in his chemistry class, of all things, about prayer. And what he actually did to these young students in this college, or the university was, he tried to convince them that prayer was nothing and it was of no use. And when he got through with those three lectures, really against prayer, he would say to those students, now how many of you still believe in prayer? And I'm sure there would be people who'd say, okay. He said, okay, if you believe in prayer, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take this flask, you know what a flask is, a little neck here, like so. He said, I'm gonna hold this flask out, and I'm gonna let you pray that when I drop it, it won't break. And he said, now, if you want, you can call mama, you can call daddy, you can call grandma, you can call your pastor, you can call a Sunday school teacher, you can call a deacon, you can call anybody you want and ask them to pray with you, but young people, I assure you, when I drop this flask, it's gonna break. It's gonna shatter in who knows how many pieces. Anybody wanna pray? Well, he had so dominated and intimidated those young people, nobody wanted to stand up and pray. He did that year after year, one year. A young man who loved God went to that school, had to take that course, not because he wanted that course, but he had to take the course, and God laid it on his heart, and he told his roommate, he said, God's laid it on my heart to take Dr. Lee's challenge. Would you pray with me that I would have the courage to take that challenge? So he's in the class, three lectures came around Thanksgiving, and Dr. Lee said, now, young folks, I'm gonna hold the flask up. How many of you would like to pray that when I drop this flask, it will not break? And this young man raised his hand. Well, you can imagine. Dr. Lee said, oh, oh, we have a taker today. Now, young man, I don't want you to embarrass yourself. I don't want you to shame yourself. I wanna assure you, when I drop the flask, it's gonna break. Do you still wanna pray? Yes, sir? He said, well, young folks, Let's get in a little reverent mood here and let our young colleague pray for us. So the young man stood up, and it's a little prayer like, God, I know you hear me. Please honor the name of your son, Jesus Christ, and honor me, your servant. Please don't let the flask break. Amen. Now you can imagine the stillness in this room. There were no windows open. There were no fans blowing. Everybody sucked all the air right out of that room just in anticipation. And when he dropped that flask, the strangest thing happened. That flask fell in an arc. Instead of falling straight down, that flask fell against his leg, rolled down over his shoe onto the floor without breaking. and the class whistled, cheered, clapped, stomped, and the red-faced professor ended his prayer, tirade, sessions, and never did it again. You have to hand it to that young man for having courage to do that and faith in God to believe that God could do that. And you know, in our hearts, we believe that, too. And some of us might say, you know, I wish I would have done that. We don't all have to do it exactly like that, but you can. You can pray fully and trust that God. The Bible says that he delights in hearing and answering the prayers of his people. He probably is wondering why we don't pray more. I learned this when I was a student where Dr. Comfort and I both went to the university. And but sometime years ago, every morning I pray this little prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. But Jesus said you can pray after this manner. And obviously that prayer has a lot of little fingers in it. But the point is that he wants us to pray. But then there's one more thing. He said, I don't want you only to possess faith and to pray fully, but he said, I want you to practice forgiveness. Now some people say, man, I wish he hadn't talked about that. But he said, when you stand praying, when you stand praying, I want you to forgive. I want you to forgive others. And if you don't forgive them, you're in trouble yourself. Everybody sins against God. For all the sin comes short of the glory of God. There's not a man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. We all sin against God after we get saved. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We all have people who sin against us. We all sin against people. We all need to be forgiven and we all need to forgive. You say, well, they don't deserve it. That's not the point. Did you deserve it when God has forgiven us for Christ's sake? He didn't do that for your sake, he did that for Christ's sake. You remember the story when Jesus told about the man who owed his king 10,000 talents, just for the sake of the point here, he owed him $10 million. And he said, I want you to pay me what you owe me. And the guy, he said, I don't have it, begged him to forgive him, and he said, okay, I forgive you. The man walked out of the room, forgiven of $10 million. Man, that's good, isn't it? I remember back when I'd be in debt just a few thousand dollars and say, wish I could have that forgiven. And so the guy walks out of the room and he finds a guy who owes him a couple bucks. And he said, hey, pay me that couple bucks you owe me. He said, man, I don't have it. If I had, I'd give it to you. He grabbed the guy by the throat. He's choking him. I said, pay me what you owe me. And he didn't have it. He said, throw this guy in prison. Well, there was somebody who watched that who had seen the king forgive this guy the 10 million. He went and he said, you know what that guy did? You forgave him $10 million and he wouldn't forgive a guy who owed him a couple bucks. He said, bring him back in here. Now, this is a real interesting story. It's in Matthew 18. He said, you wouldn't forgive this guy? He said, here's what I'm gonna do to you. Now, this man threw the $2 debt guy into prison, but he said, I want you to turn this guy over to the, this is what our Bible says, to the tormentors. It's like a prison of torment. And when you don't forgive, you get tormented. I'll tell you a story. A young businessman was married. He and his wife did not have any children. They had planned a little getaway time. And before they could actually get away, his wife went riding horses and she got thrown, put her in a hospital. And this young businessman put his business practice on hold to nurse his wife. While he did this, his business partner stole all of his clients, costing him his business, and also his wife died. He was bitter at that man, angry, lost his business, lost his wife, and his friends stole all that from him. A little time elapsed and he ran into a Jewish man. And he told him the story about what this man had done to him. And the Jewish man, I feel most sorry for him. He said, you feel sorry for him? Why would you feel sorry for him? Because he has sold his life to someone who is a cheat. And the guy said, not only is he a cheat and he stole it, but he betrayed me as well. Then he said, have you forgiven that man? He said, me forgive him? That'll never happen. He said, then I feel sorry for you. He said, you feel sorry for me because I won't forgive him? He said, yes, because what you will not forgive, you actually chain yourself to that which you do not forgive. And he is saying, you have to forgive him. He said, again, that's never going to happen. And he said, you mean to tell me that you think that everybody who was a Holocaust survivor ought to forgive Hitler? He said, yes, I do. He said, how could you say that? He said, look, forgiving Hitler doesn't do anything for Hitler. Hitler's dead and gone. All those people who helped Hitler, they're dead and gone. And if you don't forgive them, then what you've done is that you have chained yourself to Hitler and his crimes. And he said, well, you may be a better man than I am, but until you have lost everything, had everything taken away from you, then you can preach to me forgiveness and moving on after that. He said, no, I have not lost everything. But he said, the reason that I have not lost everything is because I refuse to give up my humanity. And then he put his arm on the table. And this Jewish man, he rolled his sleeve back. And right there on his forearm was this blue ink tattoo. that when he was arrested and put in Hitler's concentration camp, he tattooed him on his arm right there. And he said, I want to tell you what happened to me. And he told about his capture and how that on a certain night, he and some of his friends, they escaped. And then he fell in love with a young lady, Anya. But Anya said, I will not have you. He said, why, Anya, why will you not have me? She said, because you are like them. He said, I am not like them. She said, they hated you, you hate them. Your heart is full of hate. I will not marry you. And he said, she taught me one thing they could not take from me. They could not take my choice away. And he said, I chose that day. that I was gonna free myself from Hitler and his crimes. I was gonna break the chains from my past. It wouldn't help Hitler, he was already dead. But it sure did help this Jewish man. And I'm gonna set myself free. And he said, that's when I became a free man, and that's when Anya married me. And he said, you need to tell God and then go tell that man. When you are in the torment prison, It works something like this. Somebody did you wrong. And I'm convinced there's people all over America that are bitter at God. They're just mad at God. They're mad at God because this happened to them or that didn't happen to them. Because of what happened to them, they didn't think God stopped and he could have stopped and so forth. There's people mad at God. There are people all over this country, they're mad at their parents, they're mad at their pastor, they're mad at the police, they're mad at our nation, they're mad at whoever. There may be somebody at Ambassador Baptist College that somebody's mad about or against. And when you go into the tormentor prison, these people are locked away in your brain. And at nighttime, you go down into the basement of your brain, and you flip on the light in the basement of your mind, and there hanging on a peg is a key to all the chains of these people that you have locked up in your imagination that you don't want to forgive, and you take the whip off the wall, and you go beat this guy, and you tell him, this is what you did for me, and you just keep beating him, and you go to the next one, and you beat him, and you go to the next one, until you fill it, you got it out of your system for the night, you go back, and you put your whip back up, you flip off the light, and you leave. What everybody needs to do when we have these people like that, go down to the basement, flip on the light, but don't pick up the whip. Pick up the keys. And you go to the first one and you, you're free. You can leave. And you go to the next one, you're free. You can leave. And you let them all go. And not only do you let them go free, you go free. Because you've chosen. You're not going to do that anymore. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. He said, I want you to practice forgiveness. Would you bow your heads, close your eyes?