What you say after that, I've never learned. I've heard so many things, like after an introduction like that, I can't wait to hear myself preach. I've heard many times he said everything we rehearsed, maybe left out one paragraph. I think about a preacher or a lawyer friend of mine in the eastern part of the state, and a lady came up to him. She said, Mr. Sewell, what do you see about getting me a divorce? He said, Mandy, why in this world do you want a divorce? You've only been married two weeks. I know she said, Mr. Sewell, but that's the most over-introduced man I've ever met in my life. Unless you hear Lindsay Terry sing, I must tell Jesus you'll miss something in this meeting. And I'm hoping, and I haven't said anything, just making a little suggestion that before this meeting is over, you get to hear him sing, I Must Tell Jesus. You know, when I have the privilege of coming to meetings like this, I literally sit in awe. And I hear these great men of God preach, and I mean that literally. I sit in awe. And to think that I could sit on the platform and to fellowship with them and to come to the platform where they've spoken I still haven't gotten used to it. Can I let you in on a little secret? I hope I never get used to it. I hope I never get used to it. You know, when I was first saved, a man gave me a philosophy that's been mine through my life. You make much of Jesus, and he'll make much of you. I don't know any way you can improve on that. You make much of Jesus, and he'll make much of you. I saw on television, now I don't watch it of course, just happened to be on in the room. You ever notice how preachers always say, the kids had the television on and I walked through the room and I saw, you ever notice that? I think we ought to quit that charade and just say, I was watching television, you know. And my kids didn't have it on, I was watching it. I was watching the Miami Dolphins practice with some of these lesser football teams, you know. And with Kansas City playing the Giants, anybody from Kansas City, I'm almost sure, isn't here tonight. Or if they are, they're a real test of their Christianity. But I was watching and I saw a commercial that I'm sure that you've seen. And they say, how do you spell relief? And of course they name a well-known antithesis and they tell you that's the way to get relief. If you'd ask me tonight, how do you spell church? I'd say it's spelled J-E-S-U-S. You'd say, oh, that's spelled Jesus, brother Hudson. How do you spell Jesus? C-H-U-R-C-H. They're the same. Did you know it? You can't separate the Church from the Lord Jesus, and you can't separate the Lord Jesus from the Church. They're intertwined and they're one. One of the reasons I like this meeting is that it is a church meeting. I have heard good messages about the Church and songs about the Church and seminars about the Church, and I think it is so good. But I think it might be helpful sometimes to young preachers, maybe those of us who have been in the harness for a little while, to just take time and tell you all the mistakes we have made, all the failures that we have had, and all the times that we've goofed. You know, we have a tendency to tell you all the times we've been successful. It's like a fisherman. You ever hear a fisherman tell you about times he didn't catch any fish? Never have heard one in my life. They always tell you about the time they caught this one, and this one, and that one, and you know, and they never tell you about it. Take Brother Bob Gray, for example. He's one of the outstanding pulpiteers living today, to my opinion. And yet he wasn't always that way. He had a beginning just like all of you are, and I still am. A fellow told me not long ago when Brother Bob first started preaching, said he got up to preach and you know how it's when you're first, you're nervous and tense and he got up and he said, and the Lord took 5,000 loaves of bread and 2,000 fishes and he fed five men. When the fellow down on the front was laughing, Brother Bob, next week he got up to preach, you know, and he thought he'd correct it, let him know he really understood. And he got up and he was waxing eloquent and he paused in his message and he said how the Lord was preaching and he took five loaves of bread and two small fishes and fed 5,000 men. Looked at that old fellow on the front and said, could you do that? The fellow on the front seat said, I could if I had all that fish and bread left over from last Sunday. He hasn't always been the orator he is now, you know, the orator. They said after that, he said, this extemporaneous preaching is not too good. I think I'll write it out. So he wrote it out carefully, word for word. Everything stacked in order. Everything. And he got up in his preaching on Adam and Eve. And he waxed and waxed and waxed and waxed. Kept turning the page. The thing that he didn't know was, just before he got to the pulpit, the last page somehow, inadvertently, was destroyed, got away, somehow. And he said that as he got next to what he thought was going to be the last page, Brother Bob said, and Adam said to Eve, and Adam said to Eve, Eve, There's a leaf missing. I've baptized hundreds, hundreds of people in my life. Many of the folk here, one time I remember we were baptizing in that particular baptismal service, 60 people, and oh, I was the epitome of dignity. I mean, I headed everything down. I mean, it was just, it was fluid in motion, you know. I now baptize thee, and I mean, I did it perfectly. Now, you remember, folk never have been baptized before, and they don't know. And a dear lady came down in, you know, and I see my folk laughing, they already know. And she came down in and I said, I now baptize thee. And I said all the words and I put her down under the water and I pulled her back up. And when I did, the first thought that came to my mind, now you explain this to me why I thought this. I thought I had pulled her head off. Because there was her hair in my hand and her head was still down there. She had had a wig on. Now think of all the things I could have done. I could have discreetly put it under the water and then put it and stepped on it. I could have thrown it like this. I could have handed it to the lady under the water. None of those things had been covered in my ordination. I think it should be. And I very dignifiedly took that wet, dripping wig and put it on her head with the curls in front dripping like this. And the congregation did just like you're doing. And every preacher here could give you similar experiences. It isn't always as polished as we've seen it here. You know, I was thinking a little while ago after Dr. Lee Robertson finishes preaching and feeds us as he fed us, wasn't that tremendous? But all I can do is just kind of clean off the table, get the dishes off and kind of get the tablecloths up, but I'm willing to do that. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16. I want to speak to you tonight on a subject I can't get off of my heart. I hope I don't. I hope I don't. I want to speak to you on the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Its relevancy in our age, its need, our relationship to it, and what I believe should be the top priority in our lives is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's begin reading, if you will, in chapter 16, verse number 13. Now, I don't know how the time works here in Chattanooga, but I've told our folk when I get a little older, I'm going to get a church out in the country. and have everybody check their watches when they come in. Take the clocks down and I'm going to get me a calendar, one of those kind that's on cloth. Put two thumbtacks right here and then we'll mark it when we come in and then drop it down. Then when we get through whatever day that is, we'll mark it again, go home, get a little something to eat and come back. Would you like to come to my church when I get in the country? Amen. Some folks looking at their watch, they say, I believe we're in it tonight. Don't worry about the time. My job is to preach and your job is to listen. Just be sure you don't finish before I do. All right? Now, I'll preach fast if you'll listen fast. All right? Is this thing working? I'll preach fast if you'll listen fast. Okay? All right? Okay. All right. Matthew 16, verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, and some Elijah, and some Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? If you had to answer that question tonight, what would you say? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed are thy Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that the ark Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Our Father, I pray that in Jesus' name that a holy hush shall be over this congregation. I pray that every person here may forget every meeting after this service. Oh, help us to jealously guard this time and help us to be well assured that we shall give an account of the way that they've listened, as well as I shall give an account of the way that I've preached. Oh God, help it to be a meaningful time. May the Holy Spirit of the living God exercise his office of conviction tonight. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. There are several things in this verse that I wish we had time to look at, but I just want you to look at one with me tonight. I'm an avid reader. I read, I suppose, 50 books every year of my life, and after a while you get to where you notice if there's a word misspelled, even misprinted, or sometimes when a word seems to be out of place, you'll catch it. And as I've read this familiar portion of Scripture many times, I looked at one word there, and I went back and looked at it again. Finally, I said to the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit of God, you wrote this book. Would you help me to understand why that word seems so strange to me? The word there is upon this rock I will build my church. I want you to be sure you understand he's not speaking of building a church on Peter. Rather, he's building upon that statement of faith that art the Christ, the Son of the living God. You see, the reason I know it isn't built upon Peter is because 1 Corinthians chapter 3 has this to say, And other foundations can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. The church is built upon Jesus Christ. He's the chief cornerstone and the foundation. No other foundation can you lay. But he said, I'm going to build my church. And as I thought on it, the Holy Spirit seemed to remind me of the other words that had been used in connection with the Lord. For example, every time and any time God needed anything, he just spoke it into existence. And he created everything that he needed. And as I began to think of it, I thought when God needed the world, he just simply spoke it into existence. When he wanted a man, he spoke him into existence. But now here's something that's so precious to the Lord that he made this statement in Ephesians 5. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And Christ is coming back for the church. For the church is his bride, and the bride is going to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. One of the greatest blessings, one of the greatest functions that you and I will ever have this privilege of attending is the marriage supper of the Lamb. And we're the church of Jesus Christ. He loved the church and gave himself for it. You know, I've thought many times, I've watched, I've seen vacant places on, you know, right at the corner, I've seen beautiful location, but I've never one time known of a puff of smoke appearing and then when it cleared away there'd be a beautiful church sitting there. I never have. Churches do not come into existence that way. For he said, upon this rock I'll build my church. Now the word build there has to do with man. God creates, but man builds. There's something there, men, if we'll just look for it. There's something there unusual. You know, I thought as I read that of James Weldon Johnson, that great poet who wrote the creation. And the first verses and the last verse go something like this. And God stepped out on space. And as far as the eye of God could see, darkness covered everything, blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp. And God said, I am lonely, I'll make me a world. And God spoke, and the light curled itself around his shoulder, and God took the light, and God rolled it around in his hand, and God flung it into the heavens and set the sun ablazing. And with the light that was left over, God spangled the night with the moon and the stars. And God said, that's good. Now James Weldon Johnson goes on some other verses, but the last one, and that's my favorite, And God looked around at all that he'd made, and God said, I am lonely still. And God sat down, God sat down by a deep, wide river where he could think. And God thought, and he thought till he thought, I'll make me a man. And up from the bed of the river, this great God, like a mammoth bending over its baby, took a handful of clay and fashioned it into an image like unto himself and into his nostrils. He breathed the breath of life, and God said, that's good. And when God needed anything, God spoke it into existence. But when he came to that which upon the face of this earth, he loved more than anything else that is mentioned in the Bible, he says, I want you to build it. That was so interesting, so intriguing to me, I couldn't get it off my heart. I still can't. And beloved, if God can let you catch what he's meaning here tonight, we'll go back to our churches with a different thought. Turn with me to the book of Hebrews for a moment. Chapter 11, God's great hall of faith. Hebrews chapter 11. Now there's a Not only the thought of seeing these men of faith. I've often thought of them and pictured them in my preaching as being like going into a great gallery and you see pictures on the wall and you see these various men. But beloved, there's something in the order in which they appear that's so spiritual that we dare not, dare not go past it. Look, for example, in verse number four. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh." Now the Lord is telling us the only way that we can come into his presence, the only way that we can worship him, is through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way. Abel stands for sacrificial death on the part of that which we offer to God. And Beloved, if you'd like to have a little simple outline, Abel speaks to us of worshiping faith. It's the only way you can come to God. Look at verse number 5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. Far before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. You remember in the book of Genesis it says, And Enoch walked with God, and Enoch was not, for God took him. Enoch walked with God. And beloved, you and I can never walk with God until first of all we've come to him through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Bible says, how can two walk together unless they be agreed? An unsaved person cannot walk with God. Now it's leading up then to the third one. Verse number seven, by faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared, literally built an ark, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith. And I want you to notice what it is. First is worshiping faith. Secondly is walking faith. And now we have working faith. You'll never get anybody to do anything for God until they've been saved, until they've learned to walk with Him in a separated life. And in order to do that, beloved, we've got to be sure they're saved, that they're walking with God. And then we need to teach them what this verse says. Noah built an ark, prepared an ark, built. I want you to hold on to something. Now don't think of anything else. Don't get ahead of me. Stay with me. And I believe the Holy Spirit will teach us something. Watch what I'm saying. Luke 17. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be as in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. Now we know the moral degeneracy, we know the breakdown, all the things that are described, for example, in Genesis 6. We understand that. But the thing that most of us overlook is the parallel between what God told Noah to do. Now hold right there a minute, if you will. Drive a little stake up right there and wait a minute. Have you ever thought of the parallel of Noah as with our day? For example, Noah was in the time of grace, was he not? For the Bible says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Help me not, class, and answer me back. What dispensation are we in now? The dispensation of what? Grace. It's every bit grace. It isn't works. It isn't righteousness of our own. It's every bit grace. Now notice something else. It was in a time of great wickedness. We've heard from this platform today about the battle that's going on. I ate lunch last week with Brother Bateman from California. He told me about the battle that was going out among the gays. A homosexual male teacher brought his male lover into a classroom in California and introduced him to the children in essence in saying, now you see there's nothing wrong with a man loving a man. We're having great wickedness. It parallels the day of Noah. Have you ever noticed in Luke 17, it just didn't say the day of Noah, it also said as in the days of Lot. What is the underlining, what is the very period at the end of Lot's age? You remember what happened? The homosexuals came down beating on the door and said, send these men out that we may know them. And Noah said, no, be not so wickedly, my brethren. I'll send my two daughters out who've never known men. Do anything you want to them, only don't touch these men. And the only way that place was safe from being destroyed are the angels coming out and striking those men blind. The end of Noah's age was sexual abuse. We're living in that age, brother, whether you believe it or not. We're in that age. We're in the day of grace, day of great wickedness. Then think of this. It was the end of a dispensation. That's both sad and good, did you know it? It's sad for unsaved people, but I'll tell you it all encouraged our heart. I thought so many times about Noah. Can you see him when he started work for 120 years? Never had anybody saved but his wife and three sons and theirs, only eight of them all together. Can you see him as he laid the keel to that ark? Can you see him as he began to fashion it and maybe 20, 30 years went by and there wasn't too much encouragement? And there may have been a little time when he might have been discouraged. See, they had no south-wide fellowships in those days, no radio broadcasts, no television, nobody to encourage him whatsoever. and he preached through the Bible in one hand and the hammer in the other and preached and preached and preached and didn't even have a convert to say, thank you, Reverend Noah, I appreciate you for telling me about Jesus. Not one time. It might have got sad along about in this, but can you imagine what it was like when about a year, 119 years and 364 days had gone by. Noah went home. He said to his wife, honey, we got all the animals in, got everything all ready and I want you to pack your clothes. This is the last night we'll spend in our house. Tomorrow night we'll spend in the ark. Can you see them as they got ready?" And as he walked over in that ark, I imagine they had their devotions in the ark first time. And she said, Honey, when do you think the great deluge will come? Honey, I don't know, but I've done exactly what God said. I've built the ark. And we're inside of it. We've got her family inside of the ark. And about that time she said, honey, do you hear something unusual? And he said, it sounds as if there's water falling on the roof. And he goes over to the one window and he looks out and he said, honey, God has opened up the heavens and he's opened up the fountains of the deep. And beloved, you know, there's one thing as I read that, that strikes a note in my heart. that I think Dr. Robertson was saying to the knight, have you ever thought there were only eight people saved? Only eight. And those eight were in that which God had told him to build. Now don't confuse what I'm saying. I know you, the church is not the instrument of salvation. I've already told you, it's through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But watch now, as it was in the days of Noah. It's going to be just like that before Jesus comes back. Now, what did the Lord do? Did Noah decide, well, I think I'll just build me an ark. If the Lord doesn't come, I'll use it and, you know, I'll sell it to sell tickets on it and go fishing or something of that sort. Oh no. God said, Noah, I want you to build it this long. I want you to build it this wide. I want you to build it this high. Put one window around it. I want you to do it just this way and put exactly this many cattle in it. Put all the fowls and the beasts and so on like that. Get everything just right." He had a divine architect to give him a divine plan. He knew from day one what he was building. Did you know we have a divine architect who has given us a divine plan? Did you know that? Several years ago I had a reporter interviewing me and he sat there and he said, we don't understand it. Why is it that Northside is being blessed and prospered and other churches are folding their doors and not opening on Sunday night? Why is it? And I said, well sir, you see, I found an old book that tells you how to build a church and I've been just trying to follow in. Oh, he said, really? He said, what's the name of that book? I said, The Book of Acts. That's the greatest church manual that we'll ever find, did you know it? And I believe that's God's divine plan of building a church. I'm glad I don't have to sit around wondering all the time how to build a church, aren't you? Brother, I tell you, I've thought so many times about Peter, and you have too, being on the Mount of the Transfiguration. And when the Lord spoke from heaven, you remember what he said? Lord, it's good for us to be here. Let us build three tabernacles, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. I knew that Peter never had built a church. Brother, one's enough for anybody. And three is too much for anybody, I'll promise you that. But he said, now I want you to build my church. See, man can build. Man can't create, but man can build. Somebody I was reading one time, an allegory, and it said, Lord, if that little handful of people there at Pentecost, that 120 in the upper room, and then later the 3,000, then later as you added to the church daily, if they fail, if they don't build a church, Lord, what will you do? The allegory said the Lord, quote of the Lord, is saying, I have no other plan. No other plan. Now, beloved, in 1978, if we don't build a church, I don't believe God has another plan. Now, let me see if I can summarize what God has said. First, as it was in the days of Noah, it's going to be like that in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. Noah, you build an ark. I want you folk right here in Southwide Baptist Fellowship, I want you to build a church. I want you to build a church. And we'll give you three quick little things if you want to remember. First of all, it's a never-ending process. We'll never be able, you know, many men in business, they finally reach a certain age, get a certain number of zeros behind their bank account, and they dust their hand and say, well, it's all over, I'm going to take it easy from here on out. It'll never be that way with you or me, brother, never. Never, ever will it be that way. My son said to me not long ago, Daddy, you think you'll retire someday? And I said, no son, I'll probably get tired, but I don't ever expect to retire. Did you know God doesn't have a retirement plan for his people? Not a retirement plan. I'm going to keep going until they put me in the casket. And when they do, my wife and my oldest daughter, God bless them, They think I could do 10,000 things, the work of 10 men. I told them off, and I said, when I'm in the casket, they're going to say, Daddy, get up just a minute. There's some folk over there wanting to see you. Daddy, go over there and see that man. Talk to him a little bit. Your work will never be finished. Men, will you get that in your mind? Your work will never be finished. I had the privilege of organizing the Northside Baptist Church 24 years ago with 29 members. Today we have over 5,100. I don't ever expect to see a day when I can dust my hands and stand back and look at that church and say, it's all over. I don't have to worry about it anymore. Dr. Robertson up here, God bless him all the years. Did you hear how many he had in Sunday school? He's working on something right now for next Sunday and the next Sunday and the next Sunday, getting more people in. He's continually building the church. It'll never be over. Have you ever seen preachers say, well, I've got a little handful that's about all caught up and things of that sort. I think I'll just take it easy for a while. You may as well write Incubod over your name. It'll never quit. It'll never slow down. It'll never quit. My personal physician is a member of our church. Took me to preach somewhere the other night. On the way, he said, you're going an awful lot, aren't you? And I said, well, yes, sir. This was on Thursday night. He said, how many times have you preached this week? And I said, well, doctor, tonight will be ten times since Sunday morning. He said, if you don't slow down, you're going to be back in the hospital. I said, yes, sir, I'll slow down. I'll do what I can. We went to church and I preached and heaven moved in. Oh, God bless. Tears nearly flooded and washed the altar on the way back. I'll never forget it. He said, you like to preach, don't you? I said, yes, sir, I do. I don't know of anything I'd rather do than preach. He said, I guess preaching is kind of like a man going fishing. It's relaxing to those men. Preaching's like that to you? And I said, yes, sir. Well, he said, it might be all right if you go on preaching then. That'll be all right. I started to ask him, well, will you just drive me to all the meetings just to be sure I get there and sit back and safe all right, you know? Now, what are you saying, Brother Hudson? I have absolutely made up my mind. That there's no quitting place, there's no slowing down place. There's no taking it easy place, brother. It's day in and day out. And when you wake up in the morning, thank God for a good day that God's going to give you. I've got a verse I've said for 24 years as pastor of that church. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Do you want to know some good simple philosophies? Bless God, what can you do about it anyway? Rejoice in it. Things get tough, look up and say, let it rip! It's going about your business. Mark Twain said, everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. And that's good wisdom, because nobody can do anything about it. I used to get up on Sunday morning a nervous wreck. I'd set my alarm clock, get up at midnight, go look out the window, see if it's raining. Get up again five o'clock, and I'd say, oh, boy, it's cloudy out there this morning. I'd be a grump and grouch by the time I got there. I was a bundle of nerves, just so afraid about the weather. One night the Lord said, Son, have you ever read there in the book of Isaiah where it says, all the water of this earth was measured out in my hand. I measured out the Atlantic, then I measured out the Pacific, and I measured out the Mediterranean, and I measured out all the seven seas. And then I said, and that formed the clouds. And son, don't worry about the weather. I'll take care of it. The first time we ever broke a thousand in Sunday school was in the midst of a hurricane. And from then on, I said, God can take care of the weather. I don't worry about the weather anymore. I just don't do it. And I've learned the Lord can take care of many, many things that you and I driving ourselves into an early grave over that belongs to the Lord. I have no control over the weather. I have no control over many things, but the one thing that God has called me to do is to build a church, and I better be at it. It's a continuing process. Then very quickly, I want you to see this. Not only is it built by men, but it's built by a variety of men. Did you know that would give us comfort? I want to tell every one of us tonight, if you'll listen to me. I can tell every one of us tonight how we can have revival in our churches, revival in our cities, and revival in Christendom if we could teach this to our people and get them to practice it. Now this church, and I'm talking about the brick and the mortar, was built by a variety of men. They had a plan, an architect had drawn it. But they had in there, in addition to the architect, they had a foreman. Now preachers, listen to me. They had a foreman or a superintendent. I know when we built Northside Baptist Church, we had a superintendent. He was the first one there in the mornings and the last one to leave. He'd look at those plans. I'd see him in the morning. He'd go over them and he was the foreman, the superintendent. And he'd say to the block men, look, run that wall today. And he'd say to the plumbers, I want you to bring some pipe over here. And to the electricians, I want you to wire these lights overhead. And he'd say to the various men working and everything, he'd tell them exactly what to do. And then he'd watch after it. Do you know who I believe is the foreman of the local church? I believe it's the pastor. Doesn't mean he's better than anybody else. It just means he's got a greater responsibility. You see right here in my hand, I have the divine plan. I want to tell you something, folk. Listen to me, layman. Listen to me, layman. God didn't give the plan to the layman. You know who taught me that? Two precious black preachers. I walked in the side door of our old church one time. You walk in from outside, it's a little dark inside, and I walked in. There they were. And I walked over to one of them, and I said, hey, brother, how you doing? He said, hey, brother Hudson, I want to come by and see this church. He said, my, you sure is done a great job here. I said, no, brother, no, God's done it all. You know how humble we are. No, I said, God's done it all. He said, now, brother Hudson, I want to ask you a question. When God led them children of Israel across the Red Sea, who did he tell to go across? Moses or them children of Israel? I said, he told Moses. He said, that's what I'm talking about. He said, when Joshua led them children of Israel across the river Jordan, who did he tell? Them children of Israel? Or Joshua? I said, he told Joshua. He said, that's what I'm talking about. He said, Brother Hudson, in the book of the Revelations, When God spoke to them churches, the book of Ephesus and those seven churches, did he speak to the congregation? Did he speak to the pastor? I said, he spoke to the pastor. He said, that's what I'm talking about. Brother Hudson, you sure have done a good job here. I said, thank you, brother. Now use your imagination for a minute. Supposing when they have been building this beautiful auditorium, They had come in here one morning, and the foreman had been here, and the block mason said, I think I'll just run the walls down through here. And the plumber said, I think I'll just run the pipes over across here. And the electrician says, I'll run the wires over this way. And the man putting in the pews said, I think I'll just put them crossway. It'd be a lot easier. You had had chaos, did you know it? You need a foreman. I'm going to show you one of the biggest mistakes you'll make, layman, and preachers as well. Listen to me. One of the biggest mistakes. I'm talking about physically now, I'm talking about literally building a church, is to hire a foreman, a superintendent, and ask him to work. You know what'll happen? He'll be over here showing the men how to put that block wall up, and the plumbers will be running the pipe wrong. The electricians will be running the wire in the wrong place. He needs to be looking all the time. And we're living in the age of the Laodicean church, a compound word, two words put together. It simply means the laity shall rule the clergy. And most preachers today are not leading a church as they're just watching to see which way they're going and then they run, jump in front of it and act as if they're leading it. A foreman to say, don't put that wall there and run that pipe over here and run those wires to the proper place. He's responsible to the architect and to the builder. I'll tell you who's going to be responsible when you and I stand before the Lord. I'm going to be responsible as a preacher who's been a foreman of the Northside Baptist Church. And I'm not going to let them run the walls the wrong way and run the wires in the wrong place. My job is to see that those things are taken care of. Read your book now, read your plans in the book of Acts. You read there where the twelve tribes were scattered abroad? Book of James chapter 1. Where were the disciples? They never left Jerusalem. Oh, they weren't sluggards. They were there to instruct these people where they were going and they'd send people in to get instructions. If those disciples had gone out there and tried to have done the work, putting up the block walls and hammering, the thing would have gotten away from them over here. Read Acts 15. And that crowd came in. Acts 15 tells you what happened in the book of Galatians. Paul founded the church, just like we're talking about tonight, and he had to leave. And a group of them came down and said, Acts 15, unless you're baptized after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. Got them all confused. Sounds like some of the doctrine we're hearing today then. Unless you speak in tongues, you ain't been saved. And causes confusion in the church. And Paul stood up and counteracted that and took his job. You know why? He was the foreman of that church. He said, I'm not going to have workers in here. I remember when we were building Northside Baptist Church, I went over there and I said, one thing we're going to have, we're going to have sidewalks wide enough to walk on. All of our sidewalks are five feet wide. And I walked over there and one of them looked like cobblestone. It was rough. And I said to the man, mister, I have to do my job right and you're going to do it right. Turn it up and put it down right. And I said it just about like I said it to you. And he tore it up and put it down right. Believe it, if you go into a lot of churches, you would know God had an architect or a foreman who would have stood there, physically speaking, and watched over the church. Amen? It's the same thing spiritually, brother. You need a spiritual foreman. There's one thing I found out. Every Friday about noon, there was a white pickup truck drove up in the yard. That was the most attractive truck those men must have ever seen. The block masons would come down, the electricians would quit, everybody would quit. There'd be a hundred men out there ganged around that truck. You know what it was, don't you? It was payday. It was payday. They'd stand there and hand it out, and I'd see the laborers getting theirs, and the block masons, and the electricians, and the workers of every kind. And the foreman was kind of kind, and he'd stand and wait until everybody else. Then I'd see him hand him one. I stood there one day watching that, Brother Bob. I nearly had a glorified fit. I said, Glory to God. One day we're going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. God is going to say, you deacons, come on through now and get your pay. Brother Terry, you and your choir, come on through and get your pay. You Sunday school teachers and bus workers and all of them. He said, Brother Hudson, you wait a little bit. They're going to all come through and get their pay at the judgment seat of Christ. Then I'm going to walk up and I'm going to get mine. Oh, what a blessing it's going to be. It's built by a variety of men. Now, bless God, a pastor cannot do it all. The problem today is we feel that pastors ought to be little glorified errand boys, and that's the biggest mistake you've ever made. You need his brain power and his spiritual power ten times more than you need his leg power. And when it's built by a variety of men, it means that every person in that church has a job. And every person in that church should be doing their jobs. The pastor, and the choir, and the Sunday school teachers, and the bus workers, and the ushers, and the men that work on the parking lot, and the men and women who pray, and the ones who deal at the altar, all of them have a job. These men had to cooperate when they built this building. And the block man would say, look, to the electrician, could you run some various things in this wall that are going to be through in a little while? Yeah, we'll do it. And they did it. And finally, you have this beautiful auditorium. It's built by a variety of men. Then there's something else mentioned to you very briefly. Physically speaking, this building, this wall, this mortar, was built more by laborers than it was anybody else. Most of these blocks were brought in here by laborers. Most of the steel, these beams, were put up by the laborers. We're laborers together with Jesus Christ. Aren't you glad of that? Did you know there's a difference between a laborer and a worker? A worker's looking for payday and quitting time. We've got 140 full-time workers at Northside Baptist Church. I know what I'm talking about. There are some that's looking for payday and quitting time. Then a laborer says, it doesn't matter how long it takes, let's just get the job done. And the Lord needs laborers. Now I think in your mind, if you will, what your job is in the church. What is your job? What is it? Can you imagine if the electricians went over there and tried to lay those blocks, or the block men would come over here and try to do the wiring? Can't you imagine what confusion it is? And yet we see it in our churches every day of our life. I've never seen a preacher yet, if you scratch them hard enough, didn't try to sing. That's the biggest mess I ever heard in my life. Now there's a few, Kent. Most song leaders, you scratch them, they want to preach. I've never known a deacon in my life didn't think he could preach better than his pastor. Have you? And you go on down the line and most of us want to be something that we do not have the gift of doing, but we ought to determine what our job is and get at it and do it till Jesus comes. We ought to do. I want to show you something. Look in the book of Galatians for just a moment. The book of Galatians. I think the Lord has something there that needs to be touched on today. The book of Galatians, chapter 5, that's page 1247 in your Scofield Bible. Fellows, I have to be honest with you, when all this comes up about the King James Version, I get a little confused. I never did know there was anything but a King James Version. I'll be honest with you, I thought all Bibles were Scofield Bibles until I was been preaching for a long time and I saw a man with one that didn't say Scofield on it and I thought it was Jehovah's Witness or something. Never has been a problem with me. But let me show you something in chapter 5. Look at verse 13. For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. You know what we do one for another? Serve one another. How? With love. When you love anybody, you will not talk about them. Think of your wife, your husband, your son or daughter. You don't talk about them. You overlook an awful lot of imperfections in their life. Why? Because you love them. And we're to serve one another by love. Look down at verse 15. But if you bite and devour one another, I want you to notice this, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. Did you know I read that for years and never saw? I studied the book of Galatians by Exorciseus in school, and I wrote every word of it, but I never noticed that. Do you know what happens when you attack somebody? If you are set out to consume them or to destroy them, you know what will happen to you according to this? You will destroy yourself. For years we had a man in our church as janitor. He worked for us for years. He's retired now. His name was Judd. He was a black man, but a real Christian. I used to pray with him a lot. One day down in a kindergarten class, they had one of these little fish bowls and had little fish in it, you know, various kinds for the kids to watch. It somehow had gotten down to two. When they left that afternoon, there were two fish in there. When they came back next morning, no fish at all. So they called Judd in there, and the teacher said to Judd, Judd, do you have any idea what happened to these fish? And Judd stood there for a minute and scratched his head, and he said something to me that bordered on being a classic. He said, I don't know what happened to them. Maybe they ate one another. Will Rogers said one time he was fishing and he heard a noise in the bushes and he quit fishing and walked over there and there were two snakes and one of them had taken this one by the tail and was trying to swallow him and the strange thing about it, the other one had taken him by the tail so they were trying to swallow one another. And Will Rogers looked at them for a few minutes and he said he went back and sat down and fished a while. Said he went back over and looked where they were and he said, sure enough, they were both gone. And when preachers get to abiding and devouring one another, it isn't long until they're both gone, and you wonder what happened. By love serve one another. But now watch over in chapter 6. Two verses there, I want you to see. Chapter 6, verse number 2, bear ye one another's burdens. Now verse 5 says, for every man shall bear his own burden. Seems to be a contradiction, but it isn't. Look at verse number two, bear you one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Bear you one another's burdens. What is he talking about? He's talking about what Brother Hiles talked to us so beautifully about this morning. You got to have some compassion. You know, last night I sat up on the platform and Brother Tom Williams and Pam have been friends of mine for a long time. And I look back there at her sitting in that wheelchair withered up. And I said, Oh God, before I can really pray for Pam, I've got to in my mind put my wife in that wheelchair. And I did for a moment sitting on this platform. And you've got to feel this thing before you can pray one for another. I wonder how many times you and I have been guilty when we heard some preacher was in trouble. You need to put yourself in his place for a little while. and get alone and pray. Beloved, you can't sink half of a ship. We're going to all go down together. We better pray one for another, and we better bear one another's burdens. You know, I can't effectively preach a funeral if it's a man's wife. I walk up to that funeral, that casket, and I look in there for a minute. I say to myself, that's my wife. And I've got to go home tonight to an empty house. And I've got to try to tell Lyndon, Patsy, and Mark they don't have a mom anymore. And I think when I was a little boy 12 years old and they put my mother down beneath the sod, I think about that. And then, and frankly only then, am I fit to preach that fear. If it's a little boy or girl, I try to think of them as being mine. And imagine what it'd be like three or four days or maybe a week or two later and I find some of their toys or find some little worn out shoe. I don't know how to feel sorry for folk until I experience it vicariously in my own life. I can't do it. When I hear somebody being in the hospital critically ill, I have to think what it's like to be in there. The days are so long till it's unbelievable. You can recognize people's feet coming down the aisles, the hospital corridors. And you wake up early in the morning and you wait and wait and wait for your wife. You can tell her feet when she gets off of the elevator. And you feel better when she walks into the room. You can't pray for people in the hospital till you feel that. The Lord says in building this church, I want you to learn to have some compassion. I want you to learn to feel just like they feel. Now, the next verse, or the verse that I read to you there, verse number 5, for every man shall bear his own burden, has a different meaning. The meaning there is backpack. It's like a soldier who puts his backpack on. And he has his equipment on there. He'll survive or die, perhaps, by the fact that he keeps that backpack on. Let every one of you put on his own backpack and wear it. Do you remember when God gave you a backpack? I was in the Tabernacle Baptist Church on October the 1st, 1950. God had been dealing with me for over a week. And I got up when the pastor gave the invitation. God in heaven knows I didn't even hear what my good godly pastor had said. And I got up and went past the altar and went through a room into a darkened Sunday school room. And I got on my face and I said, Lord Jesus, you must be hard up for preachers, but oh God, if you'll use me. I want to go. Now spiritually, obviously, and unseen, God handed me a backpack, and I looked at it, and it had preacher written on it. And I put my backpack on, and I said, boy, think about that. God's letting me be a preacher. A preacher. A preacher. One time, not too long ago, I had some men to call me, ask me could they meet me. I'd been scheduled to be away, way away in a meeting. They said, can we come to the motel and see you? I said, yes. Three of them came, the president of a big company. They said, look, we want you to do something for us. And they offered me a job, not that it would take me out of the ministry, I couldn't pastor, but I'd still preach Still do things, but I'd represent this company. They offered me twice, twice what I make. You can be as spiritual as you want to, but it still takes money to live. They offered me twice. They sat there until one o'clock in the morning. And I got to thinking about it. The glamour of it. The pay that it offered. And I said, fellas, let me think about it a minute. And in my mind, says preacher. And I said, Lord, I'm not going to lay that down. And I put it back on. I said, I'm sorry, I can't take it. Do you know what's wrong with most preachers? They're having to carry your backpack. Some of yours is marked deacon. Some of it's marked Sunday school teacher. Some of it's marked bus worker. Some of it's marked choir singer. Some of it's marked you keep on down the line. But every last one of you have a backpack. And the reason my shoulders are so stooped that through the years I've had to carry others, carry their backpacks. Sunday school teachers sometimes don't show up or not concerned in the morning. Sometimes men not concerned about their bus route. Beloved, every time you do it, you put a weight, you put a burden on people's shoulders that you can't believe. I can tell you how we could go home and have revival in our church without having meetings of any kind. If every member of my church and your church would simply pick up their backpack and say, by God's grace, I'm not going to put it off on anybody else. I have arthritis very severely. I spent four months in the hospital last year. Sometimes I go to preach. I lie down on the couch until five minutes before time and I come out there and preach. And you say, why? Bless God, I don't want anybody else to carry my backpack. One day when the Lord calls me home, folk, I ain't got a lot to offer Him. I can't sing, just so many things I can't do. But there's one thing I can do. I can hold on to that backpack. When I get up there before Him, I can lay it at His feet and I can say, Lord, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. You've got a backpack, brother. You've got a backpack. Some of you have left them back over there somewhere. Some of you have left them out there in order to go do this or that and the other. And my advice to you tonight is you better find them. You better find them. And you better get them on your back. And you say, by God's grace, that's my backpack. Nobody else is going to carry it. And you may be the man that's laying the block, or the man that's putting the wiring in, or the man that's doing all that. It doesn't matter what it is as long as we work together and get before the Lord.