Alright, take your Bible turn, if you will, to Luke chapter 17. We're going to continue along the lines of the Bible and the authority of the Bible. As we mentioned to you this morning, the importance of reading and studying the Bible. You already heard a great message on that the other night. But you have to understand, when we say read and study the Bible, that doesn't mean go pick up a shelf full of them and not believe any of them. That means you need to understand why I believe that the King James Bible is that authority. The big issue that goes on nowadays that most people don't understand and won't grasp is that the main issue that most of you will grapple with will be authority. The main issue will be who's the boss. The main issue will be, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. I call that the Gethsemane experience. Forget about Calvary until you've already made your decision before Calvary to say, not my will but thine be done. It's not always an easy thing. The Lord said that he set his face like a flint for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross. Before he ever got to the cross, he already made a decision, and that decision was, the Father has complete control over me, and whatever he says, I'm going to do. But sometimes some of the things he tells us to do is not an easy thing to do. You certainly know that. He says to you in the book of Romans, he said also in 2 Timothy chapter number two, if you suffer, you shall also reign. He says, given unto you by the half of Christ in Philippians chapter number one, not only for your salvation, but to suffer for his sake, having the same marks in you that Paul had in him. In second Peter, he says about the Lord, he said, listen, it's good if you suffer when you're suffering for doing right. Then he says in 1 Peter 4, he said, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. He said, but rejoice inasmuch your partaker of Christ's suffering. On your part, he is evil spoken of. I mean, on your part, he is well spoken, but on their part, he's evil spoken of. You know what he said? They're making fun of you for living for Jesus Christ. You're living in the last day and hour, the last time that's coming around, and I don't know how long before the rapture. You'll probably die before the rapture. I don't know. I hope it's not a very long period of time. I don't know when it's going to happen. But I know this, the closer we get to that event taking place, you folks are going to get more and more and more odd. You know what's unreal right now? You could call Baptist churches just in Duval County, and you know that they're closed on Sunday night? for a lack of attention, for a lack of attendance, for people that they're not really interested in being there. And then you bunch of freakos are here, you're parked out there. Some of you have been here all day long, you drove two hours to get here one way, and then you come back in for a church service, you have other places you could be and other things you could be doing, and you're sitting in church. You say, why? Well, surely it's to please the Lord. It's not because you're gonna learn something you didn't already know. I'm positive what I'm gonna show you tonight. You've probably seen it a hundred times. You say, he's getting senile. He doesn't know we're standing. I'm aware that you're standing. I just want you to feel my pain, that's all. I have to stand and look at you, you gotta stand and look at me for just a little bit. But here's the thing that it boils down to, it boils down to authority. The devil shows up in Genesis chapter number three and the first thing he says to her, yea hath God said. I wanna know did God really mean what he really meant to say and what I really think he meant to say was this and that and the other. The issue is authority. If you can't follow orders, you're gonna always have difficulty in the Christian life. You won't just have trouble in life. you will have trouble in the Christian life. It's more than just what dog you feed. It's what master you obey. All right, Luke chapter number 17, I'll just give you a little bit of something geological, something that has to do with the Lord, and of course it may hit us flat earthers just a little bit. Luke chapter number 17, we'll pick it up in verse number, let's make it 31. That's it, and that day which he shall be upon the housetop, his stuff upon the housetop, let him not come down to take it away. And he is in the field, let likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife, whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. I tell you, in the night there shall be two men in one bed, and one taken in the other left. And two women shall be grinding together, one shall be taken in the other left. Two men are taken in the field, one taken in one left. And then answer the Lord, where the Lord, and he said unto them, wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. Brother Phil McNamara, great to have you here with us, appreciate it. I bet you pray, ask the Lord to help us, would you please? Amen, now just real quickly, I'm not gonna go into the whole thing as you're taking your Bible and turning to the book of Isaiah, which will be back to the left toward Genesis. You know what Luke says in one place? Luke says in one place, it's day in one place and it's night in the other. Do you recognize that it's, he's saying to you, he's telling you that the Lord is the one, you know what the Bible teaches you about the sun? The Bible says the sun rises and the sun sets. The sun rises and the sun sets. People say, well that's not true, the earth spins around the sun and this and that and the other. Well if that's the case, then how come it is that it says in your newspaper, you read it tomorrow morning. Know what it'll say? If you've got a phone or something on you, know what it'll say? The time for sun, what tomorrow? No, it's the earth going around the sun. It's not what it says. It says the sun rises and sets. You say, what happened when Joshua was over there? The Bible said the Lord said the sun stood still, not the earth. Now, I'm not getting into all that other kind of stuff, but who didn't know having a Bible back in the book of Luke that he said, you know what, it can be day in one place and night in the other. If you've ever flown overseas, when we come back from South Africa, we're flying over here and we're leaving in the daytime over here. You know what you see? You get in a spot right over there that when you cross that timeline, you literally cross from day to night and all you've done is is cross like stepping into a thundershower. You say, what happened? The sun is on one part of the earth and it's going up over, coming up over here and it's going down over here, and it's dark over here. And then it comes up over here, and it's light over here, and it's setting over here, and the same thing goes on on a regular basis. You say, what does that mean? Beware of science falsely so-called that would tell you anything, except it's the sun doing that. You're in a passage there in Isaiah chapter number 40. Look, if you will, please, and this is something. Now, you know back in the 16th and 17th century, you know they believed the earth was flat. Right? You know that Columbus believed that if he were to sail out there, there was gonna be some dragon that was out there that was gonna get him and if they sailed far enough, they would sail off the end of the earth. Well, if you had a Bible going back to the days of Isaiah, written back years and years and years ago, you know what you'd find out? You'd find out the Lord sitteth upon the circle of the earth. People say, well, that circle's really a pie plate and it's covered with a dome and all that other kind of stuff. You've got to be back in the 16th and 17th century. Your King James Bible said this sits upon the circle of the earth. It's a planet, it's a marble, it's round. How do you get it to float out of the water and in the water? Well, you see, it's this flat platform and then that thing, what it does is it floats there like an iceberg on top of the thing. You got all kind of ways to make it. Why don't you make it like he says it is? Make it like a fishing cork. That thing's sitting there out of the water and in the water, and then when they sin, the Lord kicks that thing down with the sons of God on the deal, and drowns it out, and then he divides the waters from the waters, and then there it is in the solar system. You say it can't be that simple. It's that simple. The Bible teaches you there's water. The firmament's frozen over your head. There's water over you. the fountains of the great deep were broken up. What that is is when I watch the movie about Noah and somebody jumping on the ark and all that kind of stuff and being a stowaway back in the bushes and all that and the little rock men helping people build things and all. When the Lord did that, what he did was he called all the fountains in the earth to come spewing up like geysers. The Bible said it was rain, not geysers. The Bible didn't say it had anything to do with dew. It didn't have anything to do with geysers. It didn't have anything to do with old fateful blowing steam off. The fountains of the great deep broke up. What was that? The ice that's preventing the water up there from coming down. The water that you're gonna go through, Exodus chapter 14. the Red Sea that you're gonna go through when he parts the Red Sea and you go through just like they did in the book of Exodus. But you'd have to have a King James Bible to believe that. You say, why? They've changed all that in the other Bibles to line them up with science. You want to be careful about that. I'm teaching you science right now whether you want to believe that or not. Isaiah chapter number 40. I'm in Ezekiel. I have no idea why I'm in Ezekiel. Must be something good in Ezekiel. We won't take time to read it. Isaiah chapter 40. Oh, let's see. Let's pick it up on 21. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? Oh, four corners of the earth, preacher. And so therefore we know that it's square. It's a platform. You ever had a compass? It's got four corners in it. North, south, east, and west. Why does that have to be corners? There are protrusions that stick out there. Well, preacher, you know what that is and all that kind of? Listen, listen, stop trying to make it something you think that you're smarter than you really are. We're gonna be on the way up. I'm gonna ask the Lord to let me get raptured. I hope it's on a Sunday night. As a matter of fact, I hope it's tonight. But I'm gonna ask it to be a Sunday night. And would you let me just hang around for some of them others? Because you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna say, what's that marble down there? Y'all hold on a second now, I'll catch up with you in a second. What is that down there? Is that a flat earth? The Lord said, hey, I sit on the circle of the earth. Well, Lord, we thought that was a pie plate. What do you think I'm doing? I'm sitting on the edge of the pie plate? No, the Bible says the earth is a footstool. He sitteth upon the circle of the earth. Everything else is in a circle. Why would you think the earth would be different? You gotta be educated to be that stupid. You say, why? Take the Bible for what it says. Notice what he says, he said, and he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and habiteth that there are a grasshopper, stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. I don't have the time to go into all that kind of stuff, but one of the things you have to realize is, is from the 14th to about the 16th come to Ecclesiastes, yeah, Ecclesiastes chapter one, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. From the 14th to about the 16th century, they believed, because they were so smart, they believed that the earth was flat. Well, you now know that it's not. And the sun rises and sets, and the sun rises and sets. It's going down right now. You say, well, what's happening is, is the earth is moving around it. You let me know when you get it all figured out, and then when the rapture happens, I promise you, I probably am gonna say I told you so. Now what you find out is, and you get to fly the amount of time I get to fly, you recognize that there's certain patterns to wind and things like that. And it's important for you to know that. But you know what? The Lord told Job about people and having winds all the way back in Ecclesiastes. And then Job, he's gonna talk about the patterns that are set up by the solar system and stuff. You know what the wisest man that ever lived said? There's patterns to the wind. that wind blows a certain direction. I'll show you in just a minute, there's some stuff that goes on when it comes to the Lord telling you how the water gets into the ocean. And then it winds up being removed from the ocean by evaporation. And then it goes over the land and it rains and then the river runs down into the ocean. And then it repeats itself again. You say, well preacher, how's all that water get in the ocean? There's fresh water springs in the ocean. You have to have a Bible to know that. What do you think that water is that runs in the river? You think it's salt water? How's that river water run down there and then turn to salt? Where's all that salt come from? How do you think Darwin would explain that? Here's a good one for you. How do you think Darwin would explain a handful of sand? You don't even know how to make it. But you got a Bible, I can show you that. Let me show you something here in the Bible. In the Bible, he'll talk about the treasuries of the snow. Why is that important? Snow has fertilizer in it. You get a couple of feet of snow, you got all the nitrogen and potassium and everything you need, that's good for crops. Treasury. You know, he teaches you about that. In two foot of snow, you can't find a single snowflake alike. And then the passage I'm going to show you in just a second, and I'll show it to you. It's off the top of my head right now. I'll show it to you. He said, your snowflakes are out there. God's in your hand. You know why? Look at your hand. You ever think about it? Nobody's hand is the same. No fingerprint's the same. You're like snowflakes. Not the political snowflakes. You're like snowflakes. How do you figure that? No single fingerprint is the same anywhere in the entire world. You'd think with babies being born, you'd have a duplicate somewhere, wouldn't you? You can go dig out a whole bunch of snow, lay out all the snowflakes, you can't find a single snowflake the same. They guarantee you that the identification for an individual comes from your fingerprints. You're like snowflakes. You think God doesn't make you fearfully and wonderfully? How are you going to have that in evolution? You'd think the Lord might mess up in there once or twice, maybe get two snowflakes alike, or two people's fingerprints the same. It ain't that way. How do you do that? Why, even on my one hand, I've got four fingerprints and a thumbprint. None of them are the same. Not only that, they're not the same as this one. That means there's 10 of me, there's 100 and so people here tonight, maybe a few more than that. That means right now, if you each have 10 fingers on each of your hands, you have 10 digits on each of your hand, that means there's 1,000 different prints in here and not a single one of them match. That's why they use it in court. We got his fingerprints. That's why they put that one kid's dad in prison. They said, put your dad in prison, yeah, for something he forgot to do. They said, what did he forget to do? Wipe his fingerprints off the safe. That's funny. Ecclesiastes chapter number one. Ecclesiastes chapter number one, verse number six. The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about to the north and whirleth about continually and the wind returneth again according to its. circuits, all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full, unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again." Well, don't you find that strange? How is it that the rivers are always running into the sea, and yet the sea's never full? How does it not run over the bounds of its habitation? How is it you keep pouring water in it, and it's not sloshing out? Where's the water going? or it sends a cloud by there, sends wind by there, blows that water off the top of that thing, and gets it all up into that cloud, and takes that cloud over, and makes a thunderstorm out of that thing, and then pours it out, and then it runs down through the rivers, and it runs down through the ponds, and runs down through the lakes, runs down through the stream, runs down through the aquifer, and the next thing you know, isn't it interesting? The ocean doesn't wind up dropping. The tide rises, and it falls, and it rises, and it falls. What is that? That's God doing that. You say, what told you about that, a Bible? There's a lot more in the Bible than just touch not, taste not, handle not. What a shallow relationship with the Lord if all you got is he told me I can't. Bible's just full of thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. There's not a single thou shalt not in there to be harmful for you. Every thou shalt not in there is something beneficial to you, something that'll help you. But people don't like the negative. Why do you have to be negative? Because an ounce of prevention's worth a pound of cure. Better for me to tell you don't put your hand on the stove or your head in the oven than for you to do it and then go, wow, I wish somebody had told me. And now my eyebrows are singed off, my hair's burnt off, and then I got these little rings on my hand now because nobody told me. Don't touch it, it's hot. Right? Well, don't be so negative. Okay, burn your hand off then. Take your Bible, if you will, please, and come over to Olesy, Leviticus. Genesis, Exodus, Numbers. Yeah, Leviticus. That'll be it. Leviticus, chapter 15. This is an odd one to me. Most of you probably have heard all of this. Leviticus, chapter number 15. If not, it's good to just the redundancy is a good thing for you to have. That's one of the best teachers that there is. All right, Leviticus 15. How many of you heard of the Black Plague? Anybody? All right, during the Black Plague, the bubonic plague, one of the things that happened was is that there were a whole lot of the Jewish nation that didn't get sick. See, it was God's hand of protection. There was two reasons that the Jewish nation didn't wind up getting sick. Number one, they didn't wind up getting sick because of certain dietary laws. And number two, they didn't wind up getting sick because they understood the principle of running water. You don't get up until the 1800s when people are dying from gangrene. I'm talking about a woman having a baby and winding up getting an ungodly, terrible infection and stuff. You don't wind up getting out of that because they had a big dish of water and the individual would come in and wash their hands and then scoop it up again and wash their hand and then scoop it up again out of the same pail like that. You know what happened all the way back when Leviticus was written during the time of the Pentateuch when Moses wrote five books? You know what he said right here? Look at verse 13. 15-13. And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue, then he shall number himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh. How? Do you realize that didn't change until the 1800s when they said, you know something, maybe there's something we're doing wrong because people are coming to the hospital and getting sick. So now what they tell you is, as you know, cough in your elbow and do all that other kind of stuff and try to prevent the spread and make sure you wear a mask. I'm not making fun of any of it and try don't touch your face and all that kind of stuff. But if you wash your hands, you know what surgeons do? You ever watch them? You ever watch them on Marcus Welby, MD, or whatever's out there now? I don't even know if that's still on. Whatever the shows are out there. You know what they're in there? They're always in there scrubbing, dub, dub, three men in a tub. Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, running water, running water, running water, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, running water, and then they put on gloves. You say, why? They understood that bacteria comes from not washing your hands and running water. You can solve a lot of disease issues by just washing your hands. in running water. You say, why? When you wash the bacteria off, if it's in the bucket, you pick the bacteria back up again. You say, well, I feel good. Yeah, until you're reaching that same bloody bucket and then go to wash your face. You say, well, I would never do that. Yeah, but then everything you touch is on your hands and then you touch your face and then guess what happens? It's in through your ears, it's in through your skin, it's in through your eyes. Don't you know that your eyes are conductors for getting that stuff? You ever look at how big a bacteria is? It's microscopic. You can resolve a lot of things by washing your hand. You get a cold, wash your paws. Wash your paws before you eat. You say, why? I wash my paws before I eat so that the food I touch, you pick it up, especially if you live in India and that kind of thing. You pick up food with your hand. Whatever's on your hand gets transferred to the food. You put it in. Listen, I was raised before I found out dirt would hurt you. I understand that. I mean, people have a three-second rule. We had a 15-second rule. The issue was you had to beat the dog to the food on the floor. It wasn't a matter of how many clicked sections go off. You didn't sit there and pick the stuff up and throw it in the garbage can. Not us. It was kind of like, man, that was good. The fella told me, he said, one time in Africa, he said, you folks are really funny. Y'all are strange. He said, y'all are all the time getting on the men and women who happen to be overweight. He said, we don't do that in Africa. And I said, well, why wouldn't you do that in Africa? He said, we want to know where they're getting all the food. That's pretty funny. Oh well, I'm not even going to try to explain that one. Job chapter 37. Solomon knew what I just said to you right there. Solomon knew that stuff about the wind and the rain. He knew that stuff back in 1000 B.C. Back long before that, when Moses wrote that stuff, you know what he said to that nation of Israel? He said to the nation of Israel, he said, make sure you wash your paws and run in water. Run in water, run in water, run in water. You say, why is that important? The Lord will tell you how to take care of yourself. He said, wash your clothes. Don't wear the same clothes all the time. You say, what? Not only do you stink, you're carrying disease. In the book of Leviticus, he talks about leprosy, and I got all the references to it. We won't take the time to do it, but the leprosy can get into your clothes. It's microscopic. You can't tell it's there. You have to burn the clothing. And it can get into the stones in the house, if you can imagine that. That's what he says it happens. That place has to be cleansed or either torn down. And he talks about it getting in your skin, and it being a white spot, and being a bright spot, or having a hair in it. All that stuff's in there. That's all stuff made out of the medical stuff. But there's some common ordinary things that you ought to be careful about to pay attention to. Not too many dainties, he says. You say, what is that? Too many sweets. You ever heard about fat around the heart? That's in the book of Proverbs. You say, what is that? That's visceral fat. That's in the pericardium area. That's the area that surrounds the heart. You say, what happens? It'll strangle your heart. You say, from what? Too much sugar. You say, well, preacher, it's cholesterol. They give me cholesterol medicine to induce that and the other and so on and so forth. My LDL, my HDL, and all that kind of stuff. And then what happens is I wind up with my blood sugar being unusually high, and I got this, and I got that, and all that. Too many dainties. Too many things that turn into sugar. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. You say, what happened? You get fat around your heart. You say, what happened? You die. You ever heard that message, oh, what's that guy's name, man? He's a little short, fat, round guy. He preached about 30 minutes. He was a truck driver guy. One of you guys ought to remember his name here. Mays Jackson. Mays Jackson. He had great names for sermons. If there was ever clickbait, he would have had it, man. He preaches a message when he said, when lefty, let fatty have it. He couldn't say that today because nobody would listen to it. But he's talking about Ehud goes in there and he stabs him, and he's so fat that the fat runs over the hilt of the knife. You can't get the knife back out, so the knife stays in. You know what the Bible said, and the dirt came out. Well, that's some great preaching in that right there, boy. But anyway, not preaching against fat people, I'm just saying lefty, lefty, left fatty habit. He got in there real close to him and stuck him in. I shouldn't laugh. But he preaches that thing, man, like he's telling you about a cartoon or something, man. He looked like a pickle barrel with pipe cleaners. But man, could he preach. But you know what the truth of the matter is? God warned you about all that stuff. The Lord tells you about moderation. It's important for you to be moderate in all things. Look in 37, look at verse number 6. For he saith to the snow, be thou on the earth, likewise the small rain, the great rain of his strength. He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work. You know what he just said right there? He just said you can know God by your looking at your hand. You're all different. You're fearfully and wonderfully made. You know what he didn't say? It's not your skin color or male or female that points you to God. You know what he just said? He said it's your hand. Just look at your hand. You see God in that. You're the only one that's got a fifth digit. You realize what you couldn't do without your thumbs? My mom, poor old thing, man, she's 92 guess now or so. We invited to see her the other day. Her hands are twisted up even worse. Her thumbs used to play the piano and sing and all that kind of stuff. She couldn't hardly play chopsticks anymore. Big old welts on because of arthritis and all that. All this is all completely gone now. Arthritis just eaten off the joints and all that, and those thumbs are turning like that. I think about Herbie. Herbie had to tie things with these two fingers here. I think about how that'd be. But you know what the Lord said? I made you different than the animals. You ever think about what your grip would be like if all you had was just four fingers? That separates you, doesn't it? Some of you use it to thumb every now and then. Well, used to. Go used to. You ought not be doing that now. God forbid now. All right, take your Bible, if you will, please, and come a little further. Look at your hands. Is this helping you at all, making sense to you? Psalms 119, 70, it'll be there. Somebody better check that one. I think that's 70. Come over to the book of Nahum. Let's go there. Nahum and then Habakkuk. So you're gonna go from Job and you're gonna go back. Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. If you hit Matthew, back up to the left a little bit. I'm not gonna make you stand if you got it. Nahum, if you've been watching TV more than reading your Bible, you might have a hard time. That's on page 953 in my Bible. It's back there a little ways. I'll wait on you. I think 119.70, if you were checking, I think that's the visceral fat there around the heart. Isn't that it? Okay. It's not as much the fat on your belly as it is the fat on the inside of your belly. You boys got to watch that pot-bellied pig. You say, wow, that's a good way to have a heart attack. You ladies gotta watch it in other places, and I'm not gonna mention anything, but you gotta, you say, what are you doing? The Lord's trying to give you a word of caution. Better watch it. He doesn't want you to die early. But who pays attention to a Bible? You reap what you sow, don't you? Surely you're aware of that now. Look at Nahum chapter two, verse number three. The Bible said, the shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet. And this is toward the end of things. The chariot shall be with flaming torches, and the day of his preparation the fir trees shall be terribly shaken. The chariot shall raise in the streets, and they shall jostle one against another in a broad ways. They shall seem like torches, they shall run like lightning. I don't know what you think that is, but it looks to me like those chariots are likened to what you call a modern day car. He's got a passage over there in the book of Isaiah and talking about the second coming. You know what he says, the power's in the fire. Now, Brother Larry, Brother Josh, one of these other fellows, Brother Justin, maybe they can tell you, I'm not a mechanic, but I think I understand that you can have gasoline and you can have a carburetor, but you gotta have a spark in order for that thing to combust, and then that catches that gas on fire, and then that's what causes the compression and that causes the piston to move. Have I got that kinda right? Is that right? You can't just like have gas, you have to have something to ignite it. Is that right? Close to right, right? Okay, alright. You know what he said? He's way back there in the days of Nahum, which is 700 years before Christ. You know what he said? I'm looking way down in 2000. I'm looking in 2021. You know what I see? I see a bunch of chariots running around. They look like torches, headlights. They jostle one against the other. Well, why doesn't he say Buick and Chevrolet? Why doesn't he say Mercedes and Bentley? Why doesn't he say that? How would somebody in 1800 understand that? You know what a chariot is. You know what he says over there in that passage in Isaiah? He said that the second advent, he said the fuel comes from the fire. That's gasoline driven and combustible, and that's diesel fuel. You say, what is that, preacher? That's kind of a loose interpretation. Okay, well then you tell me what it is. They're jostling one against the other. They're flying back and forth. And the Bible said they're like lightning. Well, that's what you have. It's not a race that's going on there. It has to do with the second coming of Christ. Job chapter number 25, Job 25. Preacher, this is just boring. Okay, we'll bear with the rest of us. To me, this is interesting. You say, why? Just to be reminded of the things that God put in it. This comes from an old Bible study. And I pulled the thing out and I thought, man, shoot, I hadn't taught that in years. Just to show you things that are in the Bible you didn't know were there. You pick up the Bible and you read it and you think to me, well, what am I getting out of this? I don't know, I've given you some stuff here. Nobody should be under any conviction right now. It's just seeing God do things. You ought to be awestruck by God. Not just I wake up in the morning and wonder, when are they ever gonna run out? Do you ever think of that? I see all the stuff because of the virus we got going on and the respirators coming around and stuff like that. What if God just decided to suck all the oxygen off the earth? I mean, you might last a minute or two. You can last longer without water or food than you can without air. You've got to have air. You ever think about who provides the air? Do you ever get up in the morning? Do you think about it at night when you go to sleep? That while you're asleep, you're breathing? You're not even thinking about it? You're sound asleep, how come you're breathing? You're breathing air. First thing you do when you come out, and you come out of your mama's womb, and when you come out of there, and they smack you on the hind end, the first thing you do is go, and then you cry the rest of your life. But after that, you know. But the first thing you do is you breathe in air. You've been breathing water. embryonic fluid. You've been breathing water. But if they were to take you out of that womb after you grabbed that breath and hold you underwater, you drowned. How does that happen? You just came out of water. I remember that girl out of the school on the north side. She was 16, I guess 17. She just turned. She's a senior. I remember she had kept that pregnancy from everybody and she went in the bathroom and had that baby. After that baby was born, she took a pair of school scissors and cut that umbilical cord and tied it off on her end with a little rubber band thing. She took that baby by the nape of the neck and held that baby under that toilet water until that baby drowned. Stuffed in a hefty bag and went out. I don't mean to be guilty, but the thing that always struck me about that was, is that baby was safe, breathing water, and then all of a sudden it grabbed one breath of air and then drowned it in water. You say, what do you think about that? Oh, I think she deserved everything she got, but I think God was merciful to that baby. What if that baby had grown up and gone to hell? I know you don't see it that way. I understand, but the terrible, she deserved to pay for it. But don't you find that odd how God can switch that thing in a matter of seconds? The second you grab your first breath and you start crying, from that moment on, if you go under the very thing that you've been under for nine months, you die. How's God keep you alive? I said it right. How's God keep you alive in the womb? You might want to be careful about running anything up into God's provision up there and killing off something that he says. You might want to be careful. You're messing around with life. You better not cheapen that. Job 25, look if you will please in verse number, make it four. 25, four. How then can man be justified with God, and how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon. And what? It what? Well, does the moon shine or not? You say, well, I see it shining. It's reflecting, it's not shining. That's the oldest book in the Bible. You tell me your Bible's not scientific? The oldest book in the Bible says the moon doesn't shine. It reflects the light. The moon's a type of the church. It's supposed to reflect the light of the sun. You don't have your own light. You have his light. Preacher, that's kind of a wild thing. I mean, I know the song about shine on, harvest moon, shine on silvery moon, shine on, shine on. It don't shine. It reflects. Unless there is an eclipse. You say, Preacher, what happens in an eclipse? In an eclipse, the earth moves between the sun and the moon. And the moon goes dark because the earth moved in between. That's a great sermon right there. You let the world get between you and God, you'll block the sun, you won't reflect it anymore. It'll be all about you. Job chapter 38. I'm sure you're familiar with all this. This is the oldest book in the Bible. You say, but it's not Genesis. No, it's Job. It was written long before Genesis. Job chapter 38. Let's make it 16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the search of the depths? They didn't know until very recently that there's fresh water bubbling up from the ground in the bottom of the oceans. Job knew it long before Genesis was written. Springs of the sea. Probably a coincidence. Look at verse 19. Where is the way where light dwelleth? For as for darkness, where is the place thereof? Light moves, they still can't tell you where it originates. It's constantly moving. Einstein spent years trying to figure that out. You know what the Lord said? They don't know where the source is. I know where the source is. I saw a light shining above the brightness of the sun. You say, what happens? Peek-a-boo, and he shuts the door. The Bible says that the Lord said, let there be what? Light. I know where the source of light is. Amen. Man's looking around, where's the light come from? I can tell you, it comes from the light of the world. You're kind of stretching it a little bit. Well, I've given you enough at least to think about anyhow. Verse 22, hast thou entered into the treasuries of the snow, and hast thou seen the treasuries of the hail, which have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of war? By what way is the light parted? First of all, he says, I'm the one that holds on to the snow, and I'm the one that holds on to the hail, and he uses the hail during the tribulation period, and that kind of stuff. It comes down big ol' like cannonballs that come down, or bowling balls. And then he said, how's the light parted? How would Job know how the light parted? It's a spectroscope. You ever see light like this, a sunlight like this, and then put a prism down here, and all of a sudden you see what looks like a rainbow? You ever gone out after a real good heavy thunderstorm in the afternoon, and that light comes out, and all of a sudden there's a rainbow out, not representing the wrong thing, but a rainbow that's out there saying, I'll never drown out the earth again with a flood? You ever look at that? Where do those colors come from? It ain't a leprechaun. It's the Lord taking the mist, that rain, in the clouds that are up there and turning that thing just right. And when the sun hits it, it makes a rainbow. I'll set my bow in the clouds. It's a circle. It's that kind of a thing there. All right, look if you will please in verse number 30. This is a good one. The Bible says the waters are hit as with a stone. The face of the deep is what? So what's keeping the water from overhead from crashing down on top of us? The face of the deep is frozen. It's ice up there. By the breath of the Lord, the water is straightened. How would you straighten water? Ice. You say, what's up there? How do you break the fountains of the great deep? They begin to crack. You ever crack it out of an ice tray? That's where that water came from. The Lord let the windows of heaven open, and they busted that sash loose, would have been painted up for a long time, and they finally got in there, and then all of a sudden, crack, crack, crack, and then up come the windows, and down comes the rain. And he said over there in the book of Kings, he said, I don't believe in windows of heaven. He said, you better believe in windows of heaven. If you don't believe in windows of heaven, I'll have you trampled underfoot. And he said, well, I don't believe in the windows of heaven. And that afternoon, they found the same guy that said, I don't believe in windows in heaven. And you know what they said? He found trampled to death. You say, why? in heaven. Well, preacher, I just don't believe that. Just a little bit over my head. Just because science hasn't caught up, don't mean it ain't there. It's there. They can't see past that stuff. There's no way they can be up there. They're in the solar system. They're not up there where God lives. They can't get through that frozen firmament up there. They couldn't blast their way through that frozen firmament. Here's a good one for you. Look at verse 35. Who would think this would be in the book of Job? Verse number 35. Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? That's electricity talking. Who would have thought lightning talk? Ben Franklin sure thought so. He runs a kite out there with a key on the end of it. That thing gets popped, and it runs down there. And then the next thing you know, he comes up with a telephone. You can talk wire to wire. How does your voice travel over a wire? I mean, if you had a dog, it'd be like his tail is in Florida and his mouth is in New York, and you step on his tail and he barks in New York, you know? That'd be what it'd be like. And I guess now without electronics, you'd have to make the dog imaginary or something, I guess, but it'd be the same principle. How does that stuff happen? The Lord says lightning's your example of that. It talks. Thunderings and lightnings. All right, take your Bible if you will, please, and come to Revelation 22. Here's where it starts getting real good. Revelation chapter 22. All I'm trying to do is point you to a book. There's a reason for studying the book. It's God's book. It matters to God. Revelation chapter number 22. Look in verse number 19. And if any man shall take away from the, underline it if you don't already have it underlined, from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and for the things that are written in this book. Now, if you didn't have the words, ladies and gentlemen, John chapter number five, how could God call such condemnation on somebody if he didn't have the words of a book? If he's gonna hold you accountable for it, wouldn't you say that he'd have to give you something to do it? Not your impression, not your interpretation, not your idea of a version. There's gotta be one book where he holds you accountable. It can't be the originals. There aren't any originals. Where would be the originals of Moses' writings that he wrote when he got the Ten Commandments? He busted them all to pieces. How about the ones Jeremiah found out that Jehudi cut up with a pen knife and threw him in the fire? Where are those originals? Some of you folks worship originals and worship the paper it's written on more than you worship what the Bible says. You might accuse me of believing the Bible and so on and so forth, but other people are always originals. There's not even any originals. That's done to intimidate you, to make you think that you have to have the originals and have Hebrew and Greek and that kind of stuff. I got it in English. a deeper minute in meaning in Hebrew or Greek and all that. Those are dead languages. You can't understand them anyway. I'll give you an idea. How about this? All throughout the New Testament, you get Matthew, you get Mark, you get Paul. They're saying things from the New Testament. You say, well, it's not the originals. It can't be the originals. The originals are in Hebrew. They're translating them into Greek. But the translation's always better than the original anyway. You're having to think about that a minute. When Enoch got translated, was he better before or after? When you get translated, are you gonna be better before or after? When your Bible got translated, before or after? Translation's better than the original. What makes you think the Lord doesn't want you to study English? Isn't that your language? The very idea that you gotta go to college and learn a language that's dead to be able to speak that when the Lord said, I already wrote it for you in English, why would you bother? Go get you a Hebrew lexicon and learn that. I got one in my office. You say, Preacher, I picked it up and I looked at it. It doesn't look very well worn. No, I don't use it. The only time I use it is when one of those Fellas from across the river comes over here, they're TR men and stuff like that. I admit, I do it, I do it, and I'm mean-spirited about it. I confess to you I am. I mean, I'm sweet and smile and that kind of stuff. I said, so you believe in the original? Absolutely, I believe in the original. They believe in Hebrew and Greek and all that kind of stuff. I said, I got a Nestles Greek text here. Give me just a second here, pull it off. And I said, I'll tell you what, I'll listen to you. If you could just pick any passage you want to pick, just read me the passage. Don't read it to me and don't give me the interpretation of it, because you're going to go to John 3.16 and say, well that's saying this. I said, because it don't say in Greek what it says in English. I already know what it says, but I don't tell them that. I said, don't tell me the interpretation like you're reading it and giving me the interpretation while you're reading it. I said, I want to hear you say it in Greek. You ever heard somebody speak Greek? You talk about whacked out. Hebrew, man, that thing goes from left to right. It goes back the other way. I mean, from right to left. It doesn't go left to right. It goes backwards. You talk about trying to read all them symbols and you think you're reading Egyptian hieroglyphics. You say, what do you got? I got English. You say, why? Because I'm English. Where the word of the king is, there's power. King James, that's where your time comes. That's where your longitude and latitude comes. Well, you know, God doesn't care about me and God doesn't care about this. Apparently not. You say, what? He looks to England to give it to you. Wonder why. Wonder why your Bible came from England. English. I'm trying to tell some of you, you get a little jellyfishy on that stuff. It's supernatural what you got in your hand. God gave you that intentionally. That ought to be a blessing to you that God thought enough to you to give it to you in your language, your native tongue, English. You ought to be thinking, man, God, that's really good. You say, why? Well, you don't read it as it is now. Imagine if you had to learn Hebrew or Greek to read it. Would you really read Hebrew and Greek and learn how to speak fluently Hebrew and Greek so you could read it in it in order to learn the Bible? You say, why would? You don't even read the Bible now. Don't raise your hand. This is a rhetorical question. You read through your Bible already this year? You're in October. You're ten months in. You already read your Bible through, have you? And you're going to study Hebrew and Greek. You're ten months in. If nothing else, if you're trying to read it through once a year, you're within two months of having it done. You're within two months of having it done? Well, preacher, I'm doing pretty good. I'm in Genesis 21. Okay, you better step on it. That's a lot of reading to do. Look, if you will please, in John chapter number 5, you say, why? Because words are important. John chapter 5, verse number 46. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he what? He wrote of me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe my what? Well, isn't that an interesting thing? Also the emphasis on the words, the words, the words. John chapter number three. Just back up a little bit. I should have already given you this one. John chapter three. Look in verse number 34. For he whom God hath sent speaketh The what? Of who? For God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him. You know what he just said? He said if the guy's spent from God, he's speaking to you words. Well, if the words don't exist, then how do you know they're from God? They must come from a Bible. What does he say in 2 Timothy? Preach the what? Word, be instant in season, out of seed, and reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. John chapter eight. Let me at least finish this, okay? John chapter number eight. Just a couple more. You ever look at the book of Isaiah? Isaiah 66 books. You know every one of those books matches the same book parallel to all the books that are written in your Bible? You go to Isaiah 66, you go to chapter number one of the book of Isaiah, it matches it with Genesis. It's all through there. You know where they divide Isaiah? They divide Isaiah in chapter 39. 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 in the New. You say they follow Catholic, no they don't. Catholic manuscripts had a Septuagint and had, I mean, excuse me, had the Apocrypha in the middle of it. You say, well, it's written after the Septuagint. No, it wasn't. It was written long before the Septuagint. How did Isaiah know that there was going to be 39 in the Old, three times 13, and 27 in the New? How did he know the canon of Scripture was going to be 66 books before any of that other stuff was written? You say, why is that? It's supernatural. How do you have a little Bible in the Old Testament? Isaiah, 66 chapters, what's the big deal about that? I had to write this down, I can't ever remember it. In 2 Chronicles, the Jews go in captivity the same way they did in 70 AD. After 2 Chronicles comes Ezra, that's the time of returning and the beginning of the rebuilding of the temple. Just like they returned in 1914 to 1918 under their Balfour Declaration. The Jews rebuild in Nehemiah chapter, the beginning of Nehemiah there, just like they went back to rebuild in 1948. And then you step out of that and step into Esther. Seven days and seven nights, wedding in the garden. You come out of Esther, you come into Job, there's 42 chapters, that's 42 months for the Jew in the great tribulation period. And then you come out of the tribulation period, and there's the book of Psalms, David shows up there as the king, that's the Lord coming. That's how your Bible's laid out. You think that's happenstance? It's a premillennial fashion that God laid your Bible out that way. And he told you everything that was gonna happen with the Jewish nation, and how all that stuff was gonna be laid out. You think that's happenstance? I don't, you believe whatever you want. I believe the book is supernatural. I showed you this morning that that book reads you, you don't read that book. People say, well, I don't understand the Bible and this and that and the other. God doesn't give you the understanding if you don't believe it. Look at this passage here in John chapter number eight. John chapter number eight, this is a rough one, verse 44. You have your father the devil, the lust of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, a bow not in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. Because I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Well, that's a rough one. Which of you convinces me of sin and say the truth, and why do you not believe me? He that is of God, heareth God's... He put that in there. You therefore hear them not the words because you're not of God. Do you ever think that maybe the reason you're not getting anything out of what's being said, is it possible? Look in John 14, John chapter 14. You ever think that it might be because you're not of God? That Bible teaches you in the book of 2 Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians in chapter number two, he said, the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit for they're spiritually discerned, neither can he know them. That means if you're lost, you can't understand the Bible except for salvation. That means if you're carnal, the Holy Spirit in your life is grieved or vexed or quenched, and that means your ability to understand the Bible has been cut off. Your interpreter can't get a message to you because you are in a carnal state. You're living after the flesh, and if you live after the flesh, all you'll hear is condemnation when you pick up the Bible and tell you, you better get right, you better get right, you better get right, you better get right. No matter where you pick up the Bible, there's gonna be constantly just drilling you. You say, why don't I get any further revelation, preacher? Why don't I get to see these things? Why don't I get any fresh messages and stuff? He said, if God hears from God, well, I'm saved, born again, glory to God, praise the Lord, hallelujah. Are you in fellowship with him? My wife and I have arguments every now and then, not many of them over 40 years. We've had a few, I would say, maybe one or two anyway. We've had a couple of arguments. One of the strangest thing happens after you have an argument, you'd think you resolve an argument by talking. But oftentimes, you know what happened? It gets quiet. You can hear the crickets at nighttime. You all must not be guilty or either you're under real conviction because you all of a sudden went. What is that? Was that the silent treatment? You know what God will do to you if you get out of fellowship with him? You go to church and the thundering diction of the King James Bible is coming out of the pulpit and the guy's sweating down to his socks and spewing out fire and brimstone. Boy, you think you can smell the sulfur right out of hell? And you're sitting there going, whatever. and people coming to the altar and people crying and people shouting hallelujah and praise the Lord and the kids up here singing and stuff like that and boy they're getting a blessing and stand up and praise the Lord and hallelujah and that kind of a thing. I was preaching at a church last, or this week, I was preaching at a church this week. There's a couple of guys that came up there to visit and you get ready to come down there and I'm in the middle of preaching and they're sitting down on the pew and they just stand up They didn't walk at all, they just... That's their way of saying, man that's good. Man that's good. Around here, you know what happened? Brother Larry would stand up sometimes, Brother T.K would stand up and do like this and all that kind of stuff. You say, why? The Lord's speaking to them. Sometimes there'll be a song. David wrote the majority of 150 of them that are in the Bible. He got charged up every now and then. It's that Mikael that comes along and says, yeah, weren't you a real spectacle today? Boy, you sure looked like a king today, running around there in your underwear. What's wrong with you, man? Dressed like a common, ordinary man. Kings robe, because the Lord's on display, honey. I mean, what a blessing, man. God's let us bring the temple up. Nobody died on the trip, man. Whoo, man, hallelujah. God's finally back in Israel, man. He's been with the Philistines far too long. Yeah, what a spectacle. What do you reckon what the women thought of you today? That's how women think. What do the women think of you? Well, I don't know what does God think of you. I'm not trying to be hard on you. You should have had enough of that this morning. I was like, man, what got you wound up this morning? Just espresso, that's all that was. Nothing but just write that off to too much coffee this morning. But there was a little bit of scripture backing it up, I think, I believe. But let me ask you a question. Did you ever recognize the reason sometimes you don't hear anything? Why would God give you something and all you can do is make time to come on a Sunday morning, maybe twice a month? I'd say if you got an excuse, you got a good reason, the ox is in the ditch. Of course, you keep kicking that cotton-picking ox in the ditch. But then you get mad like, well, how come God ain't showing me nothing? Well, why should he? You're not doing anything with what he showed you. How's your faithfulness? You get to the judgment seat of Christ, every man's work will be tried in the fire, whether it's good or bad, right? How's your faithfulness? You know what a fella told me one time? He said, I don't understand what it is. You know, Dr. Ruckman supposedly read the Bible however many times he read it, a couple hundred. Let me tell you this, he read it a whole lot more times than he told you about it. But the bottom line is, he said, well, if you just read the Bible, you'll get it. You won't get what Dr. Ruckman got out of that. It has nothing to do with reading. It's more than just reading. It's faithfulness to do what God told him to do. Oh, let me just park there for a second. God continued to give him revelation not just because of his intellect, but because he would go wherever God wanted him to go and do whatever God told him to do at the cost even of his family and his friend and being an outcast and being smeared and being slandered and being talked about and going through a couple of churches and being drug in and out of court and have his wives leave him and all that other kind of stuff. You say you want to know that kind of stuff? You can't handle the faithfulness that goes with it. He can't trust you with it. You can't even be in church when you ought to be in church. And you're thinking, I don't know what it is. I'll just read Dr. Rubbin's commentary. It won't stick in your head. I don't care if you've got a photographic memory. God will take that stuff out of your mind. That preacher said something a long time ago, and it'd behoove you to listen to it. He said, if you mess with that book, God'll mess with your mind. I can't tell you how many people have come in here and said, well, preacher, if I was a church, I'd this and that. If I was a preacher, I'd do this and that. Preacher, if I was this and that and the other, they don't even come on Sunday morning consistently, let alone Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. They wouldn't even think about going over to Pensacola to go to Bible school or taking an online course. They wouldn't dare think about it, but they know how to tell you how you ought to be living. and you'll follow them to their house for a Bible study on Friday or something. But you won't follow them on Sunday morning, Sunday school, Sunday morning church, Sunday night, Wednesday night, regular service, you know, just those sag, bag, and drag things. It ain't just how many times you read it. Do you apply it? The reason that old preacher got what he got was is that no matter what God asked him to do, he did it. He didn't care who got in the way. Now you want to be like that? You're going to have to put some application to it. There's a lot more being said, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm not just saying this because we have some folks from Pensacola. It goes right along with where we are today. I didn't know they were gonna be here, but it's in the message. There's a lot more to being said when he says, if the book says one thing and your mama says another, your mama's wrong. And if the book says one thing and your wife says something else, he's wrong. And then he turns around and says, boys, if your wife's taking God's side and you're wrong, then you're wrong because the book's right. He said, why are you getting on all the faithfulness stuff? Well, you want to be like the old preacher, right? You want to know what he knew, right? You think all it is is the amount of time you read it or have a 170 IQ? No, it's the application of it. He didn't claim to be as smart as people thought he was. Why'd God give him that stuff? Because it didn't matter how small the job was he was asked to do, he did it. The secret to being in fellowship with God is being obedient. Don't you know, he says, 1 Samuel 15, to obey is better than sacrifice? See, what am I supposed to do? How do you look at a woman who's up in years? How do you look at a woman who's up in years who doesn't have family anymore and have her husband or granddaughters over in Brazil? Guatemala as a missionary over there. Full-fledged, full-blown attorney. Graduated law school. Went over there to be a witness for Jesus Christ. in Guatemala. How do you look somebody like that in the face who buried her husband a couple years back? She's sitting here on Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. She's more prone to get a virus than you are. She has pre-existing conditions. You say, what is it, age? She got more backbone than some of you boys. She ain't afraid of it. She's sitting right here. You think I'm being rough on you now? Well, you wait till you hit the judgment seat of Christ and see the terror of the Lord and the Lord play that thing out for you. You think that's going to be fun? You want to square accounts up there with the Lord? If I was you, I'd square them away now. I believe time's getting short. I can feel the intensity. I can feel the pressure. I can feel when I step in a pulpit. You've been preaching like 19 or 20 days in a row and I just think, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't be worried about what I'm doing. What are you doing? Why are you so worried about whether I'm going or going or stopping or whatever? I'm doing what the Lord told me to do. Are you? You're not under conviction because of what I'm doing. The fellow said to me, he said, well, I don't know if I could do what you're doing. I said, how do you know God don't have me doing to keep me out of trouble? You don't know. You say, what do you know to do? Get up in the morning and say, what today? Sometimes it's plow your taters. Sometimes it's go to the nursing home. Sometimes it's go to the hospital. Yesterday, you need to go over here and take care of a matter here, okay? The Lord already got plans and already did that. No, no, he has the right to change my plans anytime he wants to. Can he change yours? Even if you got tickets for the ball game on Sunday? Even if you work a little extra on Wednesday? Can he really have control over your life if it's for his glory? A little bit of a rough road to hoe, isn't it? I laugh. I think it's almost hilarious when I hear somebody say, I think I can be a Dr. Ruckman. I just laugh. It has nothing to do with intellect. It has to do with a man who's in his nineties and he's still getting up and doing six and seven meetings a day. To a bunch of people that he gets nothing for, he gets no offering. Yeah, you ought to be under conviction. Some of you are healthy and you're more than half his age, less than half his age. Like pulling eye teeth because you just come to church. Well, preacher, you're just born dry as cracker juice. Okay, well then find you a preacher that's more entertaining for you then. It doesn't negate the fact you ought to be in church. And I still believe that. I wish he could tell you, and I wouldn't have him to do it, but I wish he could tell you how many letters we get every week of people saying, I wish we had a Bible-believing church by me. I wish we had a Bible-believing church within two hours of me. I sure wish we had a Bible-believing church around here. I sure hope to be able to get over to your country one day and visit over there and be able to see that. Man, we're not the only slice of pie in the pot now. There's other Bible-believing works. Gotta take things for granted a little, don't you? I'll give you just three more verses here, and we're gonna go to the house. You said that a little while ago. I haven't given you the three verses yet. I don't want you to call me a liar. John chapter 14, pick it up if you will, please, in verse 23, we're talking about words. Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he'll keep my what? Words. And my Father will love him, we'll come unto him and make our abode with him. You know what he said? Then you keep my words. How can he ask you to keep your words to show that you love him if he doesn't give you the words? Do you think you might be a little bit more careful? Come to, let's see, Nehemiah 9. Nehemiah, go all the way back, Ezra, Nehemiah. Do you think you might be a little more careful in the future not to be messing with his words or to twist them around to your own destruction? 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah. 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah. Nehemiah chapter number 9, talking about words, the importance of them. We have the privilege here of having a PhD and I don't talk about her a lot. She's a very, very smart, very intelligent woman. She was a professor in college and she knew a lot of the presidents and things like that. Her and her husband were extremely well-known and what all she used to do. She is a literary expert. The thing that is amazing is that in talking to her and about conversations and stuff, it frustrates her because people just quit reading. And when they quit reading, they quit learning. But you're more interested in pictures now. You're more interested in selfies, and social media, and YouTube cartoons, and cat videos, and pictures, pictures, pictures. Why the Lord give it to you in words? Because if you keep His words, it shows you love Him. He doesn't say, keep my pictures. As a matter of fact, when he comes in and destroys the land of the Canaanites, you know what he said? Destroy all their pictures. He goes over there, he looks in that peephole over there where all the priests are. You know what he says? Man, there's some abominable things on the wall in there. You better get rid of those pictures. What about the words? Your nation is illiterate now. You say, why? They don't push reading anymore. Everybody has a computer. Everybody has a pad. And they got pictures. I have a kid I know, 15 years of age. He's flunking school because he's a lazy brat. But you know what the excuse was? Well, they gave me my iPad late. You mean you can't read without an iPad? I can't wait to see you get up there to heaven, and the Lord said, take your Bible, and you're like, Lord, I got it right here. Hey, Siri, where in the fires knee am I at? At the same place you're going. Nehemiah chapter number 9, verse number 5. We're almost done. The Levites, Jeshua, Cadmele, Benaiah, Hashbaniah, Sherbiah, Hadijah, Shebaniah, Pathaliah said, stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever. Blessed be thy glorious, what? Name. Which is exalted above all blessing and praise. His name pretty high up, would you agree? Yes, sir. Take your Bible and come over to the book of Psalms 138. That Bible teaches you in the book of Corinthians, you know what he says? At the name of Jesus. You know the passage? Every knee shall bend and every head shall... at what? At the name of Jesus. Pretty high name, would you agree? I think so. The name of Jesus, that's how you get saved. You cast out devils, the name of Jesus, right? Psalm 138, verse 2. I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth. For thou hast magnified. Above what? Didn't he just say over in Nehemiah chapter number nine, your name is above everything? Didn't I give you the passage in Corinthians, said that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is God to the glory of God the Father? Wouldn't you agree that's a pretty high exaltation? Would you agree with that? You know what he just said? I'll magnify your word above your name. And you don't put any emphasis on that Bible? God does. It don't mean nothing to you. It means something to God. It means enough for Him to be the Word incarnate. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. You can't break them apart. They're synonymous, and you don't put any emphasis on it. And you're 10 months into 2021 during an unprecedented time of the pandemic. And many think you've had time because you can't go to work, or they got you quarantined, or whatever else the reason is. And the government's paying your bills so you don't have to work because you make more with the government paying for you. then all that, whatever your reason is. It don't make no difference to me. It don't make no difference to me if you're mad right now and have already turned off your computer because you're mad, because you decided to sit at the house and have another donut or whatever, or because you're worried about getting cooties or whatever. Okay, fine, you've been sitting at home. Have you been reading the book? You've had time to read it, you're home. I bet you watched the ball game this afternoon. Why don't you spend some time in the book? It's what's important to him. A boy in this age, ladies and gentlemen, where you can go and go after, you can go to Walmart, you can get them at Costco now. You can go to Costco, you can get a King James Bible at Costco's. Literally, Costco's. You can get a Bible now. You can get a Bible everywhere. You won't die carrying a Bible around. You spend any time with it? You get up there in eternity and the Lord says, hey man, we had a Bible on every corner. Man, had one at every store, had one in every pulpit. They could read the Bible all they wanted to. Man, some of them saints that got burned at the stake just for believing in God didn't ever even have a page in the Bible. They're gonna say, man. There'll be some of those little faces sitting around that place up there in that third story building that Jim and I were at, sitting all around there, some of them having one page or a half a page of a Bible and holding onto it like they're holding a thing of gold. And then saying, well, I've read this, and so they trade that page of the Bible for another page of the Bible, and they don't wait until they meet again to meet up for a page. and take a New Testament, put it in a sandwich bag and take a belt and tie it around the dog and send the dog out across the river and somebody with a flashlight catch the dog and get it and whistle back and send the dog back over on the other side just to get a couple of New Testaments over onto the other side, over there on the other side of where Romania is, up there around Saget. By Amari. You get up there to heaven and the Lord say, man, you had a Bible on you. Did you read it? That's just for preachers. Okay. Put it up. No problem. Lord, you have probably the judgment seat of Christ. You say, well, here's your operations manual for your business. I bet you read that. I bet you expected the doctors to read the medical manuals, preparation for them to be able to pass their boards and be able to do surgery on you. Bet you wanted the mechanic to be able to understand how to fix your car. Did you do any preparatory work for the judgment seat of Christ? I gave you the manual. It's just church. It's just the Bible with the big deal. You'll see the big deal one day. I can't do anything but tell you. Can't force you. You'll see the big deal one day. You know how you're going to be judged? You know how the secrets of men are going to be judged? You're going to be judged by Jesus Christ. He's not going to judge you for anything. Oh, I about sunk my boat there. He's not going to judge you for anything that He didn't write you about and warn you about. Do you know your general orders? You know your SOPs? No, but you know the TV God. You know what's playing this week? You know how to set your record device, make sure you don't miss your favorite shows. Sure spend time reading your bank statement. Sure do expect your kids to make A's and B's in school. Preacher, I don't want to force them to read the Bible. Why you hypocrite you? Why don't you not force them to do their schoolwork then? Oh, I get it. Because their schoolwork, they have to prepare themselves for when they graduate and go to college. What about when they graduate and go to heaven? You didn't put any emphasis on that? Well, I just don't believe in forcing them. I don't believe in forcing them to come to church. You hypocrite. You make them go to school, don't you? Well, you shouldn't force them to go to school. Why, Ms. Bennett, she's having to teach little children in school. She shouldn't have to do that. You shouldn't make your kids go to school. The law says, take it into your own hands. You make your kids go to work, don't you? Your boss makes you show up, doesn't he? Why all of a sudden all this free will? Well, when it comes to the Lord, you know, we don't want you to feel, well, why don't you train them that way to start with? You say, what is it? Character. And some of you don't have any. You say, what is character? Learning to do things you don't like to do. You always feel like reading it. Matter of fact, I find when I don't feel like reading it, it's like unsheathed hell the whole time I'm reading it. It's just a struggle the whole time. And sure enough, I'll open it up, and I'll, oh man, I forgot I'm in Chronicles. I don't want to read anyway, and now all of a sudden the devil's like, I don't blame you. Yea, hath God said? Every word. Yes, sir. Okay, let's work on your attitude. Get to reading. Hashbanaya, banaya, baloney. I've got to get my other Bible that has the pronunciation things in there to even be able to say their name. You say, why? It might be my name in Hebrew and I don't want to miss it. The Lord said, well, you don't seem to be too important about that. Just for you to consider. I'm glad he didn't name me Dodo. Some of you might have a different interpretation of that name, but at least his hand held the sword. All right, let's stand together and be dismissed.