all right if you would please open your bibles to first john chapter five verse thirteen first john chapter five verse thirteen you know some days uh... Some Sundays it's hard to get up here and preach. Sometimes it's the message that's hard to preach. Sometimes it's just the atmosphere that's in the church. But today is not one of those days. Today is an easy day to preach. And I praise God for giving me those days. Last Sunday, we had to cancel church. last sunday was my birthday and what a great privilege it would be to be able to preach on my birthday you know a lot of times we want to take time off for our birthday because you know we need that me time or we think we need that me time but what a great privilege that it is to come into a place like this and share the word and to get to be in the midst of one another and experience what we've experienced this morning. The words already went out. If you're in here and you're lost today, you're going to leave out of here without an excuse for accepting our Lord and Savior. If you just took a moment and looked around this morning and took note of all the people that were given testimonies and you looked around and you've seen that so many of us was tore up like a snake in a lawnmower because we were crying and slobbering and were thinking about what Jesus Christ has done. Nobody in here has praised a great life today. Nobody did. Nobody in here praised how smooth sailing everything has been. Nobody in here praised about, you know, I've never had this trouble, I've never had this trial and my life has just been perfect. But everybody that had a testimony for the Lord today and about any other time that we hear a testimony, it's about how God has helped us. And I want to give you something this morning that the Lord gave me. A couple weeks ago, Garrett called and said that a classmate of ours had passed away, and he wanted to know if I'd be willing to help him officiate the funeral. I said, well, certainly. It would be an honor to do that. And I realized that I had never been involved in a funeral with somebody that was so close to me personally. And how difficult that it would be to stand up and to speak on that. But what God showed me in that, as I was reading for myself and reading for that, is that there's comfort in knowing. And that's the message that I've got for you today. There's comfort in knowing. Yes, we as Christians, we have to take a lot of stuff on faith. We have to take Just to begin to be a Christian, you have to take that on faith. You can't know everything about Christianity. I'm a very technical person in my job and in my life. I like to know the ins and outs of how everything works. But as hard as I tried to know the ins and outs and the mechanics, of salvation, I could not know it. It was impossible for me to know. And for me to stand here and tell you that I know all of the ins and outs of how Jesus Christ came in and took care of the problems that I have and continues to take care of the problems that I have, I have no idea. But I can tell you that faith is a great, great tool. It's a great, great asset that I have in my life. But we don't have to take every single bit of it on faith. 1 John chapter 5 and verse 13, These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us, And we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask. We know that we have petitions that we desired of Him. Let's bow our heads for a moment of prayer. your god we come to you again today thankful for this uh... this day in this opportunity that you've given us to come into your house to praise and worship your lord we're thankful for all the testimonies and the songs that we've heard thus far we pray that we would continue to be obedient uh... to your will in your way that the name of jesus would be lifted up above all things today and lord we pray for someone in here this morning that is not yet accepted your son jesus christ is our personal lord and savior lord that you would uh... you would have your way with them this morning, that you would place your conviction upon them, that you would use me as your mouthpiece, as a willing vessel to get your word out into this congregation, that at every soul in here would make a place in their heart for this word to lodge, that it would be allowed to go to work in their life, Lord. We pray that anybody that might be found backslidden today, that might not be walking the path that they should be walking, would find their way back on the narrow today. Lord, give us courage to go out into a lost and dying world and witness this gospel to those that need it. Cross our paths with somebody that has a desire in their heart to seek you out. Lord, because we know that you're seeking them out. We love you. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name we pray, and amen. He said that ye may know that you have eternal life, that you believe on the name of the Son of God. If you're in here this morning, And you don't know that you have eternal life. And this is how you know. If you think about Jesus Christ coming back, or if you think about meeting Jesus Christ face to face, and that brings fear upon your mind, you don't know. You don't know. I don't want to scare anybody. It's not my will or my purpose this morning to scare anybody, but if you don't have a personal relationship with God, then hell will be your home one day. That's not my favorite thing to preach, but it's the truth, and I would rather bring you the truth and you get a little bit upset with me now then you wake up in torment one day saying, why didn't somebody tell me about this awful place? But if you don't know this morning, beyond any shadow of a doubt, beyond what anybody has ever said or argued with you about, if you don't know this morning that Jesus Christ is your Savior or that you are saved, you don't have to leave out of here that way today. Man, praise God! The messages went out. We already know what Christ has done. We already know that He died for our sins. We've heard it in the songs and the testimonies that He's risen on the third day. So, we can know! We can know! There were so many witnesses so that we can know that... You know, I could say this morning that I'm going to die for Joey's sins. And he's not going to know that. Even if I die, He's not going to have any idea that that was my intent, that my sacrifice, that I placed my life on His sins and that paid for it. because I ain't coming back. I can't bring myself back. But Jesus Christ said, this I want you to know, that I am dying for your sins, that everybody has sinned and come short of the glory of God, and I'm going to come back, and He told His disciples, you wait and see, I'm going to come back on the third day, and they weeped and they wailed and they lamented when He died, and yet on that third day, He came back. What does that mean? Why is the resurrection so important? It's so that we can know. We know that He died for our sins and He came back the third day to prove that He died for our sins. And man, there's such comfort in knowing and having confidence in something. And if you want to place your confidence in anything in this world, don't place it on me. Don't place it on any preacher. Place it on Jesus Christ. Place that confidence on the blood of Jesus Christ. It says that if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have petitions that we desired of Him. It's been cold the past couple weeks. It's been real cold the past couple of weeks. And if you've got an inside job where you work indoors in a warehouse or in an office or something like that, man, I don't think you've got to fully experience how cold that it was. I put a video on Facebook one day last week. I've only worked on the river for a couple of years now, but I've never seen the water on the river freeze. And so I got out on the boat the other morning that I had to work on and I had to work outside and it was below zero. And then I look out and there's all this ice crashing and crunching against the boat. And I thought, this is a terrible place to be. Why am I here? This is an awful decision for me to be here. Somebody said, yeah, work on the river. It'll be great. It'll be nice. You know, you get to see scenery in the country, but then There's ice that's crunching up and it's poking and it's sharp and you can hear it and it just sounds absolutely terrifying. And I thought, wow, I'm so glad to know that winter does not last forever. I'm so glad to know that someday soon that it's going to be springtime. I'm so glad to know that from December whenever the winter solstice is that the days start getting longer and you can start counting down the days to spring and I like the warm weather. I laid in a hospital one time. Went to the hospital and I've already talked about this once. I had this pain in my abdomen, my lower abdomen. I didn't know it woke me up in the middle of the night. It scared me. I couldn't tell exactly where the pain was coming from. I didn't know what was going on, and so I woke Brooke up, and she took me down to the hospital. As I talk about this, turn over to Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 8. She took me down to the hospital, and there was nobody in the hospital. It was in the middle of the night. I was sick to my stomach. I had terrible, awful pain. I couldn't stand up straight. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't think. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't talk. And I walked into the ER and I filled out the little thing and I slid it under the glass. And they all just kind of sat there and ignored it, and we was the only one sitting in there. And so, here was the window, and then here was me, because they ignored me, sitting on my chair. I couldn't sit down, so I had to stand up in my chair, and I looked in that window until I made them feel uncomfortable. And finally, they looked, turned around, and said, Sir, can we help you? I said, Yes, I hope that you can help me. I've got this terrible pain and they did the triage and put me in the room and the guy come in and he looked at me and he said, Oh, you're doing a kidney stone dance. I said, I don't know what I'm doing, but it hurts. I can't get rid of it. He said, Oh yeah, you 100% got a kidney stone. Read this. He said, Jeremiah 29 verse 8, For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Let not your prophets and your diviners that be in the midst of you deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. for they prophesy falsely unto you in my name. I have not sent them, saith the Lord, for thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you. Thus saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." I've got that underlined, an expected end. that ye shall call upon Me, and ye shall go and pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you, and ye shall seek Me and find Me, when ye shall search Me with all of your heart." He said, I'm telling you that you've got to go through this 70 years, but I want to let you know that there is an expected end. The guy came to me. He said, hey, you've got a kidney stone. Take him back there and scan him. We'll be sure that's what it is. I've got this and I've got this and I've got that. He said, yeah, and I went through there and I went in the tube and they come back and they said, yep, you've 100% got a kidney stone. It's this far down and you'll be passing it by tomorrow. And even though I was still doubled over in pain, It hurt so bad I could find no relief, even though that pain happened. I found comfort in knowing. I knew then what was wrong. Because what do we do? What do we do when we have this pain and we don't know what's going on in our lives and we try to figure it out on our own? I didn't in the middle of the night do this, but we often times do this as humans and people with the convenience of the internet. We start looking up symptoms. Right? And so, we've done this enough over the years that we've looked up symptoms, and sure enough, it's cancer. At the end of it, every time! You've got a snotty nose, and you could link it all, and you could end up with cancer. Or some kind of flesh-eating amoeba that's got in your skull, and you think, this is how terrible that it is. And I need to get this taken care of, really. It's just a snotty nose. It's just a kidney stone. It's just, you know, a pulled muscle. It's just this or it's just that. But the thought of the unknown. How many people in here were ever scared of the dark at one time in your life? Absolutely. Just raise your hand. Come on. Everybody in here was scared of the dark at one time, no matter how big and tough you are right now. It's not the dark. We don't know what's in the dark. It's the unknown of the dark. And death is exactly the same way. Death is precisely the same way. I don't think anybody in here. Has died and come back to life even for a moment on a hospital bed. If you have, I'd like to hear your story. But. Death scares us all, every single one of us. And there's not one in here that's going to avoid it. There's not one in here that is exempt from it, that we think that, oh, well, maybe God has taken enough, you know, pleasure in my existence that he's not going to allow me to die. No. And we don't know what happens when we die. And imagine how that it was for the Jews. You know, Jesus came and He revealed a lot of mysteries. He talked about heaven and He talked about hell more than He talked about heaven. And He talked about the torments and the fire and the smells and this and that. And He described all of these aspects of it. And that reveals to us what's going to happen, but still the thought of it happening, the thought of leaving everything behind that we've worked for and that we've earned, the relationships that we've established. We cling to that and we love it and we don't want to let go of that and to think that we're going to pass on into another life, we don't know if it's going to be as good. We think and we have faith that Jesus is going to be there. I know that Jesus is going to be there, but I don't know what my life is going to be like eternally. And so the unknown, the fear of change, it's like changing jobs. I changed jobs a few years ago. And I kind of wanted to do a trial run on it. I thought about taking two or three weeks of vacation on my old job to work the new job. That way, if I didn't like the new job, I could go back to the old job. Because we don't like change. I don't like the unknown. I don't like not knowing. And then what if I had gotten into something that I couldn't handle? And that's another big fear that we can't handle it. If you're lost in here this morning, you have a fear that you can't handle Christianity. You have a fear that you can't handle being and doing and going shining your light as a Christian that witnessing to people is going to be tough and that's a command that he gave us that we all have to do another raise your hand raise your hand if you've ever been scared to witness to somebody Everybody, everybody has anxiety and fear to witness to somebody and to give our testimony. We've heard this several times this morning that we have fear of talking and speaking out and giving our testimonies and singing our songs, but when we have that fear, We can rely on the faith that we have also because we've exercised that faith. And faith overcomes fear because He's not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love and a sound mind. And what we've experienced in here this morning is love. And I looked around and I felt it myself and I thought, man, the Spirit is jumping from breast to breast. The Spirit is flowing. People are giving their testimonies. People are singing. People are sharing the goodness of God and God is rewarding us with blessing us in the midst of this awful winter storm and in all this world that's going on. God can still bless us and I can feel His love. Man, it feels good. It just feels good, and I can't describe it to anybody. There's not words for it. There's this many words, and that still does not adequately describe the love of God until you get a hold of it yourself. Or rather, it gets a hold of you, and you have to do something with it. I can remember when I was lost, and that was an anniversary as of recent, January the 5th. So, it's been nine years since I've been saved. Nine years! That doesn't seem like a lot of time. I just turned 42 last week, and nine years out of 42 is a pretty sorry ratio for serving the Lord. Really, it is. Garrett, I think he overtook not long ago. He spent more of his life serving the Lord than he has not. I've got a long way to go. I might not live that long. And that's alright too. But that's a regret that I have. That I didn't do it sooner. And I can think back to when that it was. And I thought about the grief and the misery and the hard time that I had when I was lost and I would come in here and Brooke would drag me in here and people would sing and we'd have services like what we had this morning and people was singing and shouting and sometimes back then we'd have services where nobody even got up and preached it was just all singing and songs and testimonies and everybody sharing and spreading the love we ain't had one of those for a minute but I thought, when I would go through those, this is crazy awful, because I'm lost. And it's misery. It's absolute misery, when you're lost, to go through something like that. Because then, you start to vilify things. You start to vilify people. You turn people into your enemies, in your own mind, even though everybody in here, if you're lost in here, this morning. There's nobody in here that's your enemy. Not a one. Not anybody in here is your enemy. Everybody is 100% for you And everybody in here 100% wants to see everybody in here 100% saved. I want everybody to walk out of this church house this morning knowing that they are 100% saved without a doubt, without a waiver, without anything against them, that they are saved. NO MATTER WHAT THE WORLD HAS, NO MATTER HOW COLD IT IS OUTSIDE, NO MATTER HOW LONG THE NIGHT IS, the Bible says that weeping endureth for a night. But joy comes in the morning. I thought about that as we were talking at the funeral the other day. And I looked out and everybody was so sad and everybody was, you know, their hearts were so heavy. And they were hurting. And I was hurting. And yet, you try to bring comforting words, and there's really no words that are that comforting. Yes, we can preach and recite Bible verses, and that stuff is helpful. And it is very helpful. But having somebody there with you, is about the most comfort as you can have. Having the presence of somebody, and when I do a funeral I always talk about Job, how his friends came, and it says they sat seven days a night and they spake not a word. And just having somebody there is what a great comfort that is. I think about how many nights that I've spent out in the cold, and how many nights these people are going to mourn over a lost loved one, and myself included. And we've all been there, and we've all done it, we've all experienced it. But then I think, What great comfort that it is, that it's all just temporary. That every bit of it, the pain, a kidney stone, cold nights, hard nights, long, long shifts at work. Garrett's, he's worked 80 hours this week. It's all, there's an end to every bit of it. The suffering that's in this life, We look out and we see wars. Jesus said, you know, this is the sign of the end of the world. You'll see wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes in diverse places. And you'll be persecuted. You know what? That's happened since Jesus spoke it. And the intent is so that every one of us is ready not to look for a sign, not to wait for a sign, but to be ready. Because all of it, everything, look around, Everything that you see this morning is temporary. Not any of it's gonna endure. Not this body that I'm wearing, not the body that you're wearing, the church, the pews, the lights, the carpet, pulpit. Everything is temporary. The pain that you're experiencing this morning, for whatever reason, it's all temporary. And I 100% believe 100% am persuaded that when I open my eyes in glory and I behold Jesus Christ face to face, when I see Him, that every pain that I've ever experienced, every injury, every heartache, every trouble, every trial will long be forgotten. I'm not saying I'm going to forget it forever because I don't know how that works in eternity, but I know that everything that's happened in this life is going to pale in comparison to experiencing Jesus. Turn over to John, I think it's John 16. And as much as you want me to get done this morning, lost friend, it's temporary, my friend. You want to get out of here, the devil says he'll be done in a minute. That's a lie. I preach less than 45 minutes. That never happens. But I will be done eventually. And you think about, I can think about all the times that I spent in church lost. And how many times that it felt like everybody in the church knew my business. How many times that it felt like the preacher was talking to me. And I've heard of people going up to their spouses and saying, and this happened in my own family, and saying, why don't you stop telling Garrett everything that's going on in our family? I said, I didn't tell Garrett anything. And it's went the other way as well. Or Jeremy or whoever, And it's not that the preacher knows what's going on in everybody's life. I don't want to know what's going on in everybody's life. It's that God knows. God knows. God gives the message that people need. And there's somebody in here that's looking for an answer this morning. There's somebody in here that's looking. They've got excuses made. How do I know that? Because I've made every excuse that there ever was. But I can promise you this, the conviction is temporary. The conviction for your sins, and I felt it, and anybody that's in here that is saved has also felt it, that you were convicted of your sins, and we don't like to think about our sins because it's embarrassing for us to admit that we did something wrong. It's embarrassing for us to think back on the things that we've done wrong. We don't want to think about it. We don't want to bring it up. We don't want to talk about it. We just want them to go away. And so the conviction is there and the moral compass in us begins to move when we hear the Word of God. Faith come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And so then our faith is then stirred. We've got this moral compass that is letting us know that we're not living the right life. We've got the Spirit of God that reminds us You know, I've got the Spirit of God in me. If you're lost in here this morning, you've got the Spirit of God bugging you this morning. It's trying to get you to realize that, hey, you've been doing things wrong, and you need to ask for forgiveness. You need to get things right. and I can't make them right and you can't make them right God makes them right Jesus Christ makes them right and it's hard to admit it but I can tell you this look at this John 16 and 19 Now Jesus, when they were desirous to ask Him and said unto Him, Do ye inquire among yourselves that I said a little while, and ye shall not see me? And again, a little while, and ye shall see me? He's talking about the death and the resurrection. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned to joy. That's for you, lost friend. Your sorrow shall be turned to joy. A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come. But as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born in the world. And ye now therefore have sorrows, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh away from you." Lost friend, your joy comes and goes. Fact. I know because I've spent 33 years of joy coming and going. But when God moves in and the Spirit moves in, there is a joy that enters into you and there's a comfort that enters into you because it's God's joy and it's God's peace and it says that nobody can take that away from you and that comes from Him placing it there, but a lot of it comes also because we know. We know. What it is. We know where it comes from. We know where we're going. I know where I'm going when I die. I know it. I can't know it for anybody else, but I know it for me that when I die, I'm going to be in the arms of Jesus. I know that I'm going to enter in, and I don't know about, you know, if we're going to live in the New Jerusalem or we're going to live in heaven, I ain't got all that figured out yet, but I know that I'm going to be with Jesus no matter where that it is, And I know how long it's going to be. It's going to be for all of eternity. And it's never going to end. And nobody, and nobody can take me out of that place. No corruption is going to enter into that place. We're tempted now. We're tempted. The devil wants to try to separate us. That's his game. That's his plan. He's a magician. He tries to distract you with this hand and the other hand he's reaching in with a knife and he's stabbing you in the back. It's the way that he does. And we're glad to receive it because it's sin and we find comfort in sin because we're familiar with sin. And so it's uncomfortable, lost friend, this morning for you to get rid of your sin. But man, I really like the fact today and forevermore that it's all just temporary. It's all, he said that a woman, I don't know what it's like to be pregnant, but they say it's similar to passing a kidney stone, but I ain't passed a kidney stone for nine months at a time. And so I don't know what it's like to carry around a child. I don't know about all the heartburn and your guts moving out of place and your organs having to shift and all this. And then the pain, I've seen it and it looks pretty uncomfortable. I know that there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of anguish that goes along with giving childbirth. I've seen it. I haven't experienced it. But I've also seen the joy of watching life enter into this world. To see that. And I've seen it three times. And each time, I get her home. life and I get scared because I'm responsible for this life and there's fear but there's joy and the joy overtakes the fear and the joy overtakes the pain and to look at that It's the same. It's the exact same as watching somebody be born again. It really is. It absolutely is. They sit in their pew. I used to sit in my pew with anguish and pain on my face, thinking about all the sin that I've ever committed, thinking about all the bad things that I've ever done. And then I remember when I stepped out. Well, I didn't even step out in here. I remember when I got home, I was in my car. It was a mess. I was a mess. But I remember just as soon as I gave my life to the Lord, all that was over. It was done. It was gone. I didn't have to worry about the embarrassment of sin I didn't have to worry about the pain and trying to pay for it. I didn't have to worry about I don't have to worry about anything else It's like it's that's the biggest thing in your life And it just weighs on you and it's over top of your head and it's there for your whole life If you're lost, it's just there and you know that you need to do something about it. It's like a bill coming, dude How many of you like to see bills come and do? Ain't nobody like to have a bill come and do. Nobody. It's a pretty good feeling though when you've got the means to pay it and you pay it and you know that it's taken care of for another month. Maybe you pay your insurance by the year and it's taken care of by the year to know that your debt is paid for all of eternity. You don't have to worry about your debt anymore. And you think about the money and you think about hard times. I don't worry about hard times anymore. I really don't. I don't sit around and fret and bite my nails about this or about that. If something happens, I know, I know that God will take care of it in this life. And if He don't take care of it in this life, then it was not His will. And in the next life, I won't even remember it. I ain't gonna worry about it. I might remember it, but I guarantee you that I ain't gonna worry about it. And that's where you're at today. You're thinking about it. Thought about my friend Charlie. Thought about all of his family. Thought about... Man, it's... It's hard to deal with death. And we all have to deal with it. You have to deal with it. You have to make a decision. And a lot of you are young, and you think you've got your whole lives ahead of you, and there's some people in here that's got a few years on them, and I guarantee you that they all look back and go, where did it go? Where did the years go? Why am I this age now? And why am I hurting and I wake up in the middle of the night with this pain and that pain and I wake up and I don't even remember why this is hurting but I got this bruise? Where did the years go? And they sneak up on you just that fast. I feel like, I feel like in my mind that I should be about 30. That I shouldn't have kids in college and getting ready to start high school and already out of school and this and that. But the reality of it is, I do. I do have kids in college. I do have teenage kids. And that I am actually 42 and we can't play make-believe our whole life. At some point, we have to face reality. At some point, we have to come to terms with what we must do. And we have to make provisions for death in this life, whether it be insurance, whether it be some kind of a fund set up. And you have to make provisions for death in the next life. You know, I looked up a law. Well, I attempted to look up a law. In West Virginia and in Wayne County, I didn't really go beyond that, other than just a Google search, but I couldn't find any law anywhere on any books that said that a member of the clergy, preacher, minister, deacon, otherwise, had to officiate a funeral. And I thought, that's an odd thing. that really anybody could officiate a funeral and so I started thinking on that and I started reading on it because Really, how many funerals have you ever been to that a preacher didn't officiate the funeral? Whether they were lost, whether they were atheists, whether they were saved, every funeral I've ever been to, there's been a preacher, in some function, form, or fashion, preached that funeral. And I've come to the realization that it's because the fear of death and the fear of the unknown that if you die and you're a Christian and you profess to be a Christian and you live the life and you talk the talk and walk the walk, there's no doubt what's going to happen to you. But if you're an atheist or you're lost and you die, why have a preacher preach that funeral, officiate that funeral? It's because deep down, way down inside, consciously or subconsciously, we're all scared to death of death. And then what if they're wrong? What if the entire life that they've spent running away from God, denying God's existence, that they were wrong and that a preacher at the last moment might be able to do something for them? Can I tell you this morning that if somebody dies lost, that a preacher cannot preach them out of hell. It's impossible. It's impossible. Jeremy said it this morning. What you do with Jesus in this life determines how you spend eternity in the next. It's that simple. The judgment has been made at the moment of death. There's no going back. There's no balancing the scales. There's no overturning. There's no There's no appeal. There's nothing. When you die, that is it. And so I come to the realization that everybody clings to God in their very last moments. Because if they're wrong, eternity's at stake. And friend, eternity's at stake for you this moment.