and just hope and pray you get a little bit of a blessing. Could you take your Bible and turn to the book of Titus? Now, kids, if you're here tonight, or parents, if you're the parents of your kids that are coming to VBS, Brother Richard and other ones, my wife and some other ones have made, taken the Chinese takey-outy things and put your names on them. And they're over here on the table that are right here behind the piano. And so if you want to, you can pick those up tonight or you can pick them up on Wednesday night and you can start putting your pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Brother Brad said he is very happy to have all them filled up with lettuce. meaning green cabbage, meaning greenbacks, meaning make it rain. He said, you know, preacher, you'd be surprised. They can get a lot more money in there and it's a lot lighter if it's bills. So we're not adverse to bills. We call it penny parade, but that's kind of the tagline. The fact is it can be $100 parade if you want to make it that. But we're doing this and everything that you put in that's not going to the building, it's going to Brother Kyle Joe Hicks and his wife, Miss Lisa, to further their ministry. We'll be telling you more about them, showing you some CDs about them and things like that. They are a great group of people that have been faithful in the ministry for years and is a good horse to put your money on. So your money will be going there and the Brother Brad will count that along with any belly button lint you choose to put in. And then, that was funny, he counts everything, no matter what it is, but we're not going to count toe jam, but at any rate. if you do that and then put those in there, and I think that'll do it. All right, this morning now we were talking about adorning the doctrine of God. It's found in verse number 10 in Titus chapter number 2. And what he says there is, is not prolonging. That means not stealing. That means not taking something that doesn't belong to you, and that includes taking somebody's recognition for something they did for yourself. It means not going in by plagiarism, taking something that you don't deserve, taking credit for things you didn't do. That's stealing. But showing all good fidelity, that's faithfulness, that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior, in all things. Father, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you for the day we've had. Thank you for the great meetings this afternoon. Thank you for the things, if anything, was accomplished last week. During those meetings there, we'd ask now, Lord, that you might help these folks that have so faithfully gathered, and pray, Lord, that you might fill up their cups to the full. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Now in context, you're looking back up and you see in chapter number two, speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, and then he begins immediately to talk about behavior. Now, behavior is part of doctrine. Doctrine is not just something that's written in there, and we've talked about what those things are. I was explaining to a friend of mine not long ago, who's struggling with a couple of things, and I was trying to explain, and I use it for an illustration tonight, to help you to try to understand the importance or the necessity of you realizing, I've got to keep things flowing as far as the Lord is concerned. You may not think church attendance is important. You may not think Bible reading is important. You may not think prayer is important. You may not think preaching is important. But I likened it unto a cup of oil. A glass, you might say, full of oil. And when you take a look at that glass, if you're only 15 or 16 years of age, the glass is relatively small. There's just so much a 15 or 16 year old boy or girl can put in the glass. I'll grant you, they can put plenty of filth in the glass at 15 or 16 years of age, but at 30 or 35 or 50, you've had a lot longer and a lot bigger glass to fill up with the wrong stuff. Do you understand the analogy? So what happens is, is you get saved and you try to love the Lord, believe the book, and do the things that are right to do, and what you do in a sense is, is you turn on the faucet and you begin one drop at a time to displace that oil. Right off the bat, the water is overcome by the oil. Even though the two don't mix, the oil will gradually over time, because of its weight and viscosity, it will drop down to the bottom of that glass. But it is almost unrecognizable. You can't see it because it's one drop in a big old glass full of black oil that's in there. Sludge and metal shavings and all kinds of other things that are in there. Everything filthy and everything wrong that you've been involved in is in that glass. And that water continues to drip and drip. And over a period of time, the weight of that water takes it down and it begins to move the oil in an upward fashion. It's called a purging process. Now, if you turn off the water, eventually what will happen is, is the weight of that oil down here will begin to move the water to one side or another, sometimes even separating out that water, and at the bottom of that glass that we're using in a proverbial sense, we may have a little pocket of water here, and a little pocket of water here, and a little pocket of water here, but it's completely surrounded by all of that oil. The water is stronger when it's together, but if there's not enough of the water, that water is displaced by the oil, and it doesn't displace the oil. But the more water that you put in, the more that it begins to come together, and you keep that faucet going, you keep that drip coming, and that thing in the bottom, that little bubble, begins to grow, and it begins to grow, and it begins to spread out, until it comes to the edges of that vessel that you're talking about, and before long, it begins to push out that stuff that's in there. It begins to rise. Now if you stop that water, what happens is the water, believe it or not, even though it's under the oil, will begin to evaporate and that's what'll happen, that cup will become almost empty again. Whether you know it or not, oil is prone to a smoke temperature, but also it can become instantaneously combustible. Water can, I mean, oil can spontaneously combust because it has petroleum products in it and things. Water doesn't spontaneously combust. You don't generally think of starting a fire. You say, well, you can make a hydrogen bomb. Yeah, but you gotta have atomic fusion to make a hydrogen bomb out of water because water doesn't naturally burn. But oil naturally burns. This is why often times you wonder why your desires of your flesh, you become overflowing. They almost, they're on fire. Your fleshly lust, your fleshly desires. And the reason is there's too much oil in the cup, not enough water. one of the most dangerous things in the world to do when you have a bad oil fire, you guys that are firemen in here and thank the lord that you are firemen but you don't run in there when you got a grease fire on the stove and you go dump a bunch of water on it I mean unless you got a fire hose to put in a frying pan you fixin' to catch the house on fire if all you do is get you a cup full of water out of the sink and dump it on there all you're gonna do is displace the oil and all those little droplets of fire are gonna be all over everybody knows and understands that One of the things that happens is just a splash of the washing of the water of the Word, sometimes all it does is dispense the fire and make you have fires in multiple places. Sometimes we don't understand the consistency, the faithfulness, the fidelity that's mentioned in the passage of just being there all the time to turn on the faucet and let it keep dripping and let it keep dripping and let it keep dripping. And then over time, what happens is, is it begins to purge out. Now, here's what happens. If you've been doing things you shouldn't be doing for a while, And you begin to put that water in. You know what happens? Sometimes people make this complaint. Man, when I started living right and doing right, the temptation got worse. Why is that? You're pushing it to the surface. You're more and more aware of it. Why? Because it's in front of your eyes every day. And when that water begins to come up, it doesn't get better, it gets worse. Because even in oil products, the oil products themselves separate. And you may have petroleum-based products that are all together. but at the top it's more like a natural gas and then after that is a thing called gasoline or kerosene and then underneath that you got diesel and then underneath that you got what's called bunker oil or crude oil is beneath that and all of them are different but they have different flashpoints they come from one source and that oil, that petroleum product the heavier or the weightier of them, the filthiest, the dirtiest, the nastiest it's always at the bottom So the longer you keep the water running, it doesn't get better right off. Guess what happens? It tends to get worse because all that bad stuff comes out last. Worst thing in the world to do if you don't keep the cup full of water is guess what will happen? That oil will get heavier and get heavier and get heavier and get heavier and before long you'll still be one of those half empty glass guys, but your glass will be full of the wrong substance. One of the greatest things in the world about keeping your cup full, David said, my cup runneth over. You know what is in my head with oil? My cup runneth over. Why is that important? Because when your cup gets full of water and the oil comes in there, the oil tends to gravitate or stay around the top. And it only takes a little bit of water to shove that oil out over the edges and that oil will dissipate and go down the edges. It won't go into the cup. But if you don't keep the water running, guess what happens? It starts filling up with oil again. And before long, it takes more. And unfortunately, when it comes to the Bible, you can't take mega doses and turn on a fire hydrant. It's steady drip. It's a steady, constant, everyday thing in your life. Reading, doing right, living right, doing the things that God tells you to do, praying and singing the right kind of songs, listening to the right kind of music to try to do what? Disperse or dispense the oil. Adorning the doctrine of God is not perfection. It is constantly keeping the faucet running. It means that I am going to try on a daily basis to put a few more drops of water in my cup. And if I've been around for 65 years now, there's a lot of things in my cup that are better off not there. Because I've had 65 years to either put the right or the wrong stuff in there. And if you've lived a life, and you've lived your life say 25 or 30 years before you got saved, you have a lot of things in your cup that have never been displaced by water. When you first start putting the water in, guess what happens? It gets worse. You get saved, and then you're thinking, man, everything's going to be great now. Yeah, it doesn't always work out that way. Or you get saved, and you come to church, and you live right, and do right, and act right, and all that other kind of stuff for a period of, say, two or three or four years, and then all of a sudden, you step out, and before long, you're doing stuff you shouldn't do, and all of a sudden, that cup begins to get full of the wrong kind of oil, the wrong kind of stuff. and the water gets more and more displaced until the weight of the oil begins to kind of push that water up. That water dissipates and it winds up evaporating, and now your life just seems one ball of confusion even though you're saved. And the Lord said, well, it's time for the purging process. Turn on the faucet. And you're like, Lord, can I pick up where I left off? No. One drop at a time, and that stuff begins to come up. and it begins to come up. You say, what's the answer to it? You gotta keep the faucet running. Adorning the doctrine of God is to try to help you to understand the principle of just keep the faucet running. I wish you could open it up and leave it running all the time like that, but what you have to do is keep it so that that cup is full of water. Now, let me see if I can show you just a couple of things here. Maybe the Lord will help us to do some things. Look, if you will, pick it up in Philippians chapter number two. Philippians chapter number two, we're talking about adorning the doctrine of God. It's an outward indicator. Now, if you weren't here this morning, I don't want to reiterate in an hour-long Sunday school class that I do want you to understand. The information I'm about to give you, remember clearly, is not for you to view other people through. It's for you to look at yourself. I want you to understand also, secondly, it is not an indicator of whether or not you are or are not saved. Excuse me, do you understand? You can do these things and not be saved. This is not an indicator, it's not proof of your salvation. Please listen to me when I tell you that you're seeing a resurgence of something that happened in the late 50s and early 60s where you're beginning to have preachers that are standing in pulpits and they're trying to legislate spirituality by saying, if you are saved, and then they'll give you a list of things that they think you ought to be doing. And worse, if you were saved, you would have never done whatever the things are that they list. None of that's true according to Galatians 5. You understand that. But I never want you to misunderstand your standing and state. You're seated with Him in heavenly places, that never changes. But your state can change based upon your relationship with the Lord. So we're not talking about getting resaved. I'm simply saying to you, excuse me, I'm simply trying to say to you that these are things that are pleasing to God so that your walk matches your talk for two reasons. Number one is a testimony to unsaved people who can't understand the Bible. If the Bible's right in 1 Corinthians chapter number 2, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them. He can read the Bible all day long, but until he believes them, it doesn't do him any good at all. You with me? So what does he do? He looks at you, and he says, if that's what a Christian is, I might be interested in that. So in order for my testimony to have punch to it, I can't be one thing by word, and another thing by walk, and one thing by talk, and another thing by walk. That's across the board, how I work, how I communicate with people, whether or not I go to church. It's not just how I act in church. So with those things in mind, I'll draw a couple of things to your attention here. We're just going to run a few passages. Look, if you will, please, in 2 Timothy chapter number 2. I mean, I'm sorry, Philippians chapter number 2. And pick it up, if you will, please, in verse number 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. So the first thing I want to point out to you about this is, is it requires a humility of mind and it requires you being willing to take on the attitude or the mindset that Jesus Christ did. Let His mind be in you. What was His mind? The mindset of a servant. I'm here to serve. I'm not here to get recognition. I'm not here to get appreciation. I'm not here expecting people to know that I am the Messiah. I'm simply saying that I think it's not a robbery for me to be equal with God. I'm going to make myself lower than the angels, he says in Hebrews. I'm going to bring myself down, take on the form of a servant, and I'm going to humble myself and be obedient to death. That's a hard walk to fulfill with a talk. Same passage there, Philippians chapter number two. Look, if you will, please, in verse number 15. The Bible says this in verse number 14. He said, do all things without murmurings and disputings, that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. So don't tell me that people aren't watching you. Come to 1 Corinthians chapter number two. Now, we talked about it this morning. And the old duck is, is that, you know, don't be judging me. And we went through all of that this morning. You can certainly get the tape. But in that thing, I tried to explain to you, whether you like it or not, you judge things and you judge people. And therefore, it is unreasonable for us to think that people don't judge us. That's not reasonable thinking. Usually somebody that is always so offended about being judged is usually guilty of two things in my experience. Number one, they're guilty of judging other people. That's why they're always under the scrutiny of being judged. And number two, they don't want you looking too close because they got something to hide. So judge not, don't be judging me. What you're saying is, is that I already know what I'm doing is wrong. And I know I shouldn't be doing this, but what I'm going to do is make you the bad guy for reminding me that I'm doing wrong. Right? I have a friend of mine right now, he's got somebody that got out of prison for some really, really horrible things and he called me and said, hey, could you make a couple of suggestions to me? And I said, well, I can tell you a couple of things and you can do with it whatever you want to do with it. I said, but because of the crime that he committed, He has a lifetime sentence of being under a microscope. And first thing he's going to say to you when you tell him that you found him on a particular offenders list is that, well, what difference does that make? I said, first of all, he should have let you know that when he first came over there. I said, he's dishonest. And I said, second of all, you have a responsibility to all the people that are there to let them know that you know what it is and where he's been and what he's done. I said, the second thing he's going to say to you is, well, who are you to judge me? I said, don't let him flip it around on you. He's being judged because of the actions or the repercussions of his actions. So if he doesn't understand that, that that's part of what goes with it, and even though he's, quote, done his time according to what the state law mandated up there, he hasn't done his time because the crime he committed has long-term repercussions, and he either learns to live with that or he can't have fellowship there. I said, now that's just what I would do. If you want to allow him to do that, then that's fine. But I said, I can assure you he wouldn't be teaching no classes, he wouldn't be hanging out with no kids, and he would be isolated from everybody in there. If he really wants the word of God, he can come in, and come in late and leave early. He said, you do that? I said, yeah, I do that. He said, well, how many do you have? I said, none. He said, I can see why. But is that my fault? Does that mean, now don't judge me. No, I want you to judge me. That's right to do. That's not my fault. Do you understand? I'm not the bad guy. I didn't do wrong. He did. I wouldn't have to make that call unless he wanted to intermingle. In other words, I want to be allowed to have the same rights and the same privileges as people that haven't done what I've done. Uh-uh. No. You messed that up, and when you did that to that young girl, you wound up ruining the rest of your life, not just her life. Don't put that on me and make me the bad guy. You live in a perverse lifestyle nowadays where people try to make you as a Christian go, that ain't right. Don't judge me. I'm judging you. But in whatsoever manner you judge, you shall also be judged. So make sure when you judge, you judge righteously. Make sure you judge by what the book says. You can judge things. You don't always have to judge people, all right? 2 Corinthians chapter number 2. Carnal church, would you agree? Most carnal church in the Bible. He said, Paul said, I would have given you a meat, but I had to give you milk because there's envy and strife and divisions and are you not yet carnal, right? It's carnal church. All right, now we're going to come to verse number 16. We're talking about the doctrine of Christ, adorning that and how we live and what we do. Verse number 16, for who hath known the mind of the Lord? That's what we're talking about. Let this mind be in you, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. That's present tense. Usually, you know what you're taught? Look, if you will, in Proverbs chapter 15. Proverbs chapter number 15. You know what you're taught? You're taught, well, we have the mind of Christ, but it's not activated until you get through the judgment seat of Christ. Well, that sounds real good, but it's not true. Paul just told you in 2 Corinthians that you have the mind of Christ right now. You want me to give you the mind of Christ? I'll give it to you. It's sitting in your lap. You know what God thinks, well His ways are above our ways and His thoughts, who don't know that? All I have to do is read my Bible and I realize right off the bat His ways are far above my ways and His thoughts far above my thoughts. But it doesn't excuse me from the fact that I have His mind and I know how I'm supposed to back in every situation. I'm not left to question or wonder what should my conduct, that's what we're talking about. We're not talking about the blood-sucking angels in the gap and talking about who's going to be, who's Melchizedek and was he Shem or was he somebody else without father or mother. We're not talking about, you know, the thing that comes in down in Zephaniah and he comes into the house there and it eats up the house of the perverse man and that kind of thing. We're just talking about, how do I conduct myself? He doesn't leave you answered. I'm leaving you questioning that. He tells you, you have that mind in you right now. We just don't like how he thinks. He says no. We say, well, maybe, possibly. I mean, I don't, you know, times have changed. No, he said no. Now, if you don't want to do that, that's okay, but don't put it on somebody that says, hey, listen, the Lord said that's wrong, and I ain't doing it. Right? Well, everybody else does it. Okay? And what does that mean? Nothing compared to Him if you're going to adorn the doctrine of Christ. Proverbs chapter number 15, I hope it's making some sense to you. It has to do with conduct. It has to do with decisions you make. What's the Lord say? The fear of the Lord, verse number 33, is instruction of wisdom. And before honor is what? You know what that humility is indicative of? It's somebody that's willing to admit, I don't know everything. It's somebody that's willing to say, I still have something to learn. It's somebody that's willing to be taught. You know, the Bible says Moses was the meekest man in all the earth. You know what people take the word meek to mean? They think it makes them mousy. Meekness in the Bible has to do with a teachable spirit. I mean, think about this. Moses is on the backside of the desert. He took matters into his own hand. He thought this is how it was going to be. He kills a man and buries him in the sand. I remember that woman there that the preacher used to talk about all the time about, is there any hope for a murderer? Well, I don't know. It worked out okay for Paul. It worked out okay for Moses. It worked out okay for David. Those are three of the heroes of the faith, three of the big dogs in the Bible, and every one of them committed murder. You'd be surprised what God can do for you. You know what most independent Baptist churches, they wouldn't have picked them three guys right there. They'd say, you can't, you're not worthy to serve because you committed murder. I don't know what they'd have done to them if they'd committed divorce, probably burned them at the stake. Don't panic. Here's the thing you got to understand, ladies and gentlemen. He comes up there to Moses and Moses takes matters in his own hand. And after 40 years, he goes to the backside of the desert and somewhat successful. It doesn't look like the Lord's talking to him, saying anything. He's certainly not dealing with the nation of Israel. He just lets things lie dormant there for 40 years and then comes along and has a burning bush. And you ever think about this? If Moses wasn't willing to subject himself to the angel speaking to him out of the bush, you'd have had a whole different leader bringing him out of the nation of Israel, I mean, out of Egypt. He was willing to be taught, wasn't he? All through, the Lord said, Moses, you've got to change this. Moses, you need to change that. Moses, here's the law. Moses, why did you break the law? You can go hew out the tablets yourself and bring them back up here. Maybe you won't be so quick to break them next time when, you know, you have to put some sweat into it. You might be a little more careful with it and your anger and your frustration. Moses is angry and mad, and I do well to be angry, like he says about Jonah over there, or Job, and I swallow down, leave me alone, that kind of a deal. And Moses goes back there, and after 40 more years, he's now 80 years of age. He's 80. He ain't over the hill. He's just getting started. Do you know how hard it is to be taught something at 80? Do you know how hard it is to be taught something as a teenager? And then after you've been a teenager a while, you start thinking, Mom and Dad are pretty smart, you know? And then you grow up and have your own kids, and you're like, Mom and Dad were really smart. And then you're thinking, God forgive me for all the things. If I have to reap everything I put my mom and dad through, man, did I sow some bad seeds. And you go back to your mom and dad, and you try to buy them nice Christmas presents and birthdays, and I sure am sorry, I sure am sorry. Hoping the Lord will have mercy on you while you're raising those kids and things like that. And then you get a little bit older, and then you get set in your ways. And God comes along and He says to you, He says, hey, I want to talk to you. Yeah, I'm retired. I'm retired. You might be a retread, but you ain't a retired. And the Lord's like, okay, retired or not, time to come out of retirement. Let's go. The Lord let them kids do it. Why do you think I'm calling you? Do you honestly think he's calling you because he can't find anybody else or do you think he's calling you to say, what did you get so stubborn about? You can't follow orders anymore? People think that when you get old that it gives you a right of passage or something, that now everybody's got to get out of your way and now everybody has to let you to the front of the line and now everybody thinks that because you've been around a while they're supposed to pay you a certain respect and all that other kind of stuff. Where did you get that? I believe in all that, but that's a southern tradition. You know what God says to you? Come on, Moses, let's go to work. I'm retired. I got some sheep out here and I'm fixing to take over. I got everything set up in my retirement and I'm good to go, man. That old man kicks off, man. I'm going to be set for life. I'm going to kick back over here in Midian. I'm going to have me a big spread and sheep around. I got a couple of boys now. They can take over his herd and my herd there. And I got a good wife sitting around up here, man. I'm going to sit back and enjoy mutton for the rest of my days and get the shekels, man, off of the sheep wool and things like that. What do you mean, go to Egypt? I'm too old to make that trek back across over there. You can do all things through Christ's strength, can't you, Moses? Well, it didn't work out too good for me the first time. You bitter, are you, Moses? You mad because I didn't do it your way, Moses? Is that what it is, Moses? You're upset because you're sucking on your thumb and you got your lollipop nose all out of joint because somebody licked all the chocolate off your lollipop, Moses. Is that the truth of the matter? Because I didn't excuse your murder of a man that I didn't tell you to murder? I didn't use you at 40 like you wanted to be used, so you're done with me, are you, Moses? Take your shoes off, boy. That mindset ain't going to work up here with me. I'm not in such a bind. I can't find somebody else. Why shouldn't I just kill you right now? Well, Moses kicked them shoes off right quick. Moses is a meek man, meekest man the Bible says on all the earth. You say, why him and God in constant communion on where to go and what to do and how to lead people that didn't want to be led. One of the greatest stories of Christian life in that Bible is the story that after the children of Israel see the great deliverance out of the exodus that takes place out of Egypt and go across that river over there, they wind up finding out they are no more than a three-day journey from Canaan. And it takes them 40 years to get there. And the ones that left out of Egypt are not the ones that went in. You say, why? They couldn't be told what to do. Humility. Obedience. The Lord said, go to Canaan. Joshua and Caleb get into Canaan. They come over there. They saw the same giants everybody else did. They saw everything. You know what they did? Ten people come back and all they see is giants. Two of them come back and all they see is, man, you would not believe the crops over there. Gigantic grapes, fields wide unto harvest. Ten of them are, man, all them giants, I mean, we might lose our life. God said, take it. Let's go take it. Joshua's over here trying to draw up a plan on how we're going to get in there and do that other kind of stuff to people that hadn't been in battle before at all. You know what he says? No, thank you. The Lord said, okay. And he lets them die off, one at a time, 40 years. I'm not trying to be hard on you, but I'm trying to show you a principle. The principle is they couldn't be told what to do. That's what happens when you get old. Nobody can tell you nothing, can they? You're above that now. Even God can't tell you. I remember sitting down there with that old man up, and I use it all the time, but I use it again tonight, sitting up there in Tennessee around that big old round table, and fried chicken, and mashed potatoes, and biscuits, and gravy, and all kind of starches and stuff on that table. I think the only thing green there was green beans, and that was about it. The rest of the stuff laid out there, typical southern dinner and sweet iced tea with about that much tea in the bottom of the barrel there and pouring the stuff out, come out more like maple syrup than it did tea. And everybody's sitting around there and then after it's all over with, they're going to have a business meeting, try to use me to help them get some things back on track there. They're up debt to their eyeball and paying people out of the plate, just making a mess of things. And so I asked that young boy over there by the door, I said, hey young man, could you bring me that book right there, that Bible right there over here? And that old fella leans back in his chair, leans back on two legs, puts his hands up. You needn't bother that. I said, what are you talking about, sir? He said, you needn't bother with that Bible. This is a business meeting. I said, well, preacher, I think we're done. I said, Pop, you've been dealing with this thing your own way and a business meeting, and how's that working out with you? And the reason is is because you're excluding that Bible, and the only thing I got to give you any help at all is in that Bible. And I said, sir, we are done because you're going to make up your mind. Ain't nobody going to tell me. You know what happened to that church? A charismatic outfit bought out that bought and paid for church. That church split nine ways for Sunday. Busted all the pieces, sold to a rough shod, rat sack, good for nothing, rotten bunch of people that could at least get along and have some business practice and pay the bill. You say, why Pop? Needn't bother with that book. Yeah, you've been running things around here. Pop, maybe I ought to put you in jail for all the embezzlement going on around here. Dipping in the plate there are you, Pop? Cleaning your money, running it through the church so you can run it to a missionary, but you don't want to give to the church. Huh, Pop? Is that how you do things? You say, what are you trying to tell me? As a Christian, you get older, you get some experience. It has nothing to do with your physical age. You know what can happen to you? You can get hardened to the point the Lord can't talk to you through His book anymore. You already know it all. Rightly divided. The Lord said, I don't care about the dispensation, and I stepped out of the dispensation to take care of a woman eating bread under the table. It ain't for fitting for me to give bread, southern Jesus, give bread for the God's people, the children of Israel there, to dogs. You calling me a dog? Who you think you are calling me a dog? I got you, dog. That ain't what she said. She said, yea, Lord. But even the dogs get the crumbs from under the table. And he said, well, I'll be jumped, dispensation or not. What you need, sister? My daughter. He said, she's fixed. You say, what can happen? As a Christian, you can get to the point that when it comes to adorning the doctrine of God, that humility, that obedience to what God says to do, we all of a sudden get this corporate mindset, I'm retired. I done laid up everything I need to lay up in glory. Are you with me in Proverbs? I'm not trying to be hard on you. I'm just trying to give you some things to think about. Proverbs chapter number 18, verse number 12. The Bible says, before destruction of the heart of the man is haughty, and before honor is what? And before honor is what? Humility. Isn't that a strange thing? You're almost beginning to get the idea or the picture that the mind of Christ. The Bible said the Lord humbled himself. Is that right? You want to be honored? So I'm not being honored. Okay? Let's just apply the Bible right here. Is it possible you're not humble? Is that possible? You're not being honored because you haven't humbled yourself? It's not let the Lord. Lord, humble me. No, no, no, no, no. Humbling is what you do. Lord, make me willing to be willing. I've heard that prayed. I've heard people, you know, Oh, Lord, make me willing to be willing. Well, then that's Him overriding your will because you really don't want to be willing. That ain't Gethsemane. You know what Gethsemane is? Not my will, but thine be done. I'm telling you, you ain't got to make me. I'm submitting my will to your will right now. That's humility. It's, Lord, I'm wrong. Show me how to do it right. I don't care. I want to be in step with you. Take your Bible and come, if you will, a little further over to Acts chapter number 20. I understand that it is a horrible excuse for people that don't want to come to church that they use, what about the hypocrites in the church? And I'd like to take that excuse away from them. But all I can do is try my best to not be a hypocrite. I can't make you not be a hypocrite. Because I don't know what your threshold is. And also, the person that's judging you as a hypocrite means they must be smaller than you. They can't see Jesus. Why? Well, because you're between them and Him. So, you've got to stop and think for a minute. When somebody says, too many hypocrites in the church, it's kind of like, well, wait a minute. How did you make that assessment? You've been to so many churches, you're living such a good, clean life. Look, this is family business here. This ain't the world's business. I'm not listening to somebody in the world tell me, these hypocrites in your church. Well, come join us, there's room for another one. But bottom line is, is that when somebody says that, it's like you're talking about my family. And you're not a part of us, so what you say is in one ear and out the other. I don't really care what your opinion is. You're not close enough to God's people to make that kind of a judgment. Who are you to be talking about people you never see? You're choosing a bunch of innocent people. Most of you, we all know, we admit it, we own it, we're hypocrites, we get all that, but we're trying. We never claim to be perfect, but we're trying. Now, look at this deal with the virus thing that came along. Well, I'd have done, and I'd have done, and I'd have this, and I'd have that. This is a great opportunity to do what God tells you to do. You can't answer for somebody else. You cannot judge someone else's spirituality by them not doing what you're doing. You're doing what you're supposed to do. Be happy doing it if no one else does it. But you can't decide, well, I don't know, that makes me think, are you bitter because you don't have the liberty to do what they're doing and you're really upset about it? If not, why are you always talking about what they're not doing? Who ain't helping? Who ain't coming? Who ain't going? Who ain't giving? Thank God for Brother Brad. Really? Well, he's spiritual. You don't know that. You see him Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. I can tell you I've known him for about 40 years. He's a good man. But for you to think about this, I don't have to deal with counting money. And what's worse, who is or who isn't given. Because that might be hard for a preacher to know that. To see people who God's been good to not, and see people who have been getting it in the neck, and they are, and how do you handle all that? I'm like, mm-mm, you're gonna be the treasurer here, here's the deal. I don't wanna know. Thank God he does that. I don't know how he doesn't get bitter with some of you, on either side of the coin. Well, if I was the, yeah, you ain't. Here's the point. The constant looking at someone else's paper doesn't make your doctrine any better. Can I use that illustration just briefly? TK had to leave today to go take care of some business. literally one morning that probably started with a cup of coffee and a newspaper, ended with a young child drowning, and the life of the parents and family members has changed that quick. What's to say that one phone call wouldn't keep you from here? or keep you from in that book, or keep you from standing up here and singing. I'm intentionally trying to expose that or bring that up to say, stop thinking that that would never be you. If it wasn't for God shielding you, becoming a shield and a buckler, wrapping around you and protecting you for things, you would be. Oh, maybe you wouldn't be at the bar and the strip club and down there drinking and the ball game and all that, but you wouldn't be here. If I can get this across to you, it'll give you so much liberty because you'll recognize you don't have a responsibility to be deciding what everybody else is or isn't doing. You're relieved of that. The reason we adorn the doctrine of God may be to edify the saints, but more it's to reach the center. Acts chapter number 20, I sure hope I'm making sense to you. Verse number 19. Make it 18, and when they were come to him, he said unto them, you know from the first day that I came unto Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons. Paul's saying, since I've been here, you know how I've been living. Look at it, that's his testimony. Y'all know me. That's not y'all know me in the pulpit. Y'all know me. You know how I conduct business. You know how I am at the restaurant. You know I don't go to the bar. I don't go to the club. You know me. That's what he's saying. Now watch verse 19. Serving the Lord with... Oh, there it is again. There's the mind of Christ. With all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews. You know what Paul said? With the humility of mind. Realizing, man, but by the grace of God, there go I. But by the grace of God, I'd still be riding a horse killing people. But God's been good to me. Y'all know that. That's what he's saying. Humility of mind, I'm not thinking it's because I'm anything. I like the passage over there, come to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I like the passage over there when the Apostle Paul speaks for himself in Acts chapter, I guess, around 26, 25, 24, 26, somewhere right along in there, 2 Corinthians 4. And they come to him and he's getting ready to have a big trial and they've come to a conclusion that, Paul, we're going to let you speak for yourself. And Paul comes out and he says, I thank myself happy. You've heard me preach a message along those lines before. And he said, I thank myself happy. And he said, I just want to first of all address the court's charges against me. The Jews now never accused me when I was a Pharisee and all those kind of things. They weren't really interested in my life and how I lived then, but now that I'm trying to do something for the right reasons and that kind of a thing, now they're bringing up what they never would accuse me of before and saying it was some sort of a crime, making orphans for children and widows out of women and all that kind of stuff. And he goes, and I'm here to tell you I did that. He said, they're right, I did that. But that's who I used to be. Along the way, I met the Lord, a light shining above the brightness of the sun, and called my name Saul, Saul, and you remember the rest of the story, and he begins to come down through there, and Felix has an unusual response to his dissertation. Because Felix is thinking to himself, you were trained at the feet of Gamaliel and you are, in a sense, a lawyer and you know all the laws and the statutes and there's different little places where you could work your way out of that, but you wound up just putting yourself right in our hands by admitting that what they're accusing you of is right. And he says to Paul, much learning doth make thee mad. But then the big dog, Agrippa says, There's something so unusual about your dissertation. He says, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. It wasn't because of his dissertation. It was because, you know what he says in the passage when you read the passage? When he addresses Felix, he said, Agrippa knows. He knows of which things he says in that passage. He knows of which things I speak. He knows how I lived. He knows how I changed. He knows who I hang out with and where I've been and what I do. He knows. He said, ask him. He'll tell you. I'm not a sham. I'm not a put on. Ask him. You say, what was that? Adorning the doctrine of God. Paul said, I'm not just here trying to save my neck. You know what they come down at the end of that passage? You know what Felix says to Agrippa? He says, you know something? If he hadn't asked to go over and stand before Caesar, you'd just about have to turn that guy loose because they don't really have a case on him. That's what he says. It's in the passage. I'm not reading between the lines. It's in the passage. He said, man, we'd have to turn that cat loose, but he asked to go see Caesar, so I guess we got to send him. And then the shipwreck curves and the snake bite and the people getting healed over there. And then Paul goes over and gets his head cut off. God was behind the whole thing. You say, what is that? That's a testimony. That's a walk that matches a talk so that when the time of the trial comes, he says, your boss man right there, he knows who I am. He knows what I'm telling you is true. He knows I ain't lying. He knows I'm not trying to just save my neck. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, just a couple of more here. We'll let you go to the barn here and grab your cinnamon roll on the way home or whatever your choice of poison is. Verse number 1. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not." So we've been given a ministry, or we kind of say a responsibility. And then God's given you the mercy to be able to make it through, but there's pressure. He says, we faint not. Now watch what he says, verse number two, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. not walking in craftiness nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to the Bible believer's conscience, to the church people's conscience, to the saved people's conscience, to the preacher's conscience. commending ourselves to every man's conscience. You know what Paul said? If that isn't I have to walk right, no matter what I say, my walk is how the truth gets manifested to the other people. He says we've denounced those things and we manifested the truth by how we live, not just what we say. I wonder, I think the old adage is that if, I think I mentioned it to you this morning, take your Bible, come to 1 Peter chapter 5, 1 Peter 5, would there be enough evidence to convict you of being a Christian? But if you were the only Bible they read, which I've heard, what version would they read? Would they read that version that takes those verses out? I'm always leery of somebody who's always trying to lighten up somebody's total commitment to Jesus Christ. That's odd to me. I had a friend of mine who's got an individual that's in his church and the young boy who's, I guess he's probably 17 or so now, he's about to graduate high school. And the young boy said, God called him to preach. He was about your age when you got called. The young boy's daddy told that young boy, that's something you can do later in life. You have a career ahead of you. The boy never said, I'm not going to go to college. The boy never said, I'm not going to work. He just said, Daddy, I believe God's calling me to preach. The daddy turned it on the preacher and said, you just got emotionally worked up. What the daddy is saying is, is you can have a little bit of Jesus, and you can have a little bit of God, but son, I'll tell you when it's time to be fully committed. What would be wrong with a young person coming back from youth camp saying, I sold out to Jesus? Well, that's great, son, but you know, you've got to make a living. I'm suspicious of that. Well, you know how preachers can be. You know about the hypocrites in the church. Why would you do that? I think what happens is, is you fail to see the judgment seat of Christ. Because if that kid were to kick off now and he were to die and had accepted the call to preach and daddy talked him out of it, you say, well if daddy talked him out of it, he never was. Okay, you do whatever you want. And that kid's up there in heaven and the Lord said, I sure wish you'd have accepted the call to preach. I'd have rewarded you as if you preached, but your expiration date's over. I bet you'd have a change of tune then, wouldn't you? Everybody ain't going to live to be as old as you are. They don't have the time you did and the grace that God gave you to make bad decisions and then you find yourself back at it now. Maybe God says it's time to push the pedal to the metal. I wonder why God takes people sometimes. Maybe He knows something you and I don't know. Maybe He knows that the time is fixing to come to an end and He's taking them right now to try to get more people in. A man came up to me Friday night after the meeting there and he was pretty emotional and pretty tore up and things like that. And he said, my daddy died about two weeks ago and he finally regained and gathered his composure and stuff like that. And he said, but you know the oddest thing in the world? He said, we've been trying to talk to people in my family. at every holiday, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every birthday, family reunion. He said, I have a whole bunch of people in my family and you couldn't ever get them together and you couldn't talk about the Lord. He said, but when my daddy died, he said they all came to the funeral. And he said, and that preacher, and he pointed to him, He said he preached the gospel of the grace of God as clear and plain as anybody could hear it. And he said, I would love to tell you every one of them got saved. But he said, I now know this. And I put my head on the pillow, and I miss my daddy. And I'm sorry he's gone, but I know every one of them heard it. And every one of them now have the opportunity. And he said, it would bother me if the rapture happened and I knew that they hadn't at least had the opportunity. And I said, well, boy, that is a good way to look at what happened there. Dad was a young man. Younger than me. Gone. Why, Lord, throwing out the bread on the water? One more chance. One more chance. When Jim died several years ago now, when he died, right before he died, his brother came in to see him there in the hospital. He'd been working on his brother for a long period of time, and his brother came in to see him there in the hospital, and he led his brother to the Lord on the hospital bed before we ever went to the hospice. Then at the funeral, the other one got in. I guarantee you, Jim would have had it no other way. If I got to die for them to hear the gospel, I'd rather die so they can hear it and get a chance to get in than to keep living. To have a reputation as a great preacher, what good is that if you can't even get your own family? Boy, that's a mouthful. Boy, sure it would be good to come time to go home You gather there around your friends and stuff and say, well, I'm now ready to be offered. I've run the race. I've kept the faith. I've finished the course. God's done with me whatever He wants. I'll give you one more illustration to read this passage to you. We'll go home. The old preacher was real bothered by his previous life. He'd bring it up on a regular basis, so I'm not telling you anything you don't know. 27 years, he said, I spent. doing stuff I shouldn't have done and living a wicked life." He said, even painting pictures, disrespectful, blasphemous pictures of the Lord's Supper with liquor bottles on the table and people drunk and cross-eyed and showing them around the barracks and laughing. He said, I'll never forget, I got the privilege of painting the first baptistry I ever painted. He knew the name of it. I can't remember it. I looked for it, but I couldn't find it. And he said, I got in there and he said, I always get ready to pray and he said, I hold up my brushes and my paint so I can see him right now. And he said, Lord, I ask you to use me now to paint this baptistry for your honor and for your glory. And he said, it wasn't an audible voice, but that voice said to him, is there a reason why I shouldn't take your hands off at the wrist right now? You remember that painting in the Philippines? And he said he hung his head and he said, yes sir, I remember it. And he said he felt like, literally, lasers were going to come down and just cut his hands off, drop his brushes right there. And he said, okay, go on and paint. And he said, from that moment on, anything I got, it belongs to the Lord. And it may not be the best, but it's all I got. And he has it all. I sure am glad he surrendered that way for me. I sure learned a lot that I wouldn't have learned if it hadn't been for His willingness. In spite of that wicked life, you know what He said, okay, go on and paint. You say, what is that, sold out? The day came when that old fella got ready to cross over to the other side. Way up in his 90s now. Getting ready to leave. I've often wondered what that must have been like when the Lord said, hey, Pete. He said, hello, sir. How are you? He said, you ready to go to the house? Yes, sir, I've been ready since I was 27. But I sure am glad you left me around for about 65 years to try to make up for the mess I made. You may not have 92 years. You may have one. When I talk about adorning the doctrine of Christ, I'm not talking about at night in your PJs when nobody sees you. I'm talking about there should be something about you that stands out in a crowd where people know that you don't have to bitch them over the head. You don't have to be rude. You don't have to be mean to people. There ought to be something in there that just testifies I'm a Christian. Jesus is my Savior. You don't have to give everybody the Romans road. They should be able to tell. You dressed up and going to a restaurant, where are you coming from? Been to church. Ain't that what everybody does on Sunday? Pass the taters. You don't have to be an in-your-face thing. Adorning the doctrine of Christ doesn't mean you've got so many bumper stickers holding your car together that it makes you spiritual. I don't care if you got bumper sticker, I don't care if you got them from head to toe and back end to front end, but it's telling though. That doesn't overcome your testimony of how you live. Last verse of scripture, hope again we're making some sense to you for tonight before we get together on Wednesday evening, 1 Peter 5. Look in verse 5, likewise you younger, here comes a hard word. and all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with..." What a drag! You say, why? "...for God resisteth and gives grace to the humble..." Can you stay with me one minute? "...humble yourselves, therefore, unto the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due season. If you're taking notes, write down Isaiah 57. I'm going to read you this first. You can close your Bibles. We're going home now. Humility. It's a tough thing. Especially when you're good at what you do. You're not getting the recognition you want to get. But if you want to get God's attention and God's recognition, it comes from humbling yourself. Isaiah 57, verse number 15, For thus saith the High and Lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and the holy place. Who do you dwell with, Lord? With Him also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit. to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Lord, you dwell up there in the high and the lofty place? Yeah, I'm in Mount Zion, the sides of the north. Well, who's your company, Lord? The great achievers of history? No, I'm up here with the contrite and the humble ones. I'll revive them. when I won't revive the proud. God's crowd is a humble crowd. God's crowd is a crowd that's not lifted up in themselves. God's crowd is a head bowed, broken and a contrite heart. David says in Psalm 51, that sacrifices and offerings don't mean nothing to you, but you sure do like that broken heart and a contrite spirit. And the Lord said, you've got it, David. That's the main difference between you and Saul, is that when you mess up, you fess up, but you realize you sinned against me and it bothers you. And Saul never got it. He was only sorry because he got caught. David adorned the doctrine of God and how he handled his wrongdoing. And Saul adorned the doctrine of humanity, did the best to cover up for the people when God knew what he did was wrong. I hope it makes sense to you. Let's stand together, we'll be dismissed.