Let me take a little bit of a survey here. How many of you have a little bit hard of hearing, feel like it's down a little bit low? Should be a little higher. Okay. Brother Andrew, see that? You got ears like a young man. Like a young man. Amen. Turn that thing up. Get it right to the edge of scaring folks. Amen. Right? See, you can already hear better. Isn't that right? Amen. They say you had a good service this morning. I watched it, but I couldn't hear it. Amen. Everybody said the preacher preached a good message. And I picked up on a little bit of what Brother Burke said. And what I got is real good. Amen. Amen. So I thought, well, tonight I'll complain. Amen. Of course, I'm a natural born critic. I look stuff wrong. Amen. Thank you, Brother Andrew. Get it right up where you're just about to scare folks. Amen. Go to a rock concert and see if that's not the way they do it. Amen. And they draw crowds. Isn't that right? I mean, they got the people coming. Well, I asked a preacher if it would be all right to do that, and he said it would be. Not the sound part. He may tell you to cut it back next service. I don't know. But anyway, I asked him, would it be all right if we had a photo shoot tonight? And he said, it would be all right. So what I want to do is I'm going to stand over here, and we'll get over here next to these steps. And then Tim will be there with me. And then Jacob will come. And Jacob will have, what's his name? Anthony James. I remember the James part. Anthony James. That's four generations. So that's my son, my grandson, and my great-grandson. And three of them are preachers, and probably the fourth one he just hasn't found out yet. But, you know, whatever the Lord wants with him. But that's four generations. And that's kind of special to me. And August, two weeks ago, August 29th, I turned 76 years old. Today, my wife turned 77. So for about two weeks, she enjoys me and her being the same age, but then she's 11 months older than me, but she turned 77. And so what I'd like for us to do, I'd like for me and Tim and Jacob and Anthony James to stand there, get two or three pictures of us, and then I'd like for my wife, Jennifer, And Anna to come and stand on the second step, and we'll get a few pictures of those. And so this is a photo shoot. We get around to study the Bible in a few minutes. Amen. All right. Where's Jacob? Where'd you go, Jacob? Okay. Bring your boy with you. And Trinity's got the camera. She's going to take some pictures. So this is on this top prong here. Jacob didn't leave. Oh, here he comes. All right. That's four generations. Are you proud of that? Yes, I'm proud. Amen. So, we want this side put in order here. Amen. That boy, he don't care a thing about this. You good? Take another one, just in case. Besides, I have a friend that may want one. All right, Mary, if you'll come. Jennifer, you'll come. Anna, you come. We'll send you guys down to this shelf. Stay up here, Jake. And don't leave. We're just going to have a while. Stand right here on this step in front of us. And just come right over here. Step right up. Come on. Right up on this one. Okay. That's right. All right, Jennifer, you stand here in front of Tim, and Anna, you stand here on this step in front of Jacob. You want to just move right up behind. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, I'm having the same problem with my eyes as I was having the last time I preached. And so again, tonight I just want to tell you some stuff, and you hope it's there. But it'll be there. But before I do, I have a prayer request, a very, very serious prayer request. Out at the print shop, we're having a hard time with the press. We bought a press, bought a four-color press, I don't know, several months ago, of course. Brother Al had other stuff to do, couldn't get the press set up for a while. But when he started, he's had a world of problems with it. And hopefully we've got it closed, but every day he comes in at something else and can't get the water rollers exactly right. And I couldn't, I wouldn't have that much patience. I couldn't do that day after day after day. I've never taken a break, just work, work, work, trying to get that thing straightened up. And I'd sure like you to pray, pray tonight, pray in the morning, and when the outcome's work tomorrow, he'd be able to turn it right screw. And, uh, I don't know if it's the devil, it's demonic. Just pray the Lord, rebuke the devil, cover it by blood. If it's, if it's something needs repaired, whatever, just needs wisdom to get that press going because a lot of scripture A lot of things need to be printed, and so I'd really appreciate it if you'd pray. Rutherford, he's the only one who can do it. We wouldn't even know where to start, wouldn't know how to turn it on. And so pray for Brother Al in getting that poor cutter press running properly. Well, mission time, mission conference time coming up, and I'm looking forward to it. And I thought today some of you won't, I suppose some of you won't be able to participate. Because until you get the tithing thing straight, you can't give anything. That's first, you know, to get that tithing straight. And that tithing thing, it's not difficult as long as you're making $100 a week. But if you start making $1,000, you know, a little difficult. And the story was told of Wally Criswell at the First Baptist Church in Dallas. Criswell was probably dead 30 years, but anyway. Somebody came to him, and they were making $40 a week. He said, was there a time people were making $40 a week? Yeah, about 1960. I was working a public job. I was, what, 17, 18 years old, something like that. And my take-home pay was $40.16 a week. That's what I made. So yeah, that's a long time ago, I know. But you'd live on it. In fact, somebody said that it doesn't cost any more to live now than it used to. You live like they used to live. That's the secret to that. Most people don't want to live like they used to live. But I can understand that $40.16 a week, that was my take-home pay. So this guy came, Dr. Griswold, and, you know, they talked about it, and Dr. Griswold said, well, $40 a week, your time's $1 a week. So he was tithing $1 a week. But the Lord blessed that this guy got up to where that his tithe, was $400 a week. He became a very successful businessman or something. Made a lot of money. So his tithe would have been $400 a week. And he came to Dr. Griswold and said, is there any way in the world we can adjust that? You know, that tithe wouldn't be that much? Griswold said, well, we can't change the tithe. He said, if you want, we can pray. God will adjust your income so your tithe would only be $4. We can do that. That's not a good alternative, amen? You just might as well go ahead and get honest and go ahead and tithe, amen. And then they said, the mother gave the little girl a dollar and a half, said, or a dollar and a quarter, said, you got a dollar, you got a quarter. Now, remember, you're going to church. She said, Mama, how much should I give? She said, well, Lord, in love with the cheerful giver, we said, whatever you give, that's up to you. You got a dollar, you got a quarter. And so after church, her mother asked her, how much do you give? She said, I gave the quarter. She said, that's all I can cheerfully give. If it got more than that, I wouldn't be too happy about it, you know. But anyway, that's the way it works. Well, I've got some notes. I don't know if I'll be able to look down, but let me tell you the story. Genesis chapter number 12. Let's go there to start with. And let me just give you an overall view of what's going on here. And in Genesis chapter number 11 rather, we read about Abram for the first time. And it said in verse number 26 of Genesis 11, until Rah lived 70 years and begot Abram. So here's a guy 70 years old and he started a family. He begot Abram. And then you go two verses and in those two verses The Bible skips over all of the childhood days of Abram. It doesn't deal with any of them. It gets to verse 29, and Abram and Nahor took them wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai. And so you go from his birth to a wedding night. And then you get down to verse 30, and Sarah, as it will be later called, was barren. She had no children. In verse 31, it said that Terah took Abram, his son, And Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. Now, without looking at the actions that they took, look at who's named. First of all, you have Terah, you have Abram, you have Nahor, he took wives. Abraham's wife was Sarai. Then verse number 31, Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Aram, his son's son, that's Arai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. You know what he's talking about? He's talking about relatives. You know what that is? That's a family. That's a family. And then we get to chapter number 12, and he deals with Abram. And you know what he said he's going to do with Abram? He said, well, in verse number 12, verse number 2 of chapter 12, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, thou shalt be a blessing. I will bless thee, curse thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So you know what the context of those verses is? It's family, that's what it is. And I learned something this week that I wasn't sure about, but let me say this, get into the statement That Abram goes down in history being a great man, but you know the greatest thing that he did, the most purposeful thing that he did was he begot Isaac. And then Isaac, he goes down in history being very popular and a great man, but you know the greatest thing he did? He produced Jacob. And Jacob is probably the most popular person who ever lived or who ever will live. I was listening to some videos this week of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. He's a professor at a Jewish theological seminary. And here's what I learned from him. He said concerning Jacob, he said that Jews, we do not consider us a people of Abraham, and we don't consider ourselves as a people of Isaac. We are the children of Israel. Now when I would hear that statement up until now, I would think when they're saying we're the children of Israel, that they're talking about not their ancestry, but I'm a citizen of that nation or that country and that people. That's what I'm a citizen of. But when they say I'm a child of Israel or we're children of Israel, they're referring to Jacob because his name was changed to Israel. And so that rabbi, An Orthodox rabbi of today said, We are not the people of Abraham. We are not the people of Isaac. We are the people of Jacob or Israel. And so they look at themselves as coming from Jacob or Israel. That is how far back they go. And then, of course, I asked him about it, and I think he is right, and I think it goes a little further maybe, but when he said that at least all the families, families, You know what the nation is? The nation is a conglomerate of families. And the practical applications that we're trying to make is that the principles that we study in the Bible, especially in this thing of Jacob, it's for the sake of building families. Families. You know what a church is? A church is a family of families. See? That's what it is. And if you have families that are divided, you've got a church divided. If you have families that are weak in their lifestyles, you've got a church that's weak in its lifestyles. If you've got families that are fighting for us and full of jealousy and hatred and bitterness toward one another, that's what your church will be. Your church cannot be anything better than what the families are. And that's one reason that I rejoice in the church here when you look around at the different families. I said to Sister Bertram this morning, I watched their family. And I notice those kids, they kind of gather right around one another over there and stay right together, you know. They're not trying to get away from mom and dad. That's good family, you know. And I just watch different families in the church. And when you've got good families, you'll have a good church. But with the case of Jacob, you know, we saw last week how that Abraham, he passed You know, a lot of stuff through his lineage down to Jacob, through Isaac. Isaac, he picked up a lot of the traits of his father. He passed them down to Jacob. And by the time we get a description of Jacob's life, what we get, he goes down in history as being one of the sorriest individuals that ever lived. I mean, he was a crook. He was a shyster. He was a liar. And so Jacob, he was not a good doer. Jacob was a bad doer. And we said this, how did he become that way? And what we dealt with last week, I think the last time I was in this, what we dealt with was he had an Adamic nature just like you and I. And so that Adamic nature, of course, that goes all the way back to Adam of the fall. And, you know, I've been studying, I've been studying some of about the Ten Commandments. And when the Lord gave the Ten Commandments, He said, well, that was to keep people from doing those things in the future. Well, that's good, but I believe you can find a record where people have already been doing those things. I know there was a murderer. When he said, I shall not kill, somebody had already been doing that. God said, no, no, let's don't do that. And then something else, let's don't do that, let's don't do that. They didn't have to have a list of rules and regulations to do wrong. It was just their nature, Cain slew Abel, you know, right off. And that Adamic nature, that Adamic nature, you've got it and I've got it, I don't care how good you become, you're going to battle that and fight that until you've got a glorified body. That's it. But the other thing was that Jacob, what made him like he was, it was through an inheritance. He inherited those character traits and that personality and that scheme and that like. And we said this, that the way he learned to lie, was from his mother, you know. And Rachel, Rebecca, she was not a good wife. She was not a good mother. She made a coward out of her boy. She made a wimp out of him. We dealt with that. She showed great disrespect for her husband, Isaac. One thing I didn't mention, she obviously was not much of a housewife. I don't see any record where she ever prepared a meal. Both her boys could cook. Maybe they had two to live. I don't know. Maybe my mama didn't cook. wasn't a word said about it, but I know that Esau, he knew how to fix medicine. And I know Jacob, he knew how to side potage. So those boys, they knew how to cook. They probably had to cook to live. But not Rebecca, she didn't do it. And Isaac, he was afraid to say anything about it, you know. And you know, let me let me just say this, that you don't know how much of an influence that you're having. Some of it's just DNA, some of it is just, you know, it's just your Blood cells, some of it is just genetic. I mean, you know, you get hair and eyes and features, you know, like your mom, like your dad, you get that. But also, because you are living entwined with your parents and your forefathers, you're going to pick up their habits, okay? It's going to show up. You're going to be like them. And so, I mean, that behooves us, I mean, to just be careful. Be careful, because your children are going to pick up your traits and your habits. I was thinking about this, the physical traits that we have, not counting the genetic thing. If you go to a new doctor, you know what they're going to have you do? I don't care if you're going to have a tooth filled or whatever. They're going to have you fill out a medical history of your grandparents. and your parents and your brothers and your sisters, they're going to have you fill out a medical history. Why? Sometimes you pick up their health problems. But not only that, but you just pick up some on your own. Let me give you an example. It's kind of funny to me. But my wife, for instance. Now, my wife knows absolutely nothing about an automobile, the mechanical phase of an automobile. She doesn't. She doesn't know. But she thinks of Ford is the worst vehicle that was ever made. You say, why? That's what her daddy taught her. I mean, her daddy, you know, if you're going to shop for an automobile, don't even go to the Ford dealer, you know. Eric, evidently, as you say that, that must have been your daddy taught you that, too. But anyway, that's all she knows. Her daddy didn't like Ford. Now, in 1977, the Ford introduced the F-150 series. And since that time, for 40 consecutive years, a Ford F-150 has been the most popular truck ever sold in America. In fact, they say they've sold enough Ford F-150 trucks to go around the world three times. And they didn't start building in 1977. But they're still the worst vehicle ever made. Why? Her daddy said so. And he died in 1964. And they made the F-150 in 1977. And then I thought about that, and nothing wrong, you know, Ford is probably as good as anything else. I drive a Toyota, you say, what's that? Well, that's a bucket of bolts that was made in Japan. But it really was made in San Antonio, Texas. Amen. And so, you know, Ford, what's that? Well, that's a bucket of bolts, I don't know where they made it. Amen. You've got a Chevy, that's a bucket of bolts. They all rust. They don't do that. But I noticed, you know what, Tim and Jennifer drive, they've got a silver Buick, what is it? You say, why? Did they do research and find out that's a good automobile? No. When they bought it, Jennifer's mom and dad had one just like it. They bought it probably because that's what the parents had. Say anything wrong with that? No. Nothing wrong with that. But I'm saying that many times you'll just do what they do. Because, you know, you love your mom and dad, you love your parents, whatever, and they influence you. For instance, here's one. My wife, and I have to finish this, or you think she doesn't practice good hygiene, but she does extremely clean. But she doesn't take a shower. It's a bath. She always takes baths. Well, that's what her mother did. Her mother came to live with us. She wouldn't take a shower, you know. But, and I heard a story one time, said a girl, said she got the ham ready to cook for a Christmas dinner and said the end of that ham, you probably heard this old story, said the end of that ham, she'd cut off about three or four inches the end of that ham before she put it in a baking pan and then baked it. And one day her little daughter said, Mama, why do you cut the end off of that ham? She said, well, I don't know. That's what my mama always did. I'd call her and ask her. So she called her mother, and she said, your granddaughter, my daughter, she's asking a question I don't have an answer for. I always cut the end of the ham off before I bake it, and that's what you always did. Why did you do that? She said, well, the only thing I can tell you is that's what your grandmother, that's what my mother always did. She always cut the end off that ham. But she said, since you've asked the question, I'm going to call and see. And she called her mother, this little girl's grandmother, and she said, Mom, I need to know why that every time you get ready to bake the ham, you always cut the end of it off before you put it in the baking pan. I said, why did you do that? And her grandmother said, because I didn't have a pan big enough to take the I don't have. But for no reason, they just do it because, you know, mama did it or daddy did it. Well, you know, sometimes that can be a bad thing. Did you know good or bad? Now, we're talking about good now, all right? Your mom and dad hadn't influenced you to do anything bad. Now, it's a miracle. And I've been tempted lately to give a testament, but I don't believe I will. I don't, you know, somebody read that and think, well, you're just glorying in your shames. I probably won't do it. But families, you know, the objective is to build a family. We've got to have a family. And when you build good families, you've got a good nation, you've got a good church, that kind of stuff. And that's what these verses are about, is about a family. But you know, sometimes there are families that have children that will never be anything, especially anything for God, as long as they're under your domain. They said, well, where do you find that? You know what? When you read about Jacob going in there and lying to his father, his mother told him to do it, told him how to do it, set it up, and it's very clear in the Scripture he was a mama's boy. But you know what? When Jacob had to leave, he had to run, and when she told him, she told her husband Isaac, she said, Jacob needs to run, go live with Laban. And so Jacob left home, and the next chapter after he left home, you know what he did? He met God. He didn't meet God until he left home. He didn't meet God until he got away from his mother, you see. You say, you think you ought to disrespect your parents. Oh, no. You ought to have heard Brother Burt's lesson this morning. Right on target, right down the line. Honor your father and mother. But sometimes they don't have the best advice for you when it comes to spirituality. And so when Jacob got away from his mother, then he met God. And tell you something else. Look over here and let me see what's the chapter about, chapter number 33. I believe it's chapter 33. So he got away from his mother, but he met God. All right. Okay, I've got it now. When God gets ready to break Jacob and touch him and put His power upon him, the Bible said in verse number 21 and chapter 32, see if I can read this. If I miss it, you just read along there. But said, so he went present over before him and himself lodged that night in the company. So Jacob and his family, they're traveling. And he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants and his eleven sons and passed over before Jabok. And he took them and sent them over the brook and sent over that he had. And so he sent them on the other side of the river. And Jacob was left alone. You know what? The first time Jacob met God, you know what he had to do? He had to get away from his mother. You know what happened the second time? He had to get away from his immediate family. And Jacob was left alone. And then God came down and dealt with him. You know, I'm not saying you ought to leave home. I'm not saying you ought to forsake your mom and daddy. But I am saying this, that Christianity is not a matter between you and your mama. And Christianity is not a matter between you and your daddy. Christianity, your dedication to Jesus Christ, is to you and you alone. And you know what's happening in this country, and it's happening now, big time. You've got some of the mega-churches, and we're taught how to win souls, and how to step them through the plan of salvation, how to get them in a prayer, and whatever. And Mama, take a little three or four year old child, and boy, she sure didn't want Johnny or Susie to go to hell. And so she's going to leave Christ at about three years old. And she had a few tears in front of her and lead him in a prayer and proclaim that he saved all the rest of his life. But you know what Mama's doing? Mama's operating out of a heart of love, but she's not operating out of a heart of knowledge. And the Bible said in Romans 1 that your love ought to increase more and more in all knowledge and in wisdom. So not only should you love your children, but you ought to deal with them according to knowledge. The story used to be told by an evangelist that I knew about a lady one time sitting on the front porch, and her little boy was in the front yard playing, and he threw the ball, and it went over the fence into the highway, and he ran to get it. And when he ran outside the fence into the highway to get it, a speeding vehicle topped the hill and hit the little boy. And so that little boy was laying there in the middle of the road, and his mother went out and picked him up as quickly as she could and held him in her arms. And after a while, somebody called the ambulance. They came, and they rushed him to the hospital, and the little boy died. And when they diagnosed his reason for death, they said he died of internal bleeding. If his mother had let him lay still, he might have lived. But that movement in picking him up, you know what? She killed him because she loved him. And you know, a lot of times you think you're doing the best thing for them. But you know, I'll tell you what, Mama, I'll tell you what you're probably ought to do. You probably ought to let Daddy be the spiritual leader of the home. You ought to say, you know, let's talk to your Daddy about that. And don't operate on your emotions and try to get a decision out of them when they don't understand, they don't know. Daddy won't do that. If daddy's the leader that he ought to be, and daddy studied that Bible, and he knows the Word of God, and he knows how God saves sinners, if daddy is what he's supposed to be, he'll know what to do. He'll know what to do. But you know, out of our love for them, we love them, we want the best for them. So you do have an influence, and a mother or dad. And so hereditary stuff. Now, let me say this. Did you know that bad people have an influence? And did you know that just like Rebecca gave Jacob bad advice, Did you know there are people in this world that will literally, absolutely destroy their children because they don't love God, and they don't know Christ, and they don't want you to love God, and they don't want you to know Christ. In fact, their children sometimes, maybe ride a bus to church, maybe a friend pick them up, take them, and they may come to church and get saved and love God and go back home and give that testimony, and Mom and Daddy won't let them go to that church again. You've got a wicked generation out there. In fact, let me tell you this. About 40 years ago, I was preaching in Walterboro, South Carolina. And stuff like this you used to hear about still goes on probably. But there was a fellow from Louisiana, Brother Mack Ford. He had a children's home over in Arcadia, Louisiana. He had a girl's home. And I'd preach there a lot. And then he had a boy's home in Walterboro, South Carolina. And so I was in Walterboro preaching. And those were younger boys, you know, 5 years old or maybe 10, 12 years old, that kind of thing. And I think there was five of us maybe preaching in that meeting, five preachers. And one day Brother Ford came to us and he said, preachers, I need for you guys to help us. I need for you to give us some counsel and talk. And we said, what's wrong? He said, well, this home, as small as it is, there are smaller boys that are here, we've already had homosexual activity in this boy's home. And he said, we're going to get these boys together this afternoon and want to know if you preachers will talk with them. Well, I don't know what to say to those boys, but five of us preachers got together, and they brought those boys in, as well as I can remember. I think there's five boys, maybe. And we began to ask those boys questions. And one little boy, as well as I can remember, I think he was ten years old, already involved in that homosexual activity stuff. And the amazing thing about it is, he sat there and told us about it, and told us what he'd been doing, and had no shame, had no remorse. I mean, just talking like an adult and saying stuff that nobody ought to say, and no remorse whatsoever. And we said, when did that start? And when they found out when it started, when that little kid was five years old, his mama and daddy began using him in their perverted lifestyle. Can you imagine people being like that in this world? Yeah, there are people like that in this world. And so, what's the future for a kid like that? Well, I don't know if there is any future, but I know one thing, it'll be his mama's fault, you know, if things don't straighten out and get better. But anyway, that was that little boy. You know, you run onto kind of situations that you think, is there any hope for something like that? And what can you do in a situation like that? Let me tell you, as a church, you're in danger tonight. You say, why? Well, I'll tell you why. You know, this is a good church. I'm convinced it's a good church, and I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I've seen a lot of meetings. I've seen a lot of churches. I've seen them come and go. I've seen them whatever. Well, you've got a crowd out there tonight. Do anything to get a crowd. They can just get the attendants up. But that's not the issue. We're talking about families. We're talking about homes. We're talking about what's going to happen. Well, I'll tell you what, unless God touches, unless God anoints, unless God feels, unless people die at the cell, I don't care how good you are. And there's a danger when churches become like this church that we're good, yeah? We're good, all right. And we've lived right, we've raised our children right. Yeah, I know. But you've still got an endemic nature. And you probably, if you get your chest out, you probably do it because of what you know. that everybody else thinks about you. But you really better be as good as you make everybody else think. You might have some skeletons in your closets, you know. They talk about pornography. I bet 50% of the people here, I bet you've seen it, I bet young people have seen it, ought not, ought not. But you know that world out there, and as easy it is to get into that sin and see that sin out there, and no more safeguards than there are, we might not be as good as we think we are. But even if we are as good as we think we are, God doesn't use you because you're good. God uses you because He's good. And you know what we don't need? I appreciate Tim. Boy, I tell a preacher friend of mine in Kentucky, I said, once in a while he can come in on a Sunday morning, Sunday night, and got away about it. I mean, just clean the plow. You know it takes a lot of that. Did you know what? Just like that you look back to your relatives And you inherit some of their traits, some of the things that they did, some of the things that, you know, like, well, you can look at the felurs, and Tim's a felur, and Jacob is a felur. You know, one thing that I noticed about the felurs, and Tim mentioned recently about the felur men, we're not necessarily an outwardly romantic people. I mean, some of you are. You open the car door for your wife every time you say to you, no, she can open, she can drive the car, man. She don't need me to open the door for her. So I don't make an effort to open the door every time we go down. Now, if you do, that's wonderful, that's fine. We don't romance in church. Amen. I'd really like to see that, you know. People can't keep their hands off one another. They're romancing and, you know, you know what I'm saying? You say, well, you're not romantic. Well, I got three children. I guess you do know how I got them, amen? But, I mean, you read what I'm saying, you know. I don't know whether me and Tim, two or three times in service, told each other we love one another. He put Jacob on an airplane going to Zimbabwe the other day. I said, well, man, I'll be praying for you. Okay. Are you from people being romantic? Be that way if you want to. It's not the palour of nature. I don't ever remember my dad or my mother ever one time in our life saying, you know, we love you. I don't ever remember that. Of course, if I give a testimony, some of it you wouldn't believe. I don't ever remember a time in my life where my mother ever cooked a meal, set it on the table, and more than one person sat down to eat. And it was like the guy in Louisiana. It's kind of like the sun come up, they said, it's daylight, get outside, that's okay. And that's where I wanted to go anyway. You know, just kind of like they had me and said, raise yourself, and so we made it. But that don't have anything to do with the rest of the family. My children don't have to be like that, you know. But they're just certain traits. But I want to tell you something else. Not only do you inherit traits from your family members, but I'll tell you something else you'll do. You'll inherit traits from your preacher. And your life and your preaching style. You know, I was on a Bible expositor. You say, why? I didn't know you were supposed to be. I mean, I grew up listening to preachers who read a text and then say what they've been saying and then just found a reason for saying it in a verse of Scripture. Totally topical, you know, that kind of thing. And that's why I grew up. I didn't know you could be a Bible expositor. And then Tim turned out to be a Bible expositor. Now, Jacob, Bible expositor. That's the way they preach. I believe that's the way you ought to preach. I don't believe you can build a church if you don't expound the Scriptures, you see. So somebody had that kind of an influence on them, and it wasn't me. But some preacher somewhere, I mean, they heard them preach, and they said, that's the way you do it. You preach like that. And there'll be preachers from time to time, some across this platform. You'll listen to them, smile, say, that's good. But there'll be others come through and they'll preach and you'll get something that'll change your life. And did you know the kind of preachers that will make America like it is? It was preachers that you would think is going to fight at any moment. You know, I mentioned last week Ed Ballou, one of Tim's favorite preachers, and he's growing up. And when Ed Ballou got into a group, well, he had a group that he ran with and was very close to them, but they preached for one another quite a bit, but this one group started becoming Very Calvinistic. Became very Calvinistic. Well, I heard Ed Ballou preach there. Might have been his last time that he preached there. But I heard Ed Ballou, that old Cherokee Indian, he got up and he said, now if you're a hyper-Calvinist, he said, don't come to me and talk to me after the service. I might be an old man, but I believe I can bop your jaws before you get here. Amen. And Ed Ballou, that was Ed Ballou. He said, well, God would bless that. He probably had as many revivals as anybody I know of. And God moved and used him in a marvelous, marvelous, marvelous way. Ed Ballou said he went to work for a trucking company, and said when he went to work for that trucking company, he was going to be a truck driver, that a woman run the company. And he said to that woman, he said, I want to tell you before I start, and I'm a preacher, she said, there ain't no such thing. He said, what? She said, a preacher and a truck driver. He said, look at me, I'm one. He said, we'll give you a try and see if you are. He said about two months later he was on the dock loading the truck and somebody cussed in front of him and she picked up a board and said, don't you cuss in front of that preacher. Amen. He convinced her that he was a preacher. But you know what? Ed Ballou's daddy was a mean guy. Ed Ballou said that he had seen his daddy come in at night and fall in on the porch and pass out drunk and said his hands bleeding and swelled and his knuckles busted where he had been in a fist fight somewhere. and said he'd seen his mama soak those hands in hot salt water and nourish him back to health and get him going again. And that's kind of the lifestyle that they lived. But you know what happened? Man, one day God saved that old Indian. And he was a truck driver, too. And Ed Ballou said that him and his daddy would be driving a truck together and his daddy would be back there in a sleeper and said they'd be grinding up old Highway 27 up there in northern Chattanooga about 60 years ago now. and said, have it down what they call mule gear. That's what they used to say about them old trucks. They had it down in mule gear. Some of them called it grandma gear. And said, have it down that first gear. And he grinded up that mountain, you know, and said he'd feel that big arm come out of that sleeper. And that big Indian hand touched him on the shoulder and said, boy, when you get to the top of the hill, pull over. We'll pray. He said his daddy of the evening, she'd see him just walk away. And he said, my daddy wasn't the kind of man, and some of you understand this and some of you won't get it, but he said, my daddy wasn't the kind of man little kids just run up and start talking to and just run in their mouth, especially if they're as busy as somebody else. But he said, my daddy, in the evening you'd see him about the time the sun was going down, he'd go down across the meadow and across the creek and into a clump of trees. And he always wondered where he was going. And he said one day, he said, daddy, can I go with you? And he said, that big Indian, he dropped that big hand down, that big old rough finger, and he said, yeah, boy, come on. And he said he reached up, got a hold of that finger, and said he held that daddy's finger and said he walked down across that meadow, across that creek, and said his daddy got over by a big old sweet gum tree. And he said, boy, don't know much about how to do this. But said this is where I come every day to pray. And he said, get down right here, and I'll show you what I've been doing. And they'd pray. And when Ed Ballou was telling that, he said, you know, he said, now, he said, I'll get on an airplane and fly into some town and a preacher picked me up, take me over and put me in a motel, getting ready to start a revival meeting. And he said, the devil would get on my shoulder and say, Ed Ballou, you're the biggest fool that ever lived. Here you are. You ain't got enough money in your pocket to buy a hamburger. You're broke. You ain't got nothing, and here you are out here preaching to people, and they don't even appreciate you, and you don't know what's going to happen here. You're the biggest fool that ever lived. Why don't you quit?" And he said, about that time, I'll feel that big arm come out of that sleeper. He said, boy, when you get to the top of the mountain, pull over. We'll pray. He said, I feel that big finger. And Daddy said, come on, boy. And he taught me to pray. You know what kept Ed Ballou going? That of a Wendian. See, he could look back at his heritage, not in his immediate family necessarily, but he could look into his immediate family and he could see something that fashioned his life. Oh, yeah. That's what made churches what they are in America. While I love to hear Brother Ed preach, I'll tell you another one. I heard Ed Ballou say, He pastored a church over near Jacksonville for a while. But he said one day a little old country town, you know, he said the town square, they had the courthouse and they had the county jail right there at the courthouse. And he said one day over at the Parsonage. So I knocked on the door and he opened the door and there's two women standing there, members of his church. And those two women, this one woman's son and this woman's daughter had married. And said, boy, they were just ecstatic. And they said, preacher, something terrible's happened. Said, we need to help. And he said, what's wrong? And she said, well, you know, her daughter married my son. They said, I know. Married him. And she said, they've had a fight. And said, she put him in jail. Said, he's over in jail. And said, she's gone. She's going to divorce him. Said, they're going to have a broken home. And said, I'll go see him. He said, when he got over there and started to cross the courthouse lawn, He saw that girl, that boy's wife, coming. And he said, hey, I want to ask you something. And she said, yeah, what is it? He said, I want you to go up yonder with me to see your husband. She said, I ain't going. He said, well, I always was suspect. I thought you would lie under certain circumstances. I hate to believe you're a liar, but she said, what are you talking about, preacher? He said, you remember one time you told me if you could ever do anything for me, let you know? She said, yeah. He said, well, I'm getting ready to make a request. Boy, you want pressure. He said, you'll do it. She said, if I can, why don't you go up there and see your husband? She said, I ain't going. He said, I thought I was right. I thought you would lie under certain circumstances. She said, well, I'll go, but I won't speak to him. He said, all right, come on. So he went through the sheriff's office and told the sheriff he knew him. I want to go up there and see such and such. He said, yeah, go ahead, Fletcher, take your time. Said, everybody up there, he's the only fella in jail. And Ed said he got up there and said, they said their house looked like a Sherman tank. Been in one room especially. And tore it all to pieces. And said that one bedroom, said it had blood and pieces of meat all over the wall. Most of it was his. She had hit him with an iron, got a hold of the cord, so there'd be a lot of red. And swung a thing and hit him right side of the head, that iron. Well, how about that? And Ed went up there, and that woman had a little girl with her. He was sitting back in the corner of that cell. He got up and said, Get her out of here. Brother Blue said, She's staying. Then I tell her she can go. And Ed Blue said he started to preach. He took a text and started preaching. He tried to preach like he was in a two-week revival meeting. He got to preaching. He said, A little old girl. Ed noticed and said, Sure, come up there too. And Ed said, A little old girl. She got off a bar and pulled and grabbed another bar and pulled and grabbed another bar and pulled and got her mama up there close to the bars. So that daddy got up there in a minute, looked through the bars and said, honey, I'm sorry about last night. That's my fault. She broke, started to cry. Said, no, if I hadn't have said such and such, That never would have happened. They embraced through the bars, got everything right. He said, look, Gilbert, the sheriff would have cried. He got right with the Lord. You said those things happen? Yeah. These pulpits are red hot. And you probably got a pulpit that's got as much truth coming from it as any church you know of. However, don't forget. Don't forget. God doesn't bless you because you're good. He blesses you because He's good. You know who we're talking about tonight? Jacob. The worst man you'll ever read about. Became the most popular man this world has ever heard of. In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed. But you know what? That was transferred to Isaac. And that was transferred to Jacob. And that Adamic covenant You know what's going to happen one of these days? The Star of David. You say, that's a crucified Savior. No, that's a glorified Savior. And one of these days, He's going to sit on the throne. And that exalted nation of Israel, the nations of the earth, the kings of the earth, are going to bring their glory into it. You know who that is? That's the children of Israel. God take a nobody, clean them up, use them, put them to work. And here's the danger. The danger is that many times we got people in our assemblies and they got a sordid past. They look at somebody that never, ever, never, never fouled up one time in their life. Surely you with a sordid past could do what they could do. Jacob did. Not how good you are, that's how good he is. You know what you do? You know, when I look at these families, and I wish that I didn't have a memory in some areas. I wish I didn't remember the things that I did before I was saved. But I'm glad out of me came a young man that God's using. Out of him came a young man that God's using. Out of him has come a young man that we're praying God will use. Sure enough, because I was good, it was because of God's amazing grace. And I looked at these families, and I said, I'm not like them. I'm not like that one. Sometimes you get intimidated because formal education. And you're an educated church. But I didn't get formal education. I've had to read a lot more than most folks in order to get any knowledge. And so I look at families and I think, well, I could never meet their standard. I don't have the education they have. I don't know what they have. Back as one family in the church, I may be making a mistake on it, but you know who I relate to, and I'm afraid to ask, but it seemed like old brother Steve Larmer. I don't know whether I'm on his level or not, but it seemed like he might have two little spots right there on his head, and I don't know, but I think that may be where they cut his horns off. And somehow I get the feeling, and I don't want to know, brother Steve, but somehow I get the idea he wasn't an angel, and I wasn't either. I don't want to know the lifestyle that he lived. And he don't need to know the lifestyle that I lived. But I tell you what, he produced a daughter, buddy. And him and Rebecca, why I could see Trinity. And she sat out there doing gravish design, got some colors right. And she's texting Rebecca to see if that was okay. And she'll do something, she got it, she's texting Rebecca to see if that's okay. Steve and Rebecca now, Trinity. Man, look, her and Eric. You know what they need to be? They need to be the kind of family that some of you already are. That's how you build a strong church. But you know who we're talking about? We're talking about Jacob. We're talking about Ed Ballou. We're talking about a Cherokee Indian. Heard Ed Ballou say one time, there was a man cussed in front of his mother. And he said, my daddy went over and run his two fingers down his shirt collar and picked him up and said, boy, you ought to apologize before you eat your teeth or immediately after. Yeah, tough, rough. That's the preachers that we need to look back to and be influenced by. That was Jacob. I don't know where you are tonight, but I do want you to know, did you know Conflicts. In fact, death to self. Death to self. It's not about you. It's not about I. It's about Christ. Did you know there are times, and this was my family's situation, there are times when couples get married and think everything's wonderful, and then you know what happens? It's not unusual at all for one member, the wife or the husband, to pit their family against their family. That's the reason we say you have in-law trouble. Brother, I'm telling you, my mother's side was bad doers. My dad's side, just kind of docile, let the wind blow. If I had to say today who was the best side of the families, I'd say it would have been on my dad's side. On my mother's side, it was that Indian blood. But I loved them better than did my dad's side. He said, well, one of my uncles on my mother's side, he knew where we could buy white lightening moonshine liquor for $2 a pint. I migrated to him. I come out of a rough crowd. And that's the one I migrated to. And even though we lived in the same community, Boy, my mother and my dad's family, daddy didn't say anything. He didn't care if they all killed one another. I think my mother and some of daddy's family, they couldn't get along because I think one of my aunts stole some apples out of the root cellar one year right after my mom and dad got married. No, we're not in the business of pitting one against another. We're in the business of establishing families for the glory of God. And what your past was is not the issue. The issue is how good God is. And he picked up a Jacob. He's the most popular man that's ever lived, or ever will. Well, Lord willing, next time, I won't go back and deal with those inheritances and those influences. Maybe we'll go ahead and pick up with Jacob now. And what we're going to see before it's over with, America. I've written the introduction of the book I'm going to try to put together. But America was in bad shape. And you know what God did with America? He reached over and got a George Whitefield who had lived a wicked life of debauchery before he got saved and changed him and used him to bring about the Great Awakening. You know what God did with Israel? I mean, when Israel was in bad shape, the descendants of Abraham, there wasn't but two. But did you know what God did? He reached over there and got the worst in the crowd and changed him and made him the leader of the nation. And he affected the nation. I believe with all of my heart, somebody said this to you tonight, if you understood God and was dead to self, Completely consecrated to the cause of Christ. God use you. Change a nation. Is it that much? That much. Father, I pray tonight. I feel a little sprinter in the Evil floating around the edges of the service this year. I'm grateful for it. Lord, we need you so bad. And I pray that you move in our midst. Thank you for these families. And Lord, I am sorry that I didn't get more training, more formal education. I'm sorry that I don't know more. I'm sorry I can't preach better. I'm sorry I get intimidated sometimes. These girls in the shop, Miss Heidi, doing the grammar checks, they're very kind about it. I'm sure there's times they look at things that I write They never say a thing. They just make the corrections and go on. And Lord, I'm sorry you have to use a vessel like me, but here I am. And I pray You'll continue to bless Tim and bless Jacob and bless Anthony James. And I pray there will be good influences that they will be used for Your glory. Bless Tim as he comes to finish the service tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen.