Sunday Morning Worship Service

and we greet you this morning in the wonderful name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That high and holy name. I want to say first of all a great big thank you to our staff and you almost have to say everybody's on staff here. Brother Russell did such a great job and brother uh Jeremy did such and the choir did such a good job. Brother Jeremy and all the rest the musicians and we thank you so very much. Brother Russell has already told you that of course, Brother Anthony is in Germany and Pastor Mark and Sister Jamie, they're preaching an anniversary service down in North Carolina. And I wish I had it on tape, but Sister Kelly and Eleanor, they are in Louisiana with brother and sister gardener. Sister Kelly's mom and dad. And I have a video of Kella sitting in his grandmother's lap fishing and they she was holding him in her lap and he was she was t and sure enough he caught a fish and he reeled it in. It was a little bitty perch about like that. And when it got it in, he must have had sympathy. And Kellis said, "I want to kiss it." And so she said, "All right." And she and he changed his mind before the fish got to his lips. And so in a little while, they kept throwing the line out there. And so help me all of you men, all of you fishermen listen to me now, you would be envious. He caught had to be at least a fivepound bass about about about 18 inches long and and got his picture made with him and his papa and he caught that great big bass and had a tremendous smile on his face. So, they're having a a great time and I'm sure Pastor uh Mcool and uh brother and sister Whitley and uh brother Anthony, they're all doing a great job wherever they are today. But we are here today and I feel such a wonderful spirit in this place at First Apostolic Church. And I want to welcome each one of you. And um as I begin my part of this service reminds me of a story brother Harold Ashby used to tell. Uh he said there was a rather stout lady and a rather small man getting married. And he said that they stood at the altar and and the preacher said to the man, "Do you take this woman to be your wed wife?" He he started to say, "I do." And she said, "He does." And and do you promise to stand by him till death? He does everything that he said. It was he does. And after after he got done with the ceremony, then the lady did her part. He said, "Sir, you haven't said a thing." Said, "Have you got anything to say?" He said, "Pray for me." So, I guess this morning, if I'm going to fit into any story, it would be, "Pray for me." But I count it a great joy and honor to stand in the pull pit of First Apostolic Church. The first time was in August the 24th, 1957 when Sister Mcool and I put up a ted or helped put up a tent, Lee and Baxter, and we started this service that God had anointed me and had talked to me about starting a church on a Christian school while on my knees in prayer in a classroom in Little Rock, Arkansas. And that's been a long time ago, but oh, what a trip it has been. And uh I guess it was the Goodman family that sang Sweeter gets the journey every day. And that's the way I feel. I announced and I if you have the title of my message, my title, if you get ready to put that on the screen, I announced that I was going to preach and my title was going to be what does the B2 bomber have to do with holiness? Take a look at that, would you please? What does the B2 bomber What has it got to do with holiness? Just leave that up there for a little while. A and I'll tell you a little bit. First of all, uh we I want to talk about the B1 bomber. And this is a model, a replica of that plane you see on the screen. And I'll tell you a little bit about it. The B2 first entered service in 1997 and each one cost more than $2 billion. The US Air Force has a fleet of 19 after losing one in a crash in 2008. American use the American use the B2 stealth bomber to attack the Ford nuclear enrichment and enrichment plant in Iran in June of 21 in an unprecedented air strike. Now, we're all familiar with this because our news was filled with the story about a fleet of our planes flying into Iran and taking out a nuclear plant. They found out that Iran was developing an atomic bomb and they said they could not allow that to be and they sent a fleet of B2 stealth bombers to attack that nuclear plant. The fleet took off from Whitman Air Force Base outside Kansas City on Friday for a 18-hour ride across the world, refueling several times in midair. official said it marked the longest B2 bomber mission since the initial American assault on Afghanistan following the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attack. The seven bombers met up with a crew of fighter jets and support aircraft to escort them to Iran's nuclear labs where a lead B2 bomber dropped two GBU57 bunker buster munitions at Fordo and the other bombers dropped 14 MOPS massive ordinance penetrators on their targets. It marked the first time the US used the massive 15tonon GBU57 bunker buster bombs in military attacks. Upon completion of the mission, the stealth bombers were spotted landing back at Whidman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, Missouri. Now this is the most recent thing that we have heard about the B2 bomber but I want to show you something we've already spoken this is not like the ordinary airplane and the reason it's configuration if you'll notice there are no sharp edges on it and the thing about this plane it does does not reflect radar. It absorbs radar and therefore it can fly into a territory and drop its bombs. One of the bombs they dropped was a two-stage bomb. It was a a bunker buster bomb they called it. It goes down. It's actually two bombs in one. The first bomb goes down up to 200 ft. Now in Iran, they were developing a nuclear weapon and naturally they had that deep in the earth and channels to get to it, but they thought it would be safe. But that B2 bomber had a two-stage bomb. One went as far as 200 feet in the earth and then the second one would explode down 200 ft in the earth, thus demolishing the nuclear plant that they were aiming for. Now, we're still wondering what has that got to do with holiness? Romans chapter 7 starting at verse 11. For sin taking occasion by the commandment deceive me and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy and the commandment holy, just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. In this enlightened, sophisticated society of ours, sin don't appear to be sin anymore. Conscious don't even reflect it. It absorbs it. It's been stated that music reflects the mood and morals of a nation. You see, we have sanitized sin. We have glorified the glory. We've given reverence to the repugnant. We've indeed beautified the beast. Now if music reflects the mood and morals of a nation, if this be true, let us musically examine our society. A huge hit of number of years ago was a fatherdaughter team called the Kindles and their hit song was entitled It Don't Feel Like Sin to Me. The lyrics went like this. Heaven's just a sin away. Oh, just a sin away. Heaven help me when I say, I think I'm giving in. Barbara Mandrel's hit in love with a married man states, "If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right." Another song said, "I know you're married, but I love you still." Another hit song said, "Why does it have to be wrong or right? Why does it have to be black or white? Why does it have to be one way or the other? Why do you have to hurt one to love another?" When asked by his disciples, "What shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world?" Jesus replied, "Take heed that no man deceive you." The woman was the devil's first target for deception, not because she was easy prey, but valuable prey. Romans 1:25, "Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever?" Amen. The battle is to change truth into a lie, wrong into right, good into bad. Isaiah 59:14 and 15 says, "And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth a far off. For truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yay, truth faileth, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey." And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. Now notice this. Yay, truth faileth, and he that dep despiseth or he that departeth from evil makes himself a prey. Today, if you want to make a hit, you do something very risque. You put out a song with risque lyrics. You do something that makes you look very naughty in the eyes of the world and before you know it, you become a rock star. Instead of be making a reproach, you'll be made a millionaire. Because if you are righteous and do right, they're going to criticize you and call you a dogoodter. How has truth become so victimized and neutralized? Why is this protector judgment equity and justice being held hostage? How can judgment turn its way turn its back on truth? How can equity be unassertive? And the great defender of the downtrodden justice just stand a far off without so much as a word of protest. Let's examine the climate for such calamity. To become so insensitive to the brutalizing of truth in the street in full view of those sworn to the purpose of her defense. To do this, we have created a sanitized vocabulary. We've come up with pretty words to describe ugly things. War demonstrates the use of unoffensive terms to describe offensive situations. Now, I'm talking about an airplane that's you can hardly detect with radar. It don't look like a danger. It looks far less. Let me tell you, this is what the devil is doing to the church today. If it possibly can, he preachers are afraid to preach against sin. We want somebody to tell us how good we are. >> One Sunday morning in the door next door, I had preached and a lady as she started out, I was shaking hands with people and I shook hands with her and she had something to say to me and I said, "Yes." She said, "I heard your sermon this morning and you didn't say one thing that made me feel good about myself." Listen, it's not my job to preach you happy. It's my job to preach you holy. It's my job to tell you the way to heaven. It's not my job to win the dress and to bounce off sin. Daniel 7:25. Well, let's let's examine some of these terms. The term is used a lot of the times in war attit means a process of wearing down. Daniel 7:25 and he shall seek great words against the most high and shall wear out the saints of the most high and think to change times and laws. They shall be given unto his hand until the time and times and the dividing of times. I had an elderly preacher several years ago that I loved dearly and still loving. He's gone on now. But he said, "Brother Mcool, I am tired of telling people how to live. I've told him how many years he'd been preaching and he said, I'm tired of telling people how to live. I'm going to let them live the way they want to live." Well, ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you one thing. I'm not tired of telling you how to live. If you go to hell, the last thing you're going to hear is this preacher waving his arm, shaking his finger, and saying you're on your road to hell. You need to repent, get baptized in Jesus' name, and get filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, and then live a holy life. As long as I have breath in this measly body, I'm going to be preaching that. Delivering your ordinance. What that means, delivering your ordinance, that's not delivering a package from Amazon. Delivering your ordinance, that means bombing the daylights out of your enemy. Render ineffective. That don't mean that your song don't move people. To render it ineffective, that means to wound, meme, kill, blow up, destroy, anything it takes to stop the enemy. What I'm saying is this world has developed pretty words to express ugly things. And you and I need to know the difference. Engaging the enemy, well, that don't mean you're going out to dinner with somebody. Engaging the enemy means you're picking a fight and you're going to fight to the death. Intelligence officer. Well, the intelligence officer, it don't mean he's highly intelligent. It means he's a spy. Now, what am I saying? I'm talking about the B2 bomber that reflects radar rather that and absorbs rather than reflected. It cannot be detected as a an enemy plane because radar cannot see it. KIA is another term. Oh, that's not a bad sounding word. What does it mean? It means killed in action. That's not very pretty. Smart weapons. Bombs that know your zip code and house number. Bombs so accurate they can actually go down your chimney. It can find the air intake to your automobile or your home or your factory and blow it up. Then they got another term called collateral damage. Collateral damage. That's targets such as hospitals, homes, and orphanages. You know, you hear folks sometimes say, "I'm hurting no one but myself. I'm not doing that." Let me tell you something, sir. You're hurting somebody more than yourself. There's a wife that needs your love and care and needs your holy living. You're you're hurting a grandmother that loved you and prayed for you. You're hurting those that have confidence in you. I'll never forget once a year we would go up to southern Illinois to pick peaches and it had a little little bag that held about a half a bushel of peaches and it had a they didn't have a bottom in it but it pulled up and and clipped at a little ring here and when you got that full you would go to the place where they were storing the peaches and you open that up and it would just pour down into the basket. I'll never forget. I'll soon this month I'll be 89 years old. And I was just a child at that time, maybe 7 years old. And I remember the Sunday school superintendent of the little church I was going. It wasn't a Pentecostal church at that time. And I remember him. We had cotton sacks with pull and you could put sometimesund as much as 200 lb in a 9 ft cotton sack. sometime 12T. But when it come time to leave, he got that bag and I saw him wrap it in a little bundle and open the C truck door and push the seat forward and slide that peach bag back behind his seat. Now, that's a small thing, but let me tell you something. If I take a dime from you and meaning it to be stealing, I might as well make it $50,000 because God condemns stealing. God condemns lying. All liars shall have their part in the lake of fire. And then there's the term friendly fire. That means killed by your own army. Now, let's try some civilian terms that's been used to describe some ugly things. Transgender, that's something we hadn't only started hearing uh just a few years ago. transgender of. Now, here's what the dictionary says. Of relating to or being a person as a transsexual who identifies with or expresses a gender identify that differs from the one which corresponds to the person's sex at birth. We have come to the place where our modern society has developed names to uh describe certain things that uh when you talk about sexual orientation. Well, I can decide today I don't think I want to be a man. I think I want to be a woman. I'm a woman. I don't think I want to be I'll be a man. And we be I can become both or one or the other. Ladies and gentlemen, God made them Adam and Eve. >> He didn't make them Adam and Steve. He made them Adam and Eve. A woman is a woman and a man is a man. And it don't take a smart person to know what a man is and what a woman is. But the world has changed that term in order to cloud the situation. It's like the B2. It's not reflecting the condemnation. It's observing and they don't think to be sin anymore. Then there's the alternate lifestyle. You can take choose whatever you want to be. There's a word gay. A few years ago, I never heard that word gay. I thought that meant being joyful and happy and have. But that's not what it means today. It means that you may be a homosexual. That means that a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman. I'm not talking about the affection. I'm talking about the sexual behavior. And then there's the relationship. That don't mean a cousin, an affair. Dysfunctional means to fight like cats and dogs. Then there's gay rights. If you be a homosexual, you've got certain rights that others may not have to protect what you are. And then there's the word called homophobia. Now, that word homophobia is to describe anybody that don't believe in being a homosexual. If you condemn that, then they've got an ugly name for you, and that is homophobia. And then there is the pro-choice. That means favoring the legalization of abortion, a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. What about murder of helpless unborn babies? Then there's another term, animal rights. If you kill a black bear in Tennessee, you go to jail. If you destroy a bald eagle's nest egg in California, you can be fined $10,000 and go to jail. But in both states, you can hire a killer and a white coat to kill your unborn child, and you and the killer will be within your legal rights. Unless that one you kill is a little female unborn baby and then she has no rights. Premarital affair that sounds pretty uh good and don't offend any. Pre-marital affair the Bible calls it fornication. Extrammarital affair the Bible calls it adultery. 1 Corinthians 6:9 says, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolattors, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind." Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible is not something that's that's veiled and hard to understand. It calls sin. Sin heaven high and holy and hell deep and burning with fire for everlasting. Let me tell you something. We're not in that crowd that covers up sin. We get delivered from sin. >> The B52 bomber has a wingspan of 185 ft. Its length is 160 ft. It holds a,000 gallons of fuel under the outer wing panel. The B-52 weighs 420,000 lbs. The XB52 maiden voyage took place on October the 2nd, 1952. Of the early 13 production models ordered, only three were completed as B-52As. The cost was $29 million. through the production of the cost eventually dropped as low as $3.4 million. The B1A has a wingspan of 136 feet. Its length is 150 ft. The gross weight is 389,000 lbs. Speed twice the speed of sound. The B1B is practically the same dimension as the B1A, but due to the stealth technology, the new materials, it appears one tenth the size of the B1A. Do you get what I'm saying to you right now? It's practically the same size, but due to the new technology, due to its configuration, it appears just a tenth of the size of the original. Before the B1B could be successfully tested in battle, the B2 stealth bomber was developed. The cost of one B2 is over $2 billion. The B2 Stealth has a wingspan of 172 feet or roughly the size of the Mammoth B-52. It has a range of over 6,000 miles. But the unique thing about the B2 is its stealth qualities. Though it is similar in size to the huge B-52, it has radar signature of a bird or a bumblebee. Do you hear what I'm saying? We're talking about what does the B2 bomber have to do with holiness? It has a lot to do with holiness. Holiness is transparent. Holiness of Jesus is easy to see. The B the Bible said the highway shall be there and it shall be called the way of holiness and it's going to be so plain that even a fool or a way thing man will not error therein. That's how plain holiness is. It's not a camouflage. It's not a hidden commodity. It's something that's well planned that you and I can see and recognize it. >> The stealth plane absorbs rather than reflects radar, thus making it virtually invisible to radar. The word stealth means secret or sly. Since sin has been defined, it's been configured in such a way as to be virtually impossible to pinpoint. While this goes on, truth lies in the street. Justice, equity, and judgment stand tongue tied, handcuffed, and timid. But this is not the first time that those expected to protect have lacked courage and confidence and conviction. We've been reading from the book of Romans the 7th chapter. Let's go back to Romans chapter 7. Paul said, "For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me. But how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. If then I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, waring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God. Before I get into this, musicians, you can start getting ready. Then after Paul describes his helpless pitiful condition, he said, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin, what are we going to do with such a helpless situation? Well, I'm not going to leave you there. I'm not going to leave you in a helpless condition. Let's go on to the next chapter. Romans 8. He goes on to say, now he's already told us what he wanted to do, he couldn't do. The things that he did, he didn't didn't allow, didn't want to do, but he did it because he was a servant of sin. But then he said, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. Then verse chapter 8 verse one. There is therefore now I've come to know the Lord. I've come to find the Savior. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemn sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because a carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither it can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be the spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit of life because the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you. Would you stand to your feet with me right now? I have good news for you today. If you're here today and you are bound by the chains of sin and you find yourself doing things that you don't want to do in your in your mind, you're not willing to do these things. But it's that sin that's in you, that Adamic nature. I've got news for you. God wants to give you his spirit. If you'll repent of your sins and ask God to forgive you for your sins, he will do that. And then Acts uh uh the eth chapter of Romans, there is therefore now no condemnation. How's it going to feel to lay down on your pillar tonight and know there's nothing between you and God? if if the Lord should come or if he should call for you through death, you're ready to go and you're just going to be transported from this physical body to a body with no pain to a spiritual body into his glorious body and then you're going to walk with him on streets of gold. Would you bow your heads with me right now as the musician gets ready to sing a song of invitation? In every service, in every service, I love to see the fact that we always gather around the altar. The saint and sinner alike, the person that wants to be get closer to God, the person that wants to be in deeper fellowship with the Lord, they gather around this altar. And as the musician sing for us right now, I want every person under the sound of my voice. If you desire a closer walk with the Lord, step out from your seat and meet us here at this altar. If you desire a closer walk with God, if you want to be closer to him, you don't want to be as the B1 bomber that you deflect the condemnation. I want a conscience. I want a conscience that tells me I've done wrong. I need to get things right with God right now. Everyone gather with us right now around this altar. Father, you see our need today, Lord. You see a blessed group of people that loves you and they want a closer look with you. There may be those, Lord, in this audience and in this group around this altar that's never been saved. I pray, oh God, that you will let your spirit move upon them right now, Father, in the precious name of Jesus. Hallelujah. Pour out your heart to him right now. Worship him. Love him the way you get something from God. Just just worship. Worship the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.