Get Out While You Can

thank you to our senior pastor our founder pastor and sister carpenter don't don't we love the carpenters around here aren't they the greatest 30 seven years just celebrated last month 37 years of pastoring this great church and starting this great school and academy and we are so thankful amen for them tonight i give them honor love you all so much love them as my mother and father-in-law love them that they gave me my beautiful wife and i am appreciative beyond words to them amen well i understand typically on a sunday night the message is really what we really move everything towards we tell the choir we tell the worship team we believe that our job is to get the hearts of the people prepared for the word tonight i understand it's a little differently we're kind of moving towards something very special which is to see these 19 seniors graduate out of high school and so i promise you i will be very short i will be very uh to the point um i believe god has given me a message a commencement message for our graduating class but but before we begin i want them to stand because they are a good-looking group of young people and i want just in case you didn't see him the first time i want watch let's all like make a little circle go this way like this right this is real slow go real slow turn around come on yeah yeah yeah there's some good looking people right there uh just remain standing for a moment uh so many so many great memories of these students uh so proud of you and what you've accomplished and i honor you today remain standing if you are a parent or a guardian of these students i want you to stand to your feet we want to give you honor tonight we want to see who you are yes please stand thank you put your hands together thank you all these parents thank you so much thank you so much for time maybe seated for time invested finances invested um there's going to come a day and it's probably once my my girls graduate but there's going to come a day when the government is going to somehow give us some kind of stimulus for private education it's going to come it's going to come by the time my girls graduate all y'all have just stood sorry it's it's gonna come and you know they're gonna they're gonna pay for private education and christian education but until that time thank you once again for investing in your children and we thank you for trusting and trusting them with us here i want to give of course honor again to our academy founders want to give honor to our academy lead administrator uh best-looking woman in the house fallon erickson i want to give i want to give honor to our academy headmasters uh sister sherry johnson brother jacob sullivan our academy student pastors uh brothers zach and sister lauren hammond to all of our faculty to all the great faculty of apostolic christian academy all the staff the teachers all athletic coaches we got music teachers it takes a whole lot to make an academy work and it can did you hear all the awards that went on tonight and i'm not going to go that long i promise you but did you hear all the wars that went on tonight that doesn't happen by accident that happens there's a lot of coaches there's a lot of teachers there's a lot of trainers there's a lot of mentors that are working hard for our students i give them honor today and of course our school board god bless you all thank you for doing what you do to make apostolate christian academy great well i'm going to hurry on what i enjoy doing when i give commencement addresses i enjoy reminiscing about what was happening in the world when you guys were born i believe our graduates somewhere around 2002 2003 in that in that area there i would say most of our graduates unless they enjoyed school some of them might have been born in 2001 uh but most of them were born in 2002 in 2003 um and so i just kind of want to just talk about a little bit what was happening in our world y'all want to know what's happening and some of you are like it was like yesterday but but to me i had to kind of look at some of this stuff and reminisce about what was happening well uh let me just tell you this let's talk about let's start off by talking about population in 2002 2003 there were somewhere around 4.378 billion people on earth today there are 7.9 billion people on earth so while you all were in school at aca the world doubled in population interesting fact well let's talk about the us budget more people need some more money coming in right 2001 let's go back 2001 because that was the last year we actually had a surplus in 2001 we had 128.2 billion with a b dollars in surplus america 2002 157.8 billion dollars deficit 2003 thirty three hundred and seventy seven point six billion dollars in deficit and now today y'all done good these last these last 13 years of school we are now today at 2.3 trillion dollars in debt let me tell you i told my wife i began to look through this and i'm going to show you on the screen we're going to kind of go through some things that were happening in in 2002 2003 but you all were born in some hard times i mean i i i remember them now but but um let's just kind of go over late 2002. these are the headlines going on we had we had two snipers in washington dc that killed 10 people and injured three more spreading panic and fear on a killing spree they were called the beltway snipers remember this this is the car they found with the with the rifle that they were using early 2003 the u.s space shuttle columbia disintegrates above texas before its intended return to the ground killing all seven of our astronauts on board the united states launches the war on iraq and sodom hussein is captured sars everybody's gonna like this one sars rav 3 the acute respiratory syndrome sars spread to 32 countries 8 450 and 810 people died of this disease and we thought that we were in a pandemic look what you all started a powerful earthquake measuring 6.3 on the richter scale rocks iran killing 20 000 people terrorist attack became frequent in 2003 a car bomb exploded at a foreign residence area in riyadh the capital city of saudi arabia on march 12 killing 35 people an explosive device was triggered off at the main entrance of the jw marriott hotel in indonesia on august the 5th and killed 12 people and injured 149. two car bombs rocked istanbul turkey on november 15th and again on november 20th leaving 61 people dead and over 700 people injured 44 people died and more than 200 were injured in a commuter train blast in russia on december 5th just before the duma elections and of course just a little over a year prior 9 11 took place killing almost 3 000 people in one day and to say the least nobody nobody is calling you a bunch of terrors i'm not saying that however the year that you were born was definitely a time of terror both natural and man-made and i'm going to refer back to this later on in my commencement address today but pete please keep that in mind i i was actually looking for some positive things that happened and and i think u19 you are the positive you are the positive of those years and we thank you for being born and given us a little reprieve from all the negative all the terror that was taking place in our world but acts 2 in verse 40 reads like this it says and with many other words did he or did peter testify and exhort saying save yourselves from this untoward generation then they that are like this right here they that gladly received his word were baptized in the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls and and i i guess we we focus so much on the beginning of acts two as the day of pentecost and and when the church was birthed but but here in verse 41 i began to study this and it said they that gladly received the word which would point out that there were some that did not gladly receive the word there were some that were listening that walked away that never responded or obeyed the words of peter and simply i kind of bring this around because simply attending apostolic christian academy will not give you an automatic successful future there have been many graduates that have sat in the very same seats that you all sit in tonight that they may not have gladly received the word like you have gladly received the word they they may have gladly received their academic education or they may have gladly received the victory on the sports team or the music team but the proof is in the fruit that they display today that they did not gladly receive a spiritual education so let me let me speak and i'm going to be all my message is focused that you ought everybody else just kind of gets to listen in but i plead with you that you have gladly received the word that's been taught to you by these by these teachers that that sit over my left shoulder i pray that that every bible class that you have sat in that you have allowed that to be absorbed into your mind and you've hidden that word into your heart you've like the choir said you've written on the tablets of your heart the words that have been taught from this great and mighty book we call the bible the word of god i pray that every chapel service is going to be ingrained in your minds every time that you found yourself here at the altar and you the holy ghost was poured out and and every time you one of you received the gift of the holy ghost or baptized in jesus name i pray that those memories are the memories that stick with you i listen i love volleyball i love basketball i love soccer baseball i love our sports i love our music we have the greatest groups you all showed out last week at competition and i'm thankful for all your talent but i pray that 10 years from now those are not the memories you have i pray that the memories you have were the memories when pastor hammond was up here preaching when brother sullivan was up here brother nolan carpenter was up here and you felt the holy ghost and you felt a life-changing thing taking place within you i pray i pray that those are the memories that you have for attending and graduating from apostolic christian academy doesn't make you apostolic any more than being present in jerusalem on the day of pentecost made them pentecostals we got to understand there were thousands upon thousands of people in jerusalem when this message when this salvation message was preached but only truly three thousand beyond the 120 only 3 000 gladly received and obeyed the words of peter and their lives were forever changed but i don't you've heard acts 2 38 preached so many times hundreds of times probably in your in your in your school career i'm not going to preach on that but i do want to follow up with verse 40 because verse 40 is where my short commencement is going to take place look with me and with many other words did he testify and exhort saying save yourselves from this untoward generation another translation says he went on in this vein for a long time urging over and over again get out while you can get out of this sick and stupid culture uh if i was gonna title this commencement address i would simply call it get out while you can i really want to i want to put you in a position to make a decision tonight i don't want you leaving here shaking your head unsure because if you leave here unsure of the decision you've already made a decision you got to leave here knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you believe that you're a believer that that god is going to do something for you and do something for your future and you're going to use what you've been taught these last 12 or 13 years to make a difference in your future it's not going to be uh advice about getting out of high school as quick as you can you've already accomplished that you're doing that tonight it's not going to be about getting out of education while you can because my god we want you to further your education until your brain cells can't handle any more information we want you to go develop yourselves go out in the community and make something great out of yourself i'm not telling you to get out of your parents home while you can i would advise you to drain them for all they have but it's this culture that peter is preaching about that i'm asking you i'm begging you just like peter listen i i'm not making this up we read this together peter exhorted over and over again the bible says the king james says that that with many other words which was simply means he took a little time and he kept on saying to them get out of this culture get out of this this this sinful generation you you've got to you've got to get out while you can it's going to be too late what kind of culture is he preaching about i'll tell you what a culture it was when he was talking it was a politically correct culture it was a jesus hating culture these were a lot of the same people that just weeks before have been saying free barabbas and crucify jesus and peter was saying if you don't get out of the culture you're going to start thinking like the culture if you don't if you don't make an escape while you can to get out of this culture listen to me young person there there are going to be philosophies men's philosophies they're going to try to take over there's going to be men's philosophies that try to try to rearrange your mind and rearrange your heart and change your paradigm in your world view on things you're going to have professors listen to me you're going to have professors at college they're going to get up in front of the room just like your teachers have gone up in front of the room and they're going to make statements as if they are fact and all they are is this their personal philosophy it's their personal opinion it's going to be political it's going to be on religion they're going to make statements as if god spoke to them as an individual and they're going to be wrong they're not going to be true but you're going to have to have a mind within you and i i wish my parents and those that have been to school i've been in university i know how it feels to sit there and go this is not right this is not true what he's saying what she's saying is not true i've got to hold into my mind what i know to be true what the word of god says to be true we have got to make a decision as a young person today that you're going to take what you have and you're going to hold on so tight that you can escape this stupid culture i know what i'm supposed to say stupid but that's what the word of god said so i'm just using it this culture that's worldly and trying to get into our lives so how do you escape the culture well i'm glad you asked because it's not going to be easy but you cannot start thinking like they think colossians 2 and 8 i want to read three verses i'm almost done so don't get don't get antsy i'm almost done colossians 2 and 8 says beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after christ second timothy 4 and 3 says for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ear from the truth and shall be turned unto fables jude 1 4 one more verse says for there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ungodly men turning the grace of our god into lasciviousness and denying the only lord god in our lord jesus christ listen to me a lot of times we read these verses and we think of church we think of some uh false prophet coming in and getting a hold of our pulpit and preaching something that's not true we think of evangelists coming in and preaching something that's not true but if you will i believe that these are also things that can step into our culture they can step into our culture and make us to start rationalizing right and listen listen hollywood and nashville don't you know disney there there there are they are trying to move things into our mindset and into our culture unaware that one day we wake up and we used to be against it but now we don't know if we're against it or not i believe these scriptures refer to our culture there are those that are creeping in unaware that are looking to confuse the next generation but that's why i'm preaching to you guys tonight because i believe that something's been instilled inside of you that you can hold back and say i know what you're saying and i know i know what you're preaching from the podium in the university but i refuse to allow you to slip in unaware i'm ready for you i'm looking for you this culture that you're graduating into is a cancel culture you see when i graduated high school way back in the early ages when i graduated high school we are allowed to have our own opinion you all don't know about this but when i graduated we could we had a freedom of speech we could say what we wanted to say and people respected what we said can i get a witness you come out of high school 20 30 years ago and if you had an opinion you stated it and people looked at you saying we may not agree with you but we understand your opinion we're glad that you have an opinion we have we're glad that you've made this statement but that's not how it is today matter of fact i i was just uh yesterday i was listening to to fox news and and i find out there's something that's called a cancel list and people are actually making a list of names of people who they don't agree with and who don't agree with them and they're passing this list of names around to their circle so that everybody can cancel the same people my god they're going to try they're going to try to make you agree with them because if you don't agree with them you're canceled they're going to try to make you think like them and if you don't think like them you're canceled they're going to try to make you speak the same things they speak and if you don't do it you're going to be canceled but that's why i'm preaching tonight in this commencement exercise get out while you can class of 2021 don't allow this culture to define who you are don't allow them to tell you what to believe don't allow them to tell you how to think don't allow them to tell you how to live you've got oh you've got to look at this ungodly stupid culture and look in the face and be apostolic look this culture in the face and be world changers i want you to look this culture directly in the eyeballs and i want you to say i'm gonna turn my city upside down for the name of jesus christ i'm almost through you guys were born in the aftermath of 9 11 when our country was under physical attack from the outside a mental attack of terrorists trying to incite terror but now our country is on a spiritual attack not under physical fear of walking down streets and being bombed or bystanders being shot by a sniper but it's a spiritual fear of losing our right to have our own beliefs an attack from right here in america i'm not being political this is what's happening it's an inside threat but i just want to know is there a class of 2021 is there a class of 19 students that are ready to do whatever you have to do to get out of this culture i i just want to know are you ready to fight against this culture because if you don't make up in your mind tonight this is the last chance we've got with some of y'all if you don't make up in your mind tonight that you're going to fight against this worldly culture this culture the philosophies of this culture if you're not if you're not going to make up in your mind if you leave out of this place and go whatever he was just talking about all what was that all about all those pictures what what was that listen you've had you've had 12 13 years most of you in this school developing into adults you're adulting now you're going out you're in the real world now no more moms and dads you're going to start making decisions that they used to make and you're going to have to have a made up mind matter of fact i want you to stand and congregations stand with me and in conclusion i want us to pray a prayer over these graduates that god would just give them a backbone like a crowbar god would just help them moms and dads parents grandparents do we agree today we're sending these students out into a culture into we're sending them out into a culture we don't even we we can't even imagine some of the stuff that's happening right now every day we're hearing more and more listen i'm not trying to be negative i'm just trying to say we've got to have students that are ready to go and ready to do something great for god and i believe we have them right here but the decision has to be made tonight would you just stretch your hands towards our graduating class let's pray for them in jesus name father i just believe just as peter was telling the people warning the people pleading with the people to get out of the generation that they're a part of and the culture that they're a part of lord god we're right back in the same place again lord we're right back in this here we are a little over 2 000 years later and we've got a culture that's trying to take over our minds and trying to take over our hearts god i'm just believing that apostolic christian academy has raised up and trained up some great workers and some great warriors in your kingdom and father when they leave this place tonight when the lights go out when all the cheering subsides when the applause subsides when the music when the pulp and circumstance fade away i'm just believing we're going to have these seniors and graduates that are mighty in your spirit they're gonna they're gonna leave this place with a maid of mind they're gonna do things they've never done before they're gonna they're gonna focus on hard things they're gonna do things that other people are afraid to do they're gonna rise up as a class and turn their world upside down come on moms and dads pray a prayer over them right now in jesus name we're just believing lord god this canceled culture i i rebuke it lord in your name jesus i i believe we're going to fight against that i believe that the church is going to rise up and the church is going to be brighter and greater than it's ever been before as the world gets darker the church is going to get brighter and these are the leaders that stand in front of me lord god they're going to make a difference in their world i pray this prayer over them in jesus name if you feel that way palm come on put your hands together and come on i love you graduates i love your senior class you're going to do great and mighty things for the kingdom of god god bless