Preaching & Preachers

Thank the Lord. So good to see you all here. And of course, everyone that's joining us online. What a pleasure it is that um you let a homeboy come and do some training here. Been part Brother Willilifford was just asking me. I of course my first several years here I remained part of the Louisiana district but then in um 93 I became a pastor here and so became a part of the great Missouri district and have remained so ever since. So it's good to be here and uh to be at home and able to spend this time with you. Um, I'm I'm going to begin with a uh a lesson today um that I call the last words of Simon Peter. Um, second Peter is a something of a um anomaly in scripture in a way. it um is so closely closely related to the book of Jude that um there's so many similarities between these two books that it's hard to deny that Peter and Jude, the brother of the Lord, were um were well acquainted with one another and most likely um shared some thoughts. and spent some time discussing some things. And when each of them left us um uh a letter, if you will, although um neither identify to whom they're written, seems that Peter probably wrote a letter to be circulated among the churches of Asia Minor, modern Turkey. Um, but no one knows for sure. He's he basically addresses everyone, the people of God, the children of God. And um, second Peter is of particular interest because he um, he is saying goodbye. He is he says in his letter that his martyrdom his death um is near and as the Lord has shown him. some kind of think that he's referring to the discussion between um uh Jesus and him when he brings up John and you know Jesus says if he lives till I come again that's no business of yours. Um, I kind of think that he is speaking of something more recent that he has heard from God and that his death is near. If it's as near as it seems, then it was probably written in Rome um to be sent back home, if you will, as a farewell. Now, I think sometimes we're we're not so prone, but I think we can be because of error that elevates Simon Peter almost to a demagogue among uh about half of Christendom. The process right now of selecting his successor since he was the first pope. I think sometimes we can overlook his true role uh because of all the legends and all the myths and erroneous doctrines surrounded uh or his name is surrounded with. He was a very special disciple. He was singled out by the Lord on numerous occasions. Sometimes we call it the inner circle. Peter, James, and John who had access to events and discussions that others didn't have. Only they heard Jesus call Gyrus's daughter back from the dead. Only they saw Jesus walking and talking with Moses and Elijah. So he was he was a natural it seems leader but more than that he was singled out in many ways by the Lord himself to play this role. Nothing like the Lord's comment that he that he Jesus would give to Simon Peter the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. That is an incredible amount I think of trust in one man. Now, he was the one that um on the day of Pentecost spoke the Bible's most important verse. Of course, when the crowd cried out, "What must we do?" He was a pretty good preacher, too. He's the one brought that crowd to that place of response. It's what preaching is. It's not teaching. It's it has a whole different aim. And Peter was extraordinary preaching to that vast throng on the day of Pentecost to bring them to the point of conviction and crying, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" And that elicited the crystalclear explanation of salvation. Repent, be baptized for the remission of sins in the name of Jesus, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And then set the forward momentum of the church. For the promise is unto you and your children. That's not geographic. It's not racial. It's it's chronological. You and the next generation and the next generation. So Simon Peter was a significant perhaps the most significant of the apostles. And now he's saying goodbye. He's telling that first century church that his time is near. And he's writing this letter that we call second Peter to say goodbye. But of course, he has an ulterior motive. While he's waiting for the rattle of a key or the pounding of a fist on his cell door, he decides to unbburden himself. He decides to communicate one last time of what he is concerned about. And maybe and maybe it um it defines Peter even more than what he has accomplished as a as an apostle. But that he writes unconcerned about death. That's not what he's writing about. He doesn't talk about heaven or hell. He's not he's not consumed with the hereafter. It's not what he's that's not what he's thinking about. I kind of think I would be at that point, but not Peter with deliberate care. You can't read this book and not get a feel that this man is weighing every word. He describes what is to him the most important issue for the church not only then but for all time. Because I think that Peter was deliberately writing for every generation of apostolic who would ever live. And what is troubling Simon Peter on this his deathbed if you will message his final farewell. What is troubling the great apostle is the surprising ability of falsehood to overpower truth of error to supplant true doctrine. I think he knows that the greatest danger for the church from all time would not come from those outside who hate Christianity. There's plenty of them and thus hate all of us who truly practice it. But it will come from inside from those who claim the title Christian but twist and distort truth of its real message. And maybe because they are more subtle, they are all the more dangerous. Peter can't leave this theme. He begins it in chapter one and he returns to it over and over. It's what he it's what is overpowering every other thought that he has. And I think though he could not know it that you and I live in a day where false teaching is more dangerous in our day than it has ever been. And I think that's true because we live in a culture in an era that has decided there is no truth. Absolute truth does not exist. You have your truth and I have my truth and who are you to say that your truth is more true than mine? One commentator writes this, "Our society has embraced pluralism and tolerance as its new gods." This viewpoint called postmodernism signals a shift from the pursuit for truth to a preoccupation with whatever works. We live at a time when everything is tolerated except intolerance. As a result, many Christians have conceded the debate over truth and rely on a defense more congenial to our age. Practicality. Going to church has helped my family. My commitment to Christ has given me a better self-image. And when we do that, we are less and less concerned about truth. Feeling about things replaces thinking about things. And such a situation provides a golden opportunity for false teachers to enter our ranks and pray on those who simply do not know much about what they believe and why. I know who I'm talking to tonight. Postmodernism doesn't seem like it ought to be a challenge for us of all people. But brother Tenny used to say the temperature outside affects the temperature inside. And if you don't do something about it, it'll be just as cold in here as it is out there. It'll be just as hot in here or hotter than it is out there. These type of ideas, these world views are insidious and they make their way in and leave no tracks, no sign of their coming. They affect our thinking. They leak into our teaching. They even we find ourselves making comments in our preaching that are at best ambiguous about some of these very issues. I just want to say here tonight since I'm the guy they asked to do the talking, we're not Pentecostal because it makes our lives better or easier or it makes us more affluent, more successful. It may or it may not do all of these things. But that's not why we believe this message. We believe it because it's true. Its results are not guaranteed, but they are true. As far as this world is concerned, the prosperity gospel can creep into how we see what life ought to be like. If I serve God, I ought to live in a big house, drive a fine car, my kids ought to make straight A's. Their teeth should always be straight because what's the use of serving God if it doesn't make your life easier? What about the widow woman in the trailer park whose life is a struggle from sun up to sundown every day? Does God not love her? Right? Doesn't she have the same Holy Ghost as we? We have to be careful about world views based on error. We don't take this gospel to the whole world because it would make the world a better place if everybody were Pentecostal. Although it certainly would, although I don't want to pastor that church, but we preach it because it's the word of God. It is true. Yeah, its practicalities, while they're wonderful, they are not its purpose. It is to seek and save that which is lost. Jesus is not a way. He's the only way. And Allah is not the God we serve. Right? They don't worship a god under a different name. The Bible makes no room for that. Their own doctrines make no room for that. Our God is Jesus. Right. Acts 2:38 is not a plan that works for some and not for others in some cultures and not other cultures. It's the only way to be saved. I'm going to say that again. It is the only way to be saved. I don't care how good that Methodist preacher is. I don't how care how sincere that charismatic, well, we don't have those anymore. But that non-denominational down the street, none of that matters. It's not about sincerity and it's not about personal goodness and it's not about kindness. All of that's fine and thank God for good, kind, sincere people. But let me tell you, there's only one saving gospel, and it is Acts 2 38. Amen. There's a heaven and there's a hell. And there's only one way to escape one and make the other. It is the truth that makes us free. All of it. Not some of it. Not the Reader's Digest condensed version. Some of y'all don't even know what that is. It is the truth. If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciple indeed. And then you shall know the truth. and the truth shall make you free.

Peter says in his final testimony, "Remember the truth." Regardless of culture, regardless of chronology, regardless of when or where we pastor, we labor, we work, we must remember the truth. He says 12 verses in, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. I think it meat as long as I'm in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me. Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, but were eyewitnesses. He knows he's in a dying generation. He knows the eyewitnesses are fading fast. If this is written from Rome, it's very likely he knows Paul has been in prison now for two years. And most likely under Nero's madness, both of them will soon be gone. And he says, "I want you when we're gone to remember the truth." There will be, he tells us, false teachers. There will be tells us they're already struggling. Read read first John. They're already struggling with with I think scholars call them proto uh uhn gnostics th those who will come with secret knowledge and revelation that only a handful have and you need to get in the group and then you'll know what's really going on. They're already popping up. John is dealing with them in Ephesus. They've already split the church there while he's at Patmas. And he's firing off these three letters that we have while he's on his way. He said, "When I get there, I'm going to deal with some of this." But he couldn't wait. Pastor's writing these letters on his way. He calls them antichrists. He calls them liars. He calls them false teachers and Peter says, "Don't think you're going to escape them." Now, again, I know who I'm teaching to. I know where I'm at. But I know we are not exempt from the power that falsehood has of overcoming truth. It doesn't do it with a frontal attack. It sneaks in under the cover of enlightened thinking of more relevant approaches of we don't have to deal with this. That was a big issue at one time, but now it's different. I I'll never forget it. one of our meetings. It wasn't one of our preachers, thank God, cuz his problem would have ended up on my desk to sign off on. But he stood in one of our pulpits and he reads from Hebrews 6, not laying again the foundation. And he says, "That means we don't need doctrine anymore. Doctrine gets in the way. doctrine divides. Now, he didn't dream up any of that. He got it straight out of the world. But if we think I mean, he's an he was an apostolic. He wasn't part of the UPCI, but he was part of a oneness Pentecostal organization. And Peter says, "Remember the truth. Remember the truth." Right? When you run into some of this craziness, remember the truth. When it's dressed up, it's still the old lie. Remember the truth. Now, he's concerned about this. He says that they will come from among us in the second chapter.

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome. The latter end is worse with them than the beginning. Now, here's the part that's hard to digest, but Peter says it. It's part of God's word. He says, "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them." Now, now this is not what my lesson's about, but no, no, no lesson is complete without some divergence, a few rabbit trails. I just want to remind us that these false teachers began with abandoning holiness. They were they had escaped the pollutions of the world. Now they're entangled therein and overcome, re-entangled with worldly values, with worldly goals, ambitions, and dreams. remember the truth. And in this context, in my first little session here tonight, I want to take Peter's last plea with the church. Remember the truth. after I'm gone, remember the truth and tell you that truth only endures if we preach it? Yes. And teach it. How many of you saw Brother Bernard's latest news bulletin? Few of you have. It's really cool. The Cultural Research Center, which is George Barna's uh organization, found in a poll that among bornagain Christians and the major population, I get it, 11%, America's, you know, gone a long way from being a Christian nation, but 24% of bornagain Christians s believe in the trinity. That means 76% of bornagain Christians no longer believe in what just a generation or two ago was the litmous test for orthodoxy. that we were called a cult by of all people the assemblies of God. They had an ulterior motive. But we were called a cult because we didn't preach the trinity. And now only one quarter believe in the trinity. And and I rejoice I rejoice with brother Bernard. uh he only he only he just reported it and just made some a be very brief for remark or two but he says this it is to quote him not a significant barrier to evangelism we don't have to overcome it anymore don't even have to argue against it anymore I told somebody maybe we've done a better job than we thought we did when we stood for the oneness of God. But I think we should maybe in light of what Peter warned us of ask ourselves why. Why in probably less than one generation they have gone and we're talking born again Christians from probably 90% would tell you oh yes God is a trinity to w now 76% will tell you he is not a trinity. How did that happen in one generation? How do you go from such a lofty acceptance only those crazy Pentecostal oneness people didn't believe it and unarians to now one out of four of your own people. Could it be that several years ago, evangelical preachers decided that doctrine doesn't matter, that doctrine just gets in our way of achieving ecumenical unity. We don't need to be so hardnosed about these things. We just kind of need to relax a little bit and be more inclusive. Maybe this poll will teach them a hard lesson. If you quit teaching something and we quit preaching something, our people will quit believing it. I debated about even saying this, but you know, it's just us friends here tonight. I hope that's not why we welcome freshman apostolic students every year at who can't explain the oneness of God. They know the words for repentance and baptism but theologically they can't discuss what that means. why we have freshman students come and declare unashamedly, I'm trinitarian and they're going to our churches. Now, upon questioning, we find that's not technically true. They just don't believe the oneness because they don't understand it. Now, this is not an indictment, but Peter said, "Remember the truth." Yeah. He feared that after the first generation of eyewitnesses were gone, there would arise a generation that knew not Joseph, that didn't know Simon Peter, didn't know the Apostle Paul, didn't know James and John and Andrew and Bartholomew and Philip that laid down their lives for this gospel. And Peter's pleading with us in the 21st century, remember the truth, preach it, and teach it. Of course, we don't It sounds to me like we won that war. We don't have to condemn Trinitarians anymore, but we still have to preach who Jesus is. Amen. We still have to preach that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. That in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I don't want people under my ministry to get this crazy idea that Jesus is there's two and that the son is subordinate to the father and somehow there's this weird familial relationship. I want them to know that he is the first and the last, the alpha, the omega, the beginning and the end. He is the almighty God. And they won't know it. That's right. Unless we preach it and teach it. If you're a pastor, I urge you today and it's so easy in the pressure of pastoring and I don't know if it's happened for you, but somebody sped up the clock. Things are going a lot faster than they used to. I feel sorry for you younger guys. You're you're going to think you're 70 and you're going to be 50. I It's just going so fast. And a year can go by and you and you don't realize it. I remember it was a it was kind of a strange thought to me when when a compatriot of my generation, Anthony Mangun, was one time teaching and he said, "I have a list and every year I go through my list and no, I don't know what sermon or what Bible study, but I know that I'm going to cover this, this, this, this, this, this. I'm not going to let a year go by that they don't hear about the oneness of God. They don't hear about the love of God and about heaven and hell and Acts 2:38 and they don't hear the truth. I'm going to be sure that I'm remembering the truth. That's right. We must be deliberate or we too could lose this precious truth. Old-timers used to say, and they were right, we're only one generation from disaster. One generation that doesn't get it, that doesn't believe it. Could it be that we could lose the very things that make us who we are? Is there no longer a need for distinctives? Do we no longer need to come out from among them and be ye separate? Is there no longer need for truths that define us as a people? Now, I I'm I'm going to I'm going to kind of finish this first one with this thing. It strikes me as a little strange and I've been kind of testing this in some classes among friends just you know sitting around talking preacher talk and kind of seeing and feeling because it struck me when I was studying second Peter that he chose a doctrine to exemplify ify his warning and it's kind of I mean I would probably not pick this but he did. I might pick the oneness. I might pick Jesus name baptism. I might pick the baptism of the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in tongues. That might have been the truth that I would have picked to example something we don't need to lose that we could lose. But he picked eschatology. Fancy word for the coming of the Lord. He described the attitude of these backsliden deceived preachers. He said, "They say, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Another rabbit trail. Look how silly their logic is. Here's their logic for we don't have to worry about the Lord coming because he ain't never come. It won't happen because it's never happened before. That's their logic, folks. A lot of things had never happened until they happened. These are the words of scoffers. See, there's an ulterior motive. They picked this doctrine of the coming of the Lord, of the urgency of our hour because the Lord could come today. They picked that to scoff at. You know, the most powerful weapon in our society is ridicule. People will do anything not to be ridiculed. A scoffer define the manifestation of contempt by insulting words or actions. It combines bitterness with ridicule. This is not part of a formal this is I added this. It is the mocking of that and those who matter by those who don't. Why would Simon Peter in this most important message to the church he would ever write chooses an example of truth that we must hold on to the doctrine of the second coming one I think Peter seemed to have an understanding of the place his writings would have in this very letter for the first time. As far as I know, he calls Paul's writings scripture. Is it too much to think that maybe Peter understood as he put ink to the papyrus on which he was writing that his words would be part of scripture and thus live forever and speak to unborn generations for all time. So he knew how important this would be. Maybe he knew that maybe he had an insight just as he knew that his death was approaching. Maybe he knew that error would win and that for most of its existence, the church would be dominated by false doctrine and false teaching. that for thousands of years the church would be sunk in corruption, unrighteousness, and false teaching. And maybe the old apostle knew the church would need an engine, a passion, something that would challenge it at some point in the distant future to awake from its sleep and start the long journey back to apostolic truth. And maybe he also understood that it would be the urgency of the coming of the Lord that we truly believe he could come today that while we sit here in this in this place in this beautiful place the trumpet could sound the voice of the archangel and a shout could call the dead from their slumbers. That it could happen now. And if our loved ones are lost, if our neighbors are lost, then the time to win them is forever slipped through our fingers. Maybe he knew that it would take this doctrine to push us to drive us to be faithful to truth. If he thought that, he was right. Historians say it was it was two things that drove the early Pentecostals to embrace truth, to give up everything, to lose family connection, to lose churches, to lose reputations, to lose standing in denominations, to get kicked out of pulpits, to lose everything in some cases because they saw the truth. Yes. It was a restorationist impulse. They call it, fancy word. They wanted to go back and do it like the Bible teaches it. To preach like the apostles preached, to act like the apostles act, to worship as the apostles worshiped. And it was this hunger that kept them searching scripture until they saw truth. And the second was the doctrine of the coming of the Lord. It lended urgency to their mission. It diminished the pull of earthly things. Was it matter the square footage of your house if the Lord's coming tomorrow? It made sacrifice reasonable. I don't need a big bank account. not the Lord's coming. It even enhanced their holiness lifestyle. The Lord's coming. And it made a life of ministry more attractive. If you're racing the rapture, a lot of things don't matter any more. I want to urge you to remember the truth in a day that's confusing with its lack of commitment to doctrine that things just don't matter as much anymore. I'm just not going to teach that. People already know that. My people don't need to hear that. Again, I want to urge you, remember the truth. Be sure you preach the truth. You teach the truth. There's there's other things, sure, that are important that we need to talk about, and we do, but we have to get back to the basics. And one of them is the coming of the Lord. Amen. I can ask a class here, when's the last time you heard a sermon on the coming of the Lord? And they search their memories, and some of them say, I'm not sure I've ever heard one, 18 years old. Now, I admit they're 18 years old. Pastor might have taught on it last week. I get that. But we're not making an impression sometimes. I think it'll do the same things for this generation than it did for our greatgrandfathers and grandfather's generation. Things of this earth will fade away if we teach, preach, and believe that he could come at any moment. Don't leave it to the experts. Yes, sir. Brother used to say, "If you got 10 prophecy preachers in a in a room, you'd get 11 theories about what's going to happen. Don't leave it to the experts." Because you can't explain all of it doesn't mean you can't preach some of it. That's right. The Lord is coming and it doesn't matter about all the other who the lion is and who the beast is and who's this and what army's that. I It drives me nuts. But I know he's coming and he could come tonight. And I want my church, if I'm a pastor, I want my family to live under that knowledge. Remember the truth. When I was a boy, used to hear it. I don't hear it so much. I try to preach it if I can squeeze it in every once in a while. Buy the truth and sell it not. My grandma used to talk about it. She'd say, "Now what that means is no matter what it costs, you buy it. It's never too expensive. So whatever it costs, buy the truth and then no matter what anyone offers you, don't sell it. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for the truth. It has set us free. It has brought your presence and power. You're giving us revival. You're changing our communities, our cities. You're doing it by your truth. Help us remember what your apostle reminded us to remember the truth to buy it, never sell it, but more importantly to teach it and preach it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Um if you if you have any questions, I'm going to do famous last words. I'm going to try to keep this short and uh and I'm not going to do a lot of uh nuts and bolts. Most of you have um if you're mine and brother Willford's generation, you didn't have to read anything to get your license. Well, the Bible and the manual. That's all we had to read. But uh if you've been licensed and got have general license, you've had to read uh we preach and not everything I have to say about preaching is in that book. So I'm I'm going to I'm going to read from the book of James. Kind of do the text title thing.

Elias was a man. And that's Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three and a half years, three years, six months. Um my mother was a backslider. She sadly got away from God when she went to Jackson, Mississippi, attended a business college, got away from the Lord. My dad was a soldier and um he was from northeast Louisiana and they were driving back. He was stationed in Alabama and he was driving back and he told me one time he said we looked over and said there was a skating rink and there were girls there. Said neither one of us could skate but that didn't matter. There were girls there. He met my mother that night and they married and but mother um though she did not attend church um she wanted us to have an influence and when I was about seven years old she bought a 10 volume set of Bible stories. In fact it was titled the Bible story Arthur S. Maxwell. Anybody ever seen those? You used to run into them at Goodwill every once in a while. Of course, I didn't know they were Seventh Day Adventists, and I wouldn't have known what a Seventh Day Adventist was if somebody told me that. But I devoured those books, and my favorite favorite by far Bible character was Elijah. I mean, what's not to like, you know, when when he shut off the faucet and it didn't rain, he hid out. And then when God told him, "Show yourself." He did. And the king heard about it and sent 51 men to get him. And they were a little rude. Come down. King wants to see you. Come down, oh man of God. And he said, 'If I be a man of God, let fire fall from heaven and consume thee in thy 50 and man, when you're seven years old, that's good stuff. You know what I'm saying? He did that twice. That was awesome. But as I got a little older and I kind of got the gist of the story, he became even more my favorite Bible character. In a time of idolatry and backsliding, his parents named him my God is Jehovah. And not only was his parents' faith on display, but he lived up to their faith and Jehovah was his God. and he kind of got a hold of that fire stuff and he burned up an altar and a sacrifice and he turned a nation back to God. Now think about this. Um Ahab marries Jezebel, a foreign queen who brings all of her gods and turns Israel away from the Lord. So God's got a message and he sends the man of God, an unknown Tishbite named my God is Jehovah. And he shows up unannounced, uninvited in the courtroom of Ahab. And when he finally gets his turn, he simply announces, "It will not rain and the dew won't fall until I say so." Can you imagine the reaction? They laughed at this rube, this hillbilly. He's delusional. He thinks he controls the weather. They laughed him out of the room. Nice for a month. Pretty nice maybe for two months, but boy, by that third month, they're beginning to notice. Has it rained at all? I don't believe so. Before long, they're panicked. And the Bible says that Ahab sent soldiers. He sent policemen, if you will, to every kingdom on earth looking for Elijah and couldn't find him anywhere. We got to get this guy who's got his hand on the nozzle. No crops. We're going to starve to death. We can't live like this. no water to drink. Got to find him. But they couldn't find him. And it was very simple what God had done. He told Elijah to go to a certain brook, a creek. Get thee hence. First Kings 17. and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan. In other words, it's a tributary, little creek that runs into the Jordan River. And it shall be, and notice this, that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So Elijah goes to the creek, sets up his little tent and his sleeping bag, hunkers down, ravens come, birds of they're scavengers. They would normally gobble down all of that meat, but they bring it and drop it in Elijah's camp. He goes to sleep every night with that brook singing its way to the Jordan. Over the next few days and weeks and maybe even months, he watches it doesn't seem quite as loud tonight. Maybe he begins to mark. Maybe there's a rock. And he marks where the water level is. He begins to notice. And in a few days, maybe a week, he notice it's down half an inch. And it just keeps going down, dwindles, shrinks until it's only a trickle. And then even that's gone, leaving only wet sand in the creek bed. And then the hot wind siphons even that away and there's cracks in the parched bread bed of the brook. The creek dried up. I want to ask you tonight,.

why do creeks dry up? Maybe you stepped out, followed the call of God, staked your ministry. This is what God wants of me. And he sends you. And for a while, things are great. God seems to be blessing everything you touch. And then the creek dries up. Financial challenges, health challenges, family pressure, disgruntled saints. Probably not in your church, but it happens. your Azusa Street turns into Skid Row. Why? No, maybe not. And almost never your whole ministry, of course not. But that new venture, that stepping out by faith, that trust, it just didn't work. Why? I knew it was the call of God. I knew it was the will of God. God put me here. Well, I'm going hurry through. I know some things that did not cause that creek to dry up. It did not dry up because Elijah was out of the will of God. That's good. He was right where God sent him. He was doing exactly what God told him to do. The creek dried up and it was not because Elijah missed God. It did not dry up because Elijah had no promise. The reason I read that passage in the beginning, this is a promise, okay? And and I'm not I'm not going to get too deep in these weeds here, mainly because I can't. But God said, "You will drink of this stream." But he's not drinking of it today. It's just dry sand. He went there with a promise that creek would sustain him. That that creek would be the everpresent reminder of the promise of God, but it went dry. No, he had a promise. That's good. Yeah. He was in the will of God and it wasn't because he did something wrong. If anything, Elijah is the gold standard for standing for God in the face of opposition, for doing the will of God when everything says don't. And yet the creek dried up. Why do creeks dry up? We have the promise of God. You go, I'll go with you. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. We have not only his promise, we're doing what he commanded us to do. Yes. We're in his will and they don't dry up because we've done something wrong. Now, if you have, fix that, but they are not proof you've done wrong. Creeks dry up. Our best efforts come to nothing. Our hard work has no fruit. that wellthoughtout program that you launched and it never reached what you felt it would it happens. So why why did Elijah's creek dry up? The creek dried up because God answered Elijah's prayer. James said that it was Elijah's prayer that caused it not to rain. Here's how he said it. He prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And I love this. And it rained not. And when it don't rain, creeks dry up. Maybe your creek dried up because God is doing exactly what you asked him to do. You asked him to make you a man or a woman of God. You asked him to increase your faith. You asked him to deepen your understanding of his will and his way. You asked him to deepen your experience of his spirit. Maybe you asked him for power in your preaching. Maybe you've asked him to send revival to your church. Well, don't be shocked when the creek dries up. Because God is answering your prayers. We found that of Jesus, didn't we? Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. I don't understand all the implications of that passage, but I can say this. If Jesus had to learn obedience and he learned it by things going wrong and by suffering, then who are we to think we should escape dried up creeks? They're going to happen. In the winter of 57, Paul writes a letter to the church in Rome. He's in Corenth. Sends the letter. And here's what he says in the in Romans 1:9. For God is my witness. Yes. whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers making request in other words I'm asking when I pray if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to you. He said, "Now, we've picked we've collected this offering all across Asia Minor. The church is here. The folks in Jerusalem having a tough time, and we've raised some money, and we're going to run down to Jerusalem, and we're going to take this money, and then I'm headed to Rome. And I'm so excited. I get to preach in Rome. I get to preach to you wonderful folks that I've always wanted to worship with you and be in church with you and I've prayed God over and over by any means let me come to Rome. He had no idea what a dangerous prayer that was. a riot in Jerusalem that he survives by the skin of his teeth, the sudden appearing of 200 Roman soldiers that rescued him at the cost of arrest and two years imprisonment in Cesaria and then a shipwreck and a snake bite. And when he finally gets to Rome, he came in chains and in shackles. But he got to Rome and he did say by any means possible. He blessed the church. He converted the lost. He continued to change the world. Even when his creek dried up, Elijah could not have known. No way he could have known. But while he's sitting listening to that creek grow ever quieter in the night, knowing that before long there'll be no water, perhaps wondering how is God going to keep his word now. He could not have known that down in Zarephath there's a widow woman who has a little boy. And while Elijah watches the creek dry up, she's watching the meal barrel get lower and lower. And when she makes those little ho cakes, there's less and less oil. in the oil jug. In fact, when the creek was finally completely dry, maybe Elijah heard God whisper, "If you leave now, you should get there." The very day she scoops up the last of the meal and dips out the last drop of oil and makes her last cake. Tell her to make that cake for you. And then watch her face when I feel fill her meal barrel and oil jar over and over again. So we as preachers have a choice. We can sit by the bubbling brook and enjoy its cool water. Eat the meat that ravens drop us out of the clear blue sky. comfortable, coddled, cared for. Or we can suffer through dried up creeks and fill empty pantries and raise dead boys. Bring refreshing rain back to a parched land. Call fire from heaven itself and a backsliden nation back to God. None of that none of that could have happened if the creek hadn't dried up. God knows what he's doing with our lives. I've sat beside dry creeks. I've wondered why. But God knew what he was doing. and he knows what he's doing in your life.

Do you have any questions? And it could be about any. Yes. Most of my ministry evangelistic, but I've always thought that if I ever pastor again, I would make it part of my repertoire that minimum the first quarter of every year if not the first month I cover all major doctrines of the Bible godhead salvation sanctification and what are your thoughts on that reason I see churches that drift because they never teach it they assume everybody knows it baptism everything yeah Well, uh, my thoughts would be um um to cover one of those subjects in one Wednesday night. That's a challenge right there. But, um, you said three months, right? You're talking about the first quarter. Okay. I see more and more churches doing things like that. Um um I I'll go um you know preach in early January and they'll announce what's coming and they you know this month we're doing this. They often have fasts and they have special prayer meetings but then they announce they'll be uh teaching on uh apostolic fundamental doctrines and things of that nature. I don't know that they try to cover all of those in, you know, that period of time, but I see that happening and I'm I'm really thrilled about that. You think it's a good thing? Oh, absolutely. With the demise of Sunday school, Yeah. I think I think uh pastors are having to find more creative ways of teaching our core doctrines. Um, and um, I I'm seeing that happen. I think there might have been a little period of time in there where you didn't see a lot of teaching going on, but I'm picking that up that there's more, and I I'm very thankful for that. Yes, sir. Speaking of, of course, Acts 2:42 talks about continuing apostles. Apostles doctrine, but would you point towards Hebrewsapter 6? You mentioned it earlier, the foundational teachings and the foundational doctrines. The writer of Hebrews talks about is that what you would point towards as the core? Yeah, they're lame there. For example, the doctrine of baptisms is there. Well, there are two baptisms. One's in water and one's in spirit. John 3. So, yeah, it covers the foundations. Uh and when he says not laying again the foundation, let us go on into perfection. I mentioned a preacher and he interpreted that means all right that's what we believe. Now let's forget that and go on. That's the last thing that means. It means that we settle it. You you can't build a building if you keep tearing up the foundation. So you settle it. This is what we are, folks. We're an apostolic church. We're a one God. Jesus name tongue-talking church. And you teach those fundamentals. Yes. Acts six, a great place. And of course, there's many uh passages you could use um to build a series of teaching our core beliefs. Absolutely. Yes, sir. I don't I wouldn't privy to all of it. church. I was told brother Haney's great revival, I guess it's 80s, Richard, he was notorious for preaching the doctrine of coming to the Lord. I think it was like 3,000 people received the Holy Ghost during that several months of time. Yes. Um there were there were several evangelists who who focused on um end time preaching and um but also um I don't know how many times I heard Nathaniel preach when I was a teenager. I don't know how many years he did Louisiana camp, you know. And then of course when I went to headquarters chapels, you know, special meetings, um, and then sometimes we'd be in camps and stuff. I don't know that he ever preached a sermon that somewhere in that sermon he didn't talk about the coming of the Lord. It wouldn't be a major part of the sermon necessarily, but somewhere he was going to talk about the coming of the Lord. and that generation I think that was almost a hallmark of I'm sure his dad had great influence on him in that area and um the late 1800 and early 1900s as the church was coming into the baptism of the Holy Spirit the coming of the Lord was a primary um facet of worship. ship and uh lots of hymns were about the coming of the Lord. Um you know, Heaven's Jubilee and I'll Fly Away and it's what we sung about uh in the 70s, 60s and 70s, a gospel group named the Oak Ridge Boys. Anybody ever heard of the Oakidge? you know, before they went on to smaller and le, you know, lesser things and became a country group, they sang an old hymn. Actually, most of us had never heard it, but it it's in the song books called Jesus is Coming Soon, and it took the country gospel music world by storm. There was a gospel concert in Jackson, Mississippi, and my numbers will probably be off. I haven't told this story in a long time, but they did something like 32 encors. They couldn't quit. They'd come out, sing, people would respond on their feet, and they just kept singing it and kept singing it. Jesus is coming soon. And it was even when we were younger, it was part of our culture, you know. So, yes, I think you're right. I And then evangelists preached it and preach. Well, you know, I mean, I think we just need to work it in. We just, you know, just don't forget truth. Remember the truth. Yes, sir. Just just a question for you. As you reflect on your life, are there two to three sermons that you've preached through the years that have made a bigger impact on you personally? You know, it's the hard ones. If so, what? It's the hard ones. They're hard to preach. And and I mean that because they get in to my gut level. they get um where I live. Um and I think when I say they're hard to preach, some of them I've preached many many times, but um it forces something in me. Um, and some of them I'm not sure I can put my finger on why there there was one I didn't preach much but it was called uh somebody tell John. It came from the words of Jesus. Go tell John. Miracles are happening. John lost faith. His words to Jesus. Have I wasted my life? I proclaimed you the Messiah. Was I wrong? He was going through an incredible time of suffering and it took his faith. But Jesus said, "Somebody go tell him you didn't waste your life. I am who I say I am." And uh that sermon always always did something to me. Um um there's there's a couple of more. Um um the um I preached a sermon a few times on truth. It wasn't this one. Um, and I remember preaching at one time and brother um was there and when it was done, I never preached it that I didn't end up in tears. And he came to me and he was in tears and he said, "Don't ever quit preaching truth. If we lose it, we've lost everything." and it was a constant reminder to me, buy the truth and sell it not, you know. Um um I think I might have preached it in at a camp down in here in Missouri, the Southwest region. I preached that I preach Ain't Dead Yet. I've only preached that about three times, but um it's about my son and um three or four times I've probably preached it and I've told the story of losing my son, maybe two of them. And um I just want to tell the devil, you I'm not quitting, you know. Like I find it hard sometimes to preach because my boy was prayed for every day of his life. There was never a day he wasn't prayed for. But he still died of a fentanyl overdose. And it's easy when the devil says you can't preach prayer. It didn't work for you. You know, raise up a child in the way he should go. That kid never knew anything but church. He knew some of the greatest men and women of Pentecost. The devil says scripture doesn't work. He didn't he didn't stay in the truth. And he says, "So just, you know, go fishing." And that sermon, a friend of mine sent me a book about the Battle of Chancellorsville in the Civil War, told about a Confederate soldier that heard the Yankees had rubberized blankets, waterproof blankets. They didn't have anything like that for the Southern troops. and he was riding across that battlefield looking for a dead Union soldier that had one of those blankets because he wanted one so bad. And he came on, he saw the blanket. There was three musketss there kind of making a little shelter and the blanket was tied to the musketss and there was blue legs stuck out from under that blanket and he goes up there and wants to untie the blanket. My friend said, "Read that story." He told me the page number and said, "You'll preach that." He started untying that blanket and a voice said, "I ain't dead yet." And he wrote his sister about it and said, "I said, I'm sorry, sir. I thought you was dead." Said, "I got on my horse and I rode out of there as fast as I could." And I just wanted to tell the devil, you didn't get me. You didn't get my wife. We ain't dead yet. And um I can't preach it much. I just, you know, because I know its origin, I guess. Maybe I should preach it to tell the devil more, not quitting. Yeah, I preached it down in southwest camp. Yeah. Jonah when I was in my 20s. The worst preacher in the world. There you have it. Probably the greatest. You're very kind. Thank you. He was the worst preacher in the world. He was a racist. He was disobedient. He only had one sermon. He just repeated it over and over and over again. And he didn't care about the people he preached to. But the world's worst preacher had the world's greatest revival. A quarter of a million people perhaps that were saved. So I don't I don't want you to be racist. I don't want you to not care. I don't want you But you don't have to be the world's greatest preacher to have the world's greatest revival. Jonah did. Yeah. What are some of the.

sermons that have impacted you over your life? You know, um when I was younger, my favorite preacher was a man who who uh left us. And I I'm not sure he left truth, but he left the UPCI. His name was Marvin Hicks. And um life and death of the UPCI. deep calleth unto deep. He preached some things that affected my life. Um Cleveland Beckton um the lost cord. Um NAIN preached a sermon one time on being offended, how to escape offense, and it was one of the finest and moved me as much as anything I've ever heard. Um if if you ever um you know if you ever heard Earl Gamblin preach or um even Tommy Craft who had his own style, but these these men could move you. And um just some of my uh Paul Price, if you ever get a hold of a tape of Paul Price preaching on knowing Jesus, it it's worth your effort. Um I love preaching. Love to hear it. Love to do it. It changes lives. Can't abandon preaching no matter what. Yeah. However, in things coming up lately, we know that biblical fallation. How have you like found the line of from the whole connected story of the Bible and to those that have that lack of congregations. Um, Phillips Brooks, preaching is the communication of divine truth through human personality. Communication. First, make sure it's God's word, divine truth. But then you have to find a way to communicate it. And while preaching is not primarily the dis um the dissemination of information. You use the word the information to bring people to a point of response. And you have to be where they are, but take them somewhere. I think that's what brother Harry was probably talking about that narrative preaching is a way of getting the whole congregation on board. I tell my students,.

a sermon is a bus ride. If you don't get them on the bus, you're not going to take them anywhere. So, your first job is to is to get where they are to open your sermon with an easily graspable, understandable. If you're preaching to young people, you would open a sermon differently than preaching to the sages group. Okay? If you're preaching at home, you would probably you can get them on the bus easier because they love you. You know, they're on they want you to succeed. Um I spoke last Wednesday at the state capital under the rotunda. I agonized over how to start that sermon because I didn't know my crowd. There was no way to know where people were, you know. But then when you get them on the bus, you have to be a good tour guide. Here on the left is where Clark Gable lived. Over here is Yoseimite. That's El Capitan right there. You have to take them on the trip step by step, very deliberately crafted to carry them along. And then you get them to the destination. and narrative for people who you know even knowing about Jonah and the whale is probably the extent you know David and Goliath and Jonah and the whale you know um narrative is a wonderful way but if it's your home church then you want to through teaching and new converts courses and youth ministry and All it has to be focused on building biblical literacy. It has to be focused on teaching doctrine. Remember the truth and make these core teachings. back when we had Sunday school and we had them divided into age groups and teachers were focused and we had a curricula you might not use at all, but you had a curriculum to draw from and then we could march them through in the course of a year and for some reason we abandoned that approach. Um, but I think we're learning some creative ways of doing that. So, I hope that rambling answer was what you were looking for. Yes, sir. Probably something additional to this. Yeah. Maybe going deeper. You mentioned you have younger students that you teach. Yes. And is there anything additional that you find yourself focusing on with them that's different today with the people that are hearing our messages? He he spoke about Bible literacy and the level that it's at. Are there any other dynamics or factors that you see that you're addressing with training preachers today? Yeah. Um I don't I don't do much with freshmen. I recently have because of Dr. Norris being on sbatical and he helps us with our two freshman. Uh, every student at Urshan has to take introduction to Pentecostal theology and every student has to take hermeneutics of the word and the world which is kind of a mashup between hermeneutics of the Bible and worldview and uh I did the worldview part and it was eyeopening. Um, I kind of painted a gloomy picture of students coming that can't explain the oneness and so on and so forth. But, you know, I need to tell you the truth. We have kids come that very knowledgeable. They they totally at home in some pretty, you know, advanced theological ideas. They read, they study, and uh, you know, and that's pretty rare in this generation. just just reading is a dying art. If they can't see it in a YouTube video, they don't know anything about it. When you go to churches, do you see any of these dynamics just in the general? Well, of course, it's harder to gauge, but I hear pastors talking about the challenge, you know, and you want to be fair to pastors. I, you know, when I pastored, I'd have evangelists come through and preach something and dear saints at New Life, they're wonderful people, but they'd come up and say, "Man, I've never heard that before and I taught it three weeks ago." You know, it's just that new voice, the human dynamic, and it's it's broad. It's broad. Um, Brother Olen is TA in this freshman class and it's it's a neverending source of humor and frustration. Just had one text me wanted to know if the final was an open book where he can look up the answers. I said, I don't want to know if you can look up the answers. I want to know if you know them. So, no, no open book. But yeah, this is a dynamic that we face because people don't read. God gave us a book. And uh but I see pastors, youth pastors being creative, finding ways of sparking interest. And I think Bible quizzing is as healthy as ever. And that is there's nothing like Bible quizzing. um you know if to get kids involved and I'm so glad to see it go down to younger kids to get them involved even if they only quiz a few years it'll change their life it's hard to believe but I was a Bible quizzer first year was 60 60 actually I have to disagree they had a pilot program only a few districts there was no But Louisiana had it and we won it for my little country church and the finals were at camp at youth camp and I wasn't going to go but I went because our team won the section and we had to go to district and I got the Holy Ghost at that camp. So, I owe a whole lot to Bible quizzing, but uh yeah, it um it certainly gets kids on the right path. So, churches that have a healthy quiz program are benefited, but it's a challenge. You guys that are pastoring, you you've got your hands full. It's hard to uh to focus young people in particular today. Yes, ma'am. You mentioned uh I think you said, Brother Bang had a list of that a pastor should cover every year. Obviously, I'm not a pastor, but do you have some kind of a list like that? I would personally like to have I don't have one. I haven't pastored in a in 20 some odd years. So, I did use something along that line at New Life when I was pastor there. We we had some unique issues, a great church, Brother Rome, incredible foundation and all of that. And for 13 months, greatest period of my life, he was alive and we worked together. And um so there were certain things I was focused on particularly in the first two or three years that I emphasized. But yeah, I think brother I think Brother Mangun's would be just your I teach a theology one and theology 2. We start out with the doctrine of God. Then we deal with the doctrine of um the word of God, three weeks on each. And then we do Christologology. And then we do um anthropology, humanity, people. And then uh the next one starts out with pneumatology, the Holy Ghost. Sotiology, salvation, Acts 2:38, and so on. And then we deal with um um Oh, I'm teaching that right now. I should remember it all. Some of my systematic theology right now. Yeah, that's it. Exactly. Dr. Norris's systematic theology follows the same same line. Then then we deal with um spiritual beings, angology, that kind of stuff. A pastor wouldn't need to kind of think that way. But if you sit down and start thinking in those systematic theology terms and think about well we need to talk about who is God why there there is a God creation it's all part of it but then of course salvation and um the fall human human beings why life is like it is this is not the world god made we made this world that kind of thing, but um it's it wouldn't be a hard list to put together if you stop and think about it, I think. Yeah. But if I had one, I'd share it with you, but I don't have one. Yes, sir. So, a lot of the denominations, which is not really what we do, they do a lot of lurggical preaching. It's just part of their doesn't mean we can't learn anything from them. Other words, they cover topics every so often. We do with our Sunday school literature and stuff like that. Are you seeing a rise in that? And I'm not a pastor, you know, I'm traveling preaching. So I hear people, but are you seeing a rise in lurggical preaching in our movement where pastors try to cover topics not just essential, but every so often? And what do you think about that? I don't I don't see it as following a lurggical calendar like those churches would do, but certainly I see um I see pastors covering basics. Um I don't know their time frame. Um and of course when I'm there, I'm doing the preaching. So, but I try to get them in conversations and you know try to get a feel for and many of them are seeing the need of dealing with the core doctrines of the church and I don't know what kind of schedule they have necessarily but I see them um at New Life Sunday morning the pastor preached on the dimensions of the love of God just a fundamental but powerful. The people responded wonderful way. Um many of the pastors around here um they're they're they're beginning to focus on the fundamentals from what I'm hearing from other churches and of course I know many of them personally and we chat and so on. So um I think we're coming back to that. that travel a lot. What we notic are these people with is don't be offended but the Americans need entertainment but overseas tend to be more blunt and more I've heard that before and um um I think I and I agree I agree with that we do probably have too much entertainment ainment preaching and we if our people are that way we taught them that uh it's not there our culture taught them that and then we try to function within that culture so we make our sermons we focus on but if you don't keep their attention you're not going to get you know so it it's a conundrum sometimes but yeah I agree I know you can I know you can go. But it depends on where you are in Europe. You know, you need to you need to pull a rabbit out of a hat. You need to you know, Europe's tough, but it's better now than it was 30 years ago when I first started going over there. But um different parts of the world but in the uh emerging world as they call it used to call it under undevel underdeveloped Jesus is God and 10,000 people start shouting. Yeah. It's you know different cultures different ways. Um they things are changing with cell phones and you know people have cell phones all over the globe now and have access to the internet all over the globe. So things are things are changing. Yeah. Yeah. But I do agree it's a cultural challenge in America uh because of attention span and things of that nature. But the word of God is unfettered. The word of God is not bound. The scripture says it won't go out and return void. If you preach truth, it will accomplish the job. We have to have faith in the word of God and preach it. Teach it. I think I'm done. Done. If you're done, if there's if there's another question, I'll take it. But okay, here's one. Come on up. So you were talking earlier question. Yes. So you also talked about when you were at the capital not knowing the crowd. So is there a general idea that you have like to gauge what the crowd That's a good question. Well I mean if I'm preaching at a youth service I know my crowd. If I'm preaching at a Sunday morning church, um, and I know it's going to mostly be apostolic. I know an apostolic crowd. I've been preaching to them for more than 50 years. Um, but you all do, too. I mean, this is what we do. This I'm I'm just saying. And you know, we're usually in home field advantage that there I was in I was in the visi I was the visitor. You know what I'm saying? And I didn't know who the people were stopping. We were in the rotunda. So there were three levels of people stopping looking down the choir. I noticed when the preaching started a lot of them moved on. But for the choir, you know, they were enjoying the choir. Uh but I didn't know I wanted to reach everybody. And so that is a challenge. I don't I don't want to step on any toes. I hate sitting in the congregation. I know it's the trend and we've kicked the preachers off the platform and Okay. Okay. But let me tell you why I liked it. I could watch the crowd. Yeah. I could worship and watch and seeing what's happening and I didn't get my sermon, but I sure got the feel of what was happening of who was hurting and what you know what I'm saying. You all understand. You just can and I and there's so much I'm standing down there on the front row and I'm looking back at the crowd while I'm worshiping and I'm I can see the first four rows and that's about it. So, it's more of a challenge. That's what I mean. Um, you know, you the more you know, and I don't mean individuals. I never when you're a pastor, you know the individuals, but now my ministry, I don't know them when I'm out preaching, but there it's a Pentecostal church. And and so you but you let God lead you, particularly when you're building. I call it the opening, not the introduction. It's the opening. And there's no A sermon does not have a conclusion. It has a closing. because you want to get them to sign on the dotted line. It's just like a salesman. And that sounds, don't misunderstand me, but a sermon is to get them to a decision to move and not just come to the front. That's part of it, but do something about what they're feeling and what God is speaking in their hearts. And that means you're going to get them to sign on the So, it's a close, okay? It's designed. We call it alter calls. Got that from the old Methodists. But you know, that's what we mean. And your opening is key. Set the stage. Be confident. You've got seven seconds according to Roger Isles to convince them you have something to say. So get to it. Okay. That's what I mean. Uh we preach has hold up your book. that's got some of that stuff in it. And um what's it called? Preaching central. What is it? Headquarters has ministry. Ministry Central. Uh there's several different ones. Jonathan Mcccleintoch has a good book. You have to read it for local license on the preacher's life. And he touches on sermon construction and it'll cover a lot of that. All right. Anyone else? Thank you so very much. joy to be here.