Haggai 1 | Pastor Jeff Shipley

Haggai chapter 1. Before we begin, just to let you know,

Brother Christian Torres is preaching at another church this morning. Much more in the monitor, guys.

He'll be preaching. We send our pastors, both in training and others, to other churches that don't have pastors, and that's where Brother Christian is this morning.

We're gonna be in Haggai chapter 1, and it's only like two pages in your Bible. So the best way to find it if you're not familiar with the books of the

Bible in order, which I am not, is to go to Matthew, the first book in the New Testament, and go back three books.

All right. 32 years ago today, on August 27th, 1991,

I made a decision. Actually, the Lord busted my head open and helped me make this decision, but I have now been sober for 32 years.

Yep. Now, it ain't easy.

It ain't easy, but I tell you, for those of you, we got a buttload of folk up in here struggling with addiction, it gets easier the longer you go.

But I still hear that, I still hear that. Some of y 'all know what

I'm talking about. I still hear that sometimes. My mouth still tingles.

Man, there were a couple of times about 20 years ago where I'd start thinking it and I swear my throat would still get numb.

It's crazy. It's crazy how passionate you can be about certain things.

I could not, or I chose not, to be passionate about getting a job, but I tell you this,

I would con -manipulate, steal, and do other things to make sure I had stuff.

Some of you may not have done drugs, but it's kind of like this, making sure you had cigarettes on the way home on a

Friday so you ain't gotta go out on a Saturday. You know what I'm saying? Or you get that paycheck, some of you, on a

Friday, and it's done spent before you go back to work on Monday. Some of you know what

I'm talking about. Others are like, well, I've never experienced that. Yeah, you have, you just called it different names.

Apathy, laziness, gluttony. I still struggle with that one.

But anyways, we get passionate about stupid things.

And then Christians, real Christians, I ain't talking about them stupid church -going folk. I'm talking about people who have truly given their life to Christ, but have yet taken back certain parts from Him.

God, I want you to be the Lord of my life when it comes from escaping damnation. God, I want you to be

Lord of my life when I've screwed it up so bad. But God, this part of my life,

Lord, I still wanna be in control of. Well, you've screwed up everything else. What makes you actually think you're gonna get this one right?

You ain't, because we dumb. We self -centered. I actually had one of my members come to me this morning.

His father recently died. And another pastor did the service.

He's cheating on me. No, it was his mom's decision. But he came and he was talking to that pastor, and the pastor said this.

Well, I don't really struggle with the desire of sin. I'm like, dude, man, where did you get that one?

Because dang. You know, I remember when I'm younger, I'm still a pastor.

You know, certain person walked by, you know, and you're doing that.

And Marty still does that to me. I still, I don't know what it is about him. He's just so cute looking.

But now at 55, I don't really struggle with that much anymore, but I still struggle with other things.

You know, when your wife irritates you, you know, when she's crazy or lost her mind, or I'm just saying, y 'all know, y 'all know, y 'all know.

Guys, you know what it is? We lose our passion. We lose our desire to have the desire.

We got the desire to do right. We really do. You want that desire sometimes, but that desire fades away.

How do you get it back? Well, that's kind of what we're gonna be talking about today because that's what happened to the people of Israel.

Now let me explain to you, those of you that are in our Wednesday night church history class, kind of what's going around.

Now this is in Haggai, this is about 500 years before Jesus was born.

No, he wasn't born on December of 25th in the year zero. We think he was born around four to six

BC. And this is the children of Israel. This is right before the whole spore thing.

This is right before all that took off. And the world power at this time is a nation called

Persia, which is modern day Iran. So Iran is controlling everything in the known modern world at that time.

And so this guy came to the throne, his name was Cyrus. And for those little millennials who don't have jobs and couldn't make the football team and play video games in your mom's basement, get on Wikipedia and fact check me if you want.

But this guy named Cyrus came to the throne and he said, you know what? All these captive peoples that we have in our, we're gonna let them go on back to their land.

We're gonna let them go back and rebuild their homelands. Now this wasn't just to be a nice guy.

What he was doing is trying to up the production in his empire so the tax dollars coming in would be a little bit higher, you with me?

So the Jews, about 50 ,000 of them went back to Jerusalem. But there were a lot more than 50 ,000.

In fact, there is still a huge Jewish population, yes, in Iran today, that are descendants from these people.

Millions of them decided to stay in Persia. I'm gonna tell you why. Because it was much easier after a generation or two to sit in the comfort of where you are rather than where you're supposed to be.

You hear me talking to you? It's easier to stay like a frog in a boiling pot of water in something that you know ain't right or good for you than it is to make that change.

So a bunch of them stayed in Persia. But about 50 ,000 of them went back.

And if you've read the story of Nehemiah, or I shouldn't say the story, the account of Ezra and Nehemiah, that's all at this time.

Well, they started rebuilding the temple of God. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and they started rebuilding the temple, but basically they kind of lost their passion.

They kind of lost their fire. They wanted to do what was right, but they were so busy getting their own homes and their own businesses going, they kind of let it slide.

And in this first verse of this chapter, we have an exact date of when it's going on.

It's September 520 BC, and you can read there if you want. We know exactly when this happened.

So the people of Israel sitting in this nice walled city, they're rebuilding their houses, rebuilding their farms, and God's temple is absolutely trashed.

And so God raises up this prophet Haggai and says, hey, go and tell the people you need to get back to work.

You need to get your priorities and your passion straight. So we're gonna look at a couple of things, but I'm gonna read to you verse five as we begin.

Now, therefore, doth saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.

People of Witton, I want you this morning not to hear a sermon or some other stupid church crap.

I want you to introspectively look at your spiritual life and consider your ways.

Let's look at some problems that these people were having back here. Number one, they were dissatisfied with where they were at.

Look at verse six. Look at verse six. It says this. You have sown much and harvested little.

You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill.

You clothe yourself, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them in a bag with holes.

Good Lord, that sounds like America today. How many of y 'all's paychecks have shrunk in the last two years under Bidenomics?

Man, groceries? I went grocery shopping for my wife not too long ago.

And you know, I walk in, I go straight to the red meat department, buy as much as I can with a block of cheese, some garlic, and olive oil.

I'm good to go, right? No more. She goes to the discount meat department.

You know, it's red meat, but it's brown. I can fix that. I'm part Italian. I can fix that, okay?

But man, those Richmond, North Richmond are just blowing my belfold up.

But it's not talking about that. You see, because I know Jeff Shipley, and I know human beings, and it doesn't matter how much we make or how much we have.

It ain't never enough, is it? No matter what you get, it's contempt.

Familiarity breeds contempt. I remember I got a 71 Nova that my brother and I fixed up.

The old 70, yeah, this was way on back then. But I had this old 71 Nova. I loved it. Man, we had a 350 in there with a double -plane manifold, four -barrel

Aldebrock. We had highly carb. I mean, we borrowed a lot of parts and bought a lot of parts to put on this car.

Loved it. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Man, we had these rules.

Don't eat in the car, don't drink in the car. Because, man, we had it nice. And then

I remember us going to Spring River. It had no pipes underneath. It had just two glass packs right under the floorboard.

So it sounded like Sherman's Army when he invaded Atlanta. And the heat from those glass packs would just come up through the floor.

And it was so hot. And we were driving to Spring River. For those of you who don't know, that's the

Mecca of all rednecks, white trash. But we were driving to Spring River, and it was so hot.

And we had this big cooler of beer iced and salted down in the back seat. And I remember reaching back there and opened up that cooler.

I go, I don't care what the rules are, man. I'm about to die. He said, hand me one. So I, you should never drink and drive, by the way.

The Witten Baptist Church Memorial Incorporated does not endorse drunk driving. But anyways, handed him one.

I remember I took that first swig of beer, and it's like my body just went, whoosh, and just sucked it up.

I was like, well, that's good. I'm getting me another one of those. Grabbed another one, and then

I grabbed a third one. And the third one didn't taste as good as the first one.

You know why? Because my body got used to it. That car that we said we would never eat and drink in, man, by the time we sold that thing, there were

McDonald's wrappers from three years ago still stuck to the floorboard. You see, our familiarity breeds contempt.

And our human appetite is never, ever satisfied with what we got.

Our problem with where we are in our passionless understanding of what we need to be with God is that we're constantly, constantly dissatisfied with where we are.

Here's the second thing. We are under no more discipline anymore. We don't have discipline.

Oh, we pretend like we follow the rules. But we look for every opportunity to bend, tweak, and flat out break every rule, whether it be at work, whether it be in our spiritual lives, whatever it is, we want to satisfy ourselves so much.

Thank you, baby. We want to satisfy ourselves so much that we want to break all the rules.

Guys, let me tell you something about your spiritual life. If you're going through this thing called life without accountability of a church and some few select friends in your life, you will never, ever, ever be to the full potential

God wants you to be. You will never walk a godly life the way you're supposed to without discipline and accountability.

Look here in verse nine. Look here in verse nine, it says this. God's telling them, you look for much, and behold, it came to little.

And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, declares the Lord of hosts? Because of my house that lies in ruins while each of you busies himself with his own hope.

Now, I want you to notice this. I want you to notice in that verse who blew away their gains.

It was God himself. Some of you in this room, you're under a lot of conviction.

You're also under a lot of judgment. And things aren't happening the way you think they ought to happen, and you're sitting there trying to figure out, well, if I go back to school, if I do this, or here's what some people say, if I get back into church, things will change.

You need to understand one thing. If you are truly a Christian and living outside of God's will for your life, he himself will discipline you to bring you back into the fold.

And I want to tell you something. It's a great feeling, not at the time of the discipline, but it's a great feeling that the

God of the universe cares more for you and your well -being to discipline you.

By the way, parents, this is a good little tidbit for you. You want to go to Adam's Street three or four times in your kids' teenage years?

It's real simple. Don't discipline them. Don't discipline them. You'll go there. You'll go there.

Is it still on Adam's Street? Okay, yeah. The fact that some of you know that tells me a lot about you.

Guys, God had told them in Deuteronomy 28, told them hundreds of years ago, you don't follow me,

I'm going to send drought into your world. I always love it when people know the effects of a causality and then ask why.

Why? Watch this. I just talked to a person who unfortunately, their family member died because they were, what's the fin?

Whatever that, fentanyl was way, I was way before that time.

But they kept taking it and taking it and taking it and they OD'd and they died. And this lady calls me and she says, why did this happen?

Because he OD'd. What do you mean why did it happen? Guys, you have to understand there is a causality and an effect.

Guys, you will not escape the effects of your causality of sin.

Your relationships will suffer, your finances will suffer, everything will suffer because you don't understand the cause and effect aspects of discipline.

Listen to this. Verse 12. The voice of the Lord their God in the words of Haggai the prophet as their

Lord of God sent them. You know what's really cool? God told them in Deuteronomy, you do this, this will happen.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. You do this, this is going to happen. But you know what's great about God and His faithfulness?

Is at the height of our faithlessness, God at the height is still faithful. No matter how many times you screw up, the word of the

Lord will come to you again and again and again. Some of you sitting in this room,

I'm not God, I'm just one redneck sharing with other rednecks where to find truth. But God is speaking to you through His word right now and you're going to have an opportunity to repent and get right today.

Well, pastor, I'm going to wait. Well, pastor, I need to clean this up first. Pastor, I need to get this in order.

Pastor, I need to do this. Then you'll keep suffering the consequences of a rebellious nature.

So how do we fix this? How do we get out of all this passionless pursuits that we do?

Well, we've got to first understand this, you've got to come back to the understanding of the fear of God.

Look at verse 12. God sits there and He speaks to them, the people here, and it says this, it says, and the people feared the

Lord. I know some of you, because we have a very young church, grew up or went to other churches in which everything was cool.

You know what I mean? It's cool. Well, I'm in this place in my life right now.

Oh, that's cool. Well, I'm not really wanting to follow the Lord. Oh, well, you know, you do you.

God's faithful. You know what the problem is? JC ain't up in the house.

JC ain't your best friend, okay? That kind of heretical mindset that has encapsulated the churches today is absolutely losing an entire generation of people.

You see, I'm afraid of God. I am.

Now, you may not be, because you bad and all that, but personally, I'm scared. I'm scared.

And I'm a Christian, but I'm still scared. You see, that fear isn't

I walk around going, huh, huh, huh. It's a respect. It's an awe.

Police officers today, I would not want their, we got five or six of them running around here, but I wouldn't want y 'all's job.

And I'm gonna tell you why I wouldn't want your job. Because that which is needed to effectively do your job in today's world, you can't do, or you're gonna go to jail.

Dude, I'm gonna be honest with you, man. Somebody spits in my face, you know?

I ain't reading them their Miranda rights, okay? I'm gonna be listening to the sound of that hollow sound of my nightstick dumping on their skull, but y 'all can't even carry nightsticks no more, can you?

I'm gonna tase you. God, I'm so ridiculous.

You know why our culture is like it is today? Because kids don't fear their parents because their parents aren't disciplining them.

We don't fear the rules because the rules, they can get away with it. And guys, we live in a world, in a time where rebellion is more powerful than fear.

Now you say, well, you're just saying that because you're a white Anglo -Saxon Republican Protestant. Well, trust me on this,

I never was. I grew up Catholic, and I ain't white. I hate when people tell me that. I ain't black,

I ain't nothing. I'm a human being, because how many races of people are there? There's one race of people. Quit being stupid because you're tiring me.

But the reality is, reality is, the reason I am like I am today is because I learned to fear

God, and everything follows under that. When you and husbands remember this, if you fear and follow

God, your wife will fear God and follow God. Your children will fear and respect you and your wife, and everything will, just like a train with everything else, will follow right behind.

When you are living a hypocritical life, your kids will sit there and look at it, think it's all fake, and bull, and rebel against it.

Guys, well, pastor, I don't really agree with that. Well, not only are you stupid, but you just sentenced your kids to a life of heartache, because it ain't my wisdom, it's the

Word of God. How do we fix it? We get back to a place where we understand that we need to fear the

Lord, where we don't just leave our Bible on our nightstands or in the floorboard of our cars, but we hide the

Word of God in our hearts that we may not sin against them. Here's the second thing. When you fear the

Word of God, the next thing that comes along is you start working for the Word of God. And once again, in verse 12, it says this, and I'm sorry, let's skip on down to verse 14.

It says this. When they heard God's Word, they recognized it came from God, they obeyed it, they feared it, and then they came out, last part of verse 14, they came and worked on the house of the

Lord of hosts, their God. Let me stop right here. I would like to announce to the people of Witton Baptist Church that God has given me a vision.

Why are you laughing? God's given me a vision. I feel like today there are 20 people in this room that are supposed to give $10 ,000.

Y 'all, this don't work if you laugh, okay? Because God has given me a vision today for a new pastoral office.

Oh man, it's going to have the hot tub, jacuzzi. I mean, I'm going to start wearing, like, them fancy suits, you know?

I need, I need, huh? Gold chain, well, I got one of them.

Oh yeah, a bunch of them. I got to have the Lexus, you know what

I'm saying? You think that's what God's talking about is His paneled houses?

1 Corinthians 3 .16 says this. He's talking to church people and He says, know you not that you are the temple of God and the

Spirit of God dwells within you. People in today's world, they want big, bigger and fancier church buildings.

Guys, this is the church right here. This ain't nothing but concrete, stone and wood and drywall put up by a bunch of dumb rednecks.

Us. Guys, this is not the church, this is the church. What God wants to build is sitting inside this building.

Just quick little side note there for you. Now, I want you to notice a couple of things about this work.

Notice for the first time in verse 14 and it says, and they came and worked on the house of the

Lord their host. Now watch. Go read the whole verse and it says this.

The words of Haggai came to the governor, to the head pastor, to the leaders of the group, and then the people, and then it says this, and they went to work.

You know what the thing about leadership, how you fix your passion problem, is not only do you fear the

Lord and understand the Word of God, you obey it, but men, you lead by doing it.

If you come home and say, well, I've worked all day, I'm tired. Listen, you're gonna have a rebellious household.

Women, you are, according to scripture, keepers of the home. Well, I've worked all day.

Husbands, wives, what you've done is clocked out of one job. When you walk across the threshold of that house, you're clocking into another one.

The day ain't over. Men, you are to play with your kids. Men, you are to listen to your wives.

God, man, dude. Gwen will say, how was your day? I'd go, yeah, it's all right. I'm done.

Gwen, how was your day? Well, this morning when I got up, I was blow -drying my hair. I've gotta go through eight hours of drama, of listening to stuff

I don't care about. But it's important. It's important.

My kids. Daddy, can we play bull charge? Daddy, can we play, who shot the president?

We used to get airsoft guns, and I thought it was so funny when I'd shoot the kids, because they, ah, ah, ah.

I don't know, I was a bad parent, I guess. But little Jeff, you know, he was this big, and he was the president, right?

And so we would play Secret Service, and then one of the, we would all be covering him and hiding him, and then the

Secret Service guys, one of them would turn real quick and say, I'm a traitor, and shoot little Jeff.

Then we had to go arrest him, put him in these little cheap metal handcuffs we had, and then bring him to Gwen, and Gwen would give him like, you know, 30 seconds of tickling or whatever it was.

And everybody wanted to be the bad guy until it was time to get shot. I didn't want to play those games.

You know what bull charge was? I'd get on my hands and knees, they would take a karate belt, stick it in my mouth, hold on to it like rings, and say, go daddy, and I would try to buck him off.

I had five kids. I need knee surgery now, it wasn't from when I fought or played football, it's from those kids, right?

God, you know what I wanted to do? That's what

I wanted to do, right there. But I couldn't do it, because I was a father, and a husband.

Oh, obey, yeah.

The color yellow makes me sad. Guys, they, they.

When you are in charge, you're still part of they. I am the senior pastor of this church.

Pastor Josiah is the senior associate pastor. Thursday, what were we doing?

We were putting, laying tile and putting grout in, in the bathrooms.

How many of y 'all know how to lay tile? Why would a, why was a senior pastor doing that?

You know what I'm saying? I should be in my office, in the air conditioning, reading a book, listening to the news, you know, doing something really important.

Ain't nothing wrong with my hands. I can sling grout. They went to work. They had no passion.

God got them fired up. They went to work. But, in this last point, I want to make an understanding.

Even though some of us are working our brains out, we are. A great portion of this church gives financially.

It gives in sweat equity. Hey, Jake and Michelle are always involved. Rebecca Dillon.

I mean, you can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting one of the three of them, you know? Because they're always working.

Right? But guys, let's be honest. Man, you need some encouragement sometimes, don't you?

It gets tiring. 1 Corinthians 15 says, know that your labor is not in vain.

You know what that means? It means God knows we get tired. We get tired of trying.

We get tired of... You get tired of sitting there. You get tired of doing whatever and not getting an attaboy.

How many of you have ever worked in a ministry and never got thanks? Do you know that's the norm?

That's the way it's supposed to be. That's what Scripture says. How many of you women brought casseroles and no one liked them?

It's because you can't cook and it stinks. No one wants it. Change your recipe, okay? God, this tissue girl.

But God knew that His people would get tired. I'm gonna go to chapter 2 and then I'm done.

Chapter 2. And for your homework, guys, I want you to read Haggai chapter 3. Read it every day this next week.

All right, some of y 'all will get that later on. All right, chapter 2 verse 4.

Look at this. Chapter 2 verse 4. People are working, they're tired, and I'm gonna give you four things that God wants to end.

They're all gonna begin with peace, so you'll remember them. Four things, verse 4. Yet now be strong,

O Zerubbabel. Man, you know he got beat up a lot as a kid. Declares the Lord, be strong, O Joshua, the son of that dude, the high priest.

Be strong, all you people in the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the

Lord of hosts. The first encouragement you need to understand is this. God is with you.

Well, pastor, I feel like me and God are this far apart. God is with you. Pastor, I don't feel like my prayers get further than the ceiling.

God is with you. I don't care where you've gone, if you're a child of God. If you a godless heathen, you're going to hell,

God isn't with you. But if you are a Christian, God is with you. No matter what you do, no matter how many times you mess up, no how grievous you think your mess up is,

God's promise is I will never leave you or forsake you. That is from Genesis to Revelation.

And you think you're bad because you haven't done your quiet time, little Baptist. These people were killing each other.

There have been people, look at David. He had an adulterous affair and then killed the husband.

There is nothing you can't do. There is nowhere you can't go that even in your failures,

God isn't with you. Now you may not feel his presence, but just because you can't feel it, don't mean it ain't true.

And that brings me to this next point. Quit relying on your feelings as an indicator of your spiritual life because it will always let you down.

Focus on your obedience and God's this next one, his promise. Look at verse five. God said,

I'm always with you. But then verse five, it says this. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst, fear not.

Guys, God made me a promise. And this is what he said. He says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Romans chapter 10, verse 13.

I was a high school dropout, drug addict, godless, heathen pig. And I got on my knees one day and I said,

God, and I was trying to say God, but I couldn't get it out because I emotionally broke.

But before I emotionally broke and uttered that prayer, God was already at work. And God saved my soul that day.

Now I've screwed up so bad in these last 34 years. I've screwed up.

Yeah, right? Been sober 32, been saved 34. Got me? I have screwed up so bad, but I am so thankful that God, whom those he justifies, he will glorify.

My hope is not based upon what I do. It's based upon what God has promised he will do.

God's presence and God's promises. Look at this next one. God's perspective, verses six through eight.

For thus saith the Lord of hosts, yet one more and a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.

I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in and I will fill this house with glory.

Says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place

I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. You know what?

Perspective. I remember when Jeremiah was a kid. I'm talking a little feller.

I don't know how old he was. But he was scared of being asleep in the dark.

And I remember we all had him shoved in one room. I had four boys, two sets of bunk beds, all in one room.

Man, it stunk in there so bad. God, it stunk so bad. The upstairs still stinks.

My poor little girl had to grow up in the locker room. But anyways, he was scared of the dark.

And the older boys, they wanted the light out. Jeff didn't care. He had his blankie and his sticks. He was good to go.

But Jeremiah was scared of the dark. And I remember taking him in there.

And this had been going on a couple of days. And I took him in the bedroom. And I turned out the lights.

And I said, he was scared of something in the closet. And I said, call out to it.

Call out to it. Tell it to come here. And he was like, scared. I was like, call it out here.

I'm going to beat his brains out. I'm scared, Daddy. I'm scared.

Either you call it out, or I'm going to bust your rear end. Come here, Mr. Monster. I don't know what he called it.

Come here, Mr. Monster. I was like, call it again. Nothing came out of the closet, obviously.

Boom. I'm just kidding. Some of y 'all just jumped. And I said, now

I'm going to leave the room. And I want you to call it out again when I'm not here. And he said,

Dad, I can't do that. I'm scared. Will you stay with me? My now ain't staying with you, you little

Nancy. You're going to call out whatever's in the closet. And then you're going to jack it up.

Yeah, I don't want to. It doesn't matter what you want to do, boy. It's what you're going to do. And I shut the door.

The hardest thing I ever did. Oh, he was just, oh, Daddy, don't leave me. And I shut that door.

And I heard him in there. And he whimpered and cried. But then I heard him, Mr. Monster, come out.

Mr. Monster, come out. Mr. Monster, come out. Knocked on the door.

I'm like, where is he? Where's that punk? He ain't in there, Daddy. That's right, he ain't in there. Ain't nothing in there, boy.

It's all in your brain. You know why he was able to do that? He would have never been able to do that by himself.

But he, at first, understood the presence of his Daddy to be able to get over that hump.

Perspective. How big are your problems? And how big is your God? Really?

Well, Pastor, you don't understand. I have cancer. Yeah? You still got

Jesus. Well, Pastor, I'm going to die. Yeah? So are you and everyone else in this room. Well, Pastor, that doesn't make me feel good.

I ain't here to make you feel good. I'm here to tell you facts. Every one of us in this room is going to die.

But if you have the perspective as a child of God, what is it that you're exactly afraid of? The silver is mine.

The gold is mine. You know what God said that for? Because, man, he uses gold for asphalt in heaven.

That's all it is, just chunks of asphalt. There is nothing in this world.

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and owns the hills. No powerful nations and all this other stuff that's going on in the world will shake at the coming of Jesus Christ.

For every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord. That is who you serve.

What happens is we put our eyes and make our problems bigger than they really are.

Christians, our anxiety, most of it is because we keep thinking about what could happen and then this could happen.

Well, then that will happen if this happens and we create this entire scenario which 90 % of the time never.

You know what I mean? Men, my age and a little bit younger, you know what I'm talking about?

Well, not really. Dummy, have you ever taken a deep breath and had a sharp pain in your heart?

And immediately the first thing that came to your mind is when they do the open heart surgery, I wonder, you just jump from, you have a little gas to open heart surgery, right?

Women, you're 40 -something year old, you know? The fat's depositing in your body in other places than it used to when you were 20.

You're fat, you're old, you're ugly. Your husband's going to leave you. You know what

I'm saying? Some of you are like, what did he just say? I said, you fat, old, and ugly now.

And so nobody loves you. Everybody hates you. You go from gaining three pounds to living as a bag lady down on Beale.

Right? Right? Guys, we make problems bigger.

Why? Because we're not looking at them from God's perspective. We're looking at them through our fears.

The last thing is this, God's peace. I love, and I'll close with this,

God's peace. Notice what it says. The glory of this ladder house will be greater than the former.

Now, I know some of you don't study eschatology real well, and let me encourage you, you need to start, okay?

Please don't get Hal Lindsey. But you need to start. What's this talking about? Well, Solomon built the first temple.

They burnt that down, right? They're building, they're trying to build this one.

And he's saying, well, okay, that's good, but there's going to come another one. Now, people say, well, yeah,

Herod in 20 BC, about 400 years, started rebuilding the temple as a political stunt.

He started rebuilding the temple and made it really grand. That's the one Jesus preached in. But remember,

Jesus said, not one stone of this building would be left upon another. So if the glory of that is going to be greater, yet this one that people say is greater got torn down and didn't last forever, what's that mean?

Okay. All right. Fayette County people, help out the Frasers. So if this isn't it, this isn't the one that's coming, what's that mean?

There's another one coming. Guys, if you want to know if the word of God is true, please come spend an hour with Pastor Josiah and myself.

I promise you, there'll be irrefutable proof once we're done. But guys,

I don't even have to go through all that. Look at prophecy, man. Israel will be a nation again.

2 ,200 years. Didn't exist. It's a nation again since 1948.

They're going to rebuild the temple. Eh, but the whole Dome of the Rocks there, well, they've actually found foundations.

It was old Solomon Temple away from the Dome of the Rock. Guys, you realize that there is going to be a temple rebuilt?

Well, Pastor, how does that bring me peace? It brings me peace like this. Everything that God said would happen has happened.

And everything God says will happen is going to happen. Some of you sitting in this room, you keep trying to find peace through politics.

Do you really think another Democrat or Republican is going to fix everything? No, man.

You know the United States of America is not found anywhere in prophecy. You know why? It ain't going to be there.

It ain't going to be there. Guys, quit having hope. Now, I bleed red, white, and blue.

But quit having hope in your country or the politics. Quit having hope in preachers and religion.

Let your hope be in Christ and Christ alone. I'm going to ask the music people to come up. Listen to me. What God said will happen is going to happen.

Last thing. The Bible says this. One day, everyone, great and small, will stand before God.

And those without the blood of Christ will go to hell for eternity. And there ain't no parole, ain't no weekends, ain't no time -offs.

You're there forever. And there's no second chances. Pastor, you're scaring me.

No, the conviction of the Holy Spirit that's telling you that it's true is scaring you, and the power of your sin is scaring you.

Now, what you do with that fear today is this. You either stuff it down, repress it, and keep living in the day, or you come forward, not to me, because I can't do nothing for you except show you in the

Word of God where you can truly find peace. I'm just one sinner showing another sinner where to find faith.

Guys, faith comes by hearing the Word of God. And if you're in this room today and you're not 100 % sure that you're going to heaven when you die, you need to get that stuff.

And I ain't talking about walking down the aisle and praying some prayer, Jesus, come into my heart that's found nowhere in Scripture.

I'm talking about a true dedication of your life today. I'm giving my life to Jesus Christ no matter what.

If you have never done that and seen the effectual change of the Holy Spirit come into your life, you need to do that today.

Number two, if you are a Christian and you don't have that peace and you've gotten jacked up because you don't see

God's presence in your life and you don't know God's promises and you keep looking for things other than what's found in God's Word, you need some accountability and education.

Good news for you is that's what we specialize in. So if you're here today and that's you, come up here and go,

I need to join a church, I need some accountability, I need to get my head and butt wired right with Jesus.

We can help you, okay? Last thing is this, if you're in this room today and you just need some prayer, you just need some encouragement, that's okay.

That doesn't make you weak. If you're tired, it don't make you weak. If you're beat up and you've got wounds and you need someone to help bind them, that doesn't make you a sissy.

That just means you've been in a fight. That's what another thing a church is for, is to help bind up wounds.

Whatever it is this morning, I'm going to ask you to actually minister. If you have no business up here, then go as a

Christian and find someone in the room that needs ministry. But whatever it is, I'm going to ask you to stand with me and as the pastors come forward, if God has spoken to you, you come this morning as God leads.

Be a leader. Husbands, that means you're the first guy up and the last guy down. You know what husbands you don't have a right to do?

Is to say, I don't know or I can't. You figure it out. You figure it out.

Well, it's just so tough. Hike up your skirt, you know. Put your hair in a ponytail and man up.

Okay? Feel them knobs on your back and understand it's a spine. Use it. They went to work.