Why Is the House of God Forsaken — Steve Zehr

Why Is the House of God Forsaken — Steve Zehr

Well, it was already a blessing to be here, you know, there's something very cleansing about a confession, Sister Sierrica. And I just want to say, you know, and we get into these murky situations where, you know, like we were talking about Sunday school, where we hardly know sometimes the difference between a life of sin and I really want out of it, but I'm not, I'm not just above this thing.

And I'll tell you what, you just keep repenting and confessing and repenting and begging God. And God's going to be honest with you if you're honest with God. And I think it'll become more clear, you know, and I still struggle with things.

I believe, you know, I get out on the road and constantly I think that the Spirit of God made the motto, impatience possess your soul, my motto for this summer. I believe I'm the most impatient person in this building, but I'm going to keep repenting of that and keep confessing it to my wife, to my little boy until God changes something in my life.

I believe it's a life of repentance that we need to live. God is faithful. Well, I want to go on to Nehemiah chapter 13. This is the last chapter of Nehemiah and I think that I'll kind of wrap up this study here.

The Four Reasons the House of God Is Forsaken

I have four points and I thought, seriously, I need to preach on all four of those points, just a separate sermon on each point, but I'm trying to move along and kind of combine this all and hopefully I can do a good job and a gentle job.

I could spend one whole sermon just trying to be gentle and preparing you for some of these things. I feel like I need to say, but I want you to know that I'm here in love and so I just need to get to the point and move on.

I'm going to read Nehemiah chapter 13. I'm going to read up one that's a little bit long and I want you to follow along if it's possible for you. Try to just absorb this and we might refer back to it.

We might not, but at least in the text here, but I'll refer back to it for sure just in the sermon, but we'll try to get the picture of what's happening here in this last chapter of Nehemiah. Okay, so it says there in Nehemiah chapter 13, on that day, they read in the book of Moses and the audience of the people and there must sound written that the Ammonites and the Moabites should not come into the congregation of God forever because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them that he should curse them.

How be it our God turned the curse into a blessing. Now it came to pass when they heard the law that they separated from Israel, all the mixed multitude and before this Eliashib the priest having oversight of the chamber of the house of our God was allied unto Tobiah and he had prepared for him a great chamber where a fourth time they laid the meat offerings, the frankincense, the vessels, the tithes of the corn and the new wine and the oil, which was commanded to be given to the Levites and the singers and the porters, not offerings of the priest.

But in all this time was I not at Jerusalem for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon came into the king and after certain days obtained, I leave of the king and I came to Jerusalem and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God and it grieved me sore.

Therefore I cast out all this household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded and they cleansed the chambers and brought again the vessels of the house of God with the meat offering and the frankincense and I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them for the Levites and the singers that did the work or fled everyone to his field.

Then I contended with the rulers and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered them together and set them in their place and brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and oil into the treasuries and I made treasuries over the treasuries.

Shalia, Maya, the priest and Zadok, the scribe of the Levites, and next to them was Hanan, the son of Zakor, the son of Madaniah, for they were counted faithful in their offices to distribute them to their brethren.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for the offices thereof. In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and laden asses as also wine, grapes, and figs and all manner of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

And I testified against them in the day wherein they sold vitchels. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein which brought fish and all manner of ware and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah and in Jerusalem.

Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do and profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us upon this city?

Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. Then it came to pass that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath.

Some of my servants said I of the gate that there should be no burden be brought in on the Sabbath day. So the merchants and sellers of all kinds of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified against them and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall?

If ye do so again I will lay my hands on you. From that time forth they came no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day.

Remember me, O God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy. In those days also saw I the Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, and Ammon, and of Moab, and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jewish language, but according to each language of each people.

And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet among them nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

Shall we then hearken unto you, to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives? Now one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib, the high priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite.

Therefore I chased him from me. Remember them, O my God, because they defiled the priesthood, and covered the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites. Then crowned I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests, and the Levites, and everyone in his business, and for the wood offerings, and at times appointed, and for the firstfruits.

Remember me, O my God, for good. Okay, we get the title for this message in verse 11, and that is, Why is the house of God forsaken? The question Nehemiah had for the people, I want to do a little bit of history just briefly.

The Restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple

We'll go back to the time when Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar came down and destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple. This was in the last chapter of 2 Corinthians, right before Ezra. And you see that Nebuchadnezzar came down and destroyed it.

By the time you get to Cyrus, Cyrus was the next king there. And it says that the spirit of God stirred in this king, this great monarch, and he said these words. He said to the Jewish people, he said, Who is there among all you, his people?

Beautiful words of this heathen king that was capturing the people of God, but the spirit of God had him say these things. Who is there among you of all his people? And he said, His God be with him. Let him go to Jerusalem and rebuild the house of the Lord.

And you know the story there. You don't get very far into Ezra, the book of Ezra, maybe the third chapter, and they've rebuilt the temple, they've rebuilt the place of worship for God. And it says that by the time you get to Nehemiah chapter 9, Ezra got up there on that pulpit of wood and he began to preach the law to those people and they began to see what it was that caused the captivity to begin with.

And these people all repented of this awful sin that they had done. They could see themselves. And it says that God gave them his good spirit within these people. And they made vows and commitment in verse.

They made promises to God in verse 10 of Nehemiah. They said, you can just imagine these people, you know, they're excited with this what's happening. And they said, we will not forsake the house of God.

What grand words they had to say. We will not forsake the house of God. Never again will this happen to us. And by the time you get to chapter 13, this last chapter we read, nice new church, nice new city.

And Nehemiah comes back and he says, why is the house of God forsaken? Why? He had just left for a few years. He went back to the king, back to Babylon, and he comes back a few years later and he says, why is the house of God forsaken?

I'm sure these were a busy people. I'm sure they had lots of stuff to do. They had grapes to press, they had sheaves to carry in, they had all manner of things to haul around on their donkeys. They were an extremely busy people.

They had all kinds of important business that needed to be done. And I'm sure that somehow it never occurred to these people that they had ever neglected the house of God. There they sat inside of this brand new city, inside of this brand new church, and somehow it never occurred to them that they may have forsaken the house of God as the number one priority in their life.

Forsaking the House of God in Priority

That's the first thing I'd like to think about in this chapter. I have four points of why the house of God is forsaken. He's forsaken in priority. And that can be in our lives. That can be on the church level.

But the house of God was forsaken with these people in priority. You see that it led to so many other sins. It led to them marrying other people. It led to them doing all kinds of things on the Sabbath day.

And when Nehemiah came and asked these people this question, Why is it that the house of God is forsaken? I don't suppose that until this moment it even crossed their minds that maybe the house of God was forsaken.

They didn't even realize it. They had just built the house of God. If you go back into Nehemiah, you see how they had defended the house of God. You see how they had been so regimented in their defense of the house of God.

They wore a sword and you know how they built the wall and they all did their jobs. And now here they were in their brand new building. And somebody's asking, Why aren't you here? Why aren't you doing what you're supposed to do?

And so here the religious of that day didn't even realize that they had abandoned God's house, God's purpose, God's plan for their life. And maybe it'll surprise us as a contemporary people of God. I think it should surprise us a little bit with that question.

If you think about all the activity that we have as a people at times, our ordinations, our baptism, our almost monthly integration of more people into our midst, our talk about outreach, our track passing out.

And perhaps it would come as a surprise to us if the Lord God Almighty would come down, if Jesus Christ would come back to earth. And He'd come into our midst in the midst of all this activity. And He'd say to us, Why is the house of God forsaken?

And that happens when God isn't number one priority in our life. When God isn't number one priority in the midst of all your busyness, your plans, your interests, all that you have to do. And there's a very real possibility that the house of God is forsaken in your life.

And you and I should stand in amazement. This chapter, this last chapter of Nehemiah should serve notice to the people in America, to the Mennonites of America, that God is not fooling around, that just because we have so much going on, that we have so many plans, that we can go out and pass out tracks, that we can be busy all the time.

It should serve notice to us that God expects His people to keep Him number one in their life at all times. You know, I was thinking that after all that we went through, all the busy summer. Well, busy summer aside, I'm thinking for myself, busy in my mind as I thought about Romania.

As earlier, we went through all the outreach activity, and you know, people are still trying to sort that out. As you've come all from Harrisburg, and all manner of, all over, you know, from Valley, from all the places you've come from as churches.

With all this going on, have you felt closer to God? Have you felt like you've had more time to do the truly important things that God wants you to do than you did before? Or do you just feel busier? And sometimes, you know, when I stand still for a moment, and I just watch all the activity, all the noise, all the thunder and lightning that goes on, and I wonder, are we really accomplishing God's purpose?

Okay, for you, are you really finding more peace in your walk with God than you used to have? You know, our churches are full. Praise God for that, I guess, you know, but our churches are full of people.

Leonard Ravenhill said this, he said, you know, he said Sunday morning attendance tells us how popular the church is. Sunday evening attendance tells us how popular the preacher is. And Wednesday evening attendance tells us how popular God is.

Praise God we have such a popular church in Tangent, Oregon. Praise God you have such popular businesses and popular houses and popular vacations. Praise God you wear such popular clothes. But I wish we had a popular God.

You know, the most popular, and it's amazing to me when I think about it, the most popular athlete in Beijing, China this year was a man that was on trial for rape just a few years ago. In a land that denounces anything to do with Christ, Kobe Bryant was the most popular athlete in Beijing.

And I wonder what's the most popular thing in your life? What is the most popular thing in your life? Why is it that we feel more pressure sometimes? I just want to ask you, why do we feel as a congregation more pressure to support the church than we do prayer?

More pressure to support the church school than we do prayer? You know, if we made that a requirement that we had to be at prayer meeting to go to church. And here again, I'm not talking about maybe just you know, this is what Leonard Ravenhill observed this.

I'd like to think of that even as a broad doubt in worship in your heart. You know, we do find that in 1 Corinthians 2 when the captives had come, one of the judgments that came upon them was because they ignored this part about the Sabbath day keeping.

And we find that so prominent now as Nehemiah comes back in this last chapter that he said for every I guess it was for every year, every day that you skip the Sabbath that you did not make me a priority in your life, the land's going to rest.

The land's going to be at ease for every year that you didn't do this. And they had built up a tremendous deficit and for 70 years they got to remember what all had happened. They got to remember how they had violated I suppose that would equate to 700 years of violating this principle of keeping God number one in your life.

But I want to ask you, brothers and sisters in the church, what kind of deficit, when I look across the church in America today, when I look at my life and your life and we look at our churches, what kind of deficit are we preparing for ourselves?

What kind of deficit do you have in your life of keeping Christ number one in your church? And for 70 years that laid deficit. And I wonder what the bride of Christ, what the deficit is going to be. You know, I would just like to say if we have that inner childish joy that we missed another church service, you're playing a game.

You're playing the devil's game. Somewhere around 12, 13, 15, you need to get over that. And I miss church. I miss church. But I'll tell you what, we need to have a desire to be with the people of God.

We really do. Forsaken in prior to. Second thing I'd like to put, point number two here, is that these people were a lusting people. We see that. We don't get very far into this problem of the people going into captivity.

Forsaking the House of God in Commitment

And we find out that one of the major problems was that they were a lusting people. Just like the generations before them in Nehemiah. And for the millennia that has been after them, these people, like all of us, they had this terrible, strong desire for other things in their life.

They could never stay within the parameters that God planned for them. Just like Eve, Adam and Eve. All of us are that way, but these people somehow could not maintain a disciplined life when it came to what God had laid out for them.

And somehow these pretty ladies of the nations around them, even though they had been warned and told. In fact, when Ezra came back to build the temple, the Jews that were left there that hadn't gone into captivity, this was one of the first things that Ezra had corrected among these people.

You've got to get rid of your strange wives. And now we get back, just a few short years later, after they've built the temple, after all they've gone through, they're right back at this same game. And I'm guessing these people, Nehemiah used an example, but I'm guessing these people, these young men, these older men, these lustful men, I'm guessing they knew about Solomon.

They knew about his 700 wives and 300 concubines. They knew that he was the wisest man that ever lived and he was beloved of God and there was no king like him in all the nations round about. And I suppose they somehow decided that if Solomon could do it, there'd be some way they could get by with it.

But I'd like to let you think a little bit about Solomon. I don't know why on earth how a guy would get to the place where he has 700 wives and 300 concubines other than the fact that somehow the one that's coming next always looked a little better than the one that you just had.

And somehow he was never satisfied with committing himself to one. There was always something new out there. There was always something different. There was always a new wife, a new lover that he had to try out.

But there was never one husband, one wife relationship. Never any commitment in the life of Solomon. Wise man. Wisest man that ever lived and he could never get committed to anything. And I'd like to propose to you, dear people, this morning that the church of God in America is suffering in our people.

And the antipathetic is suffering from forsaken commitment. We are people that are not used to commitment. We don't like commitment. We want nothing to do with commitment. Wise men. And it constantly amazes me to no end as I see people.

Many of you out here are far superior in intelligence to I am. But these people that have been saved from sin, saved from drunkenness, saved from the world, saved from things that I have never experienced, saved from drugs.

And these people, in a matter of a few short months, know their Bible, their memories. They know doctrines of the Bible that I'm just now getting to. And you have people that know everything there is to know about church history.

You have people that know everything there is to know about the early church. You have people that know everything there is to know about all kinds of things. Doctrine. Wise men. But they don't know how to get committed to a body, a local body of Christ.

Forsaken in commitment. You say church membership won't save you. And I say, well, fine. You can say that, but talking down church membership isn't going to save you. Talking down the body of Christ isn't going to save you.

I have something here. The Anabaptists. Some of the things that separated the Anabaptists. And I see that there's quite a bit. This is especially one sermon. Or one point I could preach a whole sermon on.

So I'm going to have to move along here. But Robert Reitman, he wrote this. And he wrote a lot about the Anabaptists and different things. But he said this. Now then the central idea of Anabaptism, the real dynamite of the age of Reformation as I see it, was this.

That one cannot find salvation without caring for his brother. That this brother actually matters in the personal life. This interdependence of man gives life and salvation a new meaning. It is not faith alone which matters, for which faith no church organization would be needed.

But it is brotherhood, this intimate caring for each other as it was commanded to the disciples of Christ as a way of way to God's kingdom. That was a discovery that was made by Anabaptism so forcefully and outstanding in all of church history.

And many people find it convenient, very convenient, to never integrate themselves into the local body of Christ and still claim the fullness of Christ. But nowhere in the New Testament do you ever find that.

When they repented, they always made themselves a part of the body. They always made themselves one with the church that was there. To be a part of Christ is to be a part of Christ's body. If you're not a part of Christ's body, you're not a part of Christ.

And so what happened a few centuries later, what happened to fix this problem that many people perceive as an impure church? Pietism came out and I could preach another sermon on that because that is one of the most misunderstood doctrines that I know of.

But Pietism came out and that was people that were stuck in a dead church. You say, well, what should I do with that? Well, what they did, what the Pietists did, is they said, well, there can be no such thing as a pure church.

God knows who are His. You can raise the wheat with the tares. And so we're just going to be good Christians. God knows the hearts in this corrupt body. And so what they began to do is they coined the term the invisible church.

So I'm part of the invisible church. Many people don't even know what they're saying when they say that. And I get in these discussions about people that don't want to be a part of the church, they're part of the invisible church.

Let me tell you what the part of the invisible church is. The invisible church on earth is the visible church in hell. There's no such thing as the invisible church when it comes to Christ's kingdom. It is as visible as you are today.

Okay, so then we'll talk about the universal church. Okay? There's something called the universal church. I'd like to ask you how you can be part of the universal church if you're not part of the local church.

And we need to think about these things. The universal church is made up of people that are submitted and they're committed to each other. And basically what Robert Reitman was saying is that we're looking at Christianity.

We're looking at the bride of Christ as something that is so fundamentally important. It is crucial to your salvation. And the best way I can describe it is to say this. You say, I don't need to be a part of the local body to be a good Christian.

I just do it myself. I'm just part of the invisible church. I say, fine. There's people that went to heaven that were never baptized. Let me tell you something. You don't get baptized if you live in disobedience to the very clear directions of the Bible and you're not going to make it into the body of Christ.

And it's the same way when it comes to this local body that Christ so clearly set out. To be buried with him in baptism. I suppose that is one of the most unthought through, misunderstood doctrines in Christianity today is about baptism.

To get baptized without submission to the body is a close thing I can think of long term anyway. It's like being saved and not forsaken sin. I mean, you can pretend it's working for a while. But it's a fundamental, that's what it's all about, being put under, being dead to sell.

Where I'm not making my decisions anymore. It was the body. It was Christ. It was Christ in me. It's Christ in us. And if I can't get along with them, I'm not going to get along with God. And I'd like to challenge you.

We have a unique church here. And this is where I should be kind. And I want to be gentle. A unique setting going on here. I want to say I love that if long term you can stir around and mess around and influence and change and push and tug, never submit your own heart to the decisions that are made in the body of Christ.

You're a bad influence. You're a bad influence. I'd rather have ten people that came into this church that were not sure if this was exactly perfect. We're not sure. In fact, we're quite sure that there's a lot of things that could be changed than one man wiser than Solomon that could not commit and submit and bow his heart to the body of Christ.

As wise as Solomon. But I wonder if you love what God loved. I wonder if you're committed to what God's committed to. Solomon, a man beloved of God. A man, the Bible says, who's not a king before or after him like him.

And as wise as he was, this lack of commitment cost him a relationship with the bridegroom. And I just feel in my heart a deep sense that the heart of God grieves over the loss of such genius. We have so much to add.

You have so much to add with all that you know. And we fail in this one test of commitment. Point number three. In the ensuing aftermath of a project like this, I guess my brother Leland, some of you are in construction.

Me in farming, the intensity of the summer to try and get everything done. You know, after all the busyness and after all the construction sites have been picked up and cleaned up and the tractors washed up and put away, you know, it's just mighty nice to just relax a little bit and get the hot dogs out, build a fire, go on a trip.

It's just awful easy to just let down your guard and kind of do what you want to do and relax for a few days and take it easy. After all that regimented repetition, I think we went back to that when we talked about surrender, how in that one chapter of Nehemiah there, how it says, and next to him was doing this and next to him was doing this and next to him was doing this and next to him was doing this and next to him was doing this and next to him was doing this and next to him was doing this I don't know how many verses it says, and next to him, they had this thing go and you'd get this assembly line look.

And you know, it's mighty nice just to take a break. But it was easy for these people. And one thing they forgot is the discipline that had carried them all the way through the book of Ezra and Nehemiah and out of captivity and back to this wonderful sweet place in their relationship with God.

This same discipline that had brought them through all these troubles with their enemies and that long journey back from Babylon and across the river there, where they had to pray and trust in God and fast.

That same discipline that had got them there was the same discipline that was going to keep carrying them forward and make sure that they kept this relationship, that the house of God was not forsaken.

Forsaking the House of God in Discipline

But when Nehemiah came back, he found that there were so many things that had gone wrong. They had stopped cleaning the things. The people that were supposed to take care of the treasure had stopped doing that.

You know, everybody had just kind of relaxed. Forsaken in discipline. The whole place was starting to fall apart. Brand new building. Nobody was taking care of anything. They were all forsaken the house of God in their discipline of their lives.

They didn't keep the gate. That's one reason they were coming in on the Sabbath day. Forsaken in discipline. I wonder how it is in your own life. You know, in 1 Corinthians 10, there's a lot of good things that were given to us for examples.

One of the things, and I just want to pick out one of the things here, I feel is so prevalent in our church. We think about a church, a community, a nationwide denomination, forsaken the house of God in discipline.

And in 1 Corinthians 10, it says that why those people, you know, they were adulterers. These people sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. Just taking it easy. Just having a good time. I don't know.

Probably a lot of you heard about the wreck back east where that dad was truck driving his Kenworth truck. You know, he was driving late at night. He had two little boys, just my boys' age, you know, 11 and 6 or 8, late at night one day down the freeway.

Nice reefer. Nice Kenworth. 11 o 'clock. Get on the phone. I don't know what the children, maybe they're asleep in the bunk. And you know, you get out the phone and you begin to talk and you begin to laugh and you call up your buddies.

My wife, some of you might have went to Bible school with my wife, went to Bible school with this young man. He was a young man and I don't know his state. I heard me. I heard he was going through something.

They really were concerned about his soul, but the story is he began to, I don't know what happened. He began to laugh and something happened on the phone and it was so funny. You know, you laugh so hard after a while, you can't really get your breath.

And somehow this man, I guess he had done it before this man passed out. He, this, this big truck full of apples, 80 ,000 pounds drifts off the highway. I suppose little boys asleep up the bank, you know, where the overpass from the bank meets about half the size of a truck and there he stuck that thing fast, killed all three of them.

Literally laughed himself to death and I don't know where he is in eternity, but proverbially dearly beloved. Proverbially, I'm afraid we are a people that are laughing ourselves to hell and have no idea what we're doing because of forsaken and discipline.

You ever want, I thought many times since I wrecked, I thought, you know, I wonder what the joke was and what the joke was. I wonder what was so funny. You know what the joke is? You know, I think the joke is first Peter two, first Peter one, first Peter two verse 11 says this is dearly beloved.

I beseech you, a stranger, the pilgrims that you abstain from fleshly lusts that war against your souls. And we often think of these fleshly lusts, you know, drunkenness, pornography, drugs, but dearly beloved this morning, I believe that from the fleshly lusts that war against our souls, the people can be summed up in the first five verses of Proverbs 23.

And that is simply this, put a knife to your throat if you're given to appetite and labor not to be rich. And we think no matter what we do, we're the dearly beloved pilgrims that Peter's talking about.

But I'm afraid dearly beloved pilgrims that our, our cars, our trucks, our boats, our planes, our house, our vacations, our businesses, all these things, our activities stand as a mute testimony to the fact that we're a complaining grumbling.

We'd rather cry for what we want than die for who we love. You think of all the depression that's out there, all the murmuring, complaining, dissatisfied, forsaken and disciplined. Okay, so, so the church is dead and it's stuffy and it's got to leave.

It's a joke. Okay, so you have to leave. Don't leave for carnal things. Don't go to a church where they're going to give you more liberties. Don't find a church where you're going to have more freedom.

Don't do that. Like like somebody said, you're half dead already spiritually. Why would you do that? You don't even realize you're half dead spiritually when you get ready to do it. You got to go. You got to go get this.

You got to go get this. I got to get my music. I got to get my this. You're already half dead. Why don't you pick a church that allows you more things? Listen, you take your family, you take your children, you take yourself to church that allows you more liberties and more than nobody's ever saved their children by giving them more things.

You never saved your soul by allowing yourself less discipline. I'll tell you what the Bible says that he that has suffered in the flesh had feet from sin. Now I'm not talking about a works religion, but the early Christians believed this.

They were the persecuted one. It was very clear. Those that suffered in the flesh had feet. It's a Bible principle that works. And there's times, you know, when I really want something and I just have to wait one more summer.

I can buy it. And I don't know. I don't know where to put all those things, but there's time in my life and I lay down in my bed, my single double wide trailer, and I tell God, I'm so thankful that I don't have that thing yet.

There is something that pulls the heart towards heaven with a disciplined life. We need to remember that. And like I said, there's all kinds of people in this country. It's one of the things that bother me.