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Palm Sunday
But I think one of the few things that sometimes I miss is to realize that God has given us this day. And if we're not careful about it, he don't have to give us no more. And I want to read to you from Revelations and then we're going to talk about a few stories here.
But. Revelations 21 1 through 7 and I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of the heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.
He said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all of this and I will be his God and he would be my son.
First one describes a very powerful point here. Final judgment. We talked about a little bit what happens in final judgment. I want you to understand that God's word is eternal, but this earth and the heavens are not.
They will pass away. Nothing we've built here, nothing we grow here, nothing we do here will ever last forever. But what we have done for God and raised up to heaven will last forever. Okay. In Romans 8 22 Paul said, we know the whole creation has been groaning and pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
I want you to understand God is not going to try again to do it right. He's going to finish what he started. My God is a God of hope and a God of love, but he's also a just God. Now we're talking about, we talked about hell last week, but we're going to talk about some heaven this week because that's a good place.
Okay. Let's, let's hope for that. Let's, let's be in there. We are not people without hope. Not because of anything you've done or I've done or anybody does. I sometimes get tickled at some of these preachers that come up and says, oh yeah, I said we had so many people.
I saved so many this time and they patting theirself on the back and I'll be looking at them going like, I ain't saved nobody. David can't save nobody, but I know somebody, okay. I know a guy. I'm just telling you.
And I want you to understand what heaven will be. I don't care how much you have cried, how many tears you have shed or how little tears you have shed. They're going to be gone. There's no more sorrow, no more pain, the pain of life, no more pain and hurt.
Not just physical pain, but mentally anguish. There's going to be joy beyond anything you can imagine. And it's gonna, I know they talk about, well, there's an old story, but this guy who said he wanted to go to heaven and he was taking stuff with him.
So he had his little bag as he stood at the gate and St. Peter looked down and says, what's in the bag? He said, precious stuff. I figured I'd need it up here. And he opens it up and he looks in it and it's gold bars.
St. Peter said, why'd you bring pavement? Do you realize the things we think are important here on this earth? Pale in comparison to what we're going to find in heaven. Now we talked about Lazarus a little bit last week.
If we go back to Luke 16, there was a poor man named Lazarus and there was a rich man. And Lazarus laid at his gate just hoping to get some of the breadcrumbs that fell from this man's table and riches.
But he couldn't. In fact, Lazarus was covered with sores. It was so bad, even the dogs would come and lick his sores. You ever have the feeling that, well, let's put it this way. Have you ever been kicked when you're down?
Several of us have. And when you hurt so bad and somebody comes along and steps on the last nerve you got, what happens? We bristle up and we get ready to fight. And I, as a marriage counselor, I see the bristling up coming and I hear the words and the fights coming.
And sometimes they can get very snarky. Y 'all been like that married? Certainly not. I know that. I know better than that. But you know what? There's going to be peace, absolute peace. And if I don't tell you anything more, get that.
You're going to have peace. Not a world full of pain and toil and suffering. Not old age. Not anything. It's going to be perfect. Just like the Garden of Eden was. So I'm going to warn everybody here.
If you see a tree and they say stay away from it, stay away from it. I'm just letting you know. But we take so many things for granted here on this earth. And we enjoy things, yes. And I'm not telling us not to.
But everything here will be gone one day. We'll be gone one day. Now, we can talk about the rapture another time. I'm not going to get into that. That's some deep theology there. But I'll tell you this.
There comes a time when Jesus is going to come back and call us. At the last trump, we will hear the trump blow. And we will be those that are dead in Christ first will rise. And then the rest of us, poof, gone.
Twinkling of an eye. We will be changed. How fast does your eye twinkle? I'm getting old. Mine don't twinkle much. In fact, I lost my glasses this morning, so I had to get my spare pair of glasses to find my glasses.
Y 'all ever have that happen? I thought to myself the other day, I said, how bad is it? I'm getting, I mean, I know I've had some senior moments, and I know I've had a couple strokes. But I was walking into a room, and I forgot what I was going for.
So I said, well, let me go back to where I was and try to figure out what I was doing. But then as I walked down the hall, I forgot where I was. And then I forgot what I was doing. And then I said, well, now, wait a minute.
I went back to the, was I supposed to go over, I don't, I was so lost, I was mixed up as a milkshake. And I'm sitting there going like, where, I hate to tell on myself as bad, but where are my glasses?
I can't find them. Donny, have you seen my glasses? Yes. Oh, OK. Thank you. Isn't it amazing how wives know where everything's at, and we lose everything? I think, I really think sometimes you ladies just move it a little ways away from where we put it, just to watch us hunt for it.
OK? I may be wrong. We can argue about that afterwards. But I'm here to tell you that there is a choice to be made today. It is not a choice that you can put off. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth.
Holy City, city of Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, prepared for His bride, which is the church. Now, a lot of us sometimes will get intimidated, and the image of God gives us, but gives us something not to worry about.
It gives us a marriage symbol. Some of y 'all have been married a long time. We're coming up on 44? 44, I got it right that time. OK. Some of y 'all have been married longer than that. But you know something?
I don't think I'll ever forget. Now, I've done a lot of weddings, but I've only been in one. And I will never forget standing up there with the preacher, and the music starts, and everyone stands, and the doors open, and there's Donna.
That very young woman that I married had long hair, came down the aisle in a wedding dress, and it was beautiful. I sat there, and I'm sitting there going like, man, I almost want to run down there and beat her.
But you know something? Marriage is only an image of what God has in store for us in heaven. Do you realize we're going to know the saints? We're going to know Noah. So if you want to tell him about the flood in 95, be careful.
I'm just telling you. OK? Yeah, it was bad, but I'm just saying. Yes, indeedy. We had coyotes. We had to go out and deal with wild coyotes. Daniel's there. Be careful. But you see, the point of it is, is that nothing on the face of this earth, whether we survive it or not, remember Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, thrown into the fire?
Wait a minute. Didn't he throw three? And I see four in there. They're walking around. Come on. Come on out of here. Not even the smell of smoke on them. Because they were gods. We were talking about being all in.
How many of us are? Not many. Not many of us. We think we're in. We think we're doing good. But are we really? What do we get out of it? What are we getting out of being at church? Do you come to worship God?
I'll tell you what. I've been in churches where they were only there to do business. I couldn't do that. We come together to worship God, to honor his presence in our lives, his spirit. The future of eternity will usher in ultimate peace, and eternal peace.
All pain and fear is gone. Amen to that. Can you imagine all fear, all pain, everything is gone. We won't fear the future because the future is forever. We won't fear what somebody's going to do, or how things are going to affect us.
You won't have to be afraid that your kid's going to go down the wrong path. He will wipe away every single tear. No more fear. No more death. No more mourning. No more crying. But let me tell you what's not there.
Not in heaven. Never will be. Death is not there. Doesn't exist in heaven. No more death. You know, I've gotten to that age now when I see most of my relatives is at a funeral. Isn't that sad? But it's true.
It happens. No more sorrow. Shame and guilt are taken away. Fear. It just becomes a shadow. But those things are all part of this life. God wrote into John's heart, Jesus, we're told, bore the cross for joy that was set before him.
Ah! I don't think hanging on a cross, being nailed to it would be joyful, would you? But he did it for the joy of saving us. Now, I'll go back to verse 1. It says, no more sea. First, that may seem kind of depressing for those of you that like the sea.
I personally am not much on the sea simply because there are sharks and carnivorous fish out there would look at me like a snack. OK? With leftovers. You'd have to box them up and take them home. But in ancient times, the sea was a very frightening place because if you went too far away from the land, you'd be lost.
And in that day, they had sea monsters and they had superstitions and they didn't have the ability to guide themselves like we do today. So the sea was a terrible abyss of nothing but pain and struggle and trying to work in it.
And hopefully, you wouldn't die. So when he says there's no more sea, don't think there's no more ocean. Think that there's no more fear of the sea. There's no more being lost at sea. No more ships capsizing, going down.
Because we won't need to. It won't even be any night there. Well, that seems kind of sad because I like to go out and look at stars. But you know what? We won't need a sun either because the sun's going to be glowing from God.
I mean, it is beyond our ability to use words to express. How happy were you when you first had a child? Remember that looking at that little baby? Little itty bitty baby. Ours was what? Four pounds, three ounces or something like that?
It was a little baby. I mean, you know. They were worried that she wouldn't, you know, get used to anybody or have that, you know, familiar thing. And I'm sitting in there holding this little itty bitty tiny baby in my one hand, head here, little feet dripping off of here, dropping off here and with a bottle feeding her.
Because that was my daughter and I was going to do whatever she needed to be done. Same way with your kids. And I don't, it don't make no difference whether they're grown and married or they are still at home.
Kids are kids, always. They'll never change. I once said to my mom, I said, it's hard to believe I'm 50. She said, you think it's hard for that? I've got a son that's 50. I'm like, well, okay. But do you realize there's, one of the things, and I've talked, I've been at a lot of people's bedside when they're passing.
And I've talked to so many hospice nurses and all of them tell me the same thing. Just before they go, they start seeing relatives coming to gather them and said, I'll be back because I'm coming to get you soon.
Be ready. And I've also seen people scream bloody murder for what they saw. But that was last week. The point of it is we wave palm branches today because Hosanna, Hosanna, the King's coming. He's here.
He's with us. Jesus, we're looking for him to save us. Oh, but they were so short-sighted. Oftentimes we are too. By the next week, the same people that were throwing palm branches down and everything else were screaming crucify him, crucify him because he wasn't the Messiah they were looking for.
What are you looking for? Are we looking for that person that meets all the check marks on your page? The only one that could ever meet all the check marks is God, okay? Jesus. And in your heart, you have to have a love for him.
You know, that's how we get through tough times because of the spirit that's in us and our church family. That's how we struggle. I'm not saying this is going to be an easy life, but I'm telling you what comes after it will be worth it.
Momentary problems here will equal an eternity of love. I can't imagine, this is a song that says will I dance and all that stuff. I'm sure that I will fall flat on my face and kiss the ground, especially if they're going to raise me through the air because I don't like to fly.
You ever heard of that? Think about that. I had one preacher told me one time, he said, I'm going to move, he said I want the parsonage or wherever I'm going to live at, I want it between two people that are sinning.
So when the rapture comes, I'm going to grab him by the neck and I'm going to go on about halfway up in there and say, yeah, I want to get saved. You want me to let go? Now, that's not the way to do it, but I'm going to tell you something.
I bet you every one of you here know somebody that is not accepted. Christ knows someone that needs to. Well, I'll say baptism, but even that you don't have to do the acceptance of Christ. Yes, Christ.
Yes, Jesus. I want you as my savior. It says if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that he was raised from the dead, he is ours and we become his. But so many people just give him lip service.
Sounds good. I've seen people in church speak Christianese. Y 'all ever heard Christianese? It's a word you can't, it's, theologically it's right, but nobody knows what it means. It's like 50 cent words when I can use a five cent word.
Some amount of penny words. It don't matter. I'm just a redneck. But I'm going to tell you something. I've seen what God can do. I've seen how much I should be dead. Several of us in here probably should be dead.
And I don't I don't mean that I'm healthy in all the ways. I got two new two fake knees and one of them is hurting. I got had a valve replacement and that got infected. So they had to go in twice. I've had surgeries.
I don't know what was it about 12 or 13 surgeries. I know it. But but I get I do have plates and screws in my neck. So if she says I've got to screw loose, it might be real. I'm just saying. But you know what?
None of that matters. Because we are going to be changed in the twinkling of an eye and given a glorified body just like Christ. Now, I've had people ask me, will we know each other? Will I know Donna?
Yes, I will. Will she be my wife? No. But I'll remember it. I'll remember the good times we shared. I'll remember all the things we went through. But at that point in time, we're going to be standing there around the throne singing a song and being happy.
I don't know what song we're going to be singing. Might be Jesus loves me. But whatever it is, it's going to be good. Can you imagine if you think the people singing here on this earth is good? Wait till you get to heaven.
Choirs heavenly. I guarantee you. But, you know, I guarantee there's people here right now that are on the borderline. Don't want to fully commit to Christ. Don't want to let go. I got news for all of you.
If you think you're invincible, you think you got time. It doesn't mean that you feel like I'm good. I'm young. I can do this. And when we all young, we all bulletproof. Right. But you know what? I found out I ain't so bulletproof as I get older.
All them little things I did when I was stupid and young and now hurt. But we feel like I got plenty time. How much time do you have? You don't know. None of us do. I may not make it home. I may not make it through the rest of this service if God doesn't want it.
Because the only reason I'm breathing right now is because he wills it. The only reason I'm alive right now is because he wills it. And many of us, we say we believe in God. Oh, I believe. I've heard this so many times.
Oh, I believe in God. Yes, so does Satan. What does that mean? Nothing. Well, I've read the Bible. But can you live the Bible? No. Well, I've read. I've read enough in there that I understand a lot of it.
Most of it and some of it. And really, let's try it. Are we good people? Does being a good person going to get you into heaven? No. And by total lie, little lie, little white lie. If you have your lie, you ever took something that wasn't yours.
You ever see a penny or something on the ground and picked it up and stuck it in your pocket or a pencil that wasn't yours. That's thievery. You ever gotten married to anybody. Those of you that are married don't have to answer that one because I know the answer.
OK, if you've been married more than 10 minutes, I know you've had a fight with somebody. OK, but I'm just I'm laughing at it because, you know, the Bible says that when we fight and when we're angry at somebody, it's the same as murder.
You ever looked at lustfully at somebody now? I know ladies are much more subtle about it, but now be honest. We all do. Come on. Comes with the territory. Guys are very obvious. Whoa, ladies, turn your eyes.
You ain't gonna turn your head, but you turn your eyes and look. Oh, my. But you know something? The Bible says if we have ever lusted after someone, it's the same as adultery. So right now we're lying, thieving, adulterous, murderous.
That's only four of the Ten Commandments. Want to try for the other six? You can't get there by being good. You can't buy your way into heaven. That has been tried before. People have, oh, I do so good and I've helped out so many people.
I've done all these things. Great. Fantastic. But it's the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And if you put anything in front of that, it's idolatry. I don't care what it is. People, places, things, stuff. It's all going to be gone one day.
I realize the importance of all the things that Donna and I have. When Amanda was born, it was great. We wanted to have a big house and have family and everything. Donna had complications. Twenty-seven years later, it's just Donna and I.
And you know something? The house, the cars, all the things that we've ever had mean nothing. I used to get so mad when Amanda would slam doors. Oh, it made me so mad. In fact, I wanted to take the door off the hinge.
In fact, I did one time. Slam that, go ahead, find out. But you know what? I'd give anything for her door to slam right now. Just bam! Whoo! She's mad again. But God has taught me that there's always hope.
We have the hope. We're together. We're still here because we had God in our marriage. If you haven't put God in your marriage, if you haven't put Him in your soul, if you haven't put Him in your heart, let me tell you something.
Don't walk out that door. Because we're coming up on Easter, the day that makes a difference. It's not that Jesus hung on the cross. A lot of men hung on the cross back in the Roman days. But Jesus rose again.
And I'm going to tell you something. That is the one thing, I don't care what other, I've studied just about every religion there is, if it's been written in English. None of them have that. They can show you where Mohammed's buried.
They can show you where, well, they don't really know where Confucius is. He just wandered off in the desert. But almost every one, they can find the burial place. But Jesus, it's an empty tomb. And yes, they do know where he was buried.
In fact, you can go there. You can't go into it, but you can go there and see it. The tomb is empty. And one day, one day, he's going to call us. And we're gone. It is an appointment you're not going to miss when he calls you to heaven.
And he's going to blow the trumpet and say, come up. I'm just hoping I make it. Because the truth of it is, I can live for God every day, but if I'm not doing it for the right reasons, it doesn't amount to me anything.
And I know most of you in here gave your life to Christ. I don't know how many years ago. Probably did it as a child. But I'm going to tell you right now, it will be peace, not power. The old system's gone.
Peace and love will reign. Peace and love struggles. It's the ultimate source of power, and that is God himself. The future of eternity is being united with God forever. Verse 5 and 7, he said to me, it is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty, I will give a drink without cost, from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all of this, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.
And God says, son, daughter, child, this glorious place is for you. I'm going to prepare a mansion for you, and one day I'm going to come back and get you. I bet y 'all got some big mansions up there, because I'm going to tell you something, it's going to be a place where you can't, you don't want to miss.
And if you got any hesitation, anything in your body right now that's saying, I want to stay here, I got to hold on to this, I got to hold on to that, then I'm going to tell you something, you're not really there yet.
So don't leave without yielding and giving God what he deserves, which is all things. He owns it all. We don't own anything. And if you think you're tough like I used to think I was tough, let a little flu bug hit you, lay you in the bed and you can't move, and you can't even see it.
The first time I ever went with Donna to a beach, first time I'd ever been to a beach, I walked out in the water and I stepped on a sand shark, and he bit me. He wasn't but that big. But that little dude had razor blades in his mouth.
Man, it hurt. And I was so mad, he was swimming away, I was chasing him and blood was flying up in the water, and I kept going out after him, I said, You coming home with me, you do that to me. And then I thought, Mama might be out here, I better go back.
Well, you know what? If we understood what awaits us, we wouldn't hesitate to follow God. But instead, we're out here chasing sharks in the middle of the ocean, bleeding. That's what the world gives us.
God gives us peace and joy that nobody can take away. I don't care what they do to you. I don't care how bad they will attack you. Being a preacher, I have been in the fishbowl. If y 'all don't know what that is, that's every preacher is in the fishbowl.
Everybody's watching you, your family. You know what I'm talking about now. No, not really. Okay. Well, everybody wants to know what the preacher and his family's doing, but don't want the preacher to know about what they're doing.
I have gone into houses where there's nothing but fighting and fuming and turmoil, and that is not the way God wants us to live. I've gone into houses that seem to be perfectly at peace, but yet they couldn't quote a scripture if they had to.
I'm not saying you have to be a Bible scholar, but I am saying this, learn what God really wants. He is our God, a living God. And one day he's coming back for you. Now, this is probably one of my last sermons for a little while.
Got some other people coming in. I might be back just to cause trouble. Trust me, if I ain't up front and ain't got the microphone on, I'll be causing trouble. I guarantee you. But you are a very welcoming and loving group of people.
I've been in a lot of churches and preached for a lot of different places, and I have to say that this is one of the nicest group of people I've ever met. Y 'all are huggers, and I like that. Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God. I'll tell you something. You hug people because they're part of your family. You love them. Even if you're mad at them, you love them. Now, that sounds strange. You ever been married, you get mad at your spouse, but you still love them?
Donna said nobody going like, yeah, I ain't going to say nothing, but yeah. Yeah. Love is an action. And when God loves us, he is giving us a freedom that this world cannot give. Yeah, we're still stuck here.
But there's so many people out there that have not heard the word of God, that have not heard Christ. Sometimes you are the only Bible that somebody will see. Am I perfect? No, not perfect. I try to tell Donna I'm good looking, but she don't believe that either.
But I will tell you this. I've been walking with him for a long time now. Jesus is a hard man to follow. He's a hard man to walk with because he has demands. But you know something? I found it a better journey than going on my own.
And I will sit here and tell you flat out. Every single time you try to play God, you will fail 100 percent of the time because we're not God. We don't get up in the morning. We get up in the morning.
We still run trying to get to work, trying to fix breakfast. The demons come out on Sundays. Let me tell you something. If they can stop you from coming to church, they're going to find a way to do it.
But God is here wherever two or more gathered. He's right here in the midst of us. You need to get right with him. Don't leave until you are right. I can show you how to do it. It's real. But I can't do it for you.
I've seen people that you probably would pass by and look at them and go like they ain't worth my time. I've come to find out that there is nobody that is not worth my time because God gave me his time.
Being a church member is not about coming and just absorbing whatever is being given. As we mature, we start teaching. As we grow, we start leading other people. Whether it's young people or older people, it doesn't matter.
And I'll tell you something. I will say this. There's a lot of churches I've been in. But I have to admit I'm proud of you guys. You've got a good church. You know what you're doing. You're willing to have people here to step up and do stuff, even the ones that have to chase me with the camera.
And I found the perfect spot to go over here, right over here. And I'm behind the thing to the camera. So I've been trying to stand more still. I can't stand still. Stiller, I guess. I can't stand still.
But he's up there trying to adjust it now because I moved on him. God love all of you. We are headed into this Easter season. This season of shouting Hosanna, Hosanna. He's coming. I've got news for you.
We're not careful. The world will be making us shout crucify him, crucify him come next week. The is it in the bullet in the time of the sunrise. OK, good. Because I don't know. Look, it's whenever the sun comes up.
That's my theory. Seven. OK, good. Seven. And then breakfast afterwards. OK. And then I'll crawl. I see. Find me a pew. I can lay on and go to sleep because I'll be tired by then. Thank God for all of you.
And I know sometimes this life is hard. Let me tell you something. A phone call from a doctor can change your life in a heartbeat. A phone call in the middle of the night can make everything in your life turn around and upside down.
OK. And believe me, I've been there. Do not. Do not leave unless you know your heart is right with God, because every day we have to give it to him and you.