In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of choosing one's friends wisely and avoiding those who compromise their faith. The sermon encourages believers to distance themselves from godless friends and to pray for their salvation. The preacher also warns against the defiling influence of worldly entertainment, such as books, magazines, television, films, video games, and music, which are said to be 99% defiling and damning to the soul. The sermon concludes with a story about a broken relationship between a father and son, highlighting the consequences of sin and the need for forgiveness and restoration.

Thank you, good brother, for leading us with such a wonderful prayer. And thank you to the dear brother that led the singing tonight. I think he introduced himself yesterday as Cross, somebody Cross, but he's not always Cross. Something like that. There you are. Good to have a name like that. Inos Hostetler, who led just in this brief leading tonight, thank you sincerely for whatever part you had in arranging for me to come to this convention, this outreach. And also to Jim and Linda, I'll never be able to say their name in a thousand years, but their children are Peyton, Davis, Carolina, Catalina, Catalina, that's a lovely name. Okay, Diana and Bill. Good. I'll try. Bond, Fraga. I did it. And I'm from the jungle, so I came right. Well, bless you. It's been such a joy because of this dear pastor, or elder, I don't know how you would address yourself, but I bless God for you and for your elders, the men that stand with you, and most particularly, I would say, Enos, of the Faith Community Church, Shipshewana, Indiana. Now there you are, you know where you come from, and I'm learning. Thank you sincerely for inviting me. I am very unworthy of the privileges God gives me, and I am so grateful that if you knew the worship in my heart as I come to places like this, but the absolute privilege God's given me to see so many of God's people, of all cultures, of all languages even, if they can just grasp English a little, all colors, all different denominations or movements, somehow the godly of the godly of these movements and groups, for some reason ask me into their pulpit, I don't think I've ever been in the liberal church in my life, or have to preach anyway. I think the one time I managed to go in, I ran out before it started, of a liberal church, so I don't know too much about them, but for some reason God has given me the wonderful joy and privilege of being in many of the most esteemed and loved and revered pulpits across the world of the godly of the godly of the godly, and I am so conscious of that, and I am so grateful for your trust in me, even here in this corner of the vineyard, of Christ's vineyard. I do hope you let me come back. It's all in God's loving hands, but it would be a joy to come back and get to know you all more. I really would be delighted. If there's anyone I haven't said thank you to, that I should, forgive me. I would just like to mention that my wife's newsletter, that is also printed here in America by a dear brother, Don, Don Cravel, and sent out across this continent to many godly homes, many preachers, but it would be so nice of you to take a copy, just to follow what left of this this nine week, 10 week tour really, 10 weeks of meetings in these 17 towns, 14 states. I'm leaving tomorrow and going off to, to where? Oh yes, God's Missionary Church. That sounds exciting. Duncannon, Pennsylvania, Jeremy Fuller. He must be a good man with a name like that. So pray for us, then I'm going to meet up with my darling wife in Rhinelander in Wisconsin, where she addresses the ladies every year, and I address everyone in the night. And then of course we go on numbers of other places till the end of this month. Please take a copy, and if you'd like to receive this newsletter, you would honor me, and you would honor my family in praying for us soberly, knowing exactly where we are, and you're only a prayer away. I'm the other side of the world. You pray, God's working, and you know what to pray for, if you have this little newsletter. So you honor us if you put your name and address down, but only if you know you will do everything by God's grace to faithfully pray through that program. Otherwise it's wasted money from God's people. So please pray about that before you leave. Our brother mentioned, our brother Enos mentioned that he had attended Sermon Index conference down in, I don't know, Ohio, Ohio. But anyway, it was a lovely time, a lovely group from all over this nation, and I believe from other countries people came. And this young fellow who's got the Sermon Index website, I don't even know how to put a computer on. So I don't want to act like an authority, but I think he's done a good thing, this young man, Greg Gordon, tall man, oh, a bit fearful, but he's humble. And he started this for some reason, and he's got a following all across the whole world of the godly, the conservative Christians of all walks of life are just downloading all across the world sermons that many godly people have preached. And for some reason he's put me on those, a lot of the sermons I've preached over the years, and I'm very grateful. But there was one sermon that our brother, I think, was referring to of Psalm 51. When I preached there, only the one night they let me preach, I was perhaps going to preach it here. I'm not going to. It's just scriptures, which is 90% of what I do, is just quoting books of the Bible and scriptures over the years and years and years, just comparing scripture with scripture. But then every now and again I resort to some illustrations, such as I am tonight. But those of you that do have any access and know how to put a computer on, you would, I'd be very grateful if you would perhaps just download that message that I preached there, because I don't know if I'll ever preach that again in America anyway. I would be grateful, because that's what I live to do and love to do more than anything else is bring the Word of God, because he honors his Word above all things. So I do too. I try to. Nonetheless, think of that. Let's have a short prayer, please. Can we bow before the Lord, Jesus Christ. Our Father, thank thee that we can, as thy people, worship thee tonight for Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Thank thee that he dwells in our hearts. Thank thee that Christ lives his life through us, to what degree we are yielded to the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit's complete and full work is to glorify Christ, and to conform us back into the image that was lost at the fall, the image of God, that God created man in, marred and scarred and wounded and broken by sin. But O thou dost, by thy grace, through Christ in us, through the Holy Spirit, conform us back into the image of Christ, that our reactions, without any effort, no matter how trying the circumstances, reveal Jesus Christ's reactions, his words. We eventually have the mind of Christ, Paul says. We bless thee, that as thy children thou art busy with each one of us. Forgive us where we do not allow thee, to make Christ seen in our lives, beginning in the home. Have mercy, and give us the grace to, as never before at the end of this meeting and even during it, to seek God with every faculty of our being, every hope in our being and intellect, to have his full way and sway through us, while we have a moment in this earth, to serve him, to influence others to love him, and though we might not even be conscious to see him, living out his life through us, and be drawn to his salvation. Come Lord, and visit us now, protect us from the evil one, rebuke him away by the risen resurrected power of Christ, and by the Holy Spirit brewed now upon this building, upon all hearts, in Jesus the Christ's name, in Jesus the Saviour's name, the name that is above every name, in Jesus Christ's holy name, Amen. Last night and the night before, I brought a number of passages of scriptures as a foundation to illustrations, interwoven with other scriptures concerning hell, and in the night before, the delivering power of Christ, to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey. Now God allows me to do that, not often, to bring illustrations. I think it took a long time before God allowed me to start using illustrations. I haven't got much that I will change. My word shall not return unto me void, it shall accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. I hang on to that as I preach, as I leave a community, knowing that God promised that the effect of this word, the purpose of it, would not return unto him void, because he promised. So, tonight, I am not going to do either. I'm not going to speak the illustrations that I saw these young children, many of you, most of you didn't even move. I looked at some of you, the whole sermon, as I looked back, you hadn't moved, and your mouth was still open, and I'm grateful. But you will listen tonight, every one of you children, you little children. If Jesus is in you, if Jesus Christ is in you, if the Holy Ghost is in you, you are as gripped by the word of God as any grown-up who's been through this book many times. I'll tell you why. When God speaks and the Holy Spirit's in you, he makes you hang on to every word, understand every word. Maybe not the full revelation, but there's something of a feeding that God comes to the smallest child in groups like this. And that's why, young little boy, if Jesus is in you, you're not going to move. Well, and you little girl, you will not pick up a pen and draw a picture of me to give me at the end of this conference. But you will listen, and we'll pray for all of you that don't, because we'll know why. Now, I want you all to listen, because I'm going to preach in a way I seldom preach, but I want you to listen carefully, because for some reason, although I was going to bring something very different tonight, the Lord has laid this on my heart very deeply, I believe. So I said I will have to, Lord, put down that which I thought would be appropriate with so many children, and young people, and perhaps unconverted. I'm going to read passages most of you older people will quote, knowing your background. I'm going to read from Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament. And you're welcome to look, but if you don't want to, if you know these verses, you need just open your heart, because there's other passages following. But I want, as a foundation, to just consider some staggering words that this prophet wrote under God's guidance, as God spoke through him, to record that which God would say to his people in a very earnest way. In Malachi chapter 2, we read these deeply staggering words that God says concerning marriage, concerning a man and woman, concerning a man particularly, and giving revelation about something of marriage that nowhere else in the Bible do you really see this. But it's staggering, it's staggering to those of you that fear God and believe this is his word, his heart, his will for you, his purpose for your life. He says in verse 14, Yet he say wherefore, because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously. Imagine God having to say that to a man who once upon a time looked to God to witness that he was obeying God concerning what he was saying in his vows, concerning his wife for the rest of his life. And now God has to say this to the man, oh this is staggering, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously. Yet is she thy companion, literally she is thy companion, the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one a covenant in God's sight? Yet he had, had he the residue of the spirit, it's a complicated verse. There was something about his spirit that was controlled by God's spirit in the longing to fulfill God's word, God's will towards this woman all his life, for better or worse, sickness or health, to still have that grace. There was something in his heart as he made his covenant that was really true. There's a staggering depth to this verse and I wish I could go into the Hebrew and other verses, but I haven't time there. He had the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one, he comes back to speaking about the covenant that God's addressing now at your marriage ceremony, that he might seek a godly seed. Why did God call for a covenant, for you to enter into a covenant that's so deeply, deeply fearful for a man to enter into, or a woman for the rest of their lives, if you consider what God demands of marriage. Why did God bring about this covenant? Because a man's lonely? Because it's not good for a man to be alone, Adam? So I'll make someone to be a companion? No, no, that's not the purpose of marriage in God's eyes. The main singular purpose, you might think otherwise, brother, that he might seek from this union, from this covenant, godly children, godly offspring, godly seed. That is in the heart of God in this world, that because of you fearing him, he joins you together with one great purpose. Your first mission field before any soul on earth is your children, from the day they're born, something about the atmosphere they're born into, and while still in mother's tummy, something about the atmosphere and the love and nurture, and the peace that woman has, and confidence, and trust, and joy, everything, everything, everything influences a child. And God wants, from the moment you stand there before him, something to be developed, nurtured, related, that will bring children up in a godly way, that will make them know God, and love God, and fear God. He seeks from your union godly seed, godly children, literally in the Hebrew, from this union I seek godly children. That's why the covenant was established. You may say, for other reasons of purity, integrity, companionship, it's not good, you know, two are better than one. No, brother, your children. Bypass that, you've missed the mark. The other things have a reason, have a wonderful place, but this is it. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, you husbands that deal with your wife treacherously. God doesn't play the fool with words, and there's people sitting here tonight that are guilty, sitting with a Bible. Don't doubt that. There's a lot of children that don't doubt that, as they sit beside their parents. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, that none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away, he hateth divorce. I hate things in this world with no sin attached, because God has a perfect hatred for these things also. And God hateth, hateth, if a man and woman resort and cannot survive and cannot seek him for grace to overcome their problems. Divorce, why? Why does he hate divorce? For his name not to be marred by the unsaved? No. For you now to have to bear the scar of divorce and the shame and the humiliation and a ruined testimony for the rest of your life? No. Because of the children in the context. The whole context, because of what's going to happen to what I wanted from you, you won't be able to do now. That's the context, and that's the faithful way of preaching a passage. In the New Testament, in Ephesians chapter 5, a staggering book, you want to read it from the first verse to the last five times on your knees prayerfully. Your life will be transformed beyond comprehension by the fifth time, even if you're a teenager. You want to take God's word seriously, so it's this book that changes you. By the Spirit of God, this book changes you to the degree God wants to in this world. But now Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22, wives. Strangely begins with the wives. Have you noticed that? When it comes to sacrifices concerning the marriage working out God's way. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Now that's beyond comprehension for me, as if you were doing it to Jesus. Now that is something most women in the world today would not accept, even if God said it. They will never ever stoop to this. This is stooping from human dignity. But God said it, and it's a tremendous thing God's asking of you. For some reason, he asks the woman to do that which will bring harmony in the home, be in subjection. He doesn't ask the man, I think, simply because men haven't got that grace. So don't think it's because you're the weaker vessel, woman, or that God wants to just see you trampled upon. There's nothing in God's heart of that. He reveres you in asking this of you, woman, that your testimony can be saved, your marriage can be saved, and your children won't be sent to hell, because there's always fighting. So he asked you to bring peace by not fighting back, at great cost sometimes, to just submit. And he knows you can do it, because he made you, woman. He made you able to do it, if you seek his grace. Verse 25, Husbands, love your wives. Oh, that's a staggering word, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Now, I don't know anywhere in the whole Bible that God asked for such a sacrifice, that God demands such a sacrifice. I want you to think, even as Christ loved the church. Don't love just as best as you can. Love just as Christ loved the whole world, that which eventually became his, of the world, and gave himself. Look at the cross. Without looking at the cross, you couldn't even begin to perceive what depth there is in God's love. You won't even be able to begin to understand within a billion miles what God means by his love for the world. But look at the cross long enough, and you will weep. You will weep. And he says to the husbands, I want you to love her in a way that you're willing to die for her, for her well-being. Not one day, brother. Not once a year, brother. In every circumstance, brother. Let your children especially know it. Because if they don't know it, you're defying God. And they'll know it. Without you having to give your life literally, they'll know it. You would die for this woman, her well-being. And that's what God asks of you, husbands. To the degree you can submit yourselves to God's control by the Holy Spirit, which is what it means is to be filled with the Spirit, controlled to the degree you allow God to control you, he will give you that grace, ladies. He will give you that grace, outside of that, you can't love like that. So don't even try without yielding to God. The wonderful thing about Christianity is not a set of rules. It's yielding. I have not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill it. How? By you yielding, and I'll spontaneously fulfill the law and the prophets without any effort of your own. Just spontaneously, no matter how trying the circumstances. To the degree you are yielded, Christ lives out his life to you through the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, the evidence the Holy Spirit is in control of you, is Christ. Love suffereth long. All that is Christ, the fruit, the fruit. Only God can do that through you. That's why this word love is agape. It's not human love. It's a love to the degree you allow God to live his life through you. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church. And chapter 6, children, children, obey your parents. Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. God says, God says, honour thy father and mother. Don't just obey them, honour them the way you obey them. Honour thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. My mother is 88 years old. My mother has been spared by God to have a clear mind, and to be so meaningful to everybody she knows on this earth, that they love and revere her. Could you please stop that noise, somehow? My mother, when her mother was killed in an accident, she was a young woman, but her father's mind just went. He couldn't, he couldn't survive mentally when his wife was taken. My mother was the one who said, he comes to the house with us, I'll take care of him. And she was my grandfather. She washed the floors of his excrement. As weak as her little body was, she lifted him, as he lay on the floor, this big man, six foot four. But I never heard my mother as a boy, I never heard her once belittle him, or shame him, or be angry with him. There was nothing but honour, love, respect. No words left her lips, but kindness. Though she was on her knees, aching sometimes to help him, because I was too small, father was away at times. When finally my grandfather would be admitted into her home, the last two weeks of his life, when they forced her to let her father go, it nearly killed my mother, that she couldn't care for him. I can give you many reasons why my mother has reached the age of 88, where most of her family is dead. And those that are living are very not very healthy, or are suffering, putting it mildly. But my mother is so meaningful, with such a mind intact, no senility, so loved, so revered, that whole churches acknowledge her. Whole churches would stand in reverence. She is so loved by so many, and her sons, I don't think of the day her sons do not thank God from the depth of their hearts for such a mother, and for sparing her, because she's so meaningful, as she was today on the phone to me from the other side of the world. Her integrity, her wisdom, her faith, her love. Not every mother sees that in life. Old age, and in her old age, love, love and reverence, and respect. Children, you obey your parents. This is the first promise with commandment, that it may be well. The one thing I can attribute as to why God has given my mother such longevity and such meaningfulness to this day, is the way she honored her father and mother, as few children I've ever heard of or witnessed, no matter what the cost. And ye fathers, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Provoke not your children to wrath. Don't break their spirit, father, through your discipline that you say is scriptural, that you train them up and beat them with a rod, should you save a soul from hell, sir. Whatever discipline you give that child, if it doesn't hurt you more in your heart and conscience, if it doesn't hurt you more than it's hurting that child, whether it's a word or a hand, you sin. You sin. You sin against God and that child. You'll break his spirit. I believe in discipline, but I believe it's Christ through you, bringing him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as let God bring him up through you. So yielded to God, that by the Holy Spirit, God literally raises that child for you, because your life is yielded and wanting God's mind in every circumstances, no matter what goes on there with that child. Proverbs 18 verse 14 says the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, his weaknesses, any weakness he has physically, in any way in life, the weaknesses he has in life. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit, a wounded spirit, who can bear that which God placed into our lives, that he calls the spirit of a man. God says, we'll sustain, we'll make you face up to life and hardships and difficulties, you will survive. But then God says a staggering thing. If something happens to that which God gave you to be able to survive, if it's broken, that spirit, something happens in life that breaks that spirit, that wounds that spirit. How will a man survive, God asks. How will a woman survive if that happens? Can that happen? Can that happen? What would cause a person to be wounded, to be broken? The spirit God gave for survival, to just not be able to function, that they cannot face life, they just cannot face it anymore. They lost that which God gave them, that he calls the spirit a person has. There are, of course, many reasons, many reasons in this cruel world that could do such damage to a life. But tonight I would like it to look at our homes, because most people are wounded, are destroyed by their own families on this earth. I'd like to look at our children, our children, and many of you are children, teenagers and smaller, and there's none of you that aren't children. If you're parents I'm still alive, even if you're gray. At what point do you stop honoring your parent? In this book, oh how many parents I have met whose children were the calamity, the destruction, the cause of undermining and even breaking down their parent's spirit, destroying their ability to survive as humans. What causes one child in the same home to become a grief, and another from the same home to be a joy always to its parents? I want to repeat that. What causes one child to become a grief, and in the same home another child to give nothing but joy to that parent? Being born into a godly home does not necessarily mean that a child will choose to be godly. I need to repeat that for you young people. Being born into a godly home does not necessarily mean that a child will choose to be godly, or that the parents will not have deep concern, continual concern about their children's spiritual well-being. Job was the godliest man on earth in his generation according to God, and in the end the devil had nothing to say. He just fled insane. Job was the godliest man, but being the godliest man acknowledged by God and Satan that there's no man like him, no man like him, perfect, upright, no one on earth as perfect and upright as this, as fear of the gods, and hates evil, assures evil. God said that there's man, but this man continually, continually, continually brought all his children, his sons and his daughters, and in earnest, earnest, earnest concern he slaughtered animals, the blood that he was not conscious at that point was pointing to the blood that God was looking at would be slain by the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world, but he slaughtered what God says because without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness of sins, no remission of sins. Now he slaughtered these animals again, and again, and again, and what did he say as he did it? It may be, and he cried out this in front of all his children, and looking at them, as he looked at them, slaughtering, making these sacrifices, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts, that man was earnest, being the godliest man on earth does not mean that you will not have deep concern in this wicked world for your children's spiritual well-being, that you will not have to be in warfare and prayer and looking to God in mercy in case there's something going on that the devil's implanted in their hearts that they're busy with and they're going to break out somewhere along the line, being the godliest man and godliest woman on this earth, godliest parents, according to God's estimate does not take away that concern. The more godly you are, the more concerned you are that something could happen, and more you are in prayer, earnest, grievous prayer, that your children know you're praying in case the devil's put a little seed, God, undo it. I have ministered in many places over the last 38 years, and I've become fearful at how many children from the godliest homes choose to reject the God of their father and mother in a most cruel and staggering way, even if they bring that home to shame, even if they destroy the happiness of that home forever. I am staggered how many homes of the godly throughout this world, there are such children the devil manages to reach. We read in Proverbs 19, verse 13, a foolish son is the calamity of his father. Now the Hebrew says the ruination, the ruin literally, the ruin of your father, you, you, you, that's all the devil needed was you. If you're a foolish son, God says, God says, God says, a foolish son is the calamity, the ruin of his father. Proverbs 10, verse 1, a wise son maketh a glad father. Tell me, is your father a glad man? Because of you, you, you, your life. A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. The literal Hebrew is the grief, the grief of his mother. Are you? Are you? In Proverbs 30, verse 11, there is a generation that curses their father and doth not bless their mother. I think that's this generation more than ever before in history. Just come around with me, get a suitcase for a year or two, and you won't argue. There's a generation that curses their father and doth not bless their mother. But Proverbs 20, verse 20, warns, whoso curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put in obscure darkness. God warns. I fear what will happen at some point when I see a child cursing his father and mother, his lamp shall be put out, God says, in obscure darkness. Don't expect happiness, child. You've destroyed your own life if you curse your father and mother forever. Proverbs 19, verse 26, he that wasteth his father, terrible, you can waste what God meant a father to be. You can waste that privilege. He that wasteth his father and chasteth away his mother, this pushes her out of your life. You don't want her influence. It's my life. Don't interfere anymore. Leave me. He that wasteth his father, God says, and chasteth away his mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach, God says. In 1 Samuel 2, verse 12, we read that the sons of Eli were sons of Belial. They knew not the Lord. Is that written across you by God in heaven, in the records? The sons of this were sons of the devil. They served the devil. Belial was just one of the satanic religions that Satanists today wouldn't go very much less of the evils Belial did. The sons of Eli were sons of Belial. This godly man's sons were evil. They knew not the Lord. Verse 22, now Eli heard, Eli heard of all that his sons did. Don't think your father won't hear one day, young man, young lady. Don't think they won't find out. The devil will make sure to the point it explodes in their face that they will just crumble. He doesn't hide things that he allows you to hide for a while. He just wants to hurt far more than your soul. Don't play the fool with the devil, young man. You don't know who you're going to hurt and destroy soon. Eli heard of all that his sons did. Verse 23, and he said unto them, Why? Why do you such things? Why do you such things? Oh beloved, Eli isn't the only God-fearing father to eventually look at his children in shock and shame and fear and cry out in grief. Why? Why? He wasn't the only father. Oh how tragically Eli's life and ministry ended, beloved. This godly man shamed by his sons, shamed throughout the whole nation, though he was chosen by God. He died in a tragic way through the shock of the repercussions of his sons' evil lives. God had to replace his ministry swiftly with young Samuel. Amazing. They destroyed their father. They killed their father without a knife. Their lives. He just died in shock in the end of what their lives caused, the repercussions of it in that land. I was preaching in a church here in America a number of years ago which was so large and so revered, and that pulpit, men like Bill Gothard of the ATI, IBLP, homeschooling and all that he does. Bill Gothard said, among many, if I had a church to choose, a pulpit that I could choose to sit under, I would choose that church, that man's preaching, to have the privilege of sitting Sunday by Sunday. A man was very revered to have such men of that caliber and status saying such a thing of his ministry. And that church was a wonderful privilege for me to stand in and preach to this overflowing auditorium. But then something tragic happened. I arrived there one year, I preached there numbers of times on the tour, the tours I have of America, and that man had left the pulpit, revered above most preachers in America by the godliest preachers. He had gone back to work, in secular work, because two of his sons wanted the devil, chose to feast at the devil's tables rather than the tables of God, the things God holds out for us to feed on. No, they wanted to feed on what the devil holds out at his tables, in his houses. There's always the free will. There's always the free will, no matter how godly your parents are. This man was so shamed, so grieved, so broken, he left the pulpit of God, one of the most revered pulpits in this land's history, because of his ability to expound the scriptures. When I arrived there, that man had an overall, a working clothes, a little packet with sandwiches, and walked down to the factory daily for nine, ten hours a day. No more preaching, no more serving God in a capacity where he had the right. Well, of course, I was shaken, and I said we should sit with this man to the other pastors. They had many other pastors, six I think, in this massive complex. So we went to a meal. He said, listen, I only have one hour for lunch in my factory. It would have to be a restaurant very close to the factory that I can get there, have a meal, and get back within the hour. I'm a working man in secular work now. We sat there, these pieces, and there was this man sitting there in his restaurant, and I looked at him, broken, he was broken. And I said to him, brother, if nine of your children, of the nine, if seven of them follow God the way they are, and two rebel, two of them have this of their free will, they're going through a moment now, and God is going to have to sort them out through your prayers and patience. But brother, it doesn't mean if the rest of your children are all serving God with fear, that you have to get off the pulpit. What percentage of the preachers of this world would have to leave the pulpit if at some stage any of their children begin to rebel before they make a true commitment to Christ of their own free will? He looked at me and he said, brother, I appreciate what you're saying, but I am too sensitive to the Word of God, which cancels out the right for me to even preach, not once more in my life. According to my knowledge of scriptures, I lose the right, I forfeit the right as a father if I cannot control my children. I couldn't defy God and walk up that stairs with a Bible and tell others to live in the one thing that disqualifies me clearly in the Bible. The next year, the next year, the pastors say the church is losing ground, all the work of God is suffering, the people didn't want to come for these younger pastors. In the end, many who traveled hours just didn't travel because of the great ability this man had, it was missing and the work of God began to suffer and that little, that building was staggering for the effect God once had. The work of God was staggered through two boys who've canceled out their father's right to preach because they chose even though he was taken from the pulpit and going back to secular work after 40 something, nearly 50 years of preaching. The man now had to do that because they wanted sin, that's all right, let father go back, that's how little you care when you put sin first. You can destroy your father, you can destroy everything God wanted to do through him, you can do it child, it's in your hands and it's in your choice. Don't tell me it isn't your choice child, not to seek God and let him set you free. One day, about a year ago, I went back to that city and he was back in the pulpit, old, aged, broken. You don't come out of that without being broken. He said to me, brother Keith, only now, because my sons, they're not everything I want them to be, but they've stopped rebelling and they're seeking God. Not everything I want, but they're seeking God. This rebellion is wanting the praises of the devil, it's stopped. I have the right to preach again and I'm deeply grateful. He said, by the way, can I whisper in your hearts what God had to do to win those children to make them stop? The mother got cancer, riddled with cancer. I went to a meal with them a year before she, six months before she died. Then, wasting, broken, sorrowing, as she's dying, you still go on. But eventually, those boys did find it too much to fight this God, who was speaking to them through a mother dying, because he'll resort to anything to answer your prayers. Anything, even though it might not work for God, cannot force a man's free will, but he'll do anything he can. And I think a lot had to do with the mother being taken like that, that made those boys begin to seek God and stop playing the fool with the devil. I was astonished in a home, a God-fearing home, where this boy began to play the fool with wrong friends. So all the devil needs to do, even in a church, especially in a church, you choose those that don't love Jesus, that are there because they have to be, but their heart lies in the devil's houses. Their music isn't just music, their heart lies with Satan's music. The books they read that they prefer and choose when they've got a choice, are not that book they carry for mommy and daddy bringing up. The chokes they choose are evil, evil. And this boy, in religious circles, finds wrong friends. That's all the devil needs, just choose the wrong friend. Oh, oh, oh. Eventually, the boy was with drugs and the godly parents, and they were godly, aged overnight, as they lay on their faces, not even knowing if he's alive, the places he would run, even break out of the house to go to. When he tried to pull himself right together, something tragic had happened that he hadn't ever thought about. The father of that home could never trust him again. There was something so broken in that man that he couldn't look at him with love again. There was something about that man that, though the child promised things he couldn't trust, in the eyes sold the child. The child put his arms around the father, the same as he did before all the wickedness when he was still a boy. The father didn't hold him as tight as he should have. There was a quietness about the daddy when laughter normally went through the boy's character. He didn't laugh very easily as he looked at this child. He somehow couldn't recover. And one day this boy said, and it staggered me, because I heard him saying it, why? Why can't we just bury it? I did wrong. Why can't things be the same ever again? Why can't this home be the same again? I think there was a man in that home whose spirit was wounded. And God even says, how can a man stand up to life and face life once that happens? Sometimes it's too late, young man. Are you going to wait until then? Answer your conscience if God doesn't matter at this point. Don't answer God, just answer your conscience, young girl. I know a very godly man in my nation, of South Africa, in our capital, a very well-to-do, affluent man, a very highly esteemed man, and a very highly educated above most in this world. And I have been privileged to sit with this man of intellect and yet humility and love for Christ as few. One day he said with me of his father, and I had noticed when he said of his father's godliness, how he would put his head down when he spoke of his father. Such reverence. One day he said to me, when Daddy died, his last words were to me were this, I have not left you with an inheritance that others would value. I leave you with no money. And wealth, that other parents would strive to leave, to leave something of any value when they die. But the inheritance I leave of my life to you, I leave you, I leave this world, and I leave you with this, a good name. Can you father say that to your son? You leave him a million dollars, he'll curse you at some point in his heart, if you didn't leave him with a good name, father. Read Proverbs if you disagree with me. I leave you with a good name. I leave this world and I leave you with no debt. I incurred no debt in my life. I die without debt. I hope you can, father, say that to your son. Finally, he said, I leave you having lived my life in the pursuit of pointing you to Jesus Christ, my son. I sat there, I thought, oh God, is there a more wealthy inheritance anyone could inherit on earth than that from a father? Hallelujah for such men who find the value of true wealth is not filthy lucre for their child's well-being when they die. But the scripture warns, the scripture warns, cursed be he that setteth light by his father or mother. Deuteronomy 27 verse 16, cursed, God says, be he that setteth light by his father and mother, that doesn't accept their authority or influence, doesn't want it. God, the creator, the savior and the coming judge said, cursed be he that setteth light by his father. It doesn't take what God intended you to take of their influence. The most controversial chapter in the entire Bible is Romans 9. Now, that is because it's divided the evangelical church worldwide over the issue of the free will of man and predestination, the determined will of God, where man has no choice. We'll stop now. Fancy an old man bringing up such a controversial thing here. Well, let's look at it for a moment because of children, only because of children. You see, Romans, God never intended you to know there was a chapter 9 when Paul wrote it. That's just to find the place. It's a letter. It isn't an isolated chapter. It's a passage divided carefully, yes, as they put the verses down and tried to bring sequence and keep something short enough for you to know where to make reference as you learn and study, to show yourself approved, a weapon that can handle the word of God that needs not to be ashamed. To know, instead of just masses of words, verses, chapters, names of the books separating somehow. But Romans 9 was never meant to be looked upon as an isolated chapter. That the Jehovah Witnesses are busy with. Leave that up to them. They like isolated verses, you know. They dare not look at the next verse. I mean, it cancels out and proves that they're lying. Just the next verse. Don't tell me God won't judge them because they refuse to believe the truth. God gave them over to believe a lie. Careful how you handle this book, denying what you see there for your religion till you believe a lie. And you know it's a lie. Don't tell me those people are going to stand there and say I was ignorant. Brainwashed. You were brainwashed of your own free will to blind your eyes to the next half of a sentence which cancels out. There's one way you can read any verse in the scriptures or any passage or any chapter or any doctrine. It's to look in the light of all the scriptures concerning that doctrine. And if there's one verse in the entire Bible that contradicts your interpretation, you're a heretic if you preach it. Every verse balances it out. And sometimes it doesn't seem reconcilable at first when you first say, but give God time. God doesn't put a light on, you know, everything. You have to grow in knowledge. What you don't understand when you're first saved, go on and on. Don't give up and say it's not true. There's some contradictions. You'll find there's no such a thing as a contradiction in the Bible. But you need time until you see God had to say that. God had to say that or we'd be in trouble. I mean God is sovereign. If he isn't sovereign, brethren, we're in trouble. Because in what hope is there that his promises won't all just dissolve and everything go wrong and the devil do another mess? God is in control. His promises are there. He's sovereign. We have to believe that. Otherwise we're in trouble concerning his promises and the future and eternity. We can really doubt if he isn't control. So thank God he's sovereign. But sovereignty does not mean he's static, like some men make out. Now you see, Romans chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, you have to read to understand 9. Full stop. And if you read Romans 1, you realize that Romans 9 alone causes danger. You blame God if a man sins. You blame God if a man rapes. You blame God if a man murders. Of course, everything is the will of God according to Romans 9 if it stands alone, isolated. So careful now. Read Romans 1. Before he said anything about Romans 9, he said, for this cause God gave them up. There's always a cause, brethren. Don't you dare blame God if men did true sin. Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up. Reprobate mind. God sealed their choice. And there's this verses upon verses upon verses to show you that it is not God's will. It was men's choice. It was the grief of God to have to do it. But it's men with a free will. So then get to 9 and you might have the question, well, why did Paul say all this before he ever got to this? Well, you'll find that Paul was a good Methodist. He was methodical. I like that. No, I tell you what. He was a good Pauline. John Wesley was a good Pauline. That's more safe, so don't misquote me now. But he was methodical, Paul was. And Romans is the greatest statement of our faith in the entire Bible, not the most important passage. That's Isaiah 53. But the greatest statement of our faith, doctrinal statement, Paul takes everything in categories, methodically. Whoa, right down to prove that everybody's under sin. Jews are under sin. Gentiles are under sin. Religious are under sin. Irreligious who've never heard the Bible, who've never ever heard the word God or mentioned from this book or the gospel. They're all, whether you sit in religious religiosity, you're all under sin. You all, whether Jew or Gentile, you need the grace by faith to be saved through the blood of Jesus. There's no name under heaven where our men can be saved by the name of Jesus Christ. No other name given by heaven where our men can be saved. There is only one way. Now you have to put everybody in the category. Now Paul goes into these categories to convince very methodically, very totally, in the light of the Old Testament Scriptures and the light of the cross, that everybody has no argument. We're all going to hell, religious, irreligious, good, bad. All your righteousness is as faith that you dare to trust in that and not in the blood of Jesus, Paul says. He undoes everybody. So he gets now to other doctrines in the most staggering, profound, methodical way dealing with them as no other book in the Bible does. And then he takes three chapters where he speaks to the Jews, full stop, because the Jews had a problem. They were saying to these people, Jewish and Gentile, but Paul was a Jew, that God can't bypass them. They're the chosen people. God chose us. How can you say God now bypasses whom he chose and now chooses others? That's not right. It doesn't even make sense to them. Well, Paul now says, what if? Now that's very lovely that God asked that question before. He's arguing with the Jews, full stop. Sir, three chapters of the Jews, full stop, not to you, when God speaks. We take isolated promises he was going through in individual sentences there, but the passages there related to Romans 9, surrounding Romans 9, are to the Jew who argued that God cannot bypass them. And Paul says, what if God wants to do? Who are you? Who is man to say God cannot? If God wanted to do, he will do what he will. But if you don't know that three chapters of the Jews, you'll end up blaming God and saying that that is reverential fear and faithfulness to doctrine and to scriptures, and you will be set aside as people who blame God for everything, evil and good, that man has no choice, nothing to do with salvation. You can stand on your head and beg. You can weep for a month. You can fast till you die. You still won't go to heaven if God chose you, gave you life to go to hell. I do not preach that, because I read Romans chapter 1, sir, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 5, before I got to 9, and then became prejudiced and biased because I belong to a movement and a cultural understanding of the scriptures that defies what is common sense and integrity to the purity of God. How can God be holy and just if men had no choice in the matter? Sir, that's not what I believe this book, even Romans, teaches. But now we want to get back just for a moment about Romans 9, because I had to say that to some people who might misunderstand the sayings of God in Romans 9. God speaks of Jacob and Esau in Romans 9. Terribly controversial what God says, but in the light of what I've just said, God says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Two children from the same home. This is a terribly difficult and controversial text, but I see it simply as God's perfect holiness of character in his perfect uncomprehendable foresight and foreknowledge. Grieve that what he knew Esau would eventually choose. Listen, don't blame God for having foreknowledge. Please don't limit God to your finite mind. He's uncomprehendable. He started time. He always was. He never began. You'll mind that my mind can't work that out, because we're limited to time. There was a beginning of our lives at the end. To God, no, he never began. You have to just accept God. You can't comprehend him, you just have to believe it, and I do. He never began, but he started time, as we know time, where a watch was needed, where sun and the universe determined where we were. Even through the year, there was time was brought about only when he created the universe and this earth. Time. And he says he's going to stop time. Time will be no more, as we know it. Now brother, I don't know. I can't comprehend how in heaven we don't need to have time, but it's just all sequence anyway. But God says that, and I believe it. Now this God who created time, time will be no more, who always was, who always will be, somehow in this eternal state, brought this thing called time. Don't blame him for injustice if he knew beginning from end. Don't blame him for what he knew men would do. If they chose evil, that didn't mean he chose it for them. Don't blame God if you can't bring him down to a finite mind's grasp. The day you're able to comprehend God, sir, you're in trouble. He's not God. Just don't believe or accuse him of anything that can make a man stand before him one day and say, I had no choice in the matter, because that is trash. Sorry sir, not that book. Otherwise cut out at least a hundred verses in the New Testament that say man has a free will, and it's a grief what they chose to God. It wasn't his choice, sir. I would, but he would not. He sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden, that were invited to the wedding. They would not come. Don't you blame God. Don't say God lies sending people to call those who could not come. They will not come. And that's the only reason God will judge them. Now, this God who knew is not to blame for your evil choice, sir, when you do some wickedness. That grieved him. He had to die for it to be able to save you. Don't tell me he chose to die for sins he made you commit. I see this as Jacob have I loved Esau, have I hated, as something far more comprehensible to humans, because it hits the heart. And that's what God's saying here, I believe, in the original context of these words from Habakkuk. I see his perfect holiness of character, his perfect uncomprehendable foresight and foreknowledge, grieved at what he knew Esau would eventually choose, that he would be careless, careless of his privilege of having been born into such a uniquely godly home. God looked also. He looked at the righteous and holy joy. He looked in foreseeing that Jacob, his brother, Esau's brother, would eventually so seek him in such desperate integrity to be holy and righteous. He would be renamed Israel and honored in a staggering way by God because of what he personally would choose to follow of the influence from his mother and father. He sought God in such a way to bless him. But Esau would so disregard and disrespect and place so little value of his privilege and birthright, he would regard it with so little worth. All he had to inherit, it wasn't land, sir. It wasn't just some fulfillment of what happened to his children, sir. He sold his birthright for a morsel of soup. It meant so little to him. This was far more than denying his right of inheritance and material wealth in God's eyes. He was so grieved and indignated at Esau's disregard to his inheritance of the godliness of that home, of God honoring him through having such God-fearing parents. You see, Esau didn't only suddenly choose to do something wrong when he took that soup and said, what value is that to me if I die? He wouldn't have died. He was just, a weak moment tells you what you really value in life, what you'll stoop to take when you don't need it, but it shows how little you care about the things God values. And this man, way before this, the friends he chose, showed he cared nothing for the values of his parents. The woman he chose to court, if there's such a word with godlessness, that he married, were a grief, a grief to his godly parents that he chose such godless woman. But he chose them knowing the grief. Don't tell me that this boy suddenly just lost everything. His whole character was wound up in what he did in a weak moment. He had done all the way through with disregard to his parents' happiness. Esau was a grief, sir, long before that soup that he stooped and said, I don't care about my birthright, all I can inherit from this godly man and woman, all that would come upon me. Now God takes this very deep in Hebrews, and he warns us not to do the same with the things of God, not to do the same with the influence and inheritance that is godliness that comes from your parents. He cries out to us, warning us, Esau sold his birthright for a morsel of soup. He counted it so little worth, such little worth. I would like to place a warning to all children from godly homes who know the privileges of God-fearing parents raising them. Esau, for a morsel of soup, gave up everything. In Hebrews 12, verse 19, God warns us to be careful and prayerful not to do the same, and to lose forever all that was intended from God to come upon you for good and righteousness, not to turn your back on it and throw it aside with no regard for it. What is your morsel of soup, young man, that God right now hits on a nail, young lady, that shows you how little regard you have to your parents convictions and lives and standards and values that he, God, intended them to impart from you of your own free will you would embrace if you had any integrity toward God and decency toward your parents? What is the morsel of soup that you would stoop to take at the cost of losing, losing your purity, your integrity, to lose even the trust of your God-fearing, even their happiness, even the testimony of their lives and all? Don't play the fool with God. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? The writer of the Hebrews cries a weak moment. Oh, what is your morsel of soup? Ninety-nine percent of all entertainment on this earth is defiling. If you say it's wrong, my statement, you're a liar. You lie to yourself, and I don't know how that's possible, but people can become so silly they can stoop to that. Ninety-nine percent of all entertainment through the media of this world in any avenue is defiling and damning to the soul eventually. Whether it's books, go into the book rooms and come out and argue with me, but go into all of them, sir. Don't just go into some man who has a little bit of integrity to what he's taught. Just look at what the world really has to face. Books, whether it's magazines, televisions, films, video games. Ninety-nine percent defiling worldly music that you think your parents will never find out about. Ninety-nine percent is of the pit of hell from Satan's heart and hand and you took it. And don't tell me you didn't know it was evil or defiling. What are you listening to, young lady, young man? Answer God. What do you choose when no one's watching? That's what you want. No matter what your parents grieve at, if they knew. Remember what they brought you up to. You take a morsel of soup. What is your morsel of soup that you take to show God and your own heart and Satan and unsaved godless people how little you care or regard or esteem that privilege you had of all that you could have inherited of the influence of your godly mother and father's lives and prayers and input into your life. And I ask you all a fearful question sitting here tonight, young people. Is being entertained worth being defiled? Answer, I dare you for the courage, answer God now. Is being entertained worth being defiled? Have you answered God, young people? Because only God knows altogether what you are embracing, even if it's music. That's immoral, defiling, anti-God. Just the thud shows you how evil it is. Whatsoever things are pure, God says. Whatsoever things are honest. Whatsoever things are just. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise. Think on these things. Allow your mind to be, accept such things. What? Pure. Put that little text over all the records you hide, all the little CDs, the video games, these computer games. Put it over the internet, over the youth channels, you know, that you can send messages to each other. Uber, what do you call it? Put it over there what you watch. Whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things, God says. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. And as you listen, as you look at defiling, degrading, war and killing and sensuality, I don't want to stoop to other words in front of these children, that degrade your decency, undermine every bit of integrity and purity you have. Is being entertained worth being defiled? You answer God now, and if you don't stop, that's your answer to God permanently, I would say, after this message. You choose hell. Don't cut yourself off from godly fellowship, especially young Christians. I knew a young man, a Mennonite, and because of the stand he made for salvation and God, he suffered a lot of ostracization. But did this boy shine for God? Him and his wife. And then they decided to go somewhere else, cut off from all the fellowship of the godly that had helped him to be nurtured and go on and grow. And he fell into such sin that it is beyond my ability to mention. I mean, he can't face the world again. That's it. Such was his sin. And he, finding from the other worse side of the world, said to me, what was the reason this happened to me? How could I have done this? And I had to pray before I answered him, because that's a staggering thing to answer a man whose life is just about totally destroyed forever, because of his sin, the enormity of his sin. And I prayed and I said, I think the Lord would have me say to you, using my sense, I don't hear voices, I'm not pretending to have some prophecy, I don't stoop to that. This is where I preach from. I believe the Lord is impressing in my heart and the understanding I have of your life, that you cut yourself off from godly fellowship. Otherwise, this would never have happened. You need it more than just to be alone with your Bible, you especially. You shouldn't have done that. I also questioned when you first moved away from everything and everyone to such an isolated place, whether this was wise. I believe it was not wise. Young people, be very, very careful. Don't cut yourself off from godly fellowship. Don't do that. Don't do that. There's always the fear in the hearts of godly parents that their children will choose evil friends, because that's the beginning of the end, sir. Young Christians, carefully, prayerfully choose your friends. Proverbs 13 verse 20 says, He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Now, if God says it, you're going to be destroyed. You choose fools and you just look through the book of Proverbs and know what a fool is. Those that laugh at sin, those that don't long and want purity, fools. He that walketh with wise men, that personally makes a choice, shall be wise, but a companion of fools that made that choice shall be destroyed. God says it will happen, don't doubt it. Fools make a mock at sin, God says in Proverbs 14, but among the righteous there's favor from God and man in the long run, men of any decency. When a child dies, having been a grief of his father and mother, his death is the greatest grief because of where he goes, or she. When David witnessed that his son Absalom had died, his grief is beyond all comprehension of a human, and every parent knows that grief. Oh Absalom, my son, would to God I had died in your place. He still loves the soul enough to want to even die for it. Does your life grieve your godly parents? Will your death be even a greater grief? If you knew how many young people I have pled with and wept who were giving their parents nothing but grief, who walked away from me and minutes later were dead, if you knew how many you'd know why I'm preaching like this, so don't you judge me! Don't you dare judge me! How can I preach otherwise, knowing that some of you might be dead within minutes? Rejecting what this old man is pleading from the Bible for you to do, while you have a breath. I could go on, but I think I must stop there. So there you are. I am probably, I'm not sure, but I don't know. Some towns I've gone to thirty times in my life, preaching over and over again, conferences. Most times I never went back again, but this is the last message the dear Lord put on my heart. Brother, you come and commit us to God, please. I don't want an appeal. The whole sermon is an appeal. The next look you look at your mother and your father is your response to God. The next look you look at evil friends is your answer to God. The next you look, you look at people who might not have drawn you before, but you're going to carefully choose. Even if you have one, you won't go near those friends who compromise again. Apart from saving their souls, you witness and point a finger at a good distance and say, I don't want to get too close, but you're going to hell. And I want you to know I'm praying for you. Outside of that, the next thing you do to godless friends who are not godly is your answer to God, your answer to this message, your response. Those who respond to this message, who have responded already in their hearts, they know what they're going to do in a number of years, your parents will die. If it's still on, it's a loud speaker.