In this sermon, the preacher begins by acknowledging that there is a problem between God and humanity. He sets up a courtroom scenario where God calls upon nature to bear witness to His indictment against mankind. The preacher highlights the similarities between the sins of the people in the Bible and the sins present in churches today. He emphasizes that God's judgment will be severe and painful, and it will be poured out on the wicked. The sermon ends with the preacher reflecting on a song that was played on the radio and how it stirred up a fire within him.

I want you to take your Bibles with me, please, to Micah chapter number 6. Micah chapter number 6 for our text tonight. We see a lot of good things happen in this meeting. We've seen a lot of good things happen, amen? But I still feel when we enter into services like we're in even now, we can feel just a sense, just a sense of the Spirit of God. And building, but just a sense of the Spirit of God. It just doesn't seem like that this is all of it. It just don't seem like that we're getting all that we could have here, you know? And I like steak. Am I the only one? You get to where when I speak, you all don't say anything, it concerns me greatly. I like steak, amen? I've never been interested in a 3 1⁄2 ounce steak. I went to a fancy restaurant one day and found a $40 meal that had a 3 1⁄2 ounce steak. That's pure sin. No God in that. I hate to be missing out, amen? I pay $40 for a steak, I only eat half a cow. That's exactly right. It's kind of like going camping with Mr. McKinnon. You just feel like you're missing out. I thought I'd get Gabe to say amen right there. Pull out them beanies and weenies, and that fire's all lit up for them beanies and weenies, and you just feel like you're missing out. Somebody say amen right there. I still didn't get Gabe on that amen, but I'm working on it. Don't ever go camping and leave the food in his charge. No, no, no. No, no, no. While those four fellows over there eating beanies and weenies, and I sitting there frying the steak and grilling zucchini and onions and taters, you should have seen the look of the people standing around the fire. Especially Gabe. That man requires like 6,000 calories or something before breakfast. Appetizer, you know what I'm saying? And so that image is locked in my mind. There I sat with the fire and the steak sizzling. You know that good sound of fat burning. Say amen right there. And I got the zucchini, onions, and taters grilling over there in the bag, and I looked up, and they looked a lot like y'all. We just ain't getting all we're supposed to be getting here. Beanie weenies. Amen. I went to a meal one time. I was preaching a meeting, and I want to say it was in Memphis, Tennessee. It was invited to somebody's house, and we went in and we sat down. And the lady came out, and she had prepared so nice a big bowl of stuff, and she set it on the table, a big bowl of salad and things and plates all lined up. And we sat down there, and we ate the salad. And then the problem began to set into my heart, and I realized there's nothing else. You know what the salad is, right? The salad is a promissory note that something else is coming. You eat a salad because the salad says, Steak! Steak's on the way! So you eat it happily because you know in a moment steak's coming. No, no, she had no steak. She had nothing else but the lettuce. Well, I want to be honest with you. I'm tired of coming to church and feeling like, you know, that we come in and there's so much the Lord wants to offer us, but we just ain't getting all we're supposed to get out of it. Amen? It's not His fault. It's our fault. Amen. Micah chapter number 6. Would you stand with me please while I read the Scripture? I hope you'll forgive me for cutting up just a little bit. I appreciate you being here in the service tonight. I'm glad that you're here. Thank God for you. And I'm looking forward to what God's going to do in our hearts tonight. I trust Him. There's just nothing else left to do. I trust Him. We should have started there, but it looks like it's taken us all this while just to get to the place where we just trust Him. Amen. Micah chapter number 6, verse number 1. Hear ye now what the Lord saith. Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth. For the Lord hath a controversy with His people, and He will plead with Israel. Now we enter into the words of the Lord. O my people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants. And I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. We'll stop reading with verse number 4 for now, but let's just jump down to verse number 8 and say, He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee. But to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Let's pray together, could we? Our Father, we enter into Thy presence again tonight, knowing, dear Lord, that we are completely helpless without You. Father, we pray, dear Lord, that You would forgive us of our sins. You'd cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I pray, Lord, the sins of those things that we've committed against Thee, that You would wash them white as snow and cleanse them away. I pray for those sins of omission, things that we've missed, that we should have done. I pray You'll forgive them. I pray that You'll work in our hearts tonight. I pray You'll preach to us tonight from the Scriptures. I pray the Holy Ghost of God would move in this service in a mighty way and begin now to touch hearts and lives. And touch us, O God, we pray, knowing, Lord, that if You ever lay Your hand upon us and touch us, we will never be the same again. Father, we pray for a move of the Spirit of God above and beyond that which we have ever seen or heard tell of. Father, more than we've ever dreamed of, far above our expectations, greater than our dreams and imaginations, O Lord, do exceeding abundantly above all that we're even able to ask or think. In the name of Jesus Christ, the One who gave His life for us, our Savior, Your Son, we beg these things, that You might be glorified now and forever. And we will praise You in this world and the world to come, for it is in Thy namesake we pray. Amen. Amen. And you can be seated. I'm interested in the text of Scripture tonight, in this particular passage of Scripture for the last verse that we read, or the last part of this first section, rather, verse number 3. As the Lord begins to speak up, and He cries out, O My people, what have I done unto thee? Now, there must be a reason for the controversy of the Lord. Would you not agree that the Lord would just not get cross with us for no apparent reason? There must be a reason for this controversy that has come in the Lord's heart. He has a controversy with His people, an argument. There's a disagreement between where He is, what He stands, and what He believes, and what He thinks, and where the people are. There's a controversy between the two. They're not getting along, do you understand? There's an argument, a fuss. And it's an argument the Lord has with His people. There's a reason for His argument in verse number 3. So I feel as if we should back up maybe in these verses and see some previous things that He has described in the lives of His people that may well help us understand what His controversy is. In chapter number 5, verse number 9, the Bible says, Thy hands shall be lifted up upon thine adversary, and all thine enemies shall be cut off. That sounds good, doesn't it? That sounds like a great blessing, victory by the power of God. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots, and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds. And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers. Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee. And thou shalt no more worship the work of thy hands. And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee, and will destroy thy cities. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathens such as they have not heard. When I began to read the text of Scripture and began praying, I thought, you know, what a victory and what a revival it seems that God is doing in verse number 9. As He begins to describe His movement, it looks like God's fixing to do a great thing. But then I begin to see an underlying problem. He's describing the wickedness of His own people. Notice some things that the Lord is going to have to cut out or cut off from them. In verse number 10, He says, I'm cutting off the horses and I will destroy thy chariots. And this shows us of their wars. There are wars there. These are not a peaceable people. It's not a peaceful time. They're not living in the peace of God. There's wars and fighting between them. I can't help but stop and say, I believe that it looks a lot like the church when I read this text of Scripture. Could somebody help me right there? It seems like the church ought to be the place where when we enter into the doors of the church, we enter into a place of peace, a place where there's comfort, a place where our hearts settle, and a place where we feel safe and our children feel safe. But instead, it's become a place of war. We're shooting at the preacher. And we're shooting at our brothers and our sisters around us. We've come to the house of God for nothing else but to set up a war against those who are near us. Y'all okay? And then we go a step farther because the war don't only stay right here, but then we start shooting at the other churches. Surely there's nobody else right on the Gulf Coast, but us, Grace Independent Baptist Church, surely there's just nobody else, probably nobody else in the state of Mississippi that knows how to serve God. We're probably the only ones. At least that's how we act. We can't visit another person's revival. We can't go over there to their meeting, because if we go over there, there's too much controversy between us. And there's too much that's been said already. And there's too much at stake. And we're not going to load up a group of people and go to his Bible conference, because we don't necessarily agree with that preacher that's coming. He doesn't preach in our circle. I'm going to throw something out just to help you, by the way, because I like to read. It's been some long time ago when I learned the investment of reading. And if you only want to read independent, fundamental Baptist writers, your reading is going to be about as long as a comic book story in the Sunday newspaper. It's just very little. Oh, you would mean that we're supposed to read some of those Methodists? It might help you real good. I know you don't like it, but that's all right. I'll change my pay either way. Some of us have got so sunk into the hole, the foxhole that we dug. And you know, there was a time when we were marching forward with the armies of God, but it's come to a place where we've dug our foxholes so deep that we believe the men that are in the foxhole next to us, they're the ones that have become the enemy. We're not even looking to the front lines anymore. We're not even looking to the front lines anymore. We're trying to beat up the people who are standing in the very hole next to us. God help us. We've trained our sights now so close that we're shooting the people who are our very own brothers and sisters. Lord, help us. The wars and strife that has built up within the people of God. But that's not all He described, because in verse number 11, He said, I'm going to throw down all of our strongholds. These are safe places. These are those war-gathering spots where we retreat to, those places where we go to. He said, I'm going to tear them out. I'm going to tear out all of them. I'm going to tear them down. Verse number 12, you should have shouted a while ago, because it just gets worse. By the way, I remind you, if you say, Amen a lot, I feel like you're getting it. And it doesn't look like you're guilty. And so if you sit there all dried up like a knot on a log, I assume you're guilty and I'm going to preach until you fall over in your seat or come get right one. Amen? We'll go on that long. People say, what took you so long? Well, that person is sitting there like a knot on a log. I'm sorry, it's the way I am. The best thing you can do to help us move along is go, Amen. Besides, don't you know that the brother and sister sitting nearest to you is looking at you thinking, Why have they got their head down? They're guilty. They must be guilty. And they're probably right. Help me now. Verse number 12. I will cut off witchcraft out of thy hand, thou shalt have no more soothsayers. Among the people of God? I must stop and ask the question, Among the people of God? God has to say to His people, I'm coming down there and I'm going to bring a great revival and I'm going to give a great victory. And when I do, I'm going to cut off the witchcraft out of thy life. What? I hit a stump this morning when I was dealing with them horoscopes. It got real quiet. Kind of get that tight feeling, you know, like... Four Sunday morning... Four people this morning in a Sunday morning service, probably before they ever got here, got the Sunday morning paper, flipped over to the horoscope real quick to see if it was going to be a good service. I only count four because that's how many people I saw pass out when I brought it up. Woo! Neighbors were fainting. Horoscope? Are you kidding me? Yeah. Babies. I'm talking about good Bible believers. Hadn't done their daily devotions yet, but already got the newspaper out and got the horoscope for the day. God help us! Trusting in that stuff. Well, if all the stars line up... No, no, no, no. The only thing we ever talk about stars is do right if the stars fall. It ain't nothing else I can think of that needs to be talked about with the stars. Don't you worry about the stars lining up. They may all drop out of the sky, but you better be righteous and holy when they do. Get our eyes off of that junk. Quit looking at all that stuff. Well, I hope we have good luck. What? You ain't never met luck. The only luck I ever heard of was that dude that sung and said, if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. My grandfather had a dog named Lucky, but he got ran over. They took him to the vet, fixed him up, broke both of his back legs, fixed him up, put him in casts. He walked around like this. He got all better. He got chewed up by a raccoon and got rabies and died. That's all the luck I ever knew about, Brother Holtorf. When people say, I hope we have luck, man, I can't go there with them. That sounds all lighthearted, doesn't it? Except then we have to go a little bit deeper because we got all that Harry Potter at the house. Somebody say amen right there. All of our kids know all them characters on Harry Potter. They can't wait to buy them Harry Potter glasses. And they want to buy them a Harry Potter stick and walk around with a stick. I'm finna get a stick after some kids. We'll talk about some Harry Potter, but it ain't no Harry Potter stick. I'm finna get a Hickory stick after some of them. Y'all listening to me? That's not for Christians. That's not for the people in the house of God. Hey, I say that's not for the household of faith. Imagine God said I'm fixin' to bring a good revival your way, and when I do, I'm fixin' to have to cut out some witchcraft. God help us all. Shame on us for that junk. Witchcraft. That's where we're at. Matter of fact, while I'm on it, let's just go ahead and blast a few things more. My good friend, Brother P. Kirkendall, now in heaven, said sometimes God just needs an earth mover to come in and plant some dynamite and just go ahead and just blow it all up. Amen? And so tonight, let's just plant it deep and blow it, so that way we blow this stump out, there'll be nothing left of it. Amen? But hey, we've attached ourselves so much to the world, and we've grown it up to ourself. At first, it kind of smudged us, and we kind of got dirty. But then we just went ahead and put the coat on, so now you can't tell the difference between us and them. God help us. We've got this old junk in our homes, and that's why we're trying to burn stuff out. I want to remind you, that's not a sacrifice to God, because God ain't never received a sacrifice that dirty. It's not a sacrifice to God. That is merely us separating ourselves from sinfulness. Cutting it off. Tearing down those old idols. Crushing those old altars. And rearing up something that says righteousness in our homes. God help us. When we run out there to every movie, the trailer comes out. I don't even understand that. Our trailer don't ever come out unless we hook it up to the truck and pull it around. But the trailer comes out, and people are ready to attach themselves before they've ever saw the movie. Got to have the latest thing. Got to connect to the latest stuff. Got to have the latest things. And here we are fixing to come up on Halloween, and there'll be church kids going to put their Harry Potter stuff on. There'll be church kids. I'm talking about Sunday school kids. They'll be wearing their Harry Potter stuff, waving their sticks. There'll be vampires that show up on church on Sunday morning. The next day, they'll be in here with church clothes on, acting like nothing's ever happened. But they'll be out there like vampires with blood on their cheeks, acting like the devil himself. Uh-oh. Hit the stump when I said vampires didn't. Help me with the name of it. Twilight, thank you. All I could think of was midnight, but it's all in the night because men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Preacher preached on it a couple of years ago when that first book came out, and some of y'all didn't listen then. And then the second book out, and you got that one too. And then you went further than that and went to the movies. God, help you. God, help you. You've attached yourself to the world. God, help you. You need to cut yourself off from that, sever yourself away from those sins. Those sins are laying hold on you. They will dictate how you believe. They will dictate the move of God. I want to walk with a holy God, and a holy God will not walk with vampires. It teaches good, godly girls, clean character and virginity to go choose that which is ungodly and wicked for the fun of it and to enter into a new realm of life. And they'll lose their virginity, and they give themselves to some wicked heathen, and their lives are destroyed from now on. Are you listening to me? I'm just throwing this out here. It's not part of the message now. I'm just preaching. It wasn't written in my sermon notes, if y'all want to critique it later. But I'm telling you, this is just the Holy Ghost that went and rubbed up the side of my head and said, preach on it. So I said, yes, sir. We're trying to protect our kids from evil, and the world is trying to train our kids to go ahead and reach out there and try some things, how that will change them. And yes, it will change them. When I was a kid growing up, I can't ever remember all these names, but it wasn't like witches and warlocks or dungeons and dragons. That's what it was when I was growing up. They said, hey, it's just a paper board game. It's a paper board game. I can take you to a young man up in Greenville, South Carolina right now who's in an institution. He'll never, ever come out of that institution. Never! Y'all understand what never is? He'll never come out of that institution until the day he dies. And more than likely, unless there's some kind of grace of God there to be administered to him that I've never seen before to any man, that man will die and he'll go to hell. He's about the same age I am within just a few months. And when we was kids, he would slip off in the back room and get his papers out, and he would play those dungeons and dragons until they came up and got a hold of him and they took over his life. And they took his mind and trashed it and tore him to bits and pieces. And now he can't carry on the same conversation. He can't finish a sentence. All he ever does is sit around in the corner and growl. And he just growls and growls and growls. Nobody can deal with him because he chews on them and he tries to hurt them. And he's locked up in a padded cell tonight because he allowed the devil to come up and play games with him. How many of y'all want to turn these precious kids loose and let them go play some board games like that, friends? You don't understand the damage that comes from all that stuff. You don't have a clue the damage that enters into the hearts and lives of our children. And as young people who are innocent, pure, and clean, who have a bright future of serving God, the devil wants to get a hold of them. He's merely put us here as guardians to pray and shoo the devil off, train them upright. And you can't pick up your Bible and show me where that's training them upright. There's no good end to that. We deal with demon possession in our church now. Do y'all hear me? Ain't no sense in you getting quiet now. So we don't like to use terms like that. You want to be one of them starchy churches, don't you? I want to be one of them that walks with a holy God. I want to be one of them Christians that walks with a holy God. I ain't really worried about what you like and don't like. I'm really worried about what He likes. I want what He wants. He wants holiness. But you know what we're dealing with? We're dealing with demon possession. I was preaching in Boston, Georgia, in a church, and there was good people, fine people. I've known them for years. And I got to preaching on strongholds in the life, how the devil starts with a toehold, and then he works a stronghold until he dominates portions of life. After the service was over, we stayed in the altar dealing with one after another until well past 3 o'clock in the morning. The last person that we dealt with was the pianist. She came up there, and she sat down trembling and white and just nervous as she can be. And she looked at me, and she said, Preacher, she said, I've got those little girls at home. And she said, there's not a day goes by that I don't look at those little girls and think either I need to commit suicide or I need to kill those girls. I need to somehow get out of this life. I need to somehow get, I'm talking about the piano player in an independent Baptist church who sins every day of her life thinking about killing her kids or killing herself. I said, Preacher, how does that stuff happen? She's attaching herself to the world, not bothering it. That can't be too bad. That sounds like fun. That seems like a good thing. Let's get a hold of that. Until she's grasped so much of the world that it's turned around and grasped her. Y'all listening to me? It's in our churches. It's in our positional people. It's in our, hey, it's in our pastors. I told you just last week on Tuesday, I got another phone call with another preacher who fell. I hate to broadcast news like that and everyone would tell who he is. I just want you to pray for him. But another preacher fell. His family's destroyed. His wife's run off with somebody. Their home's destroyed. How does something like that start? A little attachment to the world here. A little attachment to the world there. And the devil all the while has got a future plan of destroying the preacher's home. It's in our preachers. It's in our deacons. It's in our Sunday school teachers. You'd be amazed if somehow we could unfold the mind and the heart of our Sunday school teachers and our workers. It scares me to wonder about who's teaching my children and what they're teaching my children when people are dealing with so many demons and so many things. So many devils of hell have got a grasp inside of our church. And the devils of hell are controlling every portion of our church. The devils of hell are controlling our pulpits so that our preachers are scared to lean forward. Hey, y'all might as well go ahead and get comfortable. We're going to be here a while. Don't you start getting lazy and tired and sleepy on me now. I ain't going to take all that now. We're in the mood of God. God's moving here. There's a move of the Spirit of God. You might as well buckle in, friend. The devil's got our pulpits. He's got preachers in them that are like puppets. And he swings them around so they preach another feel-good message with another Dr. Feel kind of attitude of, here's how it's going to be so that we can all get along and everything's going to be peachy and rosy. And he's scared to lead us to victory while we're losing our children. It's got in our music men. It's got in our workers in the music department. So they start having a little bit more music that feels a little bit better, that flows a little bit better with the service. Y'all still listening? Why don't we get some of that good music? You know, it makes us feel real good. Goes along better. Don't like them good rich scriptural songs like I sung this morning. We want them that's got them easy rhyming phrases. No scripture. Don't put no scripture in it. Me and Phillip made the mistake the other day of turning the radio on. That was a mistake. The only thing we could pick up. The thing don't work. We can't read the numbers on there. We didn't know. So we're flipping through there. We come to the station. The guy gets on there with some deep, royal sounding voice and says, This is WRCM. That's right. Send them a copy of the tape. It hurt my feelings. They played a song. They started out on the song. Do you remember what the story was about? It had to be something like a wedding song or something because it talked about, Oh, I'm trying to figure out how to love you. I'm trying to figure out how to lift you up. And so he said, I'm just going to love you with my life. I'm going to love you with my life. That was the end statement on every verse, of course. They made it through the first verse and he started to reach there and turn it off. I said, hold it just a minute because I could feel that a fire was burning deep inside. I could tell it was going to turn into preaching soon. It did before we ever got home. It stirred up and I'd done preaching before we ever got back to Ocean Springs. And so I said, I need an illustration like this one. So let's listen on. They made it through the first verse and the first chorus. There was no God, no Jesus, no Lord, no Savior, no blood, no Bible. They made it through the second verse. I punched him and I said, you listen. There's no God in that song. You listen. They never referenced God. And he's listening. They made it through the second verse. They went into the second chorus. No God, no Lord, no Savior, no blood. Are you going to listen to me? They did a little bridgy thing where they went into some part of the song that's not like the rest of it and sung some stuff about how life was going to be sweeter and life was going to be better. And they went back into the chorus and sung it one more time. Oh, it was getting warm, but it wasn't warm and fuzzy. Are you listening to me? I'm hurting some feelings now, I can tell. Hey, it's going to be alright. That's exactly right. I can tell. You know, you can preach on witchcraft and that hurts a few people's feelings, but you talk about southern gospel music and you hurt a lot of people. Come all the way down to the tag of the song, Brother Perry, and sung the same words they'd sung the whole song, but she had to stop. The music kind of stopped. And she said, Lord, I love you with my life. I wonder who her Lord is. She sure didn't like to talk about him much in the song. I said, turn that mess off. And I went and cut loose to preaching to him about how it ain't doing nothing for the soul. It ain't doing nothing for the glory of God. Hey, it ain't doing nothing but making people feel all warm and fuzzy. I could have picked the same song up, walked in a bar room and got a guitar and sung it, and they'd have never known the difference. They'd have danced to it just like anybody else would have. Hey, it would have fit into the world. And we brought that stuff in our church house! God help us. Y'all still with me? We're still in the introduction. We've just got a little ways to go yet. Just a little ways to go yet. God said, I've got to cut these things off from you. I'm talking about demon possession. Them devils, they're controlling our preachers. They've got our evangelists because our evangelists are being sucked into who's going to get more money for preaching at what meeting. Hey, you know what I do when nobody wants me to preach? I'd set up a tent and preach myself, by myself, have my own meeting, run my own deal. Look, I preached up in Troy, Pennsylvania in a tent meeting. And there's a bunch of liberals in that town who got mad at me. I'm talking about a bunch of stinking, sorry, no-good-for-nothing liberals. Y'all know what I'm talking about? They got mad at me, and they got in the newspaper and told everybody not to come back to the meeting and talk because I didn't come to the council in the town and get their support and their backing. I got up the next night, and there were some reporters there and some people there, and I got up and said, Hey! God paid for this meeting. You and your bunch didn't, and we're going to have church with you or without you. Like it or lump it. And I just preached on. The next night, a man stood up in the church, or in the tent, and he yelled out at us. He yelled out, and he said, Quit yelling so loud! I can't even think! I said, You want to think? You go to your house. You're in this tent meeting I paid for. Me and my people, God's people, we paid for this, and we're going to yell and scream and holler. You don't like it? Hit the road, Jack. I ain't worried about offerings and meetings and prestige and pride and getting on somebody's brochure. I'm looking for revival. I'm not looking for a good report among the certain groups in our society. But, hey, them demons, they've got our evangelists, and they'll try to get you. They've got our Sunday school teachers. They've got our Sunday school teachers. They've got them. They're taking Sunday school material. The preachers preach to them and told them how it is, and this is how we believe, and this is what we believe, and they're slipping in our Sunday school classes. Let me just go ahead and enlighten you on what them devils are doing. They're getting somebody in there that says, hey, now, I know what's written here, but now let me tell you how I feel about it. You better be careful. You better be real careful. Can you all hear me good? Some of you all got an AWOL look like a calf looking at a new gate. You best be real careful handling the Word of God to our children. But it's got in our financial groups. The preacher says, by faith, we're going out there and build a building, and they meet just as soon as service is over. We can't build a building. We don't have any money now. You just need to calm down. We'll tell you when we get ready to build. Before we walk by finances and not by sight, as the Scripture has said clearly, come up here, I'll throw my shoe and hit you right between the eyes. Huh? You like that? Why aren't you saying amen? You ain't right with God? I need some help up in here. You're all just sitting there looking at me. You want to laugh, but I'm telling you that's the way it is in churches all around the country. You want to know why we're not progressing forward? Because them demons got a hold of our church, and they're stringing us along and dragging us along. And if we just happen to get out of line a little bit, they'll punch us one good time, and we'll all cow down, back up, and run to our little places and hide. God help us. I guess we've got some more introductory to cover. Verse number 13, Thy graven image is also will I cut off. You all notice how many times he says cut off? I went not too long ago. I want to make sure I don't have anything to go flying. I went not too long ago. I had to have a surgery. Take a thing off my nose here. You see, I think it's on this side of my head. I don't remember where it's at. I've got a deep scar right there. Sometimes I get these cancers, and I just go get them cut off. I was down at the doctor getting a thing cut off, and it hurt. Oh, man, it burns. It stings. They give you them little needles in there, and they're going dead and everything, and they just start poking around, and you just want to take up that gurney thing and beat the doctor to death. Now, I know everybody don't feel that way, but I do once in a while. Once in a while. Just on, well, every day. Once in so many times a day. Just a few times a day. Mostly when I hadn't eaten real good lately or had a good steak. You know, just once in a while. They hurt. But the doctor looked at me, and he said, well, we can do two things. We can leave it and watch it, or we can cut it off. Come on now. I've got a point here. Open your heart. Let the Lord speak to you. I looked up at the doctor, and I said, why would I want to watch it? I've got cancer on the side of my head. My glasses won't sit down right, because it's right there on my nose, and so it's causing me pain with my glasses sitting on top of it. I'm getting migraine headaches. Why do I want to watch it? Can you tell me some glorious value of keeping it? It's not, my friend, cushy that I want to rub and pat and keep around forever. It's a sin against my body, and the best thing I can figure is, whack it off! So he cut her off. It hurt. It hurt. It stung. It hurt. It hurt bad. Down deep in there where that core was, where them seeds were and all that, he dug that thing out of there, and then he stitched her back together and sent me back on my way, and it hurt. But you know, I feel a lot better now after a few months later looking back on it. Sure, I'm glad I cut that thing off. I'm talking about sin here in this Scripture, and notice how many times the Lord Jesus Himself, how many times the God of Heaven and Israel looked at Israel and said, these things that are in your life, I will cut off! I'm imagining that's going to hurt some, but we're going to do a whole lot better after. You see the things that are up there in those bags? You can't see them because they're so disgusting and vile. We've tried to cover them in plastic and keep them away from the eyesight, and we're going to the fire with them to burn them, and we're trying to get rid of them. You know what? Somebody in this church has had an investment, an idol, something they've invested in, a sin, a thing they have, and what we're trying to do here is allow God to take out His big knife, the Word of God, that quick sword, that sharp sword, and just cut it off! It's going to hurt. It's going to be painful. It's going to cause us some discomfort. And for several days here, we're going to react to the fact that we've had this kind of a surgical revival, but God said, this is what we need! I need to cut some things out of your life! So He's cutting off idols now, graven images, and standing images. These are those things we invest our worship in. You understand? We've seen our wars. We've seen our witchcrafts. And now we're looking at our worship in verse number 13, because He said, there will be no more worship of the things of thy hand. No more worship of the work of thy hand. And you can't imagine in this congregation of good, fine Christian people how much we worship the fruit of our own labor. All the things we've possessed, all the things we've gotten a hold of that have took glory and honor from God. I ain't opposed to owning some stuff if God's blessed you with them and God's took care of you. God's blessed you as long as God's getting the glory. But it's amazing, it's just amazing how much we've invested in work. And then we've looked back at the labor and the work of our hands and how proud we are. And how we've set that thing up as an image that we love and that we appreciate so much. And you know what? It comes that we love it so much that people start to think we love it more than we love them. And then God starts to think we love it more than we love Him! God, help us! God says, I'm sending a revival that's going to give you great victory and I'm going to cut some things off! We're getting quiet again. You better stir back up. Help me out now. Verse number 14, I'll pluck out thy groves out of the midst of thee. There's some things that have been planted He didn't appreciate. And so therefore, He went ahead and just cut. He said, I'm going to pull them out and fix them to pluck up and fix them to run the plow. And I'm fixing to tear up your groves. I'm fixing to tear up the places where you plant. I'm going to destroy thy cities. Verse number 15, I'll execute vengeance in anger and fury. Now, I just want you, I want you to open your Bible again. I want you to look at it because some of you fell asleep. And I want you to get yourselves, get your mind in the game here. I want you to get right up here with preaching. This is where God's preaching up in here. God's speaking to us now. I want you to get your Bible. I want you to look at the Word of God. I want you to see what God said because most of you all don't believe what I'm fixing to tell you. You'll never believe me. I'm talking about 99% of all good Christians that have been saved in the last 15 or 20 years will not believe what I'm fixing to tell you if you don't see it with your own eyes. Micah chapter number 6, or Micah chapter number 5 rather, Micah chapter number 5, verse number 15. This is the words of God. This is the words of the Lord God in Heaven. Hey! That good, warm and fuzzy God that everybody loves. That God of love! That God that'd never do anything to hurt anybody. That God that never would cross anybody. He's just a big, warm, fuzzy, cushy God. And this is the God that everybody looks at and says, God is love and God's not like that the way you mean old preachers tell us that He is. Not our God. This is what He said with His own mouth. I will execute. I will execute vengeance. How? What are the characteristics of His vengeance? In anger and fury! Wow! You mean to tell me that that great, big, warm, fuzzy God of love? Yes. And He's perfect and holy in doing so. And don't you try to tear Him down by making Him some little cheesy, wimpy God with a yellow stripe up His back. He's not that kind of God. He's the God who not only has wars, but controls wars. Notice Him in His vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen such as they have not heard. Oh, my soul! Can you imagine that it's worse than what history has told us? And worse than what people have told us? And worse than what stories have said? And you think and you say, well, I can tell you the worst events. But some of you are historical buffs. I mean, you all know how it is. You all could play right here with this on the historical level and tell us information that would blow our minds. Of the worst day in war history. And God says, I'm coming and it's going to be worse than you've ever heard. My judgment's going to be harder, and it's going to hurt, it's going to be painful, and it's going to be worse than you've ever heard. I'm going to pour it out on the heathen. I'm going to pour it out on wicked people. Now look at the similarities of the things we've looked at in this introductory verses. And how much similarity there is between us and those people in this verse of Scripture when He said, My people. Do you see all these similarities? How many of these things that are listed? I didn't even take the whole book. I just took about four or five verses here and looked and scanned through. And all this evidently has got God to thinking that there's a problem between us and Him. So we come to chapter 6 and God says, hey! Now we're getting down to the message now in case some of y'all got your stopwatch and you're timing. Introductory lasts about a third of what the whole message lasts. They taught us that in school. Now we're going into the message, so we've got just about two and a half hours to go. Y'all ready? Some of you are pretty scared, I can tell. We're praying for the newcomers. Amen? They did not know. Y'all should have warned them. Are you ready? I want you to see this message. I want you to get the heart of this verse of Scripture because this is what God's put on my heart. God says, wake up and listen. Now He describes His witness. Hey, mountains! Hills! Nature! Rise up and listen to the voice of the Lord. I want you to bear witness in these verses that we have read in the first three verses of chapter number 6. God sets up a courtroom. God sets up a courtroom and in His courtroom, He calls the witnesses of earth and nature and He says, I want you to listen to the voice of the Lord. This is my indictment against man. I've got a controversy. Something between me and them. We've got a disagreement. This is where we have a problem at because all that stuff in the previous verses that we've dealt with, you all will agree that some of that has snuck into our churches and has crept into our churches, into our places of worship, into our Bible-believing, Bible-preaching pulpits. It's crept in. It's snuck into our churches. But we never realize that it has crept in to a point where God says, now it's a controversy between me and you. I love preacher's meetings. I'm just going to stop and throw a commercial in. I love to go to preacher's meetings. Because I like the time, from the time when you get out of the car, to see how long it's going to take before some preacher that's known you and knows that you preach against everything comes up and puts his arm around you and says, you heard the latest controversy? Sometimes they say, issue. You know it's bad anytime a preacher ever does his fingers. Never even went to English class. We don't even know what it means, but we just know you're supposed to go, have you heard the latest news? Have you heard the latest issue? You have to bob your head when you do it. Do you all understand? I'm teaching you younger preachers because you're going out there, and when you get there, you've got to be the first. You've got to step up. You've got to know the news. You've got to read the badness report and all that kind of stuff. You've got to be ready because you've got to get to the meeting and be the first one that looks at somebody and says, have you heard the controversy? And when you get there, I want you to go ahead and tell them the controversy is God's mad at this bunch. He's not happy. And He's the one that's proclaiming the controversy. He says, you know what? I'm upset. You say, God gets upset? God's upset. God feels like there's something between us and Him. There must be something between us and Him because we would not be acting like we are if there was not a problem. Some of you women ought to know that better than anybody. No offense, but you read into everything. Stay with me. I'm not being offensive. I'm just saying, you can see somebody walks in the house, goes and lays their keys down and their things down and walks over there and sits down in a chair and you're timing it. And then you say, hmm, I wish I could do the tight lip. Mine are so big they won't tighten up. Hmm. And then the man looks around and he says, hmm, what? Nothing. Until, you know, the day after or later when you was going on the nothing. And then they said, you really don't know? Okay, this ain't family conference. I'm done. There must be a problem. There must be a problem. Else we wouldn't be acting like we're acting. Do you hear the seriousness of the voice of the Lord? The Lord has not sent a messenger to save. The Lord has sent Himself. As a matter of fact, your Bible says right there if you've got a true copy of the Word of God and not some junk that we need to burn in the fire. But your Bible right there, if you've got some junk that needs to be burned in the fire, we can take care of that later. But that Bible right there says, I want you to hear, Thus saith the Lord. Listen what the Lord saith. Listen what the Lord saith. Don't listen to what Micah says. Don't listen to what Pastor Perkins says. Listen to what the Lord says. And the Lord says, I've got a controversy with you. There's an argument between me and you. And you're startled already, I can tell. We didn't think anything was wrong, preacher. We thought we were doing pretty good. There's your first problem. There's a problem. And see, here's the thing, as long as we keep going along and acting like there's not a problem, we think everything's okay. But it's not the preacher preaching to you. It's not the deacons who gather together. It's not a committee and a board. It's the Lord Himself who looks and says, hey, I've got a problem with you. There's a problem between me and you. I've come to deal with it. And I've brought the witnesses of the world and nature. I've set up my witnesses. I've formulated my courtroom. And now I'm giving you a command. Get up there on that stand and testify against me in the courtroom of God. With the Lord's help, I'm treading very lightly here. And I want you to pray for me that God will help me. We're treading very lightly now. There's no joking, no foolishness now. Lord, you listen to me. This is very serious. But it is behooved. It's upon me that we follow through with what the Scripture said tonight and that we just take a few testimonies against the Lord so that we can try to figure out why it is that we're in the shape that we're in and why we're acting the way we're acting. Why are we doing the things that we're doing? So we've got a chair. I'm going to call some witnesses. We're just going to go ahead and delve in this thing and try to find out what the problem is. That's what God asked us to do. Am I right? Did He not say in your Bible in verse 3, testify against me? There must be a problem. Now we've got to figure out what the problem is. It's time that we start getting into this courtroom in honesty. And we just go ahead and be honest about the things that have gone on in our lives. We're not fixing to delve into your sinful life so you can tell us dirty things. And you don't have the right to approach my bench without me calling you. I'm going to be the attorney in this courtroom. The walls in this earth are going to be the witnesses. The Lord is the one who's on trial. He is the defendant. He says there is a controversy between you and Him. And He says there must be a controversy between Him and you because you are not living right according to His Word. You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're not doing right. There must be a problem. We're going to start with the pastor. Pastor, if you would, please approach the witness stand. And while you're coming, I ask you to affirm that you'll tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth before God and this company. If you do, say, I do. Take a seat on the witness stand. For the sake of the courtroom and the record of the congregation, state your name and position here in the church. How long have you been in the ministry, Brother Perkins, since you started preaching? Twenty-eight years. And how long have you been saved? A child of God? Since 1979. Thirty years this year. In thirty years, there's no doubt in my mind that you've went through several things, amazing things, probably some very blessed days and very difficult days. Am I right? Is it true that you spent twelve years as a missionary? That's probably going to have a lot of bearing in this courtroom and in the witnesses and the testimony that's going to be given. I want to ask you if at any time in the thirty years that you have known the Lord, if there have been an occasion where you did not live up to what you would say according to Scripture is the full standard of the Christian life. There have been some times. I've got him. I've got him. Now while he sits there and deliberates where we're fixing to go next, I want to lay out for you what's going to happen. If there is in fact some time when he has not lived right and some time when he has not been the child of God that he should be and lived the Christian life, it must be something between him and the Lord. And so therefore, it's got to be God's fault. And the Lord has asked us to come upon this testimony, not lightly, but very seriously, and testify against him. The Lord is asking, He's the one on trial, what did I do wrong? Now are you all listening? We've already understood, and without diving into a deep list of things that have been wrong, there have been some times when Pastor Perkins has not lived up to the full standard. Right? Huh. Well, let's hold on that line of questioning for just a moment. Let me ask you something. Has there ever been a time when the Lord has ever let you down? Oh, now, come on. Surely, I mean one time, maybe. A few times. I mean, let's talk about the missionary work. On the foreign field, ten years away from your family, all those years of traveling, and all those events, I mean, surely something, give me something. Just go ahead and be honest. You told everybody you were going to tell the truth. The whole truth is nothing but the truth. It's coming. Has He ever let you down? Are you telling me never in all these years? Let's forget the missionary thing. Let's go for the whole 30 years that you've known Him. You tell me some day, some hour, some moment, when He let you down. Tell me. Has there ever been a time when He let you down? You want me in this courtroom to believe that in fact, He has never, ever failed you? Oh, come on now. What about you missed a meal He couldn't feed you? He couldn't financially support you? Left you hungry? Left you homeless? Come on now, you've got to give me something. There's got to be a reason. You tell me something. Tell me if in fact there's been an occasion when you've messed up and not lived up to the standard, what did He do to offend you that made you so upset that you decided not to fulfill your end of this relationship? Tell me what it is. There has to be something He did wrong. Go ahead. You can point your finger at Him and tell the whole crowd today what He did wrong to you. You're no good to witness. Go on and sit down. Brother Donnie, would you come take the witness stand and on your way up, would you affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, before this congregation and before God in Heaven? If you so affirm, say, I do. Would you give this courtroom your name for the sake of the record? Careful. Be careful. Brother Hagin, how long have you been saved? April 7th, 91? 18 years, is that right? In 18 years, you surrendered to preach. If I understand right, you surrendered to preach the same time. No, 92. 92 the next year? August the 9th. Okay. And so you've been serving the Lord now since you trusted the Lord as your Savior 18 years ago. Now, we're talking about a bus kid. Now, come in and got saved. He's had a hard life. This is going to be good. Brother Hagin, has there ever been a time when you have been lazy on God? Yeah. I knew it. You see, we've got Him. Ever been a time when you have not upheld your end of the relationship between you and God? You admit it. Ever been a time when you have just just right out failed the Christian life? Alright. Then in these 18 years, tell me, there had to be a reason, something that the Lord did against you, something He did that hurt you. Tell me, what was the great thing that the Lord did that hurt you? Are you trying to tell me that you just fell all by yourself but it's not because of Him? You're not following the line of question exactly. You have let God down or you have let this relationship down and God's saying, testify against Him, not against you. You're not the one on trial. You're the witness. And so, point your finger at Him and let me know. What is it? Where did He fail you? Tell me. Has there ever been a time when the Lord let you down? You're going to have to answer yes or no questions and you're not giving me the answer that I'm looking for. I want you to be honest with me, but I want you to listen to the question. He's asking. He's on trial. And He says, testify against. Now, that's not forward. You're not one for Him. You've failed. There's been a mistake in your relationship. There's a controversy between you and Him. So now it's time that this is your chance. This is the one chance in all time. Nobody's ever given a chance like this in a church service before. Now, take a time. Look at this congregation and tell us where God let you down. You can take your seat. I heard there's a missionary, Brother Ferret. I've never met you, but Brother, would you come take the stand? Brother Ferret, would you come take the stand? And would you affirm to tell the truth in front of this congregation in front of God? If you so affirm, would you say I do? I'd like for you to take the stand. Since I've never met you, maybe we'll have a... Has God ever let you down? Brother Ferret, how long have you been saved? 44 years. That's going to be good. How long have you been in the ministry? Amen. 44 years. And so, have you always worked in mission work or is there pastorate or other ministries? 32 years. And now you're working with the Bible ministry? Beams Bible ministry? And so, now, just let's try to look collectively. And there's probably some occasions in your mind that you can narrow down to exactly. But have there ever been an occasion in these 44 years when you have ever just weren't fervent as you should be? Yes, Ariel? And maybe sometimes when you just were slight on God, just not living up to the standard that you should be? Probably, I'm venturing out to say, but maybe sometimes when you just didn't obey. Have there ever been any times like that when maybe you just didn't obey the Lord? Okay, we'll just go on probable. Probable calls. That's all I needed. There must have been a reason according to the words that we're reading here. There must be a reason. And so, the Lord has a controversy with His people, with us that are saved. And so, the controversy that He's asking is He's saying there's a problem. If there's a problem why we're not living right, why we're not doing right, then tell Him what He's done wrong. So this is your chance, see, after all these years in front of this congregation to be able to witness and tell them. Has there ever been a time when God let you down? Never. Think hard now. Maybe a hospital visit or a death of a loved one or maybe a financial situation. Never. Never. But you've already agreed to us that there's been a problem maybe that the relationship hasn't always been the way it should be. And so, you're telling me that it's not God's fault? You can go have your seat now. Thank you for obliging us. But I'm not going to talk to you preachers anymore tonight. Because I can see all the preachers have already gotten their mindset. They know the right Scriptures and their right words to say. Mr. Brooks is music director. Mr. Brooks, would you take the stand? I want you to understand the seriousness of this because if we can find one accusation against Him, all of His glory goes down the toilet. I'm not talking about something you can conjure up. I want some real evidence. He's asking for it. Testify against me! Mr. Brooks, do you affirm to tell the truth before this congregation and before God? If you do, say, I do. What's your name? What's your position in the church? How long have you been saved? In the last nine years of your conversion in this relationship with God, has there ever been a time when you have noticed your relationship is not what it should be between you and God? In the last nine years of your relationship with Him, have there ever been times when there has been a lack of obedience in your life? In the last nine years, have there ever been a time when there has been a problem where you and God didn't fellowship like you should? Maybe you weren't on speaking terms or maybe you didn't feel very close to Him or maybe you spent some time where you didn't have any relationship at all between you and Him. Has there ever been a time like that? Good. If that's so, then this is your opportunity with just a few short questions here to expose what it is that He has done to you to cause you and Him to not have a relationship the way that you should. So I want you to tell me, has there ever been a time in these last nine years when you have failed God? Then has there ever been a time when He has failed you? Now you be honest in this court. You affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Has there ever been a time when He has let you down? Ever been a time when He didn't feed you? Ever been a time when He has left you homeless, no place to sleep? Ever been a time when He wasn't a friend to you? You've got to give me something against Him in order for this trial to be complete. That's what He's asking for. Testify against Him. Think of that time when you were away from the Lord and maybe some sin that had entered in your life and some things that goes wrong, and tell me, what was it that He did that made you go and do what you did? You're saying He's never failed you? Right here down to this very second thinking of everything, I'm talking about you think of everything. Don't you leave a stone unturned. You give me something that He's ever done to you that caused you to live like you live. Have you always went soul winning like you should? Have you always attended church like you should? Have you always read your Bible and done devotions like you should? Then there has to be a reason, Mr. Brooks. People just don't laze out on a relationship without a reason. Tell me. Just put it down to a word. Give me a fact. Give me a reason. What God do to you that caused you to live like you live? You can have your seat. In the illustration tonight, I don't have anything against God. But I could keep calling witness after witness in here and I need somebody that could tell me something against God. The only thing is is there has never been anything against God. But God's looking down on the congregation like this church and saying, then why are you lazy? Then why don't you love Me? Then why don't you fellowship with Me? Then why don't you devote yourself 100% to God? Why are you disobedient? Why are you hurting our relationship? Why are you not fellowshipping with Me like I want you to? You just go ahead and point your finger at God and tell Him through His face what it is that He's doing to you that's hurt you so bad. Then shame on you for praying for the lottery. That's got nothing to do with God. That's full of the devil and hell ain't got a thing to do with God. That ain't no reason to ever point a finger at God and say, you failed, you let down. God ain't never failed anybody. God ain't fixing to fail anybody. And it's your own sin and wickedness. The reason that any one of us in here are lazy is because of the sin of our own heart, not the sin of our Savior. The reason any one of us in here are sorry is the sin of our own heart, not the sin of our Savior. The only reason that a man who claims to be a Christian would pray and ask for the lottery is because his heart's filled with love for money. Amen. And the love of money is the root of all evil. God help us all. The reason that men are looking at pornography in this church is not the Savior's fault. It's the sinful heart of man. The reason there's witchcraft in this church is not the Savior's fault. It's the wicked hearts of men. The reason there's vampire study in our church is the wickedness of men, not the wickedness of our God. I brought to you a dangerous text tonight. A dangerous text tonight. A serious text tonight. The time when the Lord stepped forth before all the witness of the world and said, Tell me why! Tell me what the problem is. Then you should be searching your life and finding out if there's a real problem in the life and the hearts of the people right here in Tormat. Look in the mirror at yourself. It is not God's fault. It is our fault that we're in the shape that we're in. It's our sin. It's our sin. It's our degradation. It's our wickedness. It's our sorriness. It's our lowdownness. Men should be on their faces crying and praying because we realize that it's not God who failed us, but it's us who have failed God! Wonder why we don't see a revival in our day. Wonder why we don't have a reviving in our land. And look at our churches! In the very presence of our building tonight and these walls, all the wickedness we've dealt with tonight applies to this congregation. Preachers like myself who have dirty hands. We've failed God. We've lived slight. We've not sensed a revival yet. We may have come in and had a few good services, but we ain't seen a revival yet. I'm talking about a revival that stirs up this county. It stirs up this state. We've not seen that revival yet, but it's not God's fault. It's the fault of us who sit here in this building tonight. God help us. Then you tell me why it doesn't bother us enough to put us weeping like babies upon our knees. Why doesn't it cause our faces to blush? Why doesn't it cause our eyes to run with tears? It causes His eyes to run with tears. It causes His face to blush. It causes Him shame. His head drops. And He's not the one who did wrong. May God help us tonight. Look around. This congregation, there's enough people in here right here, there's enough people in here that if God were to burn a revival in the hearts of just this group of people, that there's enough people here to shake up the U.S. There's enough people. It would bleed into other countries. There's enough people here. I read that quote in the bulletin this morning, and I'm sorry I didn't memorize it, but I read that quote in the bulletin. What's the quote? Somebody said, if you give me 100 men, John Wesley, give me 100 men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the world. But there's a problem. We have 100 men who love the world and the things of the world, and we're the ones who are salting the relationship between us and God. We're the ones who are destroying His glory in this world. We have opened the occasion for men to laugh at our God and to joke about Him and to hate Him because of our lives and our sins. We need 100 men who hate sin and who fear sin and who want nothing but God. But we have a church full of people who are afraid right now of Him pulling out His sword and cutting something off of our lives. No, we haven't had revival yet. It'll start when you start getting sick at your stomach over the sins that you're committing and the sins of your family. It'll start when you start getting that churning in the pit of your stomach and realizing it's not Him who has failed me, but it is me who has miserably failed God. He hath not failed us. He's never let us down. He never will. But it is us. It is us! It is our sins! Remember the Scripture of Isaiah when He said, Hey, God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. Neither is it heavy that it cannot hear. But it is our iniquity that caused the separation. It is our iniquity that has separated between us and our God. It's our iniquity. It's our sin that's caused the hand of God to be stayed. He doesn't move in great power. In days gone by, we know of history and have seen it with our own eyes. I have, I hope you have, of days when services would be conducted in a revival service and so much Holy Ghost conviction in service that people would fall literally between the pews and into the aisles. So much Holy Ghost conviction. But He doesn't have that kind of liberty in here because of our sins. May God help us. Stand with me, please. Heads bowed. Knives closed.