In this sermon, the preacher discusses the prevalence of sin and immorality in society, both within the church and in the world. He emphasizes the concept of sowing and reaping, stating that the consequences of our actions cannot be bypassed. The preacher highlights the need for individuals and churches to recognize and repent of their sins in order to be set free. He also emphasizes the power of the Word of God in exposing and revealing sin, and calls for a return to biblical principles in order to bring about societal change.

I greet you all in the name of the Lord Jesus. So good to be here. I could so relate to that testimony that was given to us here tonight. And thought I would just make a few comments on it. Just a little bit on baptism. I guess I have desired over the years to be a little merciful on people to know what a big step that is when you've been baptized into a church and you get born again and we start discussing the issue of a believer's baptism, which is the only biblical one that's right. But I know what a cross that is and what a cost that is many times to people. And I'd just like to say this, that over the years I have preached for a number of groups that some have been willing to face that and some have not. And I wish I could show you the difference today. There's a group in the Midwest here that I have preached and been in and out of for five, six years and worked with. And they said, if we do that, that will cut us off from our people. And so they chose not to do it. They were scared of it. Even though there were three men and maybe some women, but at least three men I believe that were longing to be baptized and to get the answer of a good conscience toward God. But the leader said, nope, no way. And then God led us to another place and we laid it out very clear and what the Bible teaches and kind of presented it in a similar way, maybe a little stronger. And they chose that they're going to do it. And I remember one of the couples got pulled out of bed the next morning by the preachers at the door. On Monday morning, living in a colony in Manitoba and given until noon to get out of there with everything they had. Of course, they can't take anything but their furnishings, but that was the price and the cost that came upon them for the obedience. But two years later, that church has an attendance of 200 and has been one of the fastest growing groups that we have ever experienced in our history of revival work. And that's an amazing thing to me to observe those two differences. The other group is still wallowing around to try to decide whether they want to serve God or not. And it keeps us scratching our heads as to whether they're even born again because they're not willing to pay the price to walk with God and to do what He says. And I come from a background where many Amish Mennonites or people who have come from there have wrestled with this issue. And now after 40 years of being a Christian, I do have the blessed opportunity to go back and watch this thing and see who has prospered and who has gone on and done great things for God and who is still wallowing around. Not too much progress. And maybe with their children, have slipped about as far back as the advantages that they have made coming out of an old order setting. It's sad. But anyway, baptism is no small issue. Well, I also believe it's a blessing to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. And I've had the privilege to do that a few times in my life. And I say it's a powerful, strengthening element in our Christian life. Don't you pass it up and compromise because of a peer pressure and all those things that they throw at you. We're still on behind when it comes to suffering for our Lord. Way on behind. Paul knew that and he said that. I'd like to catch up a little, he said. I'd like to catch up that which is behind in the suffering of the Lord. Something to that effect there. Well, we have another subject tonight again, When God Comes. We're still on that subject and we are very grateful that we can continue to think of revival issues and salvation issues and look at the whole picture of when God comes. When God comes. And tonight's message will be that sin is exposed and revealed and made known and confessed and forsaken. I just have the title Sin is Exposed. I don't know what the best sounding title is, but I've thought of some others too and maybe there's a better one that fits as I go along and see how the message unfolds. But when God comes, when God comes, then sin becomes exceedingly sinful. And if I could portray the burden of my heart tonight, it would be in this very vein. That I am distraught. I am distressed. I am at loss for words. I don't know where to turn or what to do concerning the acceptance of sin in the lives of professed believers. I am distressed. I am perplexed. I don't know what to do. But I do know one thing. Historically, historically, when God comes, sin comes to the surface. Sin is exposed. Sin is revealed. If you allow me to be crude enough, I'll even say sin is coughed up in order that it can be skimmed off of a man's life and he can get free from the stout. That's what caused Brother Laverne to be able to give the testimony that he could give. He knew he was laden with sin and when he came to Jesus, the whole thing came up. The whole list flung. And God is in the great, great delight and business to sweep that thing and skim it off and let a man go free. And that is what my message is all about. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, the Bible says, For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and is a discerner, a revealer, a manifester of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Now doctors tell me or I understand physicians have an extreme difficult time to divide between the joints and marrow. If you take a cross-sectional view of a bone, an animal bone, hopefully that you saw through, and look at where the dividing line is between the joints and the marrow, you will have extreme difficulty to draw the pencil line of where it is. But I want to tell you that God's Word has the ability tonight to make that distinction and to do the job and to do it right. Oh, I know what else I wanted to say something about. And that is the standard book. He alluded to that and talked a little bit about the standard book. And I know that a lot of people desire to keep out the world by the standard book. But I just say my book's just a little thicker than yours. That's all. My book's just a little bit thicker than yours. And that is the one that is quick and powerful and sharp enough to discern as to what sin is and what isn't and instead of us trying to figure out what sin is, not knowing the motive of a man's heart, you know how it is. We, in times past, I was in churches where they made a clear standard not to go to the fair. Well, we had that in our standard. You can't go to the fair. And so all my life long I didn't go to fairs. But in the latter years of my Christian life, I started going to fairs. And so I was direct disobedient now to a former standard that I had. But I go to a fair for a very different reason than I would have went to a fair or what other peoples go to a fair for. Because now I go to preach the gospel or to witness or to pass out texts or to talk to people about the Lord. And so you see, how can you make a standard that you can't go to the fair if you want to go to the fair to preach the gospel? See, it's the motive of the heart that makes the difference. So to make a standard that nobody can go to the fair is not the issue. The issue is deeper than that. And it's only that which the Spirit of God, which is able to discern between the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner, is a revealer, is an exposer of the thoughts and of the intents or motives of the heart. And only God's Word and God's Spirit are able to do that thoroughly in our life and experience in our Christian life. You know, I was reading today as I studied for this message about sin and my burden about sin and how sin needs to be exposed and come to the surface so it can be skimmed off. And I come across that scripture, Inventors of Evil Things. And I had to think about the inventions that have come up in my past six years or ten years or maybe even two or three years. And I had to think, you know, if you would want to write all those things down and try to discern what the inventions of evil are which are detrimental to the Christian life, and you become a busy man. You become a busy man to write all the things down that Satan and the world are hatching up to be a detriment to the Christian life. Who would have thought of what an Internet was twenty years ago? We wouldn't have had the faintest idea. Who would have had any idea what some of these newfangled temptations are to people? You know, and the modern inventions of sin and all these different things. But, oh, I just want to preach tonight again that when God comes, that sin has to come to the surface. Sin has to come to the surface. You know, it's also interesting for me to look at the Old Testament versus the New. Back there, you don't have any man judged for lust. And very few for envy and jealousy and anger. And it was a common mistake in the Old Testament times. But in the New Testament, that standard is so enhanced and so lifted up by the Spirit of God as He broods over the people of God and brings all of those things that are down in there into the human heart and brings them to the surface and deals with them in ways we could never have dealt with in the Old Testament. The Bible also tells us in the New Testament, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And so we notice that it's not only the sins of the flesh we must look at when we look at sin, but it's also the sin of the spirit. And that's what happened in the Sermon on the Mount, is that for once, the Lord Jesus Christ began to point His finger at the intent or the motives or the attitudes of a man's heart and not only his acts. And you know, the Old Testament judgment didn't fall until He had committed the act of sin. But in the New Testament, the very thought of sin becomes sin. The very lust in the heart is brought up. And the Bible teaches us, Paul teaches us to put off anger, lust, wrath, malice, all those things, evil communication out of your mouth. And he's saying these things need to go under the shining light, the penetrating light of God and the Spirit of God in our hearts and lives. These things have come to the surface and they have to be put out of our lives. But something very terrible is happening today. Something very awful. Something which I cannot describe. And that is that this whole matter of sin and open wretched wickedness is becoming acceptable to the people of God. Our minds are being numbed. Our minds are being dumbed down. Our whole concept of sin is being eroded away from us. We have new terms for sin. We are constantly changing all kinds of words. And we have today alternative lifestyles. Would you pray tell what that is? Or we have a pro-choice. Could you help me what pro-choice is? When it is the absolute opportunity for you to murder your baby, tear it to pieces limb by limb, out of the womb without any protection for the child, the child able to defend itself, it is the most horrendous murder that there ever was in the face of the earth. If one man was an enemy of another and they put up a good fight in a one-one, that was a little bit more understandable. At least the man had an opportunity to defend himself. But not so an abortion. And we go and call it pro-choice? And that is how the whole thing is so watered down and so mellowed out that we hardly know what to call sin anymore. It is like the man said, you know, preachers still preach about sin, they just don't know what qualifies anymore. And that is so, so sad. You know, John the Baptist, and I think many Christians cannot even, they cannot see straight anymore in this thing. And I must say, I am a reader, you know, and I like to know what is going on in the world. I check the news a bit. And I try to find out, especially the religious news. I get a lot of periodicals in my ministry, in my home, you know, and I read them and I want to know what people are thinking and how they are looking at this thing. And I watch that thing and I observe. And I see how they mellow that whole thing out. And how they excuse sin today. And how they make it sin not to be feeling sinful. And in that way, they are playing right into the hands of the enemy. And they are dumbing us down and trying to pull us down and get us so used to sin that sin is not exceedingly sinful anymore. In fact, it hardly matters. We wink at sin like they did in the Old Testament and just let it go by. And that is taking its toll on our lives, on our morals, on our honesty, on our businesses, on our relationships in our family, with our wives, and how we treat each other in the churches and all these things. You can call it the dumbing down of America. And there are a number of issues that we are being dumbed down today. But one of them is concerning sin. It is concerning sin. We are being dumbed down and numbed out that we can hardly know what it is, identify it, and get the thing skimmed off of our lives because we hardly know what it is. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 8, verse 11, because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the heart of them that do evil is strengthened, is the idea of it. I thought I was going to turn to it here and read the verse, but here it is. I want to get that right. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. And that is exactly what we have in our high schools, in our colleges, in our cities, in our nations, in our homes, and in our churches. Because there is no execution of a sentence against the evil work that is going on in the place among the young people, and it's not lifted up and judgment brought upon the individual whether it's in or out of the court systems. You can't expel a student before you have their parents on your back. You can't bring an issue to judgment for years after the crime is committed today because of all the defense system that's out. They rob the nation poor, incarcerating them in prisons while they wait to bring them to judgment. And it's like it was in the Old Testament times. There is no judgment in the land. And because sentence on an evil work is not quickly meted out or speedily executed, then the heart of those who have done the evil is strengthened in the sin that they have committed. Because the sin doesn't have any consequences. And that's wrong with our home because there is no spanking and no thorough discipline of a child because they have done wrong, therefore their heart is strengthened to do it again. It has no consequence. And if you let your children get by for the evil and the wicked things they do, then they are hardened in that thing because you don't do anything about it and it's your fault. It's your fault that their heart is hardened and that they're doing the things. And when they grow older and they do some of the horrible things that they're doing nowadays, some of that is your fault. It's because you have not executed speedily judgment upon them for the wrong they've done. And that was the whole problem back in Israel. Eli, a big overweight priest, back in the Bible times, was sitting around there and letting his sons rob the people of the meat and eat all the choice cuts that were coming up. It should have been offered, but they were demanding it of the people. Plus, they lay with the women and committed adultery with them. And Eli would just sit there and not do anything about it. And then the Bible says judgment was brought upon Eli from God because he knew the wicked works and he restrained him not. He wouldn't do anything about it. And that brought an Eli syndrome of deadness and lethargy. And the man was eating too much and drinking too much and sitting there fat and lazy as a priest of God. And he should have been up and watching what was going on in the house of God. And he should have been bringing judgment upon his sons. And that's a hard thing to do. But a man has to do it. Or else their heart is hardened to do evil and wicked. And they get used to it and they think there's no judgment. And they do more and more and more and the funnel just goes down. And pretty soon we have a wretched mess in the whole situation of God's people. And that's what happened. And then God has to come. God has to come. And instead of Him coming in revival and coming to bring salvation, He comes in judgment. Terrible judgment and destruction. And that's what the Old Testament says from cover to cover. Well, in Lamentations, we have a picture of it in chapter 2, verse 9, where the Bible says, her gates are sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princess are among the Gentiles. The law is no more. Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord. The elders of the daughters die and sit upon the ground and keep silence. What just breaks my heart tonight is the fact that these things are going on and nobody says anything about it. You can't get people to open their mouth about it. The brother was saying something tonight and I don't want to contradict him here openly, Brother Laverne, about no persecution when you go out in the street and preach the Gospel. Well, I have to say that depends on what you say. That depends on what you say. And you can go into a lot of churches and you'll get persecution if depending on what you say too. You see, because I believe right now that it would be considered a hate crime, it's already on the books of Washington, D.C., that it's a hate crime to speak out against the sin of homosexuality. And if you'd go on the streets of any major city, I don't think you'd be standing there so peacefully if you start shouting the Word of the Lord out concerning the sin of homosexuality. I don't think so. You can try it if you want, but I believe just pretty shortly you may spend the night in jail. And then maybe a couple of months in jail for doing something like that. And then maybe ultimately they'll throw the key away. I don't know. That's the way the nation is going. They are lifting that up that for you to think that your way is right and that kind of lifestyle is wrong is terrible in their mind. And that's a hate crime. And they already have the laws in place to deal with you for having a hate crime. You don't have to make them. It's already done. Clinton put that in motion while he was in office. And a lot of people don't realize that and haven't done anything about it. And also in verse 14 of Lamentations 2. So anyway, here we have the law is no more. Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord. The elders, the elders, the bishops, the overseers of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silent. They won't open up and speak and preach against the sins of the people. And that's why we're in the mess we are in. Now, when I just want to talk about sin here tonight, and I don't know how far I'll get, but I would like to capitalize a bit on the moral issues and the moral sins of the church and of America and of our people. I recognize people do not understand what's going on. They are so blind, they do not understand. They do not know. And when they do not know, then they cannot take a position against it many times. Especially so with the youth. They do not know at 13 and 14 and 15 the consequences of immorality. They have no idea what all is involved in those things until they get caught, until they get pronounced with a debilitating disease of some kind, until children are in their lap that they hadn't planned for and are making them grow up before their time with responsibilities that they had never hoped for and bargained for. And their life is many times almost ruined by these things. And especially the brightness of a beautiful future that God would have in mind. Now to talk about this tonight, I would just like to use the example of David and his great sin. When King David fell into sin with Bathsheba, he was the king and the pride of his heart was rather great. He thought, I can have who I want and I can do what I want, and he did not think of the consequences of it. But I want to tell you that the history of that man David, though he was a man after God's own heart, for that one terrible mistake that he made, the law of sowing and reaping that went through that man's life is one of the most incredible stories in the Bible. First of all, you know, man looks at it like, well, what is wrong with showing some love, as they see it physically, you know, between the opposite sex? You know, here was a woman, her husband was in the army, she was not at home, and you know, the devil throws things like that at people and they begin to reason with this thing and think, what would it hurt? What would matter? Nobody will know, we'll do this thing in secret and everything will be fine. But, of course, then we know she sent word to him after the whole thing was over and said that she's with child. And therein lies the crux of the matter on the moral issues of life. And I think many times it's difficult to speak plainly and boldly on this subject, but I think people don't understand, they are not thinking, young people don't understand, and that's why so many times they play around with fire and don't realize that they're playing with dynamite and explosives that will wreck and ruin and the consequences of it will last for generations. And the reason is simply this, God has so ordained and so designed it that when male and female come together in a physical union, that out of that union children are born. Souls, eternal souls are brought into the kingdom and they are brought into the kingdom where they need a mama and a daddy and need to be brought up and cared for and overseen and watched. And they need to be fed and nursed and cared for. And that is why this thing is so absolutely important that this act is not a free for all and cannot be messed around with. This is a great sin before Almighty God because He has designed it for the cementing together and the enjoyment of the marriage and the marriage alone. And there it is sanctioned and right and holy. But outside of that, when it brings children into the world that were not planned for and they don't have a mama and they don't have a daddy, then we have absolute chaos. They don't know who their relatives are. They can't find their uncles and their aunts. When this thing goes through a generation through a society and permeates a society, it causes such wreckage, such debauchery, such absolute chaos that whole societies have disintegrated totally because of it. If it goes far enough. And ours is on the heels of it. We are losing our strength. We are losing our morals. We are losing our backbone. We are losing our decisive powers because we are dumbing ourselves down with committing adultery and fornication and sin and all kinds of moral debauchery. And oh, the consequences of it. Alright, after David committed his sin, then you know how it is. Sin begets sin. Did you ever see that? You know, usually when young people fall into sin like that, then they lie to cover it up for a while. And finally, when they can't lie about it, I remember of a young lady that I was related to. And you know, she was six months pregnant and still denying that anything had happened. And still trying to lie her way out of it. But the baby was continuing to grow in her womb and there was simply absolutely no way to lie her way out of it. And finally, of course, she had to fess up and admit and confess. But she had lied and lied and lied in that whole thing. And that's just what so many people do. But David, he did the same thing. You know, one sin begets another. Then trying to cover it up, he called Uriah home and tried to cover it up that way. And that didn't work because Uriah was devoted to the war and he wouldn't go down and take a vacation. And therefore, David sent him into the front lines and had the soldiers back away from him when he was in the front. And there were shooters on the wall and he got hit and he got killed. And then, of course, another great, great sin had taken place. Now, we don't only have adultery. Now we have murder on top of it. At some time also, in David's life, things started falling apart in his home. Now the Bible says, Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. That shall he also reap. And this law of sowing and reaping cannot be bypassed, cannot be short-circuited. This is a living reality in the world, in the church, in America, in Europe, in Russia, and everywhere. And the consequences that are coming down upon society on the laws of sowing and reaping. But what burdens me and hurts me the most is even though they are reaping and they see their society degenerating right in front of them, they still won't change their minds. The heart of them has been set to do evil so strongly and so terribly that they will not turn. Well, we have Amnon raping his half-sister, taking her by force. And then, immediately thereafter, he hated her with as much a greater hatred than the love that he had for her. A common thing that happens in fornication or rape. Somehow, that is not the way God has intended for this thing to happen and for the two to come together like that ever, ever. And somehow, it becomes so repulsive even to those that have been involved in it that a hatred comes out of it much greater than the love and the lust that was there before. Then Absalom gets on the warpath. And he hides this thing in his heart. For two years, he tried with a terrible hatred to Amnon because of what he did to Tamar. He was another one of David's sons. Absalom, a rebel at heart too. And then he goes and has a party and brings the sheep shearers together, you know, for a party. Or there was a party and he didn't want to go. And he plotted this whole thing that he could get Amnon by himself and he had him killed. Because of the jealousy that raged in his heart. Another sin that was produced by the rape. That brought the jealousy. That brought the animosity. We have the hatred for Tamar. We had her humility. She put her hand on her head and went crying through the streets after she was humbled. And we have sin upon sin down through that family because of it. Now we have a boy dead. David and his sons mourned and wept with a great wailing and lamentation for a son that lay dead because of the whole calamity of the whole thing. Where did it all start? It started in the sin of David when the morals of his home and the protection of God were broken down because of his immorality. Next, not only do we have rape, we have incest. We have murder. Then it throws Absalom. He fled for his life through the whole thing for a while and stayed away from David because he feared of what would happen of the reprisal maybe David would have on him because he had killed his brother. And now we have that animosity and that separation and his rebellion and then him plotting to overthrow the kingdom and to kill his dad with a bunch of men. And you have attempted murder there. And they almost got it done except by the grace and power of God which protected David. Absalom would have taken the kingdom and killed him. But it stopped short of that. But anyway, all of these sins came out of sin. Sin begets sin. And finally we have such an awful picture and such a carnage. And David was a bloody man and was not allowed to build the temple because he was a man of war and because of all these things that had taken place. I have some dear friends that have been in sin like this. And the consequences are terrible. As I was studying for this message my phone rang. I was sitting there in a chair this evening around 5.30 and my phone rang and it was one of these dear friends in Canada. And he said, I'm in trouble. And here's the story. He was a young man. I don't know how many children. I believe there was over ten. It seems to me there might have been thirteen children in the family. I'm not sure. And his father ran off to Mexico and cohabited with a woman in Mexico and left his wife and the mother of these thirteen children to sit with the entire family. They had a terrible time of it. He worked and dropped out of school, the oldest boy. And he worked hard in the tobacco fields of Ontario to try to make a little living for his mama so they had bread to eat. They suffered hard times. And that father neglected and stayed away to this day. He is in Mexico even though this is probably about twelve, fourteen years now already or something like that. He simply left the entire family set. Praise God. God has brought a number of them to the faith and they have traveled to Mexico to witness to their dad. But here's the problem. Here's the oldest son. He didn't have a dad because there was not a father and there was not a mother and there was not a restraint. So he got into trouble and he starts drinking and he starts carousing with a boy and he starts going out because mama was soft and she had a whole bunch of babies to take care of and there was no restriction and no man in the house to restrain these sons from doing evil. And I remember he gave me this story and I can't even give you a fraction of what all he got into. But I know he was standing alongside of the Niagara River and I think he even was in the water up to his hips about and he debated and he debated back and forth as to whether he wanted to end it all and jump into the Niagara Falls and go down over and end everything. But somehow the hand of God had mercy on him and kept him. Well, he fell into immorality left and right. Started running with girls and drinking and this and that. And all at once, here he was in his low twenties somewhere and fell into sin and pregnancy occurred with a 15 year old girl. She was a sinner. She was a hardened one. Now, all at once a baby came into the world and the mother, 15, 16 years old now she was when she had the baby brought it over to him at 22, 23, 24 years of age and said, here, take it. I don't want it. And praise God he had enough of moral uprightness in him that he took that little baby and he cared for that baby. It was unreal. He would come to brother's meetings in the church and he would change the diapers. He would carry the baby. He would be over in the nursery while we were gathering together in brother's meetings in the church up there. In this whole thing he got converted. He tried to lead her to Christ. She refused it. Rejected. Began to keep on running with boys and he had to cut all relations. And she didn't want to have anything to do with this little fella. Every now and then she did, but then she didn't. She didn't want the responsibility and she went right on out into sin again and left him set to mother the baby. Well, tonight he's three years old and now we have a terrible mess on our hands. Now she's grown a little older. She may be 19 tonight or 20 and the child is three and she has that motherly instinct that she'd like to have this child. She's living with another man by now, but she remembers she has a son somewhere and she'd like to have this boy. And he says, this thing will make or break me if she comes to get this boy. He has poured his very soul into this boy. He has cared for it. He has brought him up to where already he's a good young boy at three years old. In the meantime, he gets married to a single young lady and she adopts the child and cares for the child and that's the way they're living. You know, and trying to patch the lives up and the messes up that they have caused in the past. And now she's on the track to get this young boy and it's tearing him apart. He says, I don't know what I'm going to do. Have the people pray for me down there. Have them pray for me. He said, if the authorities come to my door and come and tear this boy out of my arms, he said, I don't know if I can take it. I don't know what I can do. Knowing what kind of sin and debauchery that they will take this boy back into because of the lifestyle of the mother. Yet, she is the mother. She is the biological mother. And the courts will probably give her the opportunity. And you say, how did all this happen? Where do we have this carnage? And it's all because of this matter that we don't understand why the high standard of moral uprightness is held by the voice of God where it is. And now we, you know, every now and then we get a glimpse when we see these things as to why these things are this way. We get an idea that a little fornication, a little extramarital affair is alright. And we begin to break down our morals. And now we live in a nation in which the entire nation is debauched in these things. And it doesn't matter. And it's happening at twelve, and at thirteen, and at fourteen, and at fifteen, and at sixteen. All irresponsible people. And then running to the murderers of America to murder the children that are born by the sins. And that's what we have. But do you know what's going on? Do you know what's happening? This is as prevalent in the church as it is in the world. That's what the evangelical church is saying. This is as prevalent in the church as out of it. And I can't imagine, I cannot imagine that anything could get that far and could get that low. But that's where we're at. We reap what we sow. Whatsoever a man shall sow, that shall he also reap. But it's all because of sin and the high standard of God. And we say, God, You're too strict. Why can't we have a little fun? Why can't we do what we want to? And we scorn at the standard that God has put. And it's for our good. It's so that we don't run into these incredible, miserable situations. I'll give you another story. I had a dear sister out west that I knew she was precious to me and close to me. But no young boy came along for her. And somewhere along the way, she began to weaken. And some of the first things I heard of her beginning to slip. And you know, the covering started to go and numerous things happened. And then I heard she made a statement. Every girl wants to be married once. And I'll tell you, that girl was on the mission field. She was precious. She was a powerful young lady for God. But she began to compromise on a statement like that. And ended up sometime here in the last year and a half or so. Two years maybe. And she married a divorced man in Denver, Colorado. And moved down with him. I think a doctor. Too ashamed to ever see my face. I was out in her home area for a wedding last summer. And of course, nowhere around. Nowhere around. And you know, I was preaching on Sunday about chastisement. That one of the difficulties that we must deal with is chastisement. God chases after her. In His great mercy, and chastises His children. Well, two days ago, still living her rebellious ways. Living with a divorced man. Forbidden by Scripture. Riding a motorcycle. Her and her man that she lived with had an accident. And got run over by a car. Her pelvis is broken in five places. Her arm is broken. Her leg is broken. If she wouldn't have a helmet on, they'd have a funeral. Or would be planning one for today or tomorrow. But her life is still hanging on. And there she lays. Reaping the whirlwind for an intent that was sin. And I believe that accident is God's mercy. I believe it's God's mercy. And my wife is trying to get a phone number, you know, and we're not sure what our responsibility is there. Pray for us. But I believe it's God's mercy. He just does those things. God spanked her so hard, she may never walk again. And it's heartbreaking. She was a picture of health, energetic, and a beautiful young lady at one time. Romans 1. Romans 1. Have you listened to these things? You know, in the providence of Canada, you can hardly read this word anymore. The new law in the providence of Canada is that you can read this Scripture, perhaps, but you cannot make any comments on it. Imagine. You can read Romans 1, but don't make any comments. It's illegal to make any comments on it. And the time will sure come there first and here next when a man making comments that this means what it says and it's a sin against God whereby people will be condemned for. They'll probably have to spend time behind bars for it. I want you to notice verse 21. I want you to notice the beginning of these sins because that when they knew God... You ever notice that? Because that when they knew God... What? Now, it's only heathens that do this, right? It's surely not people who knew God. But it says, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful for what God had done for them or God had given them. And they became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Do you know where the depravity of man comes from in South America and Africa? Do you know where the idolatry, the falling down in front of an idol and giving your hard-earned money and when your children are starving, you still give your food to the idol? Do you know where that comes from? That comes from fallen Christianity. They are all descendants of Noah and his sons. That's where it comes from. Hedonism didn't just become hedonism on its own. And a bunch of people were raised somewhere in the bush that never heard anything about truth. All of them come from Noah and from his three sons and were duly instructed in righteousness because Noah was a preacher of righteousness for many years. But their foolish heart was darkened. And I realize we have a generation now that may not know and may never have heard. But their fathers and grandfathers back far enough departed from the ways of God and fell away from God. And if it happened to them, it can happen to you and I. And if it can happen to them, it has happened to the Evangelical Church in America. And it has happened to the Anabaptist groups of America. The moral dumbing down and debauchery and becoming tolerant to sin is a cancer in the society of the country, be it church or state. Be it downtown Chicago or Los Angeles or be it out in the country of Allen County, Indiana. These things are falling because men will not lift up the standard of God and will not stand for truth and preach against sin and call sin a rightful name and describe it and expound on it and explain it until people realize that sin must again become exceedingly sinful. And therefore we have what we have today. Divorce and remarriage is another thing that is as bad in the church as out of it. Someone has said recently that it is actually about 4% higher in the Evangelical Church of America than what it is in the world. And I think that is about the worst news you can imagine concerning this whole matter. But the problem is the shepherds, which are not shepherds. They are hirelings that are allowing them to get rid of one and marry another within the church and the preacher sanctions it. They are dumb dogs that cannot bark, if you please, of which the prophets have talked about them. But here is the thing we have to realize. This moral debauchery, all of us are prey to it. All of us can begin to think lightly of these things and think, oh, that is not so bad, you know. These evil, wrong courtship standards of petting and kissing and hugging and sitting in dark places and all that, you know, we just kind of look the other way and kind of laugh and say, that is what we did too when we were young. And that is what a lot of people are doing. But there is where this moral thing breaks down and begins to erode. And out of that is what fornication comes from. Come on! Two and two is four. Put it together. Figure it out. Add it up. Subtract it. And see what we have got. And we simply have a problem on our hands simply because we have the Eliac syndrome. We are sitting in the house of God. We are to be priests of God in our home. And our young people are involved in these things. And we restrain them not. And it is our fault. It is not your 13-year-old's fault, 14 and 15, for getting into these things like this. If they have had no teaching and no restraint on the part of their parents. All right. Romans chapter 1 verse 24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature or an idol more than the Creator, God, who is blessed forever. Amen. And that is how idolatry has come. That is where heathenism is born from. That is how it got to be heathen. Somewhere along the way, these people, their fathers, their grandfathers, their great-great-great-great-grandfathers said, we don't want God in our lives. We don't want Him. You have the example of Nimrod, who was the grandson of one of Noah's sons. I can't think now which one. But Nimrod, the Bible says, was a mighty hunter. He went out from the presence of the Lord. And when it says that, it simply means, I don't want you, God, get out of my life. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to obey you. I'm not going to listen to what you said. And he is the father of Babylon. He is the father of the whole thing. And down through the ages, the city of Babylon, with its heathenism, its anti-God society, its idolatry in the plain there, lifting up a statue to Nebuchadnezzar and asking all the people to bow down to those things, that all come from a Nimrod who said, I don't want you, God, in my life. But I tell you what, you think, oh, yeah, that was that wicked man Nimrod. That was him. I surely wouldn't do that. But whenever we look at the written Word of God and say, that's too strong for me, I think I'll try and take a more mellow way. We are beginning to say those things in our hearts. God, I don't need you. Your standard is too high. And the Bible says so clearly on this whole moral issue, which would solve it from cover to cover in every society, in this one verse, it is good for a man to avoid fornication, for a man not to touch a woman. That would put off everything. Dating couples or couples interested in marriage would have that standard in their lives. If boys and girls, brothers and sisters, would have that standard, if a man would have that kind of a standard with his neighbor's wife, we wouldn't have this mess on our hands. But they don't like to retain God in their knowledge. And they go out and establish their own righteousness and they say, God, we don't need Your protection. We don't need Your high standard. We'll make our own. We can handle this thing. How are we handling it? When we have 35% of the children in America, millions and millions of them who have only a single parent, no father and no mother, and no proper guidance and restraint of the perfect setting that God has ordained to bring up healthy children in and to protect them and guide them. All of that has come about because a man didn't like to retain God in their knowledge. And it just burns inside of my heart when I read the newspaper or I catch what they're saying. And you know, they're looking for a problem and they're trying to solve the disease problem. The disease problem of STDs has all come out of immorality. And if people would go back to the standard that God has given, they wouldn't have any of that stuff. Do you know that, young people? Do you realize that? That God has not made us like the animals. God has not made us have multiple partners. And when we do, bacterias are generated that create debilitating and deadly diseases. That's God. We are not cows. We are not dogs. God has made us on a higher level of intelligence and a standard and has called for monogamy. One man and one woman, and whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil. Adulterers and fornicators, the Bible says, God will judge. The marriage is undefiled. The bed is undefiled. But home owners and adulterers, God will judge. And that's what He's doing. He's judging them already before Judgment Day with diseases to show them what the cost is of putting them aside. And yet, though they have millions and millions dying all over the world, no man hardly among them in the entire world on the political scene, on the health scene or whatever, will stand up and say, if you'd only obey God, we'd be free of this stuff. And they won't do it. I can't imagine that ignorance and the dumbing down of our intelligent educational system to that degree, and the schools, you know what they give them? The license to do more instead of telling them, don't touch. Oh, I tell you, it's a burden on my heart. And you know, this could be done, this type of message could be preached about so many sins, so many of them. Alcohol. Tobacco. Drugs. Your body was not made for fornication, the Bible says. Don't you know that he that is joined in the heart becomes one flesh with it? And that's why we have the emotional breakdown when you violate that. Because there's a oneness of emotion that starts taking place. And all of a sudden, we have a hormone walking through town that is emotionally connected to twenty other women. Your body was not made for drugs. It was not made to be on a brain-tizzling high for the next two hours or three hours or continuously for twenty-four by continuing to ingest these drugs to give you some kind of a fizzle of some kind in your brain in order that you don't have to face the reality of life, of hard work and pain and have the rewards of your labor and all that. This whole thing is a disillusionment. But you cannot put that stuff in your body and expect to get by. You'll wreck it and ruin it. I wanted to say this yet concerning homosexuality. I just come across this on Saturday as I was studying for my message at home on dealing with difficulty that I preached on Sunday morning. Did you know that the average age, the lifespan of the average homosexual is forty-one years? And normal men, heterosexual men, it's seventy-seven. Almost double the lifespan. Judgment of God. Judgment of God. And here we're burying them by the millions. And I remember when this thing broke out, when AIDS broke out in New York City, we used to go in there to witness the lot. I was a church taking a busload going in there Saturdays to witness. And we went to Washington Square Park and that was right beside Greenwich Village. And there was a time that Greenwich Village was nearly emptied out by death of AIDS. Right in the center of Manhattan, lower Manhattan. San Francisco likewise. I mean, this stuff caught. And still, they slowed them down for a little bit and today they say they're in it worse than ever. Simply because they don't want to live anymore than just doing what they please. They don't want to submit to the rules of God. They didn't like to retain God in their knowledge. So God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Verse 28. And look at the picture that is given once. And I want to show you. Homosexuality is not the sin of Romans 1 in not wanting to retain God in their knowledge. Listen to the rest of them. That's one of them. And that's a bad one. But there are many, many more. Listen to the list. Verse 29. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents. Do you know where disobedient to parents comes from? Where this rebel in our youth, in the youth comes from? It comes from people who said, I don't want to listen to God. I'm going my own way. I want to do what I want to do and go where I want to go and I don't want my dad telling me what to do. That whole thing is born and bred on the heels of Romans 1 because they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge and decided to go their own way. God's going to give them up to a reprobate mind. And I tell you, sin will take you farther than you want to go. It always does. Sin will take you farther than you want to go. Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, that's how that mother could give up her baby. Implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Oh, what a sad, sad picture of sin when sin is exposed and becomes exceedingly sinful. And I'll just tell you, friends, the only way for sin to become exceedingly sinful is to let that sharp sword come down and divide again between the joints in the marrow and be a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. The only way to get this society straightened out, and I want to say the church society, and we need to form groups and churches that get this thing back on track. We're not going to do it to the neighborhood. We're not going to do it to the cities. We're not going to do it. I know God's big enough that He can, but I know, I see the prophecies. I know what's going to go. I know what's happening. God has determined onto this generation destruction. We're headed down. We're on the skids. The people have put God out of the schools, put God out of prayer, out of everything. They have taken the Ten Commandments out of the courthouses. They are shutting God out of the place. And when that happens, we are on a slide, on a skid, and we know what's going to happen. But there are societies and groups and churches of people that need to band together to be the soul of the earth and the light of the world and begin to salt these words of truth to humanity and tell them where they're wrong and tell them the mistakes they have made and tell our young people what I have been telling them tonight and tell them the truth of this whole matter and the joy and the emotional clarity and the intelligence and mind, clear mind to think straight and think right and being able to do a day's work and have a healthy body. All these things are contingent upon obedience to God. And so, God wants to draw together little groups of people, a remnant, a remnant that is called out for His name's sake that will again bring the high standard of truth and righteousness back to a little bit of society where a person can find refuge and people believe the Word of God and they can find companions for their children who do the same. That's what the remnant movement is all about is finding people who are willing to come out from among them be separate, touch not the unclean thing and be able to reprove the world of sin. Righteousness. That's what needs to happen. And I have a call tonight. I tell you, young and old, you need to come and commit your life to God. You need to fall on your face before Him and say, God, you're right and every man's a liar. That's about where we're at. Let God be true and every man a liar. They're lying to us. They're telling us untruths. They are filling our minds and the information of the news media is warping the truth and they're not telling us the truth concerning these things. Even though some of them in the hidden laboratories of America they know exactly what's causing some of these problems. But they will not tell it because society can't handle it. Society don't want to hear it. And their jobs, they don't want to get fired and therefore they will not tell you the lie. I mean, for all these years, homosexuality, this whole thing could be stopped. You don't need no vaccine to stop homosexuality. You need the obedience of God. You need the fear of God in your life. And then, of course, these things will stop. And it's the same way with lying and stealing. We have incarcerated about 1.3 I think it is, or 1.5 million people in the 1970s. You know what we had? About 300 some thousand people in prison. Tonight we have 1.5 million which is about five times as much in 30 years. So we just lock them up and the prisons are full and overflowing and we can't fill them fast enough to stick these people in to try to restrain because we didn't want God in our schools. We didn't want God in our courts. We didn't want God in our lives. And we pushed Him out and said we don't want to hear of God. And therefore, here we are tonight. Well, I want to tell you, when God comes, this moral debauchery stops. It comes to the surface and gets skimmed off and we have purity and godliness and holiness. And a man and a woman is loyal and faithful to each other. And men get right with God and women get right with God. And they confess their sins and repent of them and turn from them. And they make peace and they forgive each other. And they stop the sinning like the adulterous woman. Go and sin no more. We're not going to condemn you for everything you've done in the past. All of us would be guilty. All of us would stand before the judge wanting, weighed on the balances and found wanting. But go from tonight and sin no more. And to do that, it's like Brother Laverne said, you have to have the power that comes from God. You have to get saved. You have to get God's Spirit to come down into your life. You can't do it by your own works and your own morals and your own just desire to be a good boy. Just to be a good boy. Good boys can't do it. Good girls can't do it. We have to have help from God. We need the old nature dealt with. We need to be born again. We need to come back and say, God, You're right. I'm wrong. I was mistaken. I thought I could run this show myself. I can't run the show. You're right and I humble myself and submit myself to You and declare You to be my God, my Lord. My Lord and my King. I tell you, if you're not saved tonight and you don't know how to do it all and you're weighing all these things, if you could just get on your knees before God and say, My Lord and my King, like Brother Laverne did, I want to do what's right. I want to serve You. I want to follow You. I want to show me God what's right and what's wrong and I'll do what You tell me to do. If people would do that, and incidentally, Laverne, that's exactly what I had to do. I wrestled with this thing. I saw the cost of family, the cost of church relations, the cost of my reputation and all those things and I wrestled and I wrestled because I wanted to be accepted and I wanted to be well thought of and I wanted to be somebody and all that, but I finally said, God, what You say matters. What the people say doesn't matter. I'll do what You tell me. Just tell me what to do. I want to serve You and I want to do the truth and I'll tell you, that's when the pieces started flying in my life too. But the joy, oh, the joy on the other side of that, the peace that I had, my, I got my eyes open. I could see clear after I got rid of that fear of man and that fear of losing my reputation. When I gave that up, my eyes started seeing things I didn't see before. And I'll tell you what, I would do it twenty times again. And it was not pleasant. I'll tell you that right now. It's painful to go through of a rejection from family and friends and community and churches and thinking you're crazy. You're off your rocker and the word goes out across the United States and letters and all kinds of things to try to prove that. And all you know is that you found God and you want to be obedient to Him and you want to do what He says. And you know that's true in your heart and you have to say, God, I don't care what they say. I care what You say. And I wish that I could just put the fear of God in you tonight. Just, if you don't know what else to do, get on your knees and say, God, I'm going to fear what You say. Not what the people say. Not what the neighbors say. Not what society thinks. Society's wicked. They've lost it. They're losing it. I'm going to go by something that is tried and proven and is the standard for truth and righteousness and holiness and that will get you to heaven. And believe me, there are few that need not find it. So if you're part of the few remnant that wants to be radical and believe the truth, then take your stand with the few. Not with the broad road, with the many. Because they won't find it. And that's why I know America's going down that road. Oh, may God help us. May God burn the truth and the reality of this. When God comes, when God comes, sin has to go. Sin has got to exit. Sin has got to go. And the fear of God must return. And we must say, God, You're right. I'm wrong. God, come. You still want God to come? Amen. It's the only answer for you. And for me. And the purity and the blessing. And this whole mess, especially in the second generation, can get totally straightened out. We have at home in our church, adulterers and adulteresses whose children are totally pure. Never dated or courted one girl outside of the one they married. They prayed and fasted and sought God. And their father and mother were living in adultery a generation ago. And their children are in purity and godliness today. I mean, this is a reality. This is not a joke. This is not only psychosomatic thinking. This is true. I can take you to home after home after home. And it's not because they're members of our church. It's simply because they found God. A living reality. And we get to be with them. And we get these two, and you see them marry each other. And it's the absolute joy of our hearts. We sit and cry at the wedding. Because there's an anointing from God on those weddings that are so absolutely powerful that we stand in absolute awe to have a little part in it. And to be able to be there, to be invited is a privilege. I can't get weary of those kind of weddings when the anointing of God is so powerful upon them. And God has redeemed a generation of people and has lifted up the standard of God's holy book again in the lives of people. And churches and these people are finding each other. And that's what needs to happen in Allen County, Indiana. Well, we'll give an invitation tonight. Just a short invitation. If you want to deal with your sin, you want God to skim it off of your life, you want to repent and turn from your past, then you just come. And if you can't come forward, if you can't find the power to come forward, I don't want to give you an easy way out, but get a hold of somebody. Make an appointment for tomorrow or whatever and say, it's going to take me three hours too. I can't do it up there in 10 minutes or 15 minutes. I need a thorough time of repentance. And ask somebody to come to your house and take you through it. I think that's a lot better in some cases when you've had a long list of sins and a lot of things to confess and you want to go through the whole thing. It's not a 15-minute matter. But either way, if you want to come up and make a statement before all to let the devil know that you're turning away, do that. We'll meet with you tomorrow to help you with the rest of it or in your home or whatever. I just want you to find help for your soul. I'm not going to put this thing in a box and say there's only one way to do it. But I know the devil doesn't like it when you make a public walk and a public statement for God. Go forward at an altar and let the whole crowd know that I am going to follow Jesus. Well, let us sing a song here. Sing a couple of verses. And I'm not going to carry along tonight, but if you want to confess your sins, if you want to get right with God, if you want to get back on that moral uprightness, integrity and truth, then you come. Shall we sing? Amen. Will you come tonight? Shall we stand? Everyone stand together for the next verse. No one responds. We'll close the meeting. God bless you, young men. Anyone else who wants to come and make a public stand for Christ get out of your seats and come. Shall we bow our heads? Father in heaven, I want to thank you, Lord, for your grace. I know this is a hard message, Lord, so convicting and so many failures of ours in the past. Oh, God, bring us back to the foundation of truth and right. Lift the standard of righteousness, integrity and honesty and purity. Give us our chastity back, Lord. Give us our virgins back, God, in our coming generation, the children that we're raising, that they don't make the same mistakes. Give us our alcohol-free people, Lord. Free us from the bondages of tobacco and alcohol and all those things, Lord. And may we rejoice with singing and rejoicing of Jesus and his goodness to us and what God has done. May the testimony of Jesus Christ be readily upon our lips. We pray for the many people that are in great darkness that they might see the light. We pray, oh, God. And bring others who are needy to hear the word of the Lord, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Artie Smith.