In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of being a fearless and dynamic preacher of the word of God. He criticizes preachers who have lost their fearlessness and focus on positive thinking rather than preaching on sin and hell. The preacher highlights the characteristics of a dynamic preacher, such as being busy and not being lazy or motionless in their ministry. He warns against becoming lackadaisical and resting, reminding listeners that it is not yet time to rest in their spiritual journey.

1 Kings, chapter number 13. We're only going to read the first verse for our text, by way of time sake. And then we're going to deal with most of the chapter this morning. 1 Kings, chapter number 13, and verse number 1. The Bible says, And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah, by the word of the Lord unto Bethel. And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. I want to focus on that little phrase, And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah. Here's what I want to deal with this morning in chapel. The dynamics and the downfall of the man of God. Thank you very much. You may be seated. Let's bow our heads in hearts and pray and ask the Lord to bless our time together this morning. And my father, just as simply as I know how, I pray that you would empty me of myself and fill me with the Holy Spirit. I'm a nothing and a nobody, and I need your help as I preach the Bible. Thank you for these my friends here at Ambassador. I pray that you'd speak to every single heart from the oldest to the youngest. And I pray, dear God, that you would help the word of God to be preached today. As in truth, it is the very word of God. And Lord, we've been stirred by the singing, but I pray now that we'd be changed by the preaching. And we'll thank you for what you'll do and say, for it's in Jesus' name that we ask it and pray. Amen. I was reading him out of Oceans, as I said, back this summer, and I came across 1 Kings 13. And I suppose I had read it a number of times, but never really understood the great influence that this man of God could have in my life when I began to study some of the dynamic principles that God had put within him. Now, we've got to get right into the outline and not have a real fancy introductory material. I want to show you several things about this man's life, if you're taking notes. Number one, I want to show you his dynamics. He is a very dynamically oriented man of God in the Bible, and it's quite obvious to see that. Here's a man that had several characteristics that made him dynamic. Notice, if you would please, again, verse number one. He said, And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah. If you were to study 1 Kings 13, you would find out that 15 different times, God said this fellow in the Bible was a man of God. He did not just call him a preacher, an evangelist, a missionary, or a pastor, but specifically, the Holy Spirit of God honed in on that little phrase 15 different times that he was a man of God. I want you to write down first and foremost, right here in the text, that his first dynamic was he was, first of all, nameless. It doesn't say anything about the man's name. It doesn't necessarily say anything about his characteristics as far as who he was. It tells us where he was from, and it tells us he was a man of God. But his first dynamic was the simple fact that he was nameless. The Holy Spirit of God, 15 different times, said he was the man of God. He was the man of God. He had God's hand upon him. He had the Word of the Lord. It says that seven different times in this one chapter. He was the man of God. And I believe the entire point of the passage of Scripture is this. Just simply because a man of God was enough, his name wasn't important. And I've learned something this little trip in evangelism that I've been on. The name of Evangelist Gregory Duane Locke is no big deal. The name of a Bible college is no big deal. The name of some big-shot seminary is no big deal. Your name's no big deal. Our name is not important. It is the all-inclusive cause of Christ that's important. And that's why David said in 1 Samuel 15, 29, "...is there not a cause?" And there is a cause. And that cause is Matthew chapter 5 and verse number 14. "...Let your light so therefore shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." I don't live right and walk right and try to do right so people can think I'm a big shot. I live right and do right and try to be right so people will know that I serve the Christ, Holy God of the Bible, and my name is not important. If my name never appears in the Sword of the Lord, that's not a big deal. If my name never appears on the FBF roster, that's not a big deal. If I don't preach at all the famous Bible colleges and all the famous Bible conferences, and if people don't know me and read about the name of Greg Locke, that doesn't make any difference. My name's not important. I'd rather be called the man of God. I'd rather be known as somebody who's a man of God, who's got the power of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon him, than I would anybody say, well, looky here, we've got Evangelist Greg Locke here to preach. Well, whoopee-dee, Evangelist Greg Locke can't say anything that's going to help you, but if I'd be a man of God with the Word of God and the power of God, and be a simple nameless prophet with God's hand upon me, I believe America can't get stirred up in old-fashioned revival. And so his first dynamic was he was nameless. But his second dynamic is he was fearless. Notice what your Bible said in verse number two, if you would please. And he cried against the altar and the Word of the Lord. And said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born into the house of David, Josiah by name. And upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places, that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burned upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken, Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. His first dynamic, he was nameless. His second dynamic, he was fearless. He came rolling into town one day and found out that King Jeroboam had taken the children of Israel back into idolatry. And by the way, he stayed in idolatry even after the man of God preached against his wicked sin. He had set up incense and began to burn it to false gods in the veil and so on and so forth. And that man of God came into town. He wasn't running for votes. He wasn't running for office. He wasn't trying to make friends, sell tapes and sign Bibles and get on the radio. He wanted to preach, thus saith the Lord. And the Bible says that he got right in front of that altar. He bowed his back like a Banny Rooster. He took that long three and a half foot bony evangelistic finger and stuck it right on the King's face and began to preach and cry against the altar. And here was a fearless man of God. And we are living in a day and age that the reason our churches are dead and dying and our Bible colleges are turning out people who know much about the Bible but very little about the power of God is because we have preachers who are no longer fearless in the pulpit anymore. Now, I know what Robert Shuler and his little rover and buddies out in Long Beach, California say. Well, the problem in America are the preachers who preach on sin and hell and condemnation. And they've never read my book on the power of positive thinking. No, Mr. Shuler, the problem in America is the false preachers who won't preach on sin, who won't preach on hell, and who won't preach on condemnation. And we don't need the power of positive thinking. We need to get back to the power of biblically thinking. And we need some preachers who are fearless when they stand in the pulpit as 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 2 says, preach the Word. Not the newspaper, not the Reader's Digest. We got too many preachers preaching out of the sword of the Lord in the Revival Fires magazine when we ought to get our nose out of the newspaper, put it in the Bible, and learn to get in the pulpit with the power of God and be fearless and preach, thus saith the Lord. Did you know thus saith Ambassador Baptist College has never helped America? Did you know thus saith Pensacola Christian College has never helped fundamentalism? Did you know thus saith Bob Jones University is never going to get the job done? We're going to have to get back to some preachers who quit riding hobby horses, they are nameless, they are fearless, and they get in the pulpit and they preach, thus saith the Lord. Now, Jesus was a preacher who was not afraid to confront sin. And we are living in a day when people say, well, Brother Locke, you just don't understand. You can't build a church if you preach on sin. And I say, then leave it unbuilt, friend, because I'm telling you we need to confront sin. We need to be bold and confrontational. No, we don't have to be rude. We don't have to be mean-spirited. We can still speak the truth in love, but I'm telling you the great need of the hour is for men of God to get in the pulpit and preach, thus saith the Lord, as God puts it on their heart. They're not afraid of the deacon board. They're not afraid of the deacon board and the wives of the deacon board. They're not afraid of people who drive Cadillacs. They're not afraid of running people out of the church. They're not afraid of big crowds or little crowds or no crowds. They're afraid of no one. They merely fear God and they are nameless and they are fearless and they preach, thus saith the Lord, as God lays it upon their heart. There's one thing that grieves me about Bible colleges, especially the one I preach in right now, because this one is near and dear to my heart. I meet students all the time, all over America. They come to camps that I preach in and I'm privileged to minister in all summer long. And you know what they make themselves? They make themselves lifetime Bible college students. And I'd like to remind you fellas, I'm preaching to the ladies, I'm preaching to everybody in the building, but I'm going to horn it on you fellas for a little while because I'm one of you if that ain't quite obvious. But I'm going to tell you something. God didn't call you here to flip McDonald's hamburgers and work at Chick-fil-A for 12 years. God called you to come here, get some preaching in your bones and get out in the highways and byways and do what God's called you to do. And I'm sick to the gills of meeting these preacher boys. They say, well, I'll just stay another year. Well, I'll just take a couple more classes and stay another year. And I'll just stay another year and stay another year and stay another year. And pretty soon they get married, they get a good job, they sit down, they get comfortable in church and you can't find them with a pack of bloodhounds and God's power was on their life. God wanted them to preach, but they decided to make a full-time career out of Bible college. And I remind you, this is just a stop-and-by point. This is a jump-off place where you come and get your head filled and your heart filled and get the power of God upon you and you get the tools to dig up the ground that you need and you go out and you preach like God's called you to preach. And by the way, if you're called to preach, it'll come out somehow. Don't you tell me that you can go through three or four years of Bible college and never open your mouth and be as quiet as a church mouse and God's called you to preach. He's done no such thing. But if God's called you to preach like He's called me to preach, you can open your mouth somewhere. Jeremiah 20, verse 29, But His Word was in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. You know what Jeremiah said? Jeremiah said, I couldn't keep my mouth shut if I wanted to. He said, man, I talked about preaching, thought about preaching. You know when I first got saved by the grace of God, I was almost 16 years old and I knew beans about the Bible, honestly. I didn't know anything about God and the local church. I didn't know anything about theology and all that kind of stuff. But I knew when I was 16 years old, after I'd been saved for a couple of months, God called me to preach. And I'm telling you, I'd wake up at night and all I could think about was preaching. But you know what I found out as a 16, 17-year-old teenager, Dr. Comfort, that, you know, people don't want 16, 17-year-old evangelists coming home to revival meetings. So I had to book my own revival meetings. When I was 17 years old, I paid $35 a week on a little Southern Gospel radio station. The music weren't worth a flint, but I thought I'd fix it with the preaching. And I got on there when I was 17 years old, every afternoon on Saturday, and ripped, snorted, hollered, and yelled, had myself a good time, and started booking meetings when I was 17 years old. Nobody wanted me to come to church, so I bought a goat by the name Elijah. If I'd ever told the Gospel truth in a wooden pulpit, I'm telling you right now, I bought a goat named Elijah. I had one named Samson, too, but he was of the devil and he ran off. But I had one named Elijah. And I built a big crate out of big mater trays. And, man, I put him inside that crate. And every day after school, I didn't care if it was rain or shine, I didn't care if it was hot or cold, there was snow on the ground. I'd get on a suit and tie, it's the honest truth. I'd get on a suit and tie, and I'd get my little Royal Red Schofield Bible that they just bought me for Christmas. I didn't know who Schofield was. And then they bought me one, and I liked all that stuff. And so, man, I got this thing, and I went down there. I had more notes than I could keep. I had a note here and a note here. I just put them all over the place. And I got these purity milk crates. And I stacked them up three or four high. I've always had a problem with being short, like other people around here. And so I had them little purity milk crates, and I had them things stacked up to about my waist a little high, you know. And I'd get that Bible and set it on there, and I'd have them notes all over the place. And, man, I'd lock the door, because I didn't want people to think I belonged in an insane asylum somewhere. I'm telling you, I was 16, 17 years old. I'd get in there flipping and hollering and spitting, kicking up manure and sawdust, jump around. I'd holler at that goat, yell at that goat, scream at that goat. I mean, I'd preach. I'd knock over them purity milk crates. I'd just jump around. I'd have myself a time. I'd tell people all the time, I believe that goat got saved every time I preached to him. But, Scott, he's the most religious goat you ever met in your life. A preacher asked me one night, he said, you reckon he liked it? I said, I suppose he did. Every time I got through, he said, Amen, Brother Greg. But, Scott, I'm telling you, I'd scream at a tree. I'd scream at a dandelion. They made me student body chaplain, and I begged them to let me preach to him three times a month. I'm telling you, I just couldn't get enough. And you get the power of God on you and the call of God in your heart, and you'll want to preach, friend. You will want to preach. That's why I can't understand these Bible college students who won't preach in a nursing home. But, Scott, if you won't preach in a nursing home, you won't ever preach in a Bible conference. If you're too big to preach in a Sunday school class to five junior age kids, then you're too big to preach in a Sword of the Lord conference with 5,000 adults. Because if God can't trust you with a little, He'll never trust you with a big. And I'm telling you, I can't understand people that turn down opportunities to preach. Buy up the opportunities. Well, Scott, make opportunities if you have to. And I'm telling you, this man was nameless. His name wasn't important. But his mission was. But he was fearless. Well, let's keep reading our Bible. I'll show you something else in verse 4. And it came to pass, when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it again to him. Oh, Jeroboam said, Fellas, I want you to incarcerate him. I want you to pick him up. I want you to bind him and put him in the inner prison. And the Bible says, when he put his hand out, God dried that thing up like an old prune. He was nameless. He was fearless. But thank God he was touchless. And I'm going to tell you something. You get to the place in your life when you have an intimate walk with Christ, and you don't just pay Him lip service, but you give Him life service. And you get in the Word of God and you begin to be a James 1.22 Christian, not just a hearer, but a doer also. And you get Acts 1.8, the power of God upon you. I'm telling you young men, I'm telling you young ladies, greater is He that is in you than he that's in the world. Hey, I'm not going to go through life fighting with the liberals. I'm not going to go through life fighting the modernists and fighting the evolutionists and the humanists and the abortionists and the drunkards. Hey, I'm not worried about that crowd. They can say what they want. They can vote anything in they want. But I'm telling you, I've got a God that's big. I've got a God who's in control. And I'm glad he doesn't sign resignation papers on Monday morning. The devil's not going to make him resign. He's not going to kick him out of office. And Psalm 11.4 says, God is upon his holy throne, and his eyelids cry, the children of men. He's not sitting up in heaven tonight, drinking Malox. He's not going to have to pave the streets of gold with asphalt. No, no, God's in control. He knows the end from the beginning, the beginning from the end. He is sovereign. He is providential. He is supernatural, because He is God. And I'm telling you, if you would get under the umbrella of the protection of God's will, you would be touchless as far as the devil and the world is concerned. Because I'm telling you, God will take care of His own. And we are living in a day when people live in fear, and bondage, and doubt, and dismay, and frustration. And here Gerald Boehm said, you take that man of God. And God said, no, no, he's My man of God. You're not going to take him. And God withered His hand up, if you will. And here was a man of God, because he had the power of God. The liberals couldn't touch him. But let's keep reading in our Bible, because there's something quite interesting here that really encourages my heart in verse 5. By the way, you can take this outline down and much more could be said. But for time's sake, I got a lot. Usually I don't have an outline this long, but I got to give it to you. Verse 5, The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Entreat now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king's hand was restored him. And it became as it was before. He was nameless. He was fearless. He was touchless. But like this, Dan, he wasn't heartless. He did have some compassion about him. You know, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm just a 26-year-old, wet behind the ear, green thumb, running evangelist, and I got a lot to learn. But I'm going to tell you one thing. You're going to have to learn to love people if you're going to call yourself a fundamentalist these days. I'm saying, I've heard Brother Comfort say it many, many times. It's not our position. It's our disposition. And I'm telling you, fundamentalism's got a sorry attitude, ladies and gentlemen. We can preach on sin and still love people to Jesus Christ. And we have raised a generation of people who think that they've got to cram standards and cram convictions and cram the Bible down the throats of lost people. And did you know our churches are filled with lost people that have conformed to an independent Baptist standard of living? But can I remind you that lost people don't need your standards? Lost people need your Savior. And when they get your Savior, they will automatically get the standards through the precious process of sanctification of the Holy Spirit. But yet, if we're not careful, and I'm just as guilty as the next preacher, if we're not careful, we'll get the Jonah syndrome. You see, Jonah so hated the sins of the Ninevites, that in return, it caused him to hate the Ninevites themselves. And if we're not careful, we will so hate sin. And we ought to hate sin. We ought to preach hard against sin. We ought to not back down. We ought to be confrontational. But if we're not careful, we will so hate sin that we will not look past the sin into the heart of that sinner and see their desperate situation for Jesus Christ. You see, I believe we ought to preach against sodomy. I think sodomy is wicked. I think it's vile. I don't think it's an alternative lifestyle. I don't think it's something that somebody's born with. I think it's something they choose to do in rebellion to God. It is an abomination. And we preach against sodomy, but we don't hate sodomites. You see, we hate abortion. Abortion is wicked and vile and ungodly. I don't care what Bill Clinton or the rest of that crowd says. Abortion is wicked and it's wrong and it's not a woman's choice. It was already God's choice according to Psalm 127, verses 1, 2, and 3. And so we hate abortion. But wait a minute. We don't hate abortion, doctors. We don't bomb abortion clinics. That's not our job. We don't hate young ladies who have already tragically enough taken the life of their little newborn baby. No, no. We don't hate abortionists We hate abortion. We hate drunkenness. I don't think there's anybody in the building that hates drunkenness worse than I do. It put my daddy in the Tennessee State Penitentiary for eight years. My aunt's in hell because of it. And I know a bunch of people whose life has been wrecked and ruined because of drunkenness. But I'm going to tell you something. As much as I go to rescue missions in jails and preach on drinking, I don't hate drunkards. And if you're not careful, you will look at somebody on the outside and say, well, there's no hope for them. And I'm so glad God didn't think that when He saw you, my dear friend. I'm for standards, but I'm going to tell you something. Sometimes you're going to have to look past the spiked hair and the baggy breeches and the earrings all over the face and the tattoos all over the body. You're going to have to look past the booze in their hand. You're going to have to look past the fact that they're fornicators and they've been shacking up. And you're going to have to look past that into their heart and see, hey, these people are sinful because they're sinners. And this man wasn't heartless. He had some compassion. You know what the Bible says? Speak the truth in love. And you can give out Bible truth in a loving, compassionate manner. And General Boehm said, pray for me that my hand will be restored. And the man of God could have said, well, forget you, big boy. Let your hair rot, for all I care. You can burn in the fiery flames. No, he didn't do that. Get compassion. Get love. I'm telling you, I've heard people say, well, you know, the ministry would be great if it wasn't for people. Well, they probably would, but I'll tell you, that's not reality. People are the ministry. And if we don't have people, we have no ministry. And it's our job to show compassion to them. So he wasn't heartless. But let's keep reading in our Bible. He had another great dynamic about him, and it's found in verse 7. And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward. And the man of God said unto the king, If thou will give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place. For so it was charged me by the word of the Lord, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. Notice verse 10. So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel. Thank God this man was relentless. He was not going to back down no matter what gifts King Jeroboam tried to give him. You see, he was a fellow with bulldog tenacity who said, Listen, I'm not going to back up. I'm not going to pack up, slack up, or shut up till I've been taken up by the glory of God. God told me to come to this town and go the opposite way, and Jeroboam, I am not going to turn around. I'm not going to go back. I'm not going to look back. I'm going the direction that God told me to go, and this man was relentless. And fellas, you hear me. If you're not going to go ahead in your heart and make a conscious decision that you're going to stand up and stand out, and speak up and speak out, if you're not going to today stand up and say, Listen, I'm not going to compromise. I don't have to go the route of everybody else. I don't have to have Christian contemporary music in my church. I don't have to have a bunch of diesel sniffing cigarettes sucking mop head quartets to get a crowd. If you're not going to go ahead in your heart and say, I'm not going to compromise, then you might as well go ahead and get out of the ministry right now. Because if you're not going to be relentless, you're going to be wishy-washy, and you're going to be on the scrap heap like every other Joe Blow in America. Now, I'm telling you, we need some relentless men. We need some relentless ladies who will stand up and say, Listen, I'm not going to flinch in the face of adverse circumstances. I'm not going to give in to fame and plaudits and popularity and money. I'm not going to give in to those things. And Gerald Boehm said, Come back to the house. We'll eat some vittles. We'll drink some spring water. And the man of God said, No way, Jose. God said, Go another way. So he was nameless. His name wasn't important. He was fearless. He was touchless with the power of God, but he wasn't heartless. And I'm glad he was relentless. That's his dynamics. But we close with what I call his downfall. Many good men of God have fallen. And I want to show you what this man's downfall began to be. Notice the process, if you would, in verse 11. Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God, keep noticing that phrase, had done that day in Bethel. The words which he had spoken unto the king. Then they told also to their father, and their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah. He said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass, and he rode thereof, and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak. And he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. His first downfall, he was motionless. The Bible said that this old false Benehean, old rip-off prophet, who was pretending to be from God and didn't know God at all, came and found this fellow. And the Bible says that he found this dynamic man of God sitting under an oak. And the first part of this fellow's downslide into iniquity, the first part of his downfall, was the fact that he was motionless. You've heard this a thousand times from this pulpit, so I'll tell you a thousand and one. Preachers have told you over and over and over, and warned you over and over again, that one of the easiest places to get away from God is right there in that pew that you're sitting in, in this fine, fundamental Bible college. Because if you're not careful, you'll get motionless. You'll start getting to the place when bus routes no longer stir you. You'll start getting to the place where you'll start being lackadaisical and turning in your schoolwork, and you'll start memorizing your verses in the class right before the verse is due. You're not fooling me. I've been to this school, amen. I've done some of that foolish stuff. But I'm going to tell you something. If you're not careful, you'll get to the place where you can kick back at ease in Zion according to Amos 6 in the first few verses. And ladies and gentlemen, if we're not real careful, we'll sit down under an oak tree and we'll think it's time to rest. And I remind you, it's not time to rest. It's time to prepare, and it's time to fight. And rest day will come on the other side. And I know many a good, well-meaning preacher who has fallen into sin because he thought he had done enough for God, and he sat down under the oak and became motionless. Spiritually paralyzed. And can I remind you that God uses busy people? God has never used a lazy man, and God never will use a lazy man. God uses those who are interested in being busy. And if you're so lazy and so motionless that you can't turn in a sermon outline on time, you'll never have the power of God in your ministry on Sunday morning. And if you get to the place where you kick it back in neutral and you're motionless, watch out. That's the first part of your demise. But let's keep reading because it doesn't stop there. Oh, what a rich, rich text this is. Notice please verse 15, then he said unto him, Come home with me. He's going to offer him the same deal that King Jeroboam did. Come home with me and eat bread. And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee. Neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place. For it was said to me by the word of the Lord, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art. And an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him and did eat bread in his house and drank water. Boy, what a man of God. I mean, he was a fiery fundamentalist with the power of God and God's hand upon him. But he became motionless. And number two, he became careless. This false, lying prophet came to him and said, Oh, I am a prophet also. And God spoke to me in a dream after I ate some kibossi and drank some Pepsi before I went to sleep. God told me to come and tell you that you're supposed to come back to the house and eat some Papa John's pizza and drink some Mountain Dew. And so why don't you come back? And he said, I can't come back. He said, Oh, no, no. The same God you serve is the same God I serve. The same Bible you read is the same Bible I read. So just come back to the house. And this man began to be careless in who he listened to and who he got his counsel from. And then he found himself disobeying the direct will of God. And if you're not careful, Bible College student, you'll get to the place where you think you know more about the Bible than God did when he wrote it. You better be careful, not careless. You better be careful who you read behind. You'll start getting careless in the authors that you pick. And you'll wake up one day, a hyper-Calvinist not even serving God. Did you know there's never been a man who became a Calvinist who ever read his Bible? You read that Bible sitting in your lap and you're never going to come to the grips of the fact that, well, God sent some people to heaven and God sent some people to hell. I wouldn't have believed that mess before I got saved. And I'm not about to start believing it now that I am. You get that by reading what other people said about the Bible. And I remind you that a commentator is just that. He's a commentator. He's just like you and he's just like me. And if you're careless who you read behind, you'll start elevating books above the Bible. You'll start listening to what Dr. Bottlestopper said. Now, by the way, I may get in trouble for saying it, but I'll tell some of you guys who think Calvinism is real theology. Calvin was nothing more than a reject Roman Catholic who hated Baptists. He had no salvation testimony. As far as I'm concerned, he's probably in hell this morning. But I'm going to tell you something. You ought not read behind somebody who didn't give a flip of the wooden nickel for the Bible. He was nothing more than an Augustine follower. I don't know where all that came from, but it sure was fun to get it out of my system. Amen. But you better be careful who you read. You better be careful who you listen to on the radio. Did you know our society is overrun with little old ladies who send their money to Benny Hinn because they think he's a man of God. And if Benny Hinn's a man of God, I'm a Japanese navigator. I'll tell you that right now. And neither one of us are either one. But we become careless sometimes. We take everything for face value. And listen, Paul said, if an angel from heaven come and preach you another gospel, let him be anathema. You take everything out of this Bible. Thank God for these professors, these men of God, and these women of God who give us the Bible unadulterated and tell us what the Word of God says. But be a Berean. Go back to that dorm room and search the Scriptures daily to see if those things be so. We're fallible. Men make mistakes, but the Bible does not, and you'll never show me one in the infallible Word of God. But he became careless. By the way, while I'm on that point, let me say this. Fellas, you need to be careful. We're living in a society when preachers are letting their guard down with their morals. I made a decision five years ago in evangelism. I would not, unless it was absolutely, positively, totally necessary, if I did not have my wife with me, I would not stay in a hotel room by myself. You say, well, why not? Because I've heard too many horror stories. And I don't trust myself as far as I could throw myself. I don't trust myself from here as I could jump down and land in Brother Child's lap. I don't trust myself that much. You say, well, Brother Locke, I can sit in a lonely hotel room and I can flip through the television and I can watch David Lettermouth and Oprah Winback and Hell's Box Office and Send to the Match, and that stuff just doesn't bother me. I can see a half-naked woman running across the screen on MTV, and it don't bother me because I'm spiritual. No, you're not spiritual. We've got another word for that, and don't shake my hand at the service, all right? You're not spiritual if you can put up with that stuff. You're carnal as the devil if you can put up with that stuff. And you know why preachers start falling in sin? They start getting careless. They start letting down their guard. They start letting down their morals. I was preaching for a preacher not long ago. He said, Brother Locke, I've got a preacher from across town who keeps a jug of water under his desk at all times and it ain't for drinking. I said, if it ain't for drinking, then what is it? Are you sure it's water? He said, oh, it's water. I said, well, why is it in there? He said, because if some woman comes in there and closes the door and starts talking funny, he'll take that water and pour it over his head to cool himself off, amen. And I thought, well, that may not be orthodox. He probably didn't learn that in seminary, but man, it sounds good to me. You better not be careless. You better make sure, I don't know if you have the service here, but you better make sure when you go home you've got a filter on your internet provider. When they named it the web, they named it right, Brother. It'll web you in and suck you in and there's not been a week, you hear me? There's not been a week this year in evangelism where I haven't heard about some preacher falling into immorality. You know why it starts? You get motionless and you get careless. Well, that'll never happen to me and you'll be the very one that it happens to. So keep reading your Bible as we close. Notice what the Word of God says in verse 20. And it came to pass as they sat at the table that the Word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back. Came unto this old false feller. Now look what God did through him. And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which the Lord did say to thee, Eat no bread and drink no water. Thy carcass shall not come into the sepulcher of thy father's. And it came to pass after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk that he saddled for him the ass to wit for the prophet for whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way and slew him. And his carcass was cast in the way. And the ass stood by him. The lion also stood by the carcass. You write this down. He was lifeless. He didn't believe anything he wrote about that Bible. Sitting in your lap. But I'm convinced that cemeteries and graveyards are full of people who died premature deaths because they were living lives that were disobedient to the direct will of God. Excuse me. Contrary to popular belief, God will do what he has to do to get your attention. And this man disobeyed him deliberately. Believed a lie of a false preacher. And the Bible tells us now that he's lifeless. You say, well, Brother Rock, I believe you ought to give the conclusion of your sermon right now because it can't get any worse than that. The man's dead. Oh, it got a lot worse than that. Because there's something in this context that's a whole lot worse than being lifeless. Notice what your Bible said, if you would, in verse 25. Behold, men passed by and saw the carcass cast in the way and the lion standing by the carcass. And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. And when the prophet had brought him back from the way he heard thereof, he said, Is it? It is the man of God who was disobedient under the word of the Lord. Therefore, the Lord hath delivered him under the lion which hath torn him and slain him according to the word of the Lord which he spake unto him. He spake to his son saying, Saddle him to the ass. And they saddled him. And he went and found his carcass cast in the way. And the ass and the lion standing by the carcass. The lion had not eaten the carcass nor torn the ass. And the prophet took up the carcass of the man of God and laid it upon the ass and brought it back. And the old prophet came to the city to mourn and to bury him. And he laid his carcass in his own grave. And they mourned over him saying, Alas, my brother. The worst thing about this portion of Scripture is this man was useless. It started by being motionless. Careless. God took his life. He was lifeless. But I'd rather die a million deaths than to ever be useless to God. And some of you big shots that know everything and you know more than your teachers, I remind you, you didn't come here to teach. Bless God. You came here to learn. And if you're not careful, you're going to wake up one day and be useless to God. Brother Sareth, there's one verse in the Bible that scares me to death every time I read it. 1 Corinthians 9.27 Paul said, But I keep unto my body and bring it into subjection, lest by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. Sit on a shelf to collect dust while everybody else is doing things for the glory of God. Or go into heaven. Save by the grace of God could swing over hell with a rotten cornstalk, spit the devil in the eye and sing amazing grace. But never to be used by God. To be useless. You talk about dynamics. Boy, nameless, fearless, petulance, wasn't heartless. And yet he was relentless. But because he became motionless and careless, he's now lifeless and obviously useless to God. And you know what breaks these men's heart more than anything else? To hear some young man or some young lady that went through this school, had the power of God, wanted to do what's right. And five years down the road, they're useless to God. The dynamics and the downfall of the man of God. Your heads are bowed. Your eyes are closed. Thank you for listening.