Well, it's a great privilege to be here again with you this morning, this Lord's Day. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I come before you in the name of your Son. And I pray that you would settle this place. That there would be a reality of something of who you are. Not a game, not a tradition, but a meeting with God. And I pray that you would work in the hearts of men.

Lord, some men need to see your mercy. Other men need to see your judgment and your wrath. Some men need to be drawn by your love. And others need the very foundations of their being shaken with fear. Lord, you know the hearts of all men. Nothing is hidden before you, not even the abyss. You know every word before it comes forth from our tongue.

I pray, Lord, that this church would become real. And they would meet in the reality of who you are. Father, I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Before we return to the book of Timothy, Paul's epistle to Timothy, I want to go just for a moment to the book of Ezekiel. Chapter 13. Just take a look at this. See where it takes us. It may take us so far that we won't be able to get to Timothy until later, but let's just take a look.

Chapter 13, verse 9. Now, in this text, God, through the prophet Ezekiel, is speaking against the other prophets. He is speaking a word of God against those who claim to speak the word of God. These are called prophets. At times they're referred to as shepherds or pastors.

Now I want you to understand something today. The problem in our country is not liberal politicians. It's not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. One of the greatest problems in our country today are pastors. And not simply liberal pastors, but those who would claim to hold to Scripture.

Conservative, supposed Bible-believing pastors. Because even though speaking forth something of the Word of God, they've learned to speak it by taking the edge off of it so as to not get themselves in trouble. Much of what is called church today is nothing more than a six flags over Jesus. A traditional meeting once a week where many times songs are sung. And let's admit it, we don't even think about what we're singing.

Maybe don't even know why we've come, except that it's what we've been taught to do. Did you come here this morning with an expectation to meet with God? Did you actually think he would do something or that he would even show up? Or is this just something that you do?

And there is so much today, so much bondage to what we call the fear of man.

I was speaking to one pastor years ago who had gone through hell in a church. And he said, I have come to this conclusion. All men are cowards. The Bible speaks a great deal about fearing men. Why do we fear men? Primarily because of idolatry. Self-idolatry. We care for our own preservation.

Now what type of man do you want in this pulpit? I said last week or two weeks ago, I think, and I'll say it again. If you desire to have just a normal, typical church that just has a good time and everything's kind of going like every other church in the area, please do not bring a young man in here or an older man in here who desires to preach the Word of God and follow it.

Please do not do that. Bring a guy in here with a great personality who will spend about half of his time in his sermon telling jokes and stories and antidotes and little moralities. And then in the end, throw in a long invitation and send everybody home with his blessing.

Bring in somebody like that who wants to play church and just have a good time with you and go places and do all sorts of things and always tell you things that will make you feel good. Bring in a guy like that. I plead with you. If that's what you want, bring him here. Please don't bring a Bible-believing pastor here because he'll destroy you and you'll destroy him.

But if you truly want to know God, and follow Him no matter what it costs, then bring a man in here who above all things fears God more than he fears any man. Because here's something that you need to understand. A man of God is primarily that. He is a man of God. And although he must be loving, He must not be mean-spirited or critical.

That usually comes about when a boy of God tries to be a man of God too early in his ministry and he develops a mean and critical spirit and he demands stuff from people that he himself is not living. That's not what you want. But you want a man of God. Who is primarily a man of God and not a man of the people.

You see, we were raised in a democracy. We always want a man of the people. You don't want a man of the people because the people aren't the authority here. You want a man of God. As it was said of John, there was a man sent from God. And the prophet of old said, the God before whom I stand.

In that sense, he was a man who spent more time with God than with anyone else. He was more concerned about God's opinion than he was anyone else's opinion. He came to do God's will. Such a man knows something not only about the love of God, but about the terror of God.

That's not something that you hear much about today. But the terror of God. Have you ever read through the Old Testament prophets? Have you ever read the book of Revelation? Then you know something about terror. A terror so great that the greatest men on earth at that time will cry out for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, to hide them from the wrath of Jesus Christ.

Is a magnificent theme. It is a terrible theme. It is a wonderful theme. There ought to be a sense, and there is a sense, if you look in the book of Revelation, in the book of Acts, when a church is walking with God and the church leadership is walking with God, do you see there that it says that people were even afraid to approach them?

Now that is language totally and completely foreign to us today as a church. We have to get back to the biblical model. Not the model of culture. Not the model of newfangled church growth theories that come out of seminaries. We have to get back to what does Scripture say?

Now, let's look at this for just a moment. Look what he says in verse nine. He says, so my hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will have no place in the counsel of my people, nor will there be written down in its register of the house of Israel.

Nor will they enter the land of Israel that you may know that I am the Lord God. Now, there were certain prophets that were prophesying to the people. They were telling the people things and they seem to have the people's ear.

Well, then how do they get among the people of God? How is it that such men... Find their way among the people of God and get their ear? It's because they tickle the ear. Spurgeon talked about the need to study to know God, but the need to study also to know people.

If you've preached long enough and you've been around enough people and you're discerning, you begin to know what people want to hear. And if you want to have a wonderfully prosperous ministry outside of the will of God, and you want to have a whole bunch of people, you just study what people want to hear and then you give them what they want to hear.

Just give them what they want. How do men get elected to office? Because they promise people what people want. Here's the problem. What people want, if they're an immature... ungodly people is not what is best for them.

I have three little children, a seven year old, a five year old and a 16 month old. Yes, I should be their grandfather, but I got a late start. If I gave them what they wanted, they would be destroyed.

So he says here, so my hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. And let me share with you something. It is astounding. troubling, maybe even terrifying. If I were to simply come here for about a week or a month and just teach on the psychology, the secular psychology that has entered into evangelical Christianity in America, you would soon come to discover that a great deal of our teaching, a great deal of our preaching, and a great deal of our thought life is governed not by the Word of God, but literally, By the psychologists who are anti-Christian and develop their discipline for the sole purpose of destroying Christianity or providing an alternative to it.

You see, a person who's deceived, they hardly ever know it. That's why we call them deceived. And one of the most dangerous things you can do is not to tell a full out and out lie. Or provide a deception that's 100% deception. The worst thing you can do is give 50% truth and 50% deception.

Because there's enough truth in there to cover up the deception and people believe that they are following the truth when what they're following is a lie. Because water that is 90% pure and 10% tainted is tainted water.

So you see, it's absolutely necessary to sit under the preaching of the Word of God so that the lies of our own life are exposed. You see, all things begin in the Christian life within the realm of truth. That is why Romans chapter 2, verse 2 tells us, chapter 12, verse 2 tells us to be constantly renewing our mind.

Renewing our mind in what? In the truth. Once you become a Christian, you have to begin to rework your thought life to discover what is true and live in accordance with that. And you can't make a truce with the world. Find out what God desires and to do it.

But when men come into a pulpit, Full of stories, full of antidotes, full of quaint sayings. Knowing how to tickle ears. Concerned about their own preservation. Whether they'll have a job tomorrow or not. And the people of God will not be fed. You will not grow. And even your children will be brought into danger.

So you need someone who is not prophesying false visions or uttering lying divinations. For these men themselves have no place in the counsel of my people. A true priest, how is he to be? He's to be like Ezra. He's to be like that long lineage of men who diligently studied the word of God, who meditated upon the word of God, who disciplined their lives to follow the word of God and communicate it to others.

Nor will they be written down in the register of the house of Israel. It is absolutely amazing what we're going to see on the day of judgment how many pastors, even in the conservative realm of American Christianity, are actually unconverted. About whom do we think Jesus is speaking in Matthew seven when he says that many will prophesy? Many will do all sorts of religious things, but in the end they will hear depart from me.

I never knew you. Now. When you preach a gospel that is like the gospel that's preached in America today, where everyone in this county basically believes they're saved because one time in their life they repeated a prayer with a pastor and that pastor declared them saved. So you get a church full of people. Many times, many of those people in the church are not even converted, yet they're members.

And so what do you do? You vote on certain things and the majority wins. But if the majority is carnal, if the majority is unconverted, then in what direction does the church go? Does it go in the direction of the will of God? No, it goes in the direction of the great majority who never even read their Bibles.

Do you see the danger? Now, that doesn't mean that someone ought to come in here and take over the rule because the Bible teaches a congregational government. The Bible teaches that even when leaders make a decision, it's submitted to the body and the body affirms it or declines affirmation.

But do you see the problem? If people are not instructed in the word of God and even some people within the congregation are unconverted, then when the majority makes a decision, what way does it go? It doesn't go toward God's will. It goes completely the opposite direction.

And so that's why you need someone here who is going to prophesy the Word of God. Now, not his own opinions. And not someone who is going to invent a whole bunch of rules that the Bible doesn't even give us and put them upon you.

But someone who line by line is going to go down and teach the Bible and not only teach it neutrally, but exhort you also to obey. Now, he says here that you may know in verse 9 that I am the Lord God. He's going to judge these men so that you will know that he's God.

Let me share with you something. Remember Ananias and Sapphira? Now, they didn't do too well in church, did they? What happened to them? They were killed. Who killed them? You ever ask that question?

God did. He killed them. Why did he kill them? They lied. Would you want God to do the same thing in this church today? Kill all the liars? Would you want God to come and kill every person who made a commitment to do something in this church and they didn't fulfill it?

Now, what's going on here? How come? Why did that happen? I mean, Ananias and Sapphira, they sold their land. They gave part of the money to the church. Kept part of it for themselves. Was that a sin? No. They could have kept the whole thing and it wouldn't have been a sin.

The problem is they lied. And they tried to make people think they had given everything. And God killed them.

Now, why is it that so many terrible things can happen in church today? I mean, all sorts of things that people call themselves Christians. They do. And God doesn't do anything. It's a sign of God's judgment. Upon whom? Upon the church.

One of the greatest evidences of the presence of God in a church is that when people live in rebellion. They identify themselves with the church, but they live in sin. God comes and acts against them in order to cleanse his church.

But when a church as a whole is so far away from the will of God, I mean, as a whole, then God does nothing. His judgment is by doing nothing and by letting people just continue on with church as normal.

So one of the greatest evidences that God is among his people. Is that He disciplines His people. And one of the greatest evidences that God has nothing to do with the church. Is that He lets the members of the church live in sin.

And He does absolutely nothing. I'm afraid to say. But that's the case for the majority of the churches in the United States of America.

I remember Brother Adrian Rogers once saying this. He says, I've got good news and bad news for you today. The good news is this. God is here. The bad news is this. God is here. It just depends on what side of the line you're standing on.

Let's go on. He says, verse 10, it is definitely because they have misled my people by saying peace when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash.

One of the greatest crimes of a pastor. Is to tell a group of people or an individual peace when there is no peace. Now, let me show you how that can happen individually and how it can happen collectively, individually.

Let's say that I have not been a pastor for years. All my pastoring was actually done outside of this country, living in South America for as many years as I did. I was a pastor there. But let's say I was the pastor of this church.

And let's say that you have a 16 year old son who's began to live very worldly. He's rebelling against his father. He's using language he shouldn't use. He's running with the wrong people. He's starting to drink. But when he was 14 years old, he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

Now. I'm going to differentiate between the way the Southern Baptist pastors in the last century would have handled it compared to the way most Southern Baptist pastors would handle it today.

If the church was large enough, first of all, they wouldn't handle it at all. It would just keep going. Dad wouldn't really handle it biblically. Mom wouldn't handle it biblically. The pastor wouldn't handle it biblically. No one would handle it biblically.

Or if the pastor did go, he would say something like this. Let's say the boy's name is John. Say, John, you were saved two years ago. I was there when you asked Jesus to come into your heart and you were even baptized. So you're saved. You're not acting like it. You need to return to the Lord. Live for him. You're going to lose your reward.

John, we love you. God loves you. And you just need to come back. Now, that's the way it would be handled now. How would it have been handled 100 years ago in the same denomination? It would have been handled this way. The pastor would have gone to John in the presence of his father.

He said, John, when you were 14, You made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Now notice the difference in the language. He didn't say, John, when you were 14 you were saved. He didn't say that. You professed with your mouth to be saved. You said that you had repented of your sins.

There seemed to be some evidence, so much so, that the church baptized you. Notice, they looked for evidence before they baptized them. And we baptized you. But now, John, you are living like an unbeliever. You rebel against your parents. You walk with the ungodly. You're living in immorality.

And all the evidence at this moment points to the fact that you were never born again. Now, John, I cannot discern your heart, but I can view your actions. And this I will tell you. You could be in some state of what they call backsliding to some degree. But prove your calling. Make your election sure, as Peter says.

Repent and come back to the things of God. Prove that you have truly been born again. Because, John, if you continue in this, you're giving all the evidences that your conversion was a false conversion. You are yet in the faith. You are yet in the roll call of the house of Israel. You are lost, John. Repent.

You are in a dangerous, dangerous place. That's not telling him you were saved.

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

And you've lost your salvation. He's saying the way you're living indicates you never came to know the Lord. Now, look at the difference between the way that is handled in the old days and the way it's handled now, even if it is handled, which it rarely is.

So you see, we have this thing of saying peace, peace when there is no peace. I think I gave the illustration of a pastor and a well-known pastor in the First Baptist Church who led a boy to the Lord when he was nine, and afterwards the boy showed no fruit and lived a life of terrible sin until he was in his middle ages selling drugs, running with horrible, immoral people, doing all sorts of crimes and everything else.

But when he died, his funeral service was in that same First Baptist Church, and that pastor stood there in front of all that young man's friends, hundreds, and said, "Our wayward sheep has finally gone home." We know he was saved because I was there when he asked Jesus into his little old heart when he was nine years old.

And then all those wretched people without Christ walked out of there saying, peace, peace, I'm saved too. You see how bad our theology is? Now, is that loving? Let me ask you a question. Is that loving to do that to a person?

Why have we changed? Because a bad theology, we've forgotten where we've come from as Baptists. And secondly, the fear of man. Let me ask you a question. If a pastor, who in every other way demonstrated that he was very loving and very biblical, came to you one day and says, "I've been observing your child. I know they made a profession of faith in Christ, but they show all the appearance of not knowing God at all."

Would you become angry? Would you get mad at him? Or would you say to yourself, wow, this man loves me and loves my son enough to risk my retaliation against him?

I want you to think about that. 150,000 people die without Christ every day, without ever hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they go to hell. Countless people in congregations, because ministers are all about peace, peace when there is no peace.

Countless people in congregations die and go to hell. Is that loving or is it more loving to say I'm going to love you so much that you may even get angry with me?

My little boys are a lot happier when we walk through Walmart and they see something from Star Wars and I get it for them. They're very happy.

Oh, dad is the greatest dad in the world. But when dad says no, they're not as happy with dad when we get in the car. But I can assure you, dad showed more love to them by restraining their lusts than he did by indulging their lusts.

They're not happy with dad, but dad did the right thing because he loves them. You know, that's why most children are not disciplined by their parents. It's not because the parents love them so much they can't discipline them. It's the parents' love themselves so much they can't discipline their children because they want their children to like them.

So see, when we talk about a man of God. And here, let me share something else with you, church, that's very important. I want you to understand this. When we talk about church leadership and a pastor.

Far too long have we seen church leadership residing in only one man. That's wrong. We talk about bringing a pastor to a church. You're not talking about, okay, we're going to bring a guy in here and he's going to lead us.

The Bible says that there's wisdom in what? One man or in a multitude of counselors. There needs to be godly men in this church who are trained and who are raised up to do what?

To do the ministry. Now, of course, not all are going to be supported. Not all can work full time. But we ought to be talking about a group of godly men who can come together to help lead and care for the church.

They're called elders and they're called deacons. And we ought to seriously consider that. What those ministries are and how they're supposed to function.

Several years ago, I was asked to take over a church for about six months. Very large church in Texas. And it was in shambles. It was in shambles. And it had gone down. I think it had probably about 750 people that had just dropped.

It was just... And I was walking through this great auditorium. I was walking through there. I'm going, God, we've got to put this church back together. You know, you need to show me, you know, what are we going to do? How are we going to put this church together?

There's so many people who are not truly being pastored or cared for. We've got to figure out some organizational thing.

I was still young back then. And I mean, I'm just praying and walking through that auditorium. And then all of a sudden, no, I didn't hear a voice. Something wasn't impressed on my heart.

But I started remembering the things I'd read in First Timothy. God said, "I have given you an organization." They're called elders and they're called deacons. You get them working right with God.

And that's how I want my church taken care of. And so see, it's all here in the book. But we've got to go back to this book.

Now, it says, "peace, peace when there is no peace." There have been times in my life when I have been afraid. I remember during the war down in Peru being afraid, bombs blowing up, blowing the windows out of our church, gunfire, interrupting services and all sorts of horrible things that made me afraid.

But none of that made me as afraid as this. Having to confront the church in its sin. I mean, I go out and preach on the street sometimes. Unbelievers throw things. That's fine. They're unbelievers. They're supposed to throw things. They're not supposed to really like the message.

But boy, when you go and you have to confront the people who are your own people, your own brothers and sisters in Christ, that's frightening. Because here's what will happen.

Many times they just won't listen. They'll just get mad. And then, and this is one of the greatest errors of young pastors. I'm going to tell you what it is. They actually think people will think logically. That's one of the greatest errors of young pastors. They think that if they go to the congregation with all the scriptures and a logical argument that people have to hear.

They won't. They won't even listen. I remember one time going into a group of leaders and saying, "Gentlemen, there's rampant sin going on in the congregation. All this is going on. There's immorality. There's adultery. There's this."

Everyone knows about it. Something's got to be done. We've got to follow Scripture on this.

So I went and I laid out the argument of Scripture, line by line of Scripture. Then I go to Baptist history.

And I say, and this is what Baptists have done in the past, so you know I'm not just inventing this. So here we have Scripture that says this. Here we have Baptist history that says this.

And so what are we going to do?

Well, they got furious. And I said, well, show me where I'm wrong in the Scriptures. Open up your Bible and show me where I've misinterpreted. And then go into church history. Here are the books, the Southern Baptist books. Take them and show me where I've misunderstood what these old men said.

No one went to Scripture. And no one went to Baptist history. They just got mad.

Now, is that right? Tell me, is that right? No, it's not right.

Now, a friend of mine goes, Paul, I'm going to go in there and talk to those men. And I said, why?

He said, well, brother Paul, I love you, but you're sometimes more concerned about winning the argument than you are winning the individual.

I'm sure if I go in there and just speak with them logically with the scriptures open, they've got to understand.

I said, brother, don't do that. Well, he does. And they really got mad.

And he said, Brother Paul, do you know what one of the main leaders told me? Screamed it out at me.

And I said, what?

When I showed him in front of everybody else, well, this is what Jesus said right here.

And I said, Brother, it's in the Bible. This man said, I know it's in the Bible, but that don't make it right.

Now, that was the same man who would defend the inspiration of Scripture. Do you see how illogical we can get?

Now, let me ask you a question. A pastor shouldn't come in here and make all kinds of radical changes. It's not what I'm talking about. But if a pastor shows you the Scripture and shows you church history and all the men of God down through history are all in agreement that that's what this passage means, what are you going to do?

Are you just going to get mad? Are you going to look at the Scripture yourself and study it? Are you just going to get mad?

Those are questions. Now, that's not going to come up probably for a long time, but it will come up sooner or later.

And what you have to decide is, are we really going to be a people of the Bible? That's what you have to decide.

It is definitely because they have misled my people, verse 10, by saying peace when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash.

So tell those who plaster it over with whitewash that it will fall. A flooding rain will come and you, oh, hailstones will fall and a violent wind will break out. Behold, when the wall has fallen, will you not be asked, where is the plaster with which you plastered it?

Now.

Look what it says for just a moment in verse 11. A flooding rain will come. You ever lived in a place where floods could break out in literally just a few minutes and sweep away everything? Not only that, but hailstones.

I mean, in the Bible, sometimes they talk about hailstones defeating entire armies. You ever been in a hailstorm? I mean, with golf ball size hail?

You were only in it once. Unless you got under some shelter.

And then he goes out and a violent wind will break out. We've had so many tornadoes ripped through the land. Nothing can stand in their way. Nothing can oppose them.

So what he's talking about, I will violently come and I will judge.

Now, he's talking about men who built works that they plastered over and made it look really good.

It was all plastered over. And why was it plastered over? Because if you got through the whitewash, if you got through the plaster and looked inside the work, it was rubbish.

Now, Paul talks about this to the church in Corinth, doesn't he?

He says, men's works will be judged and they'll be tried by fire. And the haywood and stubble will burn up. The only thing that will be left is that which is precious.

Folks,

Let me give you just a short history of contemporary Christianity and what goes on.

Churches used to be built upon what?

The preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The teaching of the word of God. And heartfelt worship.

Of obedience to the word of God.

So we can say it was built upon theology, truth.

Doxology, worship, and praxis. The practice of what you believe and sing about.

So that's what church was built upon. Not today.

You ought to go to some of these conferences, church growth conferences.

I mean, every kind of Wall Street marketing technique you could possibly ever imagine to build a church.

But what is happening?

It's all based upon something that has no foundation and no structure.

And when the storms come, it'll fall apart.

Let me just give you an example.

We used to say this in Peru where it could happen. And many times I was aware that I was preaching to congregations where there were spies in the congregation that would go back.

And if you said the wrong thing, terrorist group would come and kill you.

We used to always say this. You can tell how true the church is.

When there's a man standing in the back with a machine gun, who's going to come to church on the day when the man's standing there with a machine gun?

People come to church because, you know, churches are based...

I hear church growth guys saying, we need to build churches based upon meeting the felt needs of people.

That's preposterous. That's like we need to get elected to office by promising everybody who doesn't work everything they want.

You don't build a church.

Meeting the felt needs of people.

You build a church preaching truth, teaching people the Word of God and to tell them it's not all about them, it's all about God.

But when God becomes everything in their life, He works in their life so to bring something of a spiritual prosperity in life.

Of all the things we do, evangelism and plays and music and all these things which aren't necessarily bad.

All the activities we have, would it all be destroyed one Sunday morning if persecution broke out and no one came to church because they knew they might get in trouble?

They might lose their home. They might lose their land. They might lose everything as in the book of Hebrews.

Do you see?

And storms may be coming upon us. If storms do not come upon us as a people, if persecution does not break out in this country, we'll be the first people in the history of Christianity who didn't really have to go through anything.

So we want to build a church that will weather storms.

In the mission work, we have a thing that we call rice Christians, rice Christians.

It's a very common terminology used by different denominations, missions, organizations, rice Christians.

And what does it mean?

It's when an American goes over and tries to build a church and he does it by giving away rice, by giving away free clothes, by meeting the felt needs of people.

In that you can sometimes take an American missionary who does this type of thing, and not all missionaries do this type of thing, but some do.

You have him start his church and then have, let's use the country of Peru as an example, you have a poor Peruvian start a church ten blocks away.

Well, this American church, I mean, the first day has got 50 people in it, then 60, then 70, then 80, and is growing and running and gunning and doing all sorts of things.

They've got multimedia. They've got money to have proper speakers and microphones and a pretty place to meet and everything else.

And I mean, by the end of the year, there's 150 people in this church.

There's a Peruvian pastor over here. Dirt floor.

Part of the walls are made out of estera, which is a woven type of chaff that they use to make walls.

One light bulb hanging in the middle.

He's got ten people.

But then persecution comes.

The terrorists get really close to Lima.

I mean, it's getting scary.

Or the American missionary goes back to the States and a Peruvian takes his place and the funding's cut off.

What happens?

This church of 150, 200 people dwindles down to 10.

And then what happens?

This group over here stays with 10.

Do you see?

So, boy, it looked great, didn't it? Plastered all up. Really pretty. Everything. Absolutely beautiful.

But when the storm came, there's nothing.

Now, let's look at something else.

Makeup. Cosmetics.

Now, there's nothing wrong with wearing cosmetics, but there can be something wrong with wearing too much.

Young guy marries a girl and she's just all painted up, just absolutely amazing.

And the next morning they wake up and he sees her. He has a heart attack.

I mean, sometimes cosmetics cover up what you're really getting.

OK, women, they don't have to worry about that because they know what they're getting. They see that same ugly face every day with no makeup on it. They look at their husband.

This is what I'm getting.

But a husband, that's a different thing.

Now, I want to talk about the cosmetic nature of modern church.

Look at it. How did service go, Pastor, on Sunday?

Oh, it was fantastic.

How's the church doing?

Oh, great.

This last Sunday, we had 750 people.

Worship was just absolutely wonderful.

People seemed to be really up.

The sermon just went well.

The church is going great.

That is not how you determine how the church is going.

Do you know how you determine how the church is going?

When everybody goes home.

And you look at the godliness of that family.

Some of you got in a fight before you even made it to church this morning, didn't you?

Say, how did you know that?

Are you a prophet? No, I'm married too.

So this one guy was giving a testimony one time. He said they were fighting even in the parking lot.

And they made it into church and their face just changed.

And boy, she said that worship started.

He said, I raised my hands in the air and all of a sudden my wife just elbowed me right in the side.

Almost took my breath away.

Listen to me. People always ask me, you know, they always ask me, Brother Paul, how can we pray for you?

We know your schedule is so tight. You have to travel all so many places. How can we pray for you?

Pray that I will be a godly husband.

You got to go to Asia next week to preach.

I thought it would be something.

No, pray that I'd be a godly husband.

Well, what else?

Pray that I'd be a godly father. You need a man who's not just concerned about how his church looks.

Now, notice my language, his church. So many pastors are happy if the church looks good on Sunday.

It's all cosmetic.

A man who knows that true Christianity is lived out in the context of a marriage and in the context of a family.

And he is deeply concerned, not with a cosmetic Sunday morning service, but with the godliness of the people.

I love theology. I teach theology. Love books on theology and all sorts of things.

But you know what catches my attention?

Would I strain my ears? Someone gets up and teaches on the Trinity. That's absolutely wonderful.

But he's probably not going to give me anything new.

When a man gets up and teaches on how to be a godly man. How to be a godly husband. How to be a godly father.

And not some new psychology like different languages of love and all these silly books that are written.

No. The Word of God.

Dealing with what God demands of me as

Here is the cleaned and formatted sermon transcription:

I'm wrong, and I want to know how I can change that. Boy, my ears are just perked up. Why? That's my need. So it's not just about this. Because this isn't representative of how well the church is doing. You need someone who sees through all that. A pastor who is self-centered will mainly concern himself with how well the church looks when it gathers together, but a truly shepherd-like pastor will concern himself with how the church looks when it's scattered – in its homes.

Healthy marriages, healthy father-son and mother-son relationships, father-daughter relationships – there's a beauty and a Christ-likeness. I'm not so much concerned about the presence of God meeting with us in this congregation as I am the presence of God in each individual home. If the presence of God is manifested in each individual home, I can assure you that the presence of God will be manifested here.

You can't whitewash things; you just want wholesome, real, simple Christianity. The older I get, the more I preach, and the simpler it becomes. It really comes down to trust and obey – there's no other way. And that's what you must be looking for in the life of a man.

I finished preaching one time out in Texas, and after I got done with my first sermon, the pulpit committee ran up to me. You can always tell the pulpit committee because they wear fake glasses with big noses and mustaches trying to conceal themselves. The pulpit committee said, "Would you consider being our pastor?" And I looked at them with a twinkle in my eye and said, "Are you men out of your minds?"

They asked what I meant, and I said, "You heard me preach one sermon. You think I qualify as a pastor? You've got to be kidding me." They said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "You know nothing about my character. You only know I can speak well. And I don't need notes."

That's all you know. We always want a guy who's just good right here – but I don't need a guy who's good in his life if he's not knowledgeable about the Word of God. But let me ask you a question: Would we want Paul the Apostle to be our pastor? He didn't speak well, but he had knowledge. He didn't physically look good, but he was spiritually healthy – I can assure you.

So think. Now, if you're here today and you don't know Christ... That's exactly where you are. You do not know Christ. You say, "Well, I know Him." But if you haven't lived for Him for years, no, be terrified with that phrase. If you don't act like you know Him, there's a good chance you don't know Him.

I will not tell you peace when there is no peace. I will tell you, you can judge a tree by its fruit. And you can judge a book by its cover. And if you're not walking with God, you need to be afraid.

And I'm not going to give an invitation. You know I don't give long invitations. I will tell you this: I will stay here all day and counsel you if need be. If you're troubled about your soul. But I will not manipulate you into some decision that's going to do you no good to start with.

God's troubled your soul. Come speak with us after this message. We won't worry about going to Denny's or eating; we'll worry about your heart. About your heart. Let's pray, Father. Please work in this congregation. Bless them, Lord. There are people here who love you. Bless them. In Jesus' name. Amen.