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Lighthouse Baptist Church
Two Men
[music] >>Thank you for listening to this message. Brought to you by the Audio Ministry of Lighthouse Baptist Church. It's connected in New York. For more great content, please visit us at LighthouseBaptist.org. Now let's open our hearts and minds to the Word of God. [music] >>Let me join the preacher and welcome to the service this morning. If you're glad to be here, give us a good rousing amen. [laughter] >>I'll take that. That's better than I get usually. Some churches will have to go through that three times. And some never do get it right. But it is a blessing to be here, and I'm glad you're here. Matter of fact, if you remember this church, you're right where you're supposed to be, amen? My wife is not with me on this trip, of course. And I think she has been here, sometimes several years back. But she would like to be here. She is praying for this meeting. She's praying for you. She knows if I'm preaching to you, you're going to be prayer. So she is praying for you. I preached in one church in New York. Matter of fact, I've preached more meetings in New York than in the other state. But I've preached in somewhere west of here. And then there are several times. My wife was not with me. Last fall, I was there again, and she was with me. And as soon as she came in, this smart alec, ran over, took her hand, looked around in the eye, and said, Miss Fielder, ever since I met your husband, I've been praying for you. I didn't know what he meant, but that you act like you do. Anyway, if you remember the church, God bless you for being here. If you're this, you didn't have to be here, but I'm glad you chose to be here. And if you're not saved, I'd like to assure you that you're among friends and people that love you, people will be absolutely ecstatic if you got saved. Boy, I'm glad I'm saved, aren't you? It means you don't have to go to hell. Several people have suggested that so far, but I'm still not going in there. Praise the Lord for that. Let me take a few moments to mention these books, and I'll get them out of the way here. I have 19 books on the book table back there, but I've written. And I told her in Calvinism this morning, if you're interested in that subject, there's a lot more in here than what I gave you this morning in Sunday school. If you don't know about Calvinism, you need to get this and read it, because it will embolden you against that weird, bizarre teaching. This is the book on scripture memorization. Some of you have gotten this already. There are two methods in this that teach you how to memorize scriptures that do work, if you'll work them. Plus, there's 219 Bible themes in the back with memory verses connected with them. This is one of two volumes, Bible truth for Bible questions. It has 275 subjects in it spread out throughout the two books, and a lot of subjects never hear preached on like cremation. You don't hear much preached on that, but the Bible has some things to say in that area. And perhaps you might be interested in that. This is one of four volumes, Bible truth on the world of flesh and the devil. Volume two deals with heaven and hell. Volume three deals with backsliding and chastening. It's not a how-to manual, back to story, no out of backsliding. Nobody has to write about that. Volume four deals with submission rebellion. This book, Bible truth on tongues, answers those unanswered questions about tongues. Guess where I got the answers? Got a matter of God's book, amen? Got a matter of the Bible. The Bible has the answer. These are the last full books that I've written. This is a Bible truth for perilous times, based on the section of chapter three, where Paul said this and also, "The last day's perilous time should come for men should be loved for their own selves." Covertures, proud, vosters, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. He went on to name 20 things that would characterize the last days of the last days. And listen, folks, that's where we are. We're in the last days of the last days. There's some good information in there that's relative information. This is the Bible truth for young men. Twenty-three times Solomon said, "My son," and he gave him advice. And that's not the exact outline of the book, but that's where I got my idea. Most of the information here comes from the book Proverbs. And every young man needs to read this book, the Bible truth for young men. This is the Bible truth from Proverbs. I pulled 40 subjects out of the book of Proverbs and wrote on those. And I launched them on them. You know, if you only had one book of the Bible, and that book was Proverbs, and it's all you had, you would have enough information to live a good Christian life. Isn't it amazing what Proverbs holds? And this is one of the last ones, two spiral truths on the home. And I want to share some things from the index here about that, if I can get to it really easily. Sometimes, there it is. Actually, those are two things. It deals with God's plan for marriage and God's plan for parents. God's plan for marriage, the origin of marriage, the reason for marriage, the maintenance of marriage, the husband's responsibilities, the washer responsibilities. Then God's plan for parents. Every child must learn submission. You don't have a good life, a good future. Every child has a human nature, even your grandkids. And mine does it, but yours does, mine does it. Now, she has human nature too. Every child needs correction. I heard about these fellows in the supermarket, and he had the baskets, you know, pushing around, his son in there, and his son was throwing an unholy fit. And he was kind of muttering. He said, "Now, Ralph, just be patient. Ralph, do not create a scene. Ralph this and Ralph that." And this dear old lady was watching and she was impressed. She walked over and she said, "Sir, I just want to commend you on the patience with your son, Ralph." He said, "Ma'am, I am Ralph." Listen, every child needs love. Every child will live forever. Well, you have to realize that parents have to realize I'm raising of a child that's going to live forever, and I'm going to have more to do with whether he goes to heaven or hell than anybody else in the world. Every child needs training, every child needs protection, every child needs daily devotions. It is a sin not to have devotions with those kids. Every child can bring joy to the parents, and lots of mothers do not believe that. Matter of fact, a lot of mothers have gone to work and got a 40-hour-a-week job because they want to get away from their kids. Anyway, every child is responsible for obedience. And I wanted to share that with you because that might cause some of you to have a desire to get that book. It's a very important book. Anyway, I hope you'll come back to the service tonight and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night. I personally plan to be in all services myself. Being the evangelist, I think I ought to be here. I have to say, occasionally, I meet someone that wouldn't mind if I miss a service here or there, but I try to be in all of them. And I hope you will. I can preach better if you're here. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not trying to be humorous. I can preach better if you're here. And, you know, things were going pretty good this morning. I thought I'd get all the attention to this horn that I showed up and stole the show. (Laughter) I'm back at the book table. Everybody's coming up the hall. Brother Horn is brother horn, brother horn, brother horn, brother horn. They weren't paying a bit of attention to me. But it's good to see you, brother. I appreciate the good job you did here and left a good ministry. I actually had trouble forgiving you, but this new pastor has helped me. (Laughter) I mean, when I see what you folks have for a pastor now, well, that's helped me to realize that God was in this. Amen? I really hate to admit it, but I had to admit it. Anyway, I'm not planning to preach a long sermon. I don't ever plan that. I'd like to preach 30 minutes. I've never done that, but I'd like to do that sometime. I heard about one church that was a very friendly church. They never got out on time. Preacher always told these people, "Don't you dare let someone visit this church, and you not make personal conversation with them, and invite them back." This dear lady took that seriously on a Sunday morning. She noticed a lady there that had never been there. She said to herself, "As soon as the service is over, I'm going straight to that lady, and I'm going to introduce myself. We're going to have conversation." And then she approached the lady. She had her hand out like this. She said, "My name is Gladys Dunn, and she didn't know the visiting lady couldn't hear well. And so the visiting lady, her inquisically, for a few moments, said, "Yes, I'm glad he's done, too." (Laughter) Acts chapter 4, I like chapter 4. I'm going to begin reading in verse 13, and read down through verse 22, a little bit longer text than I normally read. I do hope that you will make plans to be in every service this week. Bring someone with you. You know, it just makes sense that if you'll be back tonight and bring someone with you, we're going to have twice as many people here tonight as we had this morning. Isn't that logical? And listen, you could do that. I've passed in Fort Pierce, Florida for several years. Our people learned they could bring visitors. They're in it strange. Some people visit it. They come to a good church like this. They're here for every service. Their whole year never occurs to them. We try to bring someone with them, but it should. I'm encouraging. I'll say more about that probably later. In Acts chapter 14, verse 13, and following, it reads like this. "When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled, and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. And behold of the men which was healed, standing with them, they could say nothing against it. When they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, "What shall we do to these men, for that indeed a notable miracle have been done but them, as man of has to all that dwell in Jerusalem. And we cannot deny it." Brothers spread no further among the people that are straightly threatened them, that they speak and spoke to the little man in this name. And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John, answered and said unto them, "Where they be right in the sight of God toark and unto you more than unto God, judge ye, for we cannot bespeak the things which we've seen and heard." So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them because of the people, for all men glorified God for that which was done. For the man was above 40 years old on whom this miracle of healing was shown. With that I want us to bow our heads now in prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity to be in the Lord's house, anywhere and especially here. For these dear people, thank you for this ministry, the lives that has touched over the years and only eternity will reveal that. Thank you for the opportunity to preach in this dear brother's pulpit and I consider that an honor. Now pray this morning that you might breathe on the service and breathe on the sermon and breathe on the nice servant. Give me what a preacher must have in order to be effective and without which you could not. A clear mind and good continuity in my speaking, but I must speak intelligently and effectively. And Lord in such a manner that all of us would get something from the message this morning. Lord above all, I ask you this morning, should there be some here today that do not know personally the Lord Jesus Christ, that before the service is ended they will know Jesus as their Savior. That no one would pass through those doors back there that does not know that they know that they know they're going to heaven when they die. Now I ask your Lord to help me love these people as I preach to them as if I myself were their pastor. I'll be grateful if you'll do that and praise you for what you do and I do that now in Jesus' name, amen. We have an introduction. I want you to notice the scene opens here with Peter and John in trouble as they seem too soft and beam. If you look at verse 1, the Bible said, as they speak unto the people, the priests of the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them. The religious hierarchy came upon these men and it's an interesting, always has been an interesting thing to me, but the real opposition to Christ and his people come from unregenerated religious people. They've been the greatest enemy God's people have ever had to deal with. As a matter of fact, they've murdered a lot of our ancestors. And Jesus said they would do that. You remember what he said in Matthew 23, 37? Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kill us the prophets. And stonest end of the assembly. Often what I've gambled about children, he ain't gambled under the wing, but you would not. He's talking to people that have rejected. They even murdered the prophets, he said. And Jesus said they're going to hate us as well. You remember what he said in John 15, 19? If you robbed the world, the world would love his home, but because you're not the world and I've chosen now the world, therefore the world hated you. That's what he said. We can't change that. There is an indignation out there against the Christ that lives in your life. And may I say that the more obvious Jesus is in your life, the more opposition you're going to incur from the adversary, and there's no way around that. I remember what Jesus said when he sent the disciples out. And John chapter 12, quick question, chapter 16. Beginning in verse 1, he said, "These things are spoken unto you that you should not be offended. They shall put you out the synagogues, aid the time coming through. I've been killing you, they have gone to service, and these things will have been done to you, because they have not known the Father nor me." You know what he was telling them? He said, "Vitals, I just want to tell you, before you take one step, it's going to cost you your life. You're going to be rejected. You're going to be persecuted. You're going to be crucified, or murdered, executed." See, hungry, generous people have killed millions of our ancestors, 50 million, during the dark ages alone. I understand. And they're still doing it today. The Muslims have been killing Christians for 1,300 years, and they're still doing it until today. ACLUJ, a religious legal organization, has said that 89% of all religious persecution in the world is against Christians. And I believe it's even higher than that. Matter of fact, they've also published this. That every single day in this world, 13 Christians are executed somewhere because they're Christians. I pray, I don't know how you pray about that, but I pray every day. For God to bless and be with and protect those Christians that are being persecuted and prosecuted, and they're incarcerated, and many of them are facing death. I pray for those people every day, because listen, it might come to America, folks. As a matter of fact, if some people have their way, it will come to America. There are two reasons, Peter and John are in trouble here. First of all, they're in trouble because they're extolling and exemplifying Christ. That will always get you in trouble of the world. For instance, this chapter is replete with reference to Jesus. There's one in verse two. They preach through Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. There's one in verse seven. By what power and by what name have you done this after referring to Christ? In verse 10, the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified. In verse 12, neither is there salvation in any other. For there's none of the name of heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. There's another in verse 17. Another in verse 18. I'm saying this chapter is replete with reference to Jesus. These men are extolling, exulting of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the opposition hated that. But here's another reason. The religious hierarchy in Jerusalem had sold Jerusalem on the idea that Jesus Christ was a fake in the fraud and a false prophet. And when Pilate said, what then should it do with Jesus, there are the ones with one loud chorus that cried out, let him be crucified. Now here's what that means. The most religious correction. The best religion in the world, as far as religion goes, in that day the best religion in the world are the ones that said, let him be crucified. Now here's why I say that. Say the Jews religion was not a cult. They believed in the God of heaven. They believed the prophets. They believed in the silence coming. They didn't recognize him, but they believed one was coming. They went to church every time of the day. They gave a tenth of their income, more than a lot of Baptist gifts. Somebody say amen. They read their mind goes religiously. They prayed privately and publicly. They lived exemplary lives. The most religious people on earth, as far as religion goes, are the ones that said, let him be crucified. Now I'm putting that on purpose because there are a lot of religions in our world today that hate the Lord Jesus Christ whom we love. But notice Peter and John and the name of Jesus and Nazareth, according to verse 10, "Be it none unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him, doth this man stand before you whole." God, verse 22, "For the man was about 40 years old, and this miracle of healing was over." Now here's the picture. These men come along and the name of the one that the religious hierarchies said was a fake and a fraud and a false prophet had him crucified. These men come along in the name of that Lord Jesus Christ. They heal the man that everyone in town knows was afflicted. And now they all know he's made well. And they know he's made well and the name of the one that this crowd said was a false prophet. And they had him crucified. Now what that did, it put those men in a bad light. And the Bible says in verse 14, "Behold on the man which was healed, they could say nothing against it. When they commanded them to go side out of the council, they conferred among themselves saying, what should we do with these men? For that indeed a notable miracle have been done by them, which is obvious to everyone in town. Everybody knows about this. What are we going to do about this? Now the dilemma for them was that they could not deny this. They could not decry this. They could not denounce this. They could not describe this. And more than all of that, they could not duplicate this. Listen, false religion cannot duplicate what Jesus Christ can do in people's lives. But I'm getting closer to the message. See, we need to see this kind of results again. And here's what I'm seeing for that. I'm not saying we need to set up here in the line. Nothing like that. But how did this happen? You look like in chapter three, you're going to see that's where I'm going to be going to in just a moment. But here's what it boils down to. When we do what God tells us to do, it puts God in a position to do what only God can do. And listen, that still works. If the church today were to be as zealous in spreading the gospel as the early church was, God would be doing some great things among us today. But God, many times, cannot do great things because we have not put him in a position to do so. And I want to give you some things that led up to this. According to verse one in chapter three, the Bible tells us two men are, if you're making notes, are walking together. The Bible said, now Peter and John went up together into the temple with now the prayer of being the ninth hour. See, a chord and unity is vitally important. Have you ever noticed in reading the book of Acts that at four times, maybe even five, you found this expression that we're in one mind and one accord and one mind and one accord. Now, that doesn't mean they're all riding in a Honda, a chord. Take somebody to get that. But it means they were together in their minds and their purpose and so forth. And I said unity is so vitally important. The Bible said, the name is three, three, it can, two, walk together except they be agreed. The implication is they cannot to walk together. They might eat one and all the people join themselves, gather themselves together as one man into the street that's before the Watergate. To speak on Israel, to describe, to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord recommended in Israel. But notice they are all assembled themselves together. Assinity, unity. And the Bible said in Psalm 133 verse 1, "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for a brethren to dwell together in unity." Illustration, and this is not for humor. I read once about some people being carried through an insane, insolent tour. And they got to a certain area and there's the large lawn out here and about a hundred of the patients were out there just doing their own thing. And someone in the tour group asked a tour guide, "Aren't you afraid that they will organize and escape because there's only one person looking after all these hundred people out here? Aren't you afraid they'll get organized and overpower the guard and escape?" He said, "No, we don't have to worry about that here because they will never get their minds together to do anything." Now here's what he meant by that. They all are in their own little world. They have their own little thing going. They will never get organized and galvanized into a unit to do anything. By the way, that gives a description of a lot of Baptist churches today. They need to be organized. The Bible, and by the way, a chord plays a very important role in that, amen? The Bible said in Ephesians 4-3, "Endeavoring action term to keep the unity of the spirit and the blood of peace." Endeavoring. In order to keep unity and tranquility and avoid chaos and anarchy, there has to be effort put forth on everybody's part in devoring an action term. The Bible said it almost kept him be kind to the effects in one toward another with brother to love, in honor, preferring one another. But that border's own humility as opposed to pride. You know what pride is and pride is the definition. Pride is high opinion of me and low opinion of thee. Humility is rather the opposite. Full opinion of me and high opinion of thee. We need a lot of people that have humility, amen? All of us need humility. I've been thinking about writing a book on it myself, but I can't do that because if I did, it wouldn't be humble. But see, pride is one of the reasons for discord, isn't it? Proverbs 13-10, "Listen, only by pride come with contention." Did you get that? If you ever started ripping in your church, God said, "I've already diagnosed your problem." It's pride, amen. Pride. It's my way of the highway sometimes people say it. And God hates pride, as a matter of fact. And the Bible said, in Proverbs 6-16, these six things the Lord thinks it's here. And the first one is a proud look, as a matter of fact, to mention seven things altogether. And what that means is that we don't have any time and we certainly can't afford any loose talk. What I hate to mention this, I hate to mention this, down south we have what's called God sup. Now, I know you folks don't know anything about that and I hate to broach the subject, amen. I read about one woman that he called, by the way, ladies, it could have been a man. But this woman calls a lot of trouble and she realized she made a terrible mistake and she went to her pastor to get some information on what can I do to correct this. She explained the situation and he said to her, "I'll tell you what, you take this pillow, it's a feather pillow here, you go down the street and scatter these feathers all the way down. When you get finished with that, you come back and I'm going to tell you what you're going to do next." She did that. She emptied that pillowcase of all those feathers, she came back, she had a pillowcase with her. She said, "Now what can I do?" And she said, "Now here's what you need to do to correct this. You need to go back down the street, pick up all those feathers and put them back in that pillowcase." She said, "But pastor, that would be impossible." And he said, "Man, it is impossible for you to totally correct the problems that you've caused." By the way, that was the truth. The Bible confirms that in Proverbs 18 and 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue and they let us read the truth in their hearts. What about Proverbs 26 and 20? The Bible said, "Well, no way it is, there the fire goes out, so there's no tear bed, let's try it, cease it." I learned this as I grew up, a loose tongue can cause loose teeth. By the way, did you notice in reading the book of Acts that the deacons that were appointed there, they're not called deacons in chapter 6, but we assume they were, that the results of their action was that a chord was restored where a discord had prevailed. These men went out and corrected the discord while the pastors, in Acts chapter 6 verse source, we must give ourselves a continual prayer in the ministry of the Word. We don't have time to put on these fires, but these men were soon out there to take care of that. Thank God for deacons that will do things like that. By the way, not all of them do that, but the truth is you have to watch these deacons say, "I'm kidding with you, I have to tell somebody to kidding, now right now I don't have anything to kid the women about so I kid you." See a chord is necessary in three areas, the mouse in first Corinthians 1 and 10. Now I beseech you brethren, listen carefully to this, but the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment. Now what that boils down to is be together doctrinally, be together in your purpose, be together in your course of action to achieve that purpose. I want to tell you something, you get a church together like that. God can still use the church. And by the way, folks, I think you have an excellent pastor here, and I'm not saying that just because I haven't received the love offering yet, but you know, they didn't be good. But I'm saying that because I mean that. This guy is on top of things here. And he is the leader. Listen, I'm a priest of over 500 churches in the last 40 years across American Canada. I've met a lot of preachers, a lot of pastors. You have a good pastor here, get behind him. So how do we get together, how can we be together, look and see which way the pastor is going and go that way with him, amen? That way you're all walking together. Now first of all, we see two men walking together. Secondly, notice in verse 1 again. First two men going to church together. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple of the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. Let me ask you a question. How much do you love the assembly? How much do you love that? The Bible, the Psalmist really was sold on this. You know what he said in Psalm when he said, verse 4, "One thing of I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." In Psalm 84 and verse 10, "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tense of wickedness." In Psalm 1 and 22 and verse 1, "I was glad when they said, 'Let us go unto the house of the Lord.'" Is he speaking for all of us when he says that? See, if you're saved and you're trying to live for God, going to church is supposed to be an exciting experience. It's not supposed to be something you dread. Do we have to go to church tonight? By the way, we have to, now I'm going to have two children. That question never came up in our house. Do we have to go to church? It never came up. We're going to church. Now, the two things about assembling, I want to point out to you as briefly as again. First of all, and listen to this, it is of divine decree. So preach what does that mean? It means it's not just a Baptist idea, although it is a Baptist, but not just that. It's not a Methodist idea, Presbyterian idea, you do this idea, this was, it's God's idea. Everything is of divine decree. For instance, in chapter 1 verse 13, they went up into an upper room, assembly. Chapter 2 verse 1, they were all in one accord in one place, assembly. In chapter 2 verse 46, with one accord in the temple. In chapter 1 verse 26, when he found him, he brought him unto Antioch, and he came to pass it a whole year to assemble themselves with the church and taught most people, and the disciples were called Christians, first in Antioch. You know why? Because they're assembling a whole year consistently, and the society said, they must be Christians. And by the way, we've never adopted that word for ourselves. It was given to us by society. They were called Christians. And I'm glad of it. I like it. The Bible said in Hebrew 10, 25, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the man of some is, but exalting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching for a free sin, wilfully, after having received the knowledge of the truth, there may not be a source of sacrifice for sins, but a certain fear of looking for a judgment and firing an indignation which shall deny the adversaries." Now there are three verses there in a lot of theology, but on the surface of this, don't ever quit assembling. If you do, you're wilfully sinned, and if you do that, you're going to fear God's judgment on your life. That's why people feel guilty when they lay out a church and you go down to visit with them, and they hope you won't bring that out, hey man, sometimes good idea not to bring it up. But I ask you how much you love your church, do you love it enough to be faithful to Sunday school, amen? Listen, every church member that can should be in Sunday school. In the morning service, in the evening service, Dr. Lee Robertson always had this slogan, "It takes three to thrive, that Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night." I can tell you how strong and how spiritual you are if you tell me how often you go to the church because you will never go spiritually above your church. Somebody say, "Man, now I'll tell you when to say, "Man, so you'll be listening." Do you love your church? By the way, I'm going to find out tonight who all voted to keep Sunday night services open, because we're going to have an election here tonight, and by your presence you're voting to keep Sunday night going, by your absence you're voting to close Sunday night service. Now, if somebody asks you, you say, "Oh, no, I don't want the church to close Sunday night, but if you don't show up, that's what you're voting for." Anyway, do you love it enough? By the way, I said this, I want to say it again, you'll never mature spiritually above your attendance in the Lord's house under the teaching preaching, the Word of God. That's going to be as high as you'll ever get, spiritually speaking. I had no pastor, my old pastor, I could not tell you what he was the most godly man I've ever known in my life. He passed to the same church about 55 years, and went to your church on Sunday morning to preach. He'd got sick, went to the hospital and died, and he would have had nothing, had it, no better. That's as good as he would have had. But he had sayings, occasionally he would say that congregation. If you treated your own glory, you're like, "You treat God, you wouldn't have a job a week." When I say something, it takes a long time to get to the back and come back to the front. Now, listen, I'm telling you what he said, amen. Just for an illustration, I was getting ready to leave Fort Pierce and go into evangelism, and a lady called me up, and I could tell she was hysterical. She wanted to meet with me. She wanted to meet with her, and I did meet with her. She and her husband had attended our church on Sunday mornings regularly for quite some time, and now they were going somewhere else at the time, but they'd been in our church. She came back to me. What had happened was that she had crossed the line morally, and her husband knew nothing about it. She was really broken about what she'd done, she didn't know what to do about it, and so forth. Of course, I told her to go talk to her pastor about it. I hope supposed she did. But you know what she said to me? She said, "We came to your church every Sunday morning, and you always preached on salvation." Now, what she didn't know was that we had a growing church. And they were unsaved people there practically every Sunday morning. We baptized about 200 people. One year there, people were getting saved right and left, and the church was growing, and growing, and growing, and growing. I needed to preach salvation sermons, and I needed about every Sunday morning, almost every Sunday morning. She said, "You never preached to us. You never preached to us, Christ." I said, "Man, listen, you and your husband came on Sunday morning. You never came on Sunday night." That's why I preached to my people, and Wednesday nights. She was going to blame me with that. I put it right back to her. I said, "Ma'am, it's not my fault. You should have been here." But anyway, I heard about this fellow that came home one day to his wife, and he and his wife had been in church, and he said, "I'm not going back." She said, "Why?" He said, "They've hurt my feelings. They have said derogatory things about me, and they have me so low I could sit on a cigarette paper and dangle my feed off." And he said, "I'm not going back." She said, "But honey, you have to go back." He said, "Well, just give me three reasons why." She said, "Because you're a Christian, you're supposed to be there." Number one, number two, that is your church. That's where you're supposed to be. Listen, I passed it for 19 years, and I could relate to what that got said. I said it's a divine decree, and it is. It's also a divine design. The Bible said in Acts 2, 41, that they glad to receive this word were baptized, and the same day they were handed unto them about 3,000 souls, verse 42. And they continued steadfast with me, apostles, doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers. One of the greatest statements in the book of Acts is, "They continued." You know, it's easy enough to get people to commence, but it's not as easy as to get them to continue and complete, probably because they didn't count the costs before they commenced, and so forth. And there is a cost, but I could spend a lot of time here, and I probably should, but I'm not. You need spiritual maintenance when you go to the Lord's house, and God set it up that way. The pastor, the Holy Spirit is going to work in his life, and in his heart and mind, is going to give him what you need as a congregation, and he's going to stand up here and teach or preach to you that. And you're so appreciative of that, how that works. Yes it is. Yes it is. Passengers don't just think up a subject and say, "Hey, that's what I'm going to deal with next Sunday." He prays about that. "Lord, I need you to speak to my heart, and tell me in my heart why I need to preach on them," and they do that because you're sort of preacher. You mean he didn't know about all that stuff? No, he didn't know. I've been in front of people for six to five years. I've learned reading countless things pretty good, so be careful with yours. I've seen people sit on the edge of the seat while they just couldn't wait till the next statement's made, you know. That's like saying sick 'em to a hound dog. And then I've seen something like this, and I know what they're thinking when I find out who told that preacher. Listen, nobody told the preacher in most cases the Holy Spirit knows that the preacher didn't. And I don't want to know. I don't want to preach that filling me in on anything, amen, because if he does, and I preach on it, I don't know whether I preached on it because I've learned about it or because the Lord wanted me to do it, and usually it doesn't work anyway. But anyway, I was preaching to church not far from here, up the understatement. And they had had problems, and I didn't know what they were, and they didn't want to know. And I finished a sermon when that's kind of rough sermon. I finished my sermon when I went down to the front seat. I passed to give a peer, took hold of this desk like this, leaned out at the people and said, "Oh, this folks, I didn't tell 'em a thing. I didn't tell 'em a thing." And I didn't know what was going on with they did. And the Holy Spirit did. Listen, I couldn't tell you how many times I preached a sermon, finished my sermon, go down to the front seat, preach it, come on and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Fielder could not have preached what I needed any better, had a given human itemized list." I don't take credit for that, the Holy Spirit of God gets credit for that. And sometimes it's often much like somebody has told the preacher when actually he did not, nobody told the creature. But you need the spiritual maintenance, you need the fellowship, whether you know it or not. You need the fellowship. Listen, folks, we have the best crowd in the world. You know, the Christians are the greatest people in the world, they're the best people in America. And although we have a lot of problems, we're still the best people in America. And you need that fellowship. You need that encouragement, amen. By the way, we also need instruction and reproof. Reproof is not as easy as you have to have character to take a reproof. Sorry, oh, that preacher, he's too straight for us. He's always preaching on something I'm guilty of. They won't say it like that, but that's what the problem is. Listen, if your pastor preaches from this Bible, you're going to get hit. Here's the idea, move over and don't get hit twice in the same place. Oh my, we need that reproved on with two men walking together, two men going to church together. We see two men going to pray together, and we're talking about what brought this tremendous result, who in chapter four were there. This man was healed, four-year-old, and with it healed. We see two men going to pray, verse one, we're still in verse one, folks. We'll get out. Say it enough. I think we'll get out today. I really feel good about it. Peter and John went up together until the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. See, the most important factor in any church, folks, is prayer. You know, prayer is mentioned almost as many times as preaching is in the book of Acts. One time less, like 36 times, isn't it? One said the quickest way to get a church on its knees to get a church on its knees, on its feet, brothers, to get it on its knees. I believe that. I have not in 40 years, I've only been in one church where the Midweek service was truly a prayer meeting, and that was all it was. And I know why. If most pastors announced Wednesday night, all we're going to do is share our prayer, and we have prayer. That's all we're going to do. No Kool-Aid, no cookies, no coffee. We're just going to have prayer when you finish praying, slip out. They know that those will be the least attended services that church would have that week. And that's a bad commentary, folks. Don't ought to be the most. Prayer is so important. They had to plan time, according to verse 1, the ninth hour, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. They're meeting to pray. Every church needs a time to pray, meet together and pray, besides our personal prayers. They purpose to meet with God. Let me ask you a question. What has happened to our hunger for God? I'm talking about generally speaking. What has happened to our hunger for God? When I first got saved, I couldn't get enough of God. Man, I went to church for everything. I was on the front seat, 15 years old. If our church had had a women's missionary union, I would have showed up for their meetings. I had a board meeting. I heard about one fellow that announced a board meeting. A board meeting, a certain night, this week, he shows up. I said, "What are you doing here? You're not on the board." This is a board meeting. He said, "Well, I thought I was supposed to be here. I'm about as bored as anybody." I said, "I don't want to miss a thing, brother. They purpose to meet with God." Notice, we need to go and meet with God privately. I believe God blesses me in part today because when I got saved at age 15, I was reared on the farm. I'd go up around those big poultry houses, what we called a holler, a little meadow up there, and get on my knees, and I wore imprints into the growling. That was my altar. I went right back to the same place, put my knees right where I put them the day before, and talked to God the best I know how, 15 years old, and so forth, and just began him in ministry at 16. I believe God blessed that. He still does that, by the way. You know what Jesus did in Mark 135 in the morning rising, we grew high before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place in their parade. Looked 6-12 and he came to pass in those days, and he went out and came out to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. Don't you think if Jesus needed to do that, we ought to do that? I'll tell you, when I was passoring folks, I learned that if you'll spend the night praying about something until the sun comes up in the morning, and I did it more than once, it seemed like God's more interested in it. If we'll, if we'll do that, and by the way, there's nothing romantic about praying all night, right in front of the altar in our church there, where I not spent several times. And I'm not, I'm just trying to make a point, I'm not trying to brag on me. Hymen Appom was a great evangelist of yesteryear, and he was preaching in the first bag of church of Little Rock Arkansas, Aaron Bladock was a pastor then, and listen, it was the end of the second week of meetings. Does I say the thing to you? People can't stand a full week now, they drop out before the week's over. They can't even stand three days, many people can't. Back then they'd have two weeks, six weeks. John Rice put a tent down on city out in Texas, and stayed there for one year, and started a church, founded a church with a thousand members, 999 members, I think it was. But anyway, he had been preaching there, it's a great evangelist's tent, it was great evangelist. And by Friday they had not had any good results at all. Second week, pastor came to the pulpit at the end of my service on Friday and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, matter of fact," he said, "Gentlemen, I want you to take your families home, and I want you to come back, we're going to pray tonight." And listen, he said, "If you're not willing to stay till God comes, don't come back." So about 35 million came back, they gathered around that altar, and they began to pray, and went on past midnight, up into the early hours of the morning. I don't know exactly what hour it was, but finally they'd all prayed and poured their hearts out to God, art and blade luck, 70 years old, began to cry out to God. He rattled the gates of heaven for a while, and though the one he said, "Amen, everybody knew that God had met with them." He disbanded, went home, came back on Sunday morning. 105 people walked out and got saved, 95 got baptized. And the evangelist knew it wasn't he that made the difference because he preached the sermon just like he'd been preaching, but it's because of that prayer meeting. The Bible tells us that we need to pray together, and after 18-19, if two of you should agree on earth, they're touching anything that they shall ask you, should be deaf of them, but my Father was an image. You know, if you've been praying about something serious, get somebody of life, faith, or like mine to pray with you about it. Once you put a thousand of life, two shall put ten thousand of life. Anyway, I'm going to hurry and close, but George Truitt, a great pastor of the First Babbage Church in Dallas, Texas, before Chris Wolf was there many years ago. He said he got up one Sunday morning, and he was going to preach from Matthew 18-19, "If two of you should agree on earth, it's touching anything that they shall ask you, should be deaf of them." In other words, the name of it. He read his text about his head and prayed, he's just about to launch into that sermon. And a dear little old lady, who's known affectionately as Auntie, stood up before he could say a word, said, "Pastor, I'd like to claim that verse with you from an unsaved husband." Now, her husband was very much unsaved. I mean, he was very much unsaved, captain of a ship or a boat or something or other. And before, he said, "I'm about to preach on that, but I didn't have the faith to claim it with Auntie." He said, "Before I could respond to that, a blacksmith stood up from another part of the building and looked across and said, " Auntie, I'll claim that purpose with you." And they both went down on their knees, right then, and claimed her husband for God. He said, "You wouldn't believe this, but Sunday night rolled around, and Auntie comes through those doors back there and right beside of hers are unsaved husbands." He said, "Our priest on Sunday night is not normally would." He came down the aisle, and God said, "Everybody knew it was because of prayer. It wasn't the sermon." And he read to that. It wasn't the sermon. We see two men walking together, two men going to church together, two men going to pray together. We're talking about when we do what we ought to do, puts God in position to do what God only can do. We also see two men spiritually used of God. See, two miracles took place here, and I'm almost to the finish on this, by the way. A man was healed physically, verse two. He said, "Look at that, now we're down to verse two already." A certain man laying from his mother's womb was carried, whom they did at the end of the temple. By the way, I believe in divine healing, I just don't believe in divine healers. A man that claims he can heal people ought to go to the hospital, and none of them ever do. I'll tell you the reason it will go there. They can't heal anybody. Number two, the offering is not good to the hospital. Do I have to tell you why? I believe in that. I could tell you some stories about that, but a man was healed spiritually, and according to verse six and seven, his change was immediate. The Bible said that Peter said, "Sibering gold, have I none?" The such as I have given him a freely in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the rise up and walk, and he took him to the right hand. The Bible said, "Lift him up," and immediately his feet and ankles were received strength. His change was immediate. That's what salvation does. It changes you. Amen. Not put you in the process. His change was impressive, according to verse eight, and he leaping up stood. The Bible said, "And walk," and then it willed him into the temple. His change was not immediate and impressive. It was obvious, according to verse nine, all the people of some walking and leaping and praising God. Who was that man? He was some mother's son, some father's son. He could have been the druggie down the street. He could have been the drunk, could have been the sodomite, but if God still saves homosexual people. He was the helpless, hopeless person. He was the person Jesus died for. And I like the wording of over in chapter four, the verse 14, "Behold in the man which was healed." They could say nothing against it. I like that. First sitting, saying, "What shall we do to these men for that?" Indeed, it was a little nervous. You know what happened here? These people did what they were supposed to do, which put God in a position that what only God can do. Let's put God in a position to do something, folks. You've been a good audience. I appreciate it. I want you to stand. I want a musician to come, please. And I don't think I'll ask you the same, but I will ask her to have something ready. So the bottom line is this, we can never have revival in our church until we take our relationship with God more seriously than we are, generally speaking in these days. We need that. We need revival. So preach it. How do you kill a church? Don't attend it, faithful. You don't give a faithful. Don't pray for the pastor. Don't pray for the people. Don't volunteer for anything. Apply. Don't apply any sermon. Don't love the people. Don't encourage your pastor. Let me tell you how you can strengthen it, though. Attend faithfully. Give faithfully. Pray for your pastor. Pray for the people. Volunteer when you need to. Apply the sermon to your life. Love the people. Encourage your pastor. That's how you strengthen the church. Listen, this town is full of prospects of people that go to bed every night. We're at about dying in their sleep and going to hell, and they need somebody on their porch knocking on their door. We hope that message was an encouragement to you. To stay up to date with us, please follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook and LBC's connected. If you would like more information on how heaven can be your home, please visit LighthousePaptist.org/TheGospel. [music] (upbeat music)