Fishing & Other Life Lessons

Tonight I'm going to just share some I'm not going to do a topical message, and I'm not going to do expository messages, and I probably do best at expository messages. And I don't know if you want to call this more like a proverbial message in the sense that I'm not going to hang on to one topic for a long time. I'm just going to kind of keep moving, maybe share some of my story, God working in my life, share scriptures that have been meaningful to me over the years. And, um, a trustable minister to you.

I sat in I went down in a church basement years ago, and I went back to the back of the basement.

And back in the back of the basement was a little room, and inside that room were the messages that were preached over the years.

And upstairs, the church was falling apart. And I sat there, stood there, and looked at that messages. I said, "It's not because the messages haven't been preached.

It must be something to do with our hearing."

Jesus taught along those lines. He said in Mark chapter 4:23, "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."

He said unto them, "Take heed what ye hear, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you, and unto you that hear shall more be given." You know, when we fail to hear, even what we have slides away.

Let's hear. What do you say? Let's hear.

How many of you boys like to fish?

There's some big old hands. I mean, almost gray-haired one up here. Okay.

This book is the greatest piece of literature. I'm not much of a fisherman. I did fish a little bit when I was a boy. I fished some in Newark, and we lived up there. I fished a little bit with my boys.

Not much of a fisherman. It's just not really my specialty. When I was a boy, we sat along the stream one day, and there's three trout landing there, and, uh, it wouldn't bite. That was my problem with fishing. They just wouldn't bite. So, my brother and I looked at each other and said, "Well, I guess if they don't bite, we're going to jump in and chase them around." So, we did. It was a small stream, and we did it. We ran them up and down the stream until they were so tired we caught them.

But I remember the thing about catching fish was you get them underneath the bridge. Okay, they're slippery. And so, to get them out of the water, we had to pinch them back against after we had them tired. We would feel along underneath the edge of the bridge, and we'd feel them in there, and we'd grab them. And the first time or so, they slipped out, and then we grab them again.

Finally, we figured out two of us holding one with four hands. You kind of had pressure on all ends of it. You could walk the thing to shore like that, and that's how we fished. We caught, I think, two of the three.

And, uh, so, people talk about catch and release today. When I get a fish, I never release them. It's too hard to work. But anyway, this is the greatest book of literature that was ever written, and it's got the best fishing story I think has ever been told.

I, uh, reading through the book of Jonah, I, um, heard one time that if you want to catch large fish, you need a large bait.

And I was reading through the book of Jonah and discovered that they I promise you, there is not a fishing book in the world that has told a tale this tall.

But there, they used the fisherman for the bait through the whole man-in. The problem was in the story they forgot to hook them up to the line.

Then what happened?

The fish swallowed them. Three days went by. They, um, the fish got an awful stomach ache, and he got rid of this man of God. You can't carry a man of God around your stomach without getting a stomach ache. So, he got rid of them. I can only imagine being a fellow standing on the shore, and they're enjoying their time on the beach, and this guy comes up out of the water and starts, like, just comes out of the water, and he can't believe it, and he just starts off in a steady trough for Nineveh. And this guy has seaweed and junk and maybe washed off before he got out of the water. I don't know.

And I can imagine that man going and telling his friends about, "I saw this guy coming out of the water," and his eyes just sort of narrowed and looked at him like, "People don't live in water." He said, "I know. I saw he came up out of the water. I promise you, that's where he came from."

And the fellow's eyes sort of narrow a little bit, and he looks at him and says, "You know, brother, you know, this Wednesday night we're having a prayer meeting. Maybe we could pray for you." And he realizes, "They don't believe me."

Well, unbelief has always been the problem. Go through the Old Testament, and you look at unbelief, how much problem that created. People didn't believe, and they walked away from God over and over.

Answering calls with the phone team, what's our big problem? It's unbelief.

I can identify with that man. Standing on the beach trying to convince people I know he came out of the water. And I've thought before, maybe my imagination gets out of its cage too much. I'm not sure. But I think about Jonah fussing about the, the well, let's back up a little bit. I missed something.

Thinking about Jonah no, let's go to the end first.

Jonah is now Nineveh. I, I can't I don't this story fascinates me to no end because when in history did a man go minister to a group of people who didn't want to do it, and there was a major revival?

When has that ever happened in history? It was such an intense revival that when the king of Nineveh asked the people to fast and pray, he not only asked the people and the children, he asked the animals to not eat anything for three days. And the cry and the bawling and if you've been around a farm, take your animals off of food for three days.

The cry went to heaven.

And I am convinced that young men who can't find freedom from pornography, young men who can't find freedom over their addictions and their sins, and old men who can't find his freedom, the way that this man repented is the way to find freedom because God gives healing to the broken in heart and those who are sincere about finding God, right?

Let's back up a little bit. Maybe I'll just take you to the story, and we'll go through it a little bit slower.

A bad storm is going now, and so, the shipmaster comes to him, meaning Jonah, and says unto him, "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise and call upon thy God. If so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not."

And they said, "What is your occupation, and where did you come from, and what is your country, and what people are you from?" And he said, "I'm a Hebrew, and I serve the God that created the land and the sea." Actually, I like that phrase.

When I talk to people on gospel billboards, and they want to know what for God I serve, you know what for God I serve? The God that created the heavens and the earth. Paul used that same phrase on Mars Hill. If you go through the Bible, you see many times the God that we serve is referred to as the Creator God, the one who created the land and the sea.

And this struck tremendous fear in them because they knew the problem right now was the sea, and they were trying to figure out if their gods don't work, maybe Jonah's God will.

So, they asked him. The men were exceedingly afraid. He said, "It's my problem. I'm running away from my God.

I'm running away from my God. It's my problem." And they actually tried to row a little harder. I think they felt bad about throwing him in the water, and I don't blame them. But when God is dealing with a man, He's thorough about it.

And if you think you're going to row fast enough to get away, you can't.

And so, they threw him overboard. Jonah is now in the whale's belly, and I think this is probably the only recorded prayer in history from the stomach of a fish. I don't know of any other recordings. Here's how it reads.

Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and He said, "I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

For thou hast cast me into the deep and the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about, and all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. And then I said, 'I am cast out of thy sight,' yet while I looked again toward thy holy temple, the waters compassed me about even to the soul. The death closed around me about. The weeds were wrapped around my head. There you are. See, I can only picture seaweed just wrapped around, choking. I don't know what happens after three days in a stomach. I really didn't think you could live that long. I don't know.

I thought digestion happened faster than that, but maybe not with fish. I don't know the details there. But something is happening in Jonah's heart. I went down to the bottom of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto Thee, into thy holy temple.

They that observed lying vanities for sake of their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

So, it wasn't until he started turning his heart again towards God. He describes this place as a place of hell. He's got the seaweed wrapped around him, and three days of stomach juices was enough to turn his stubborn heart towards home.

And he offered thanksgiving. I think that's significant. He offered thanksgiving, and God said, "I've got His heart where I need it to be. I want you fish to go just get rid of your supper." That's what they did.

Has God ever personally chastened your life to bring repentance? It is the mercy of God that works with us as men and women and brings us into difficult circumstances so that we might walk in holiness.

In 1 Samuel 4, we see God working with the Israelites. It's almost painful to watch. They had walked away from God. And here's how the story reads. They had begun to assume too much. They were no longer serious about serving God, and the word of the Lord came to Samuel. And now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle and pitched beside Ebenezer, and the Philistines pitched in Aphek.

And the Philistines put themselves in a ray against Israel, and when they had joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines, and they slew of the army in the field about 4,000 men. That was a painful day. 4,000 men of Israel died that day.

They were used to winning their battles. What was going wrong?

You're going down through the story, and another battle takes place shortly after that, and the Philistines, I guess the Ark of God had come, and there was a large celebration in camp, and it was such a celebration. The Philistines heard about it, and they say, "God has come into camp. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Woe unto us who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods. These are the gods that smoked the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong and quit yourselves like men, O you Philistines, that you be not servants unto the Hebrews as they have been to you. Quit yourselves like men and fight." And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent, and there was a very great slaughter for their fellow of Israel, 33,000, no, 30,000 footmen.

Pain was increasing. God was trying to get their intention.

And the Ark of God was taken, and the sons of Eli, Hopni and Phinehas, were slain. And later, when they told Eli about the battle and he found out his sons were dead, he fell back over, broke his neck, and he died. And then his daughter-in-law, who was giving birth to a baby right at that point, birthed the child. They told her to be of good cheer. "You've got a son," and she didn't pay attention. She just said, "Name him Ichabod. The glory has departed from Israel," and she died.

For the Ark of God is taken.

Philistines took the Ark of God and took it into their midst, and the hand of the Lord was very heavy upon them. He destroyed them, smoked them with emeralds, even Ashdod and the coast of Abon. When the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, "The Ark of God of Israel shall not abide with us, for His hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon, our God." You notice how this taking the Ark of God into their midst actually began to become a very severe punishment to them. I was saying, did you just have communion this evening?

There I don't think communion should be a time of fearing anything. I've been in churches before where people are scared of communion about like, you know, they could do the examination, almost can't. At least I've been around a few people who fear communion. I don't think we should do that, but there is something about communion that's about like taking the Ark of God into your midst and either holiness has got to develop or otherwise, right?

So, the story goes on. This group of people were scared of it, so they sent the Ark to Gath, and it was so after they had carried it about that the hand of the Lord was against this city with a very great destruction. He smoked the men of the city, both small and great. They had emeralds in their secret parts.

I don't know if they were people who are sexually sinful, but it's in their groins they had emeralds, and therefore they sent the Ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass as the Ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out saying, "They have brought about the Ark of God to us to slay us and our people." Notice this thing was becoming a fearful thing, and the Philistines couldn't stand to have it, and the men that died were not that died not were smitten with emeralds, and the cry of that city went to the heavens.

And it came to pass that while the Ark abode in Cyrus-Jerem, so they brought it back to Israel now, for it was a long time, 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. It is here. 20 years went by, and they started seeking God, and what happened?

Go down in that chapter a little bit. It says there was another battle that came up with the Philistines, and Israel was scared. They had lost all the last battles. They weren't winning anymore, but notice what they had done.

They had begun to lament before the Lord, and Samuel spake unto the house of Israel saying, "If you do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and the asterisk from among you and prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve Him only, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines."

And the beautiful part of that story is the Lord thundered and worked on their behalf, and they didn't even have to fight. They did go fight them, but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and disconfitted them, and they were smitten before Israel.

I guess the Lord took the sap out of them. Israel did apparently here go after them then, and the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and smoked them until they came under Bethcar. And then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." So, the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel, and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. Do you know what that means?

For the rest of Samuel's lifetime, there was peace in Israel because they had turned their hearts towards God. So, anyway,

what got me started on that one was thinking about Jana. There's nothing like three days of stomach acid to cure a stubborn heart, and God sometimes has to chasten us and work with us and bring us to the point of repentance, bring our hearts back on the trail.

I walked away from God as a young man, spent about four years serving myself, and those years I hardly remember them because I don't want to remember them. I wasn't walking with God.

I struggled with things I saw in the church I thought were hypocritical, and so rather than playing the hypocrite, I just decided not to serve God. Now, looking back, I realized my problem was I didn't want God to tell me what to do, but once I got to the point of surrendering my life to Christ, I also had to realize that I need to do what God is calling me to do.

I don't care what other people are doing. I don't care if none of my friends are doing it. God's call to me now is to walk with Him. As a young rebellious man, I was living at home there serving myself, and I decided to buy an expensive sports car, and I went to my father, and here's why I'm a Christian today.

My father was ahead of me. He didn't get angry at me. I told him I thought I better tell him I'm going to buy this car before it comes home, so I went to my dad to kind of warn him, and he didn't say much.

Now, I hadn't been living for Christ up to this point. I've been grieving my father. There were times I'd blow up in anger, and my father would look me in the eyes, and I could see the pain in his eyes, and he would never respond to me in an unchristlike way.

I hardly remember my father ever getting angry, and I'm telling you, I can't tell you that for myself, but my father just looked at me sadly. And anyway, he was so calm about it that it unnerved me, and he went away. Came back a couple of days later, and he said, "Son, I went to visit the car dealership and find out what you're going to buy. I'd like to know what an IROC-Z is anyway, and I decided that if you buy that car, you're going to have to leave home now," and he drew a line in the sand.

Something inside of me broke. I did not become a Christian at that point, but the years of living away from God, I just finally something broke. A couple of months later, I was up in the haymile throwing hay bales down. We had to stack a wagon. We'd bring them in, drop them in the barn, then we'd stack them into the haymale. I was up in the stack throwing them down into the mile, and Dad instructed me to throw them differently, and I just blew up, and my father just looked up at me and said, "Son, just keep in mind you're not indispensable." Well, then I was.

I went into the house, and I grabbed my suitcase, and I packed my bags, and I said to my brother, "Can I have your car? I'm leaving, and I'm moving west. I don't know where I'm going, but my old truck might fall apart before I get there. Do you mind if I take the car?" I don't know what I thought I was doing. I don't know how I thought I was going to break. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, he said, "Before you go," he said, "Will you go with me to the top of the mountain and take a walk?"

We started down that mountain trail.

It was dark out.

My brother knew I was wrestling. He just split off and disappeared. I stood there looking down that trail, and it split three ways, and out over Chambersburg, I could see the lights of Chambersburg below me. I stood down there and looked at that trail where it split, and that was the point where I finally said, "I'm done running."

Every time I take my own way, life just keeps going downhill. Tonight, I'm going to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. I'm turning around. I'm going back. I knelt there on the top of the north mountain back here, and I wept, and I wept, and I wept, and I wept.

My brother had left somewhere about midnight. I got done weeping before God and repenting of my sins, and I walked all the way home because my brother left me there. Got home, laid down on the couch. I wouldn't disturb my family. Next morning, Mom comes down. She just looks at me. She said, "What happened?" I said, "For a second, the old man wanted to say, 'Not admit it and just keep going.' I thought, 'No, I'm done now. I'm going the other direction. I'm committed to this.' I said, 'Mom, I surrendered my life to Jesus last night.'" Now, it was the beginning of my walk with God. I have begun to love this book over the years.

This book has given me so much counsel and so much wisdom. It has protected my path. It has protected me from foolishness. It has protected me from ignorance. It has protected me from sin, and I love this book.

I remember sometime after I'd surrendered my life to Christ, my brother had become a Christian about six months before that, and we were hungry for the Word of God. We went to our pastors, and we said, "Can we start having a Bible study with the young people, with the young men?" Actually, in our age group, almost all the young men had gone, and it was about my brother and I and one other young man, and we were hungry for God's Word, and I said, "Yeah, we started doing the Bible studies there together." I guess thinking of there were a couple of things I want to share.

I remember the girls. Those young men started having a Bible study inviting the girls, and I remember one of the girls saying one day, "We were so sick of you young guys trying to be cool all the time."

I've never forgot that. I'm still sick of young guys that try to be cool all the time.

I don't blame the girls. I'm just as sick of it now myself as an older man.

Remember doing that Bible study became a very life-giving thing. It began to pull young people in from other communities. It fed us spiritually, but I remember one day starting in the beginning of this book, I said, "Okay, I'm going to read this whole book, and I'm going to start at the beginning, and I'm going to read all the way from the first word to the last word, and I'm going to obey every single thing in this book that God tells me."

I started into chapter one, and I was pretty sure that I was going to die. I did, by the way, the old man. Actually, I was thinking the other day about some of my guilt of my youth, and I thought, "I don't know the man. He's dead. I don't know the guy. I have no idea who he is. I'm a new creature in Jesus Christ."

Anyway, I picked this thing up and started reading, and I was pretty sure I was going to die, and I was pretty sure that I was going to be filled with swords and probably who knows what. Probably shed my blood and who knows, I don't know, all kinds of things as a new believer. You just know it's going to be rough, and I started in, and I got in about chapter two or three, and it said, "Be fruitful and multiply," and I was so keyed up that I just went, "That means to have a family.

I can do that." I wasn't married, but I put that on the back burner, but I was committed to this thing, and I did. I was so relieved. I had a family then. We had 11 of them, and we had so much fun raising our family, and I guess I just feel like God sometimes has humor, and serving God is not always difficult, but if we're going to have power with God, there has to be a point where we're totally broken before God, and there is nothing left that we're saying, "God, you can't have this room yet to step into." You know how we do it. We open the door up for God, and He actually did work with me in ways like that.

He began to deal with one thing at a time, and I remember thinking I wanted to start dating, so I did. I remember thinking somehow it crossed my mind one day, "I'll really start to serve God after I get married."

You know what God did to me? Broke the relationship up.

That was the hardest thing I went through in my whole life: 10 months of dating that girl. It was the greatest blessing of my life. When God was done with that fire, I could look Him straight in the eye and say, "There is nothing between me and you, and there's nothing you can..." All the fire did was burn off the ropes that bound me, but I could look God square in the eye and say, "There is nothing that I'm not willing to give up now between me and you."

That was freedom.

I remember as a new believer one day working on a job site, First Peter chapter five. I'd just been reading that.

Become one of the favorite verses of my life. Oh, there's so many more since then that I can't really say that. There's just so much scripture that has ministered to me over the years, but I was studying the scripture, "Cast all your care upon Him," and I was working on a job site, and I came around the corner or whatever I was doing with the petty boon, and I had a big pack of metal on it, and I slid that thing off and bent the whole pack, and it was about, I don't know, a pack that thick and maybe 20-some feet long, and I'm thinking, "Whew, this is looking pretty big right now, and I'm a new Christian, and I'm thinking about cast all your care upon Him," and I'm thinking, "How does this actually work?

Like how I got a big problem on my hands, and how does it work to cast your care on Him?"

I'm not sure. I don't think the metal is going to straighten back up.

I don't think the cost of it is going to go away, and I called up the man who I had to answer to. I said, "I bent this for some reason. The figure of 8,000 stands in my head. I don't know if that's an accurate figure or not, but I bent this pack of metal, and remember, I'm trying to cast this on the Lord. How do you cast it on the Lord? It means you give the worry part of it. It doesn't mean reality goes away sometimes, but you give the worry part of it, right?

You give it to the Lord." So I called him up. I said, "I bent this pack of metal. You got any solutions for me?" He said, "Oh, yeah." He said, "We didn't order the metal for the processing room yet." He said, "We need eight-foot sheets on the sidewalls. The rest of it you can use in the ceiling. These are big long things. They were bent beyond the eight-foot mark, so we could cut them off, put them on the walls, cut the other bend off, and the piece that was left could go on the ceilings."

And wow, it was one of my first experiences with actually trying to rest in God, and I felt like God took my care and delivered me from my problem. Now, I have faced a lot bigger problems since then, but God still wants to take the worry part of it and carry it, and there are some things in ministry and things that are very heavy. Some of the favorite scriptures in my youth, Joshua 1:8, "Blessed..." No, not that one. "This book of the law shall not depart out of their mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prospers, and then thou shalt have good success."

Psalm 1, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away."

This book will create a foundation, and you won't blow away when the wind is blowing.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Years ago, there was a place, one of my friends, they had a spouting, and there was a tree they had planted out there, and the thing just grew like crazy over the years, and it was just a strong, healthy. It was because it was beside the spouting, and all the water dumped out around its roots, like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

I will say that my Father is the reason I'm a believer today. I really feel that strongly, so I don't quite understand why I walked away from God like it is because many times boys who walk away from God have a lot of conflict with Dad, and I will, I have to admit that my Father is the one. We were farming when we were children. I came home. No, we were farming, and we were struggling, and so I had $125 saved up, and I went to Dad and said, "I'm going to give you this to help keep from losing the farm. Do you know how far $125 goes to not lose the farm?"

I was scared, and we were renting ground in Letterkenny in here, and that was a big part of the real estate we farmed, and so it was a pretty big deal, and the bid came up, and I remember my Dad left to go into Letterkenny, place his bid, and we're at Homelake.

It's going to happen. Dad came home, hopped out of the old truck, started walking across the yard, and he was whistling. I thought, "Good, we got it. We get it, Dad." No, how can you whistle? I thought this was bad.

I remember sometime after that, seeing a note on my Father's desk, "God is responsible for this family's financial welfare."

About three months later, at that time, it was John Esch. He came from Shippensburg or somewhere. He invited my Dad to work with him. So Dad took a construction job that paid the bills till Dad got the farm paid off, and then he went back because he wasn't a construction man at heart, but it paid the bills, and God took care of our family, and then I took the business from there.

But as a child, I saw my Father not give in to fear.

There were different things in business that I admired. One day, we had a man who came to my Father and said, "Where do you get screws and fasteners? What's the best place?" Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I tend to like protect my territory, right?

And Dad just told God, "Well, here's where you get all your best price on fasteners." I'm thinking, "Dad, you don't tell your competition how to do it," right? You know what? A couple of months later, that man gave us several large projects to build, and I said, "Wow, okay.

We don't have to fight for our rights, do we? When we serve God, we can actually enjoy our competition.

God's taken care of us. We don't have to fear, fight for our rights, protect our territory."

So we had 11 children.

We had more fun than a family should be allowed to have. I love raising children.

I went to the doctor one time with my youngest son, my oldest son. When he was just born, the doctor said, "How do you like being a dad?" I said, "I love it." He said, "You just wait till they get to be teenagers."

You know what?

He said, "It only gets better." I said, "That's the way it's going to be for our family," and it was.

It's only going to get better.

We have an enemy who's trying to steal our children's hearts. One day out in the yard, a black snake came flying out of the tree, landed on the rocks. It's like, "Did he mess up or what?" We realized there was a squirrel there. It was the same tree I'd just seen a mother squirrel in a couple of days before with a baby squirrel, and apparently, Mama Squirrel didn't think there was enough room in the tree for both the black snake and baby squirrels.

So the only thing I can think of is she must have bit his tail or something.

For those who are raising children, you'll discover that the serpent is here.

While walking through the mountain one day with my children, two little boys towing behind me, something squished under my foot. Took another step, and I looked back. I just stepped on a cold rattlesnake. I don't know if this is one of them situations where you can handle snakes. I always thought these people would handle snakes and that get bit, that they had it coming.

I mean, these, even these, you know, people who claim to be Christians and handle snakes because they're going off that scripture. So I don't know what the deal was, why he didn't get upset at me, but the reality is that he wants the souls of these children sitting here.

I don't have all the answers for you.

Remember one time, one of our daughters getting older, and my wife came to me one day, and she said, "Melvin, did you notice this child? The light has gone out of her eyes," and it scared me because I knew that I lived without light in my eyes for years. And you know what we also noticed? The next sibling just under her was also starting to rebel.

It was like those two sisters.

My wife and I went and got on our knees, and I've complained before. I don't feel like God answers very many of my prayers.

I mean, I didn't complain to people. I sort of had that conversation between me and God, but that is one prayer God did answer. About a month later, our daughter came to us and said, "Mom and Dad, I want to talk." She just opened up and shared some sin that was beginning to develop in her life, and when she did that, the light came back in her eyes, and guess what?

Her sister, the rebellion, just went out of the house, and I just encourage you young parents to be intentional about raising these little people here.

I remember one time with children about this age sitting at the table, and they didn't want to pray, and I felt scared again.

Like, are they already becoming rebellious at this age?

And I, God help us. I don't know if this is the right thing to do, but it worked. I thought of Tom Sawyer convincing those children to paint the fence, and he collected all their goodies and convinced them that they wanted to paint the fence, and he got all the good stuff and filled his pockets up. I thought about it, and I thought, "Okay, so next time we pray, anybody want to pray?" And I got my hand up there.

I prayed. Next mill, anybody want to pray? I got my hand up there again, and I prayed. About the third or fourth mill, the children said, "Dad, it's not fair. You always pray."

I said, "Tough beans. I get my hand up first."

The next time we went to pray, I held my hand back just a little bit, and they were all like, "Wait, you know, Dad, I want to pray."

Some reason we've never, to this day, the younger children feel honored when Dad forgets an absentmindedly asked them to pray two or three times, and they sort of kind of have it on their brothers and sisters because they got to pray twice at the same meal, and the other ones didn't get to. I don't know. It worked.

Temptation, this is just some thoughts from the message today. My brother preached about the life of David, talked about Bathsheba, spent last Sunday talking quite a bit about the long-going consequences that dogged David's steps for years after his sin with Bathsheba, and then today talked quite a bit more about temptation.

Here are two quotes from today's message. "Temptation is an attractive offer to a fatal process." "Temptation is an attractive offer to a fatal process." Here's another quote from the message today. "The same spirit that throws off authority will throw off other restraints as well."

In other words, young men and young ladies who get bound by sexual problems often have a deeper issue going on.

When I think of the Bible and the sins that keep us out of the kingdom of heaven, mentioned in First Corinthians chapter six, verse nine, out of that whole list of ten sins, four of them had to do with our sexuality.

That's a big one.

Reading through Proverbs, so much wisdom in there. How long do you want me to preach? I think I'm about winding down. I'm running out of... How long do you normally go? How long do you normally go? Okay, one more.

Reading through Proverbs one day, this is once again, I'm a pretty young Christian, but I still got my sisters in the house. See if I can find this.

Oh, there's so much good ones in here.

"As a madman who casts firebrands, arrows, and death, so is he that deceiveth his neighbor and saith him, 'Not I in sport.'" I used to have so much fun with my sisters telling them things that weren't true and then getting them all worked up until they were in a frizzy and saying, "Oh, it's not true."

And the Lord told me, "You better stop this."

Now, I do like a good joke. I like, I like a good joke, but there's... If you, if you fool people and then, and then get a good one on them, it does destroy trust. In our humor, we don't want to destroy trust, right?

Or it's not really that funny.

I don't know. That's the scripture. I could... There's so much good stuff in here. This book will change your life. It will counsel your path. It will give you wisdom. It will fill you with the Spirit of God. It will be everything, and there's the best fishing stories in the world in this book.

Jesus pays his taxes by fishing. Just Peter and Gwotton catch a fish, bring it in, pull the money out, give it to the tax collector.