Our annual Preaching Conference was a tremendous spiritual success. Some who were afraid to talk about their need were wondrously saved after living a lie for years. Others made life-changing decisions. I can't remember a meeting with more real commitments. I am rejoicing in God's blessing upon my people and our guests.

If you want God to speak to you and convict you, set the dates of April 25-28, 2005 aside. We try to keep the "hype" out of these meetings and just uplift God in our music and preaching, asking Him to convict and bless our hearts. For five or six years God has blessed our souls in a special way, and I promise if you come next year, we will be begging God for the same.

OUR NATION AS WE KNOW IT IS BEING DESTROYED

Never in the history of America has there been so much trouble. There have always been problems but never so universal. There has been the age of discovery, the age of the atom, and now we live in the age of fear. There is not a place without broken hearts. Look at mothers who used to be "keepers at home" who are now in the bars with a glass of liquor in one hand and a cigarette in the other. People worry about money, war, even on our shores, and just surviving. Old standards have been broken down, and all that is left is fear and unrest. The result has been an explosion in the use of tranquilizers, illegal drugs, and suicide. My question to you is, "What are you doing to help, or do you even care?"

We read in God's Word where He asked Moses, "What do you have in your hand?" He replied, "Nothing but my rod-what I use to herd my sheep." God went on, "Is that all you have?" "Yes," answered Moses, "that's everything." "Then I want it," said God.

Many today think that if they had a good amount of money, a big job, or even a good voice, they could do an outstanding work for our Saviour; but He wants nothing from you but what you have-the voice, wallet, time, and family that you do have. If you gave your all to the Lord, you would be shocked at what He could do through you.

I fought the call to preach for 10 years because of my poor personality, underachieving academics, and background; but, praise God, a time came in my life when I realized that all God needed was a "clean vessel" given over to Him. In my twenties I couldn't read the Bible or pray in public, but that didn't matter to Him. God doesn't need talent or personality, just vessels totally given over to Him.

"What do you have in your hand, Moses?" "A rod," Moses answered. "Well, throw it on the ground-let me have it." And when he did, we know it became a snake; and when Moses picked it up, it was his rod again. Our God is a miracle-performing God if we will only give ourselves over to Him completely.

Romans 12:1 and 2 read, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

God said in Joshua 1:5, "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."

My God is real. Read your Bible. He was real to those men of old, and He is just as real today. The trouble with us is that we have made everything so figurative, and what this world needs is an old-time, ever-present, real God. Moses picked up his rod, that he called God's from that time on, and went down to Egypt with nothing but that old stick that God had touched.

"Pharaoh," he said, "I've been sent to transact some business with you. My brethren are in slavery, and I want them freed." As we remember, the king refused, so Moses took that stick, that God had touched, and changed his mind. The water was turned into blood, flies were crawling all over them, frogs were jumping out of their ovens, and the people were saying that they were in favor of giving Moses anything he asked for. Oh, how we need to see God manifest Himself in our ministries!

One day the king said, "I give up," and Moses took that stick that God had touched, and led the Israelites out across the Red Sea with the pursuing Egyptians drowned.

God Almighty hasn't gone out of business either. He wants to do great things for us in the midst of this wicked world also. "It's real, it's real, oh I know it's real. Praise God, the doubts are settled, for I know, I know it's real."

And because my God is real, I am forced to do my best for Him. Either there is a heaven with streets of gold, or there is not. Either there is a hell with fire and brimstone, or there is not. Either eternity will last forever, or it will not. Either our Bible is the perfect, inspired, preserved Word of God, or it is not.

Either what we say as Bible believers is true, or we are fools. As Paul said, "we are of all men most miserable," and as the world says, we should "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die." But if we believe, because our God is real, we should go all out.

I'm not saying it's easy. The devil and the world will fight on every hand. Sometimes I want to quit. John 15:18 and 19 read, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." It is hard and sometimes we must just put our heads down and forge forward with nothing but faith.

At times I look at this sinful world and ask if it's worth it all. I feel like Jeremiah of old who said in Jeremiah 5:30 and 31, "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?"

There is so little preaching on "Thus saith the Lord" today. People love to have their ears tickled. They hire a guy, put a robe on him, and he says what they want to hear. "Adultery and fornication are okay. Filth on the television and everywhere else is okay. Times have changed. Standards are pharisaical." But without a line, we have nothing.

Because my God is real, we must not bend, we must not move from the stand set forth in God's Word. People call themselves Bible believers and ordain women to the ministry, pushing aside the Scripture that teaches that women are not to usurp authority over men and that they are not to teach a man. Homosexuals are to be accepted now without regard to the clear teaching of the Bible against this wicked sin, taught from cover to cover, starting with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The need of this hour is men who believe in a real God. We serve a real God and have an inspired Book and ought to live like it.

Again, I know we are living in trying times. Our day is much like Jeremiah's. He was slandered, abased, and put in jail like a common criminal all because he loved the Lord and His people and tried to get them to do right. Because of this, they hated Him, and we read in Jeremiah 20:7-9, "O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me. For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay."

If God is real in our lives there will be "fire in our bones." We must do right. If we really believe in God, we won't worry about what others think but will say with Jeremiah of old, "But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay."