The Way Of The Lord

Thank you, brethren, both of you. It's been good to be here thus far and I would just love to just stay sitting and singing some more and hearing some of your testimony. I don't want to do that.

I'm going to try not to get so long. They say that as a preacher, as he gets older, he gets longer. So beware.

I'm just glad that I'm able to be here with you all and to sing the song of Zion. I was just again marveled at some of the songs, especially that Blessed Assurance. But you know, there he stopped us and he said, make it yours.

And I said, now wait a minute, Assurance Jesus is mine. How in the world can it be yours? Right? Yeah. But that's the thing about God, right? And his omniscience and his omnipotence.

He created us with the ability to be his. It don't matter what country or where we're from. It doesn't matter.

We can still come to him. And I trust that that is each and everyone's desire this evening. It's nice to see some new faces here this evening.

And we trust that we can worship together. One of the things that we face as ministers is this, what do we preach on? You know, and I'm glad for the Lord. I'm glad that he knows the needs.

And I just try, I preach what the Lord tells me to preach. And I want to keep digging in his word because he doesn't only just speak to you. He speaks to me.

And today I spend quite a bit of time in preparation for this message, because it's something that I had to do. It's something that you have to do. It's something that everyone in this tent has to do.

Children, youth, adults, every one of us. This morning, I'm sure that I guess most people, at least most Americans use a what they call alarm clock, right? Why do you use that for? Can't you get up? Can't you get up? It's pretty hard sometimes, isn't it? I think so. I think it's hard.

But you know, we have a choice. We can either get up or we can stay in bed, right? Now, if we stay in bed, we suffer the consequence, right? It always happens that way. If we stay in bed, we're going to suffer that consequence.

But choice is something we all have to do. If you would have told me that many years ago, when I was walking the streets of New York, New Jersey, I would have smiled at you. Yeah, but it's my choice.

I would have said, well, of course, it's your choice. I knew that. See, it's a choice because life is a choice.

We're making choices every day, right? Every day, we do. The moment we get out of bed, it's a choice. So we get out of bed and we go about our day.

Choices, choices. God made us that way. God made us that we can choose our desires, that we can choose our destiny.

You know that? Yes, I thought about that today. Why am I a child of God? I was a child of God because I heard the preacher say one time that there is a heaven and there is a hell. I knew more about hell than I knew heaven.

You know, yes. So the preacher said there is, there is one. And he said this, he said, you know, we are all going somewhere, right? Yes.

Well, if God knows we're going somewhere, what's the sense of becoming a Christian, right? That's not the way it works. But in my mind, I thought it was choice. And I had to think about that a lot.

Choice, I can pick where I want to spend eternity. That you can pick where you want to spend eternity. Well, yes, you can.

God gives you that opportunity. He gives you that privilege. The thing is, the more important thing is you decide that.

You decide whether you want to spend eternity in hell, fire, or heaven. It's yours. And you know, when we get to heaven, how long will we be there? For a year? No, forever and ever and ever.

That's how long we're going to be there. And how long is forever? Sam, how long is forever? Longer than he can imagine. Yes.

And I'm going to tell you something right now. There's not going to be no little, what do you call it? Hummingbird feeders there. But you know, you're going to be feeding the Lord gives you, right? Yeah.

But we all have to pick. And to me, that was kind of a new thought. We pick our destiny because we were created creatures of choice, right? Yes.

We were created creatures of choice. And a lot of people have asked me, I did a lot of prison work in my time. And even the guards would say, you being, first of all, yes, I use the title Mennonite.

I'm a Mennonite preacher. And they could hardly believe it. They'd say, you're Puerto Rican? Yeah.

And you're a Mennonite? Yes. How can that be? How do you go together? They're synonymous. They're synonymous.

Of course, some of the police didn't even know what that was. Yes. I said, the Lord gave me an opportunity and he helped me to decide what do I want to be? Do I want to decide hell and burn in hell? Or do I want to be able to turn my life around and be a child of the Lord? And I used to say this also to all the prisoners, it's your choice.

Yes. And it's not a choice that we make up haphazardly to be a child of God, but we decide this is what we want in life. This is what we want.

Well, you had an easy life. They all told me that. Well, you know, you look at you.

Oh, yeah, you, yours was nothing. And I told them this and said, no, wait a minute. And they used to all get quiet.

I said, the difference between me and you is you got caught. I didn't. What does that mean? They would say.

And I would give them a little bit of my testimony. And they sit there with their mouths open. I says, do you think I belonged in jail? Yes, you did.

And you belong to jail. Now, I agreed with that. But I was never caught.

Right. Well, I spent a few days in jail, but I was not there very long. I said, the thing is that the Lord got ahold of me and said that I had to decide.

I had to choose. And tonight, that's exactly what the Lord is telling you to do. If this evening and you're the sound of my voice and you haven't decided that you want to follow the Lord, rethink that thinking.

Rethink that thinking, because we have to decide. We have and we have to decide now before it's too late. Right.

Some people make it to 70. I'm over that. And I don't have to worry about that.

I got to worry about 80 now. Right. If I'm going to make it to 80.

Oh, I don't worry about it. I don't want to worry about it. I want to know that the older I get, the closer I get to the Lord.

Yeah, that I know. And that's a wonderful feeling. My mother-in-law is in the home, my wife's mother, and she's 96.

She's soon going to be 97. And she has dementia, but she can still remember a few things. And it's wonderful that she can remember.

And one of the things that I used to like to rub it on my wife and stop was she remembered me better than her daughter. I really impressed her. And I'm glad I did.

Yes, she can remember me. And she just smiles when she sees me. She just smiled.

This evening, what have you chosen in life? What have you chosen? Do you want life or do you want to die? There's a little rhyme that I came across. And this is what it says. There is a choice you have to make in everything you do.

And you must always keep in mind the choice you make makes you. It tells you who you are. It tells you what it is.

It tells them what the desire of your heart is as we are around others and as we reach others and as we relate to our families. Yes, the greatest power we have as human beings is that power of choice. That's the greatest power we have.

And it's an actual fact that if you've been moping in unhappiness, you can choose to change that. Did you know that? You can choose. You can choose whether you're going to mope because God has been so unfair.

You can mope because maybe you like my brothers and I, we didn't have much to eat and we were what you call hungry sometime. We went through those experiences. I'll never forget.

And, you know, I even got this idea in my head as a young man, but it's all right to steal because I don't want my brothers to die of hunger. So it was all right to steal food, right? Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's wrong.

You know, so what I did was this. I stole, but I gave only to my brothers. I wouldn't eat.

Don't ask me why, but I give it to my brothers. I didn't want them to die. I love my two brothers dearly.

I raised them and I wanted them to live. It was a choice, but we all have that choice. We can decide whether we want to be, like I said, mope around or we want to just get right with the Lord and put a smile on our face.

I had a man that comes to my office and I love him dearly, got to know him. And the first thing he said, when the very first he came into my office, he said like this, he sat down and he didn't even look at much at me. After a while, when he started talking, he says, I have a problem.

Well, if it's just one, we can fix that. I said, and he looked up at me and he had a little smile and I said, well, tell me about what's your problem. He said, I'm depressed.

You're depressed. Yeah, I'm depressed. And why are you depressed? Who knows? He said, who knows? Yeah.

He couldn't tell me why he was depressed. So we talked a while. And after a while we had already prayed before we started the session.

And I said to him, let's pray again, would you? Yeah. All right. So I said, I'm going to pray first and you're going to pray second.

So I prayed first, had a short prayer. And then I said, all right, you can pray. And he prayed and he said something like this.

I didn't, I didn't, uh, uh, how would you say? I can't echo exactly what he, how he said it, but he said something like this. He said, Lord, you know that I need you. Lord, you know that I'm depressed, but I'm not sure why I am depressed.

Help me to understand why I am depressed. Good prayer. I thought good prayer.

And he asked the Lord to continue to build him up spiritually. And then he said, amen and amen. And then when we were done, he says, no, maybe, maybe I can tell you, uh, why I may be depressed.

Uh, the Lord, he always beats me. You know, that was my job, not his job. So he, I said, okay, so what did the Lord reveal to you? And he started telling me about his life and I'm listening intently.

I'm writing, uh, uh, down some of the things he's saying. And then he, it isn't very low. Oh, maybe we're in in 20 minutes, half hour.

He says to me, it doesn't sound like I ought to be depressed. Doesn't it? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I think you're, you're, you, you keep going, tell me more about you and maybe we'll get to the root of this. I want to know why you feel this way and why it's so hard for you to smile.

And then he looked at me and he smiled. Well, you're always smiling. He says to me, oh, well that's because I have joy in my heart.

Well, how do you get that? And then I told him, well, I says, when I became a Christian, that's one of the first thing the Lord worked on Renee was this thing in joy. And that was because Renee didn't smile. Now, by the time my wife came around, I was smiling.

But before that, I never smiled. I come from a background that in the Spanish language, uh, the oldest, uh, child, uh, male child does not laugh. He doesn't receive any gifts.

I never got anything for birthdays or anything like that. I don't know what my father would have bought her with anyhow, but that I just never know. And then when I turned, um, 18, I was dating this young lady and she remembered my birth and she gave me my first gift, but she doesn't know is on the way home.

I can hardly control myself. I'm in the way home. I stopped and I had to pull aside all these years.

And somebody does remember Renee, but I told the Lord, I know you did too, that you remember me. And that it wasn't so much because I could receive those gifts. It was because it Renee had to concentrate, not on that.

He had to concentrate on his life. God wanted me to see Renee. So I said, where life is because of all of that is worth living.

So if you're this evening depressed, if you're this evening, just not sure how you relate to God, put a smile on your face, start there. And he said, well, how do I know I'm smiling? Get a mirror and put it in front of you then. Yeah.

And if you're not smiling, you'll soon see it smile because we have something to smile a lot about, right? Yes, we do. We do because, and I love quoting this verse next verse where the Bible says, um, there in first John says, um, uh, chapter four, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Jesus is right there.

And because of that, we can smile. We can smile. And I trust that that is your choice to do that this evening.

The whole trend and quality of anyone's life is determined in the long run by the choices that are made. It is. And people are asking me yet, when are you going to write your life story? Well, really I'm not dead yet.

Uh, well, how, why would I write my left store life story? I'm not dead. I'm 72 years old in case you're wondering. And, um, I do, I do.

I have a lot to write. Yes. But I think there's more to come.

See, I feel this evening that the Lord though he's been real good to me. Um, it's still, I look back on all the choices that I had to make, although I understood them not. And the Lord was been good.

Can you say that now turn with me? I'm going to, yes. I want to preach about the Bible. I want to preach on the choices, uh, this evening.

That's what I titled the message choices. Um, where should we go first? Let's go. Uh, if you would open your Bibles, there's a lot of verses that came to my mind.

Let's go to new Testament, Matthew chapter seven, very too familiar, um, versus I like to read here choices. Um, on the way here this evening, we, we came across, uh, an accident and I thought, oh my, now what's going to happen. They're going to tell us to, uh, go around and here in Ohio, you go around in circles and, uh, I don't know where to find the next road.

And I went up to the officer and he looked in because I thought I can go between the rec. Yeah. He says, Oh, they're ready to leave.

Just, just wait. I says, well, we're not from around here. Oh yeah.

I see. He said, Oh, okay. So I backed my, our car back and waited.

And he, they did a nice. Thank you. They did a nice job.

Uh, before too long, they left us go. There's a choice. Do you want to disobey him? I thought I can just, you know, how we are, we know everything and we can go around that.

I mean, I've been driving for quite a long time. I don't think that would have, I would have sold them, sold it to him. So choices.

Matthew chapter seven is a verse that I enjoy reading and I enjoy preaching on. I'm not going to stand this verse, verse 13 and 14, Matthew seven. It says, you got a choice.

It says, enter ye in the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to what? Destruction and many there be which go in and there at. Now that's one way. The next way is the next verse.

It says because straight is the gate. And I said to myself, how often when I read this, well, why does it say straight? It's narrow. It started, they both start narrow, right? But this is the difference in verse 14.

And that's why so many people don't want to walk in the, in the way of the Lord. It's, it's because of this. Let me read 14.

Let me start again because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth onto what and how many enter few there be that find it few there be that find it. Now we can just stop here. And I, I would love to hear from you.

Why, why is it that people take that narrow, but why it doesn't say the gate is narrow. It's the gates wide. It's wide open.

Why do people pick that? Well, I've been through Chicago and there is a place there called Broadway. Oh, that's quite the place up through there. Yeah.

All kinds of things going on in the evening there, men with guns. And especially if they see Pennsylvania and they like going up there and scaring them, you know, with a gun in their hand. Nice place, right? That's the wide gate.

And you know, the devil paints it that way today for people. He paints that, that it's a beautiful door there. There's a beautiful sign there with, with an arrow that would say fun, fun, live it up, live it up.

Yeah. I know, you know, you get to that there and all of a sudden when you're standing on that wide gate, you listen, you hear music. Oh, that's a catchy tune, right? Yeah.

They're not playing the song that we, you and I are used to hearing. They're not playing song that built the inner man, that helped the inner man. They're playing song that is catching with the tune.

And you say, oh, and it happened to one brother in Guatemala. I'll never forget. He made a confession in church.

He said, can I make a confession today? You want to do it now? He said, I want to do it to the Lord and to the church. Good, I said. So we left to have an opportunity.

And the thing was, he was going to work. And it was early in the morning. And one of the things that us Spanish people center in South America, they love music and they love fiestas.

They love it. Sometimes some of those fiestas last two or three days, parties, you call them. Some of those parties.

He said he was going to work. He was carrying his lunch and he heard in the town. And there's one big building.

A lot of people were there. They had music. And he thought, well, he's just going to see who's in there.

He's just going to see who's in there. So he walked over there. And before he knew it, he said he was right at the door and he was looking in.

And he says, before I saw many of them, they saw me. And one man walked up to me, to him. And he says to him, that means, what are you smelling? In other words, he said, what are you doing here in your nosy thing? What are you doing here? What are you smelling? He said, all of a sudden, I wonder myself, how in the world did I get in here? How did I, but that's exactly how Satan works.

See, and that wide gate, that wide opening is what attracts people of the world today. I often wonder how can people like race car racing? I can never understand that. I like courses.

Why do people go to these rodeos? Our son, 20 years old, was killed in the rodeo. And we miss him terrible yet. Yeah, we do.

But why do people like that? Because it's the thrill. They're after that. See, there's something there.

It's tangible. They can see it. But they look at the Christian life and said, oh, I used to sit on under the tent.

And then you sing a few songs, the preacher gets up and he might not be very good to them. But this preacher is trying to preach the word of life and he's trying to help people turn from their evil way. But they don't hear that.

You know why they don't hear it? Because they fall asleep. Yeah, they fall asleep. But that's the wide gate and he makes it so beautiful.

Satan, you go in a little further and what he is, what he, and he has something else. And one of the things that I believe that Satan really delights is the essentialism, sexualism. He has a lot of that in there.

He has a lot of that. And you don't have to go far in this country where you have a lot of that. In Ohio, you have a lot of that.

Yes, you do. And we know, Pennsylvania have it too. And that it's attracting, especially men.

And the more they go there, the more they want to go there. The more they want to go there. But that's a wide way.

And how many go through that gate, those gates? Many, many. But then there's the other one, real quickly. The straight and narrow way.

That gate isn't wide at all. You can see it from where you start. It doesn't look so appetizing.

It's rocky. And they might start going uphill. And you wonder whether I really want to go in here or not.

This isn't as inviting as the wide over there is inviting. Now, why didn't they do something? But what they did is better than what they did in the wide gate. Because right there, there was a hill.

And up at that hill, and that slope, there was a cross. There was a cross. Pointed to a cross.

And people, you struggle to get up to that hill. I dreamed that so many times. You know, it's just, I'm a stroke victim.

I've been in wheelchairs. And it's just what the Lord sent me. But in my dream, I can see there, I'm trying to get up that hill and pushing this this wheelchair.

And my wife is behind me. She said, we'll make it. We'll make it.

She kept saying. And I pitied her because she's had to push me up this hill. You know, until we got to the top.

I dreamed that a number of times. And when we looked down, I heard the words of that person. I didn't see the face, but I heard the words.

And the words were, well done. Well done. That did something to me.

But it cost us to go up that hill. The Christian life, it was, is never, I never want people to think that I promised them is an easy go life. Because it's not.

It's not. It's a beautiful life. But it's not an easy life.

When I got converted, that preacher never told me, it's not, it's going to be a better road. You don't have to worry. You've done so many other things.

He never told me that. It was about two days later that I, how do you say in English, goofed up, goofed up in my experience in the Lord. And I said something that I should have never said.

My uncle was nearby here. He said, oh, you don't say that. I looked at him kind of funny.

Why? He says, Christian says, you don't use that language. Ooh, now he's telling me I have to change my language. Yes, I did.

Yes, I did. But it was even more than that. I had to, I had to change my desires, my experience, my aim in life.

I had to turn with me to the next passage of scripture here. And Luke 19, let's go to Luke chapter 19. And you might recognize it right away.

It's the story of one we know of Psycheas. Remember him? Children, you remember Psycheas? How do we, what do we remember about that man? Am I saying it right for Ohio? Psycheas, where's some of the children? What happened to Psycheas? What did he do? What are, how do we remember him? Anyone can tell me. Well, the young people are, will tell me if you don't tell me.

How's that? He was kind of short. Yes. When we sing the song, we say, Psycheas was a wee little man, right? Isn't that, let's sing, I don't know if the right tune is y'all.

It starts, Psycheas was, right? Psycheas was a wee little man, and the wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he want to see. And Jesus said, son, keep going.

Hooked up in the tree, and he said, Psycheas, come down, for I'm going to your house today. For I'm going to your house today. Is that how you remember Psycheas? Yeah.

He was a little man. I like to read here the first 10 verses there of Luke 19. I'm in the wrong book here.

Here we go. Luke 19. And just look at it quickly, starting in verse 1. And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.

And behold, there was a man named Psycheas, which was the chief among the publicans. And he was rich. Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Yeah.

I wouldn't be driving around in a Dodge for one thing, but it's done so good. The Lord knew exactly what Rene and his family needed. He supplied two of them, as a matter of fact.

I have another one at home. So yeah, has a lot of miles, but it's still going. See, but that desire, I believe has been in almost all, in most humans lives, just to have a little more, just a little more.

But who determines what that is, right? Verse 2. And he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before and climbed up into Sycamore tree to see him, for he was passed that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said unto him, Psycheas, make haste and come down, for today I must abide in thy house.

And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. They should have been thinking about something else, and they weren't.

We say it's human nature. Yes, it is human nature to complain. And verse 8, and Psycheas stood and said unto the Lord, behold Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.

And I have taken, if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him, how many? Four, fourfold. It's quite a jump, isn't it? Fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, this day is salvation come to this man, for as much as he also is the son of Abraham, for the son of man has come to see and to say that which was what? How many lost people do we have here and got to Jesus? Raise your hand.

I really want to know. I'm curious. Okay.

Yes, we were all lost, right? We were called sinners. That was your name. Maybe you didn't know it.

Yeah. Sinners. Yes, we were all sinners.

Here comes Psycheas, the multitude that's watching Psycheas. They looked at Jesus. If Jesus would have only known who this man really is.

Oh, he knew. Jesus knew. Jesus knew.

I read this because Psycheas had to make a choice. Psycheas, Psycheas, I do not believe he was 15 years old. I don't believe he was 18 or 20 years old.

I believe he was an older man, might have been middle-aged, maybe a little better than middle age. He was still climbing trees anyhow. Yeah.

So there he was. And Psycheas, there's something. It says here that he heard about Jesus, right? He heard.

Now he wanted to see. Curiosity sometimes does that to us. We want to see.

And Psycheas went and did and there did Jesus see him before he got there? Of course he did. I like to believe that. He says because he looked up and there was Psycheas.

Psycheas. And notice that he called them by what? What was this? What did he call him? What was it? His name, right? Yes. He called them by his name.

Where does that say that? What verse is that here? Verse five. Yes. He says, Psycheas, make haste and come down for today.

I must abide in thy house. Maybe Jesus wanted to see, you know, his house had to be luxurious because he was a rich man. He was a rich man.

Jesus knew that this man stole the lot and Jesus probably knew that this man, the half or more that he had really wasn't taken legally. And yet Jesus says, the Bible says he made haste. I want to go to your home today.

Yes. Choices. And Psycheas opened up and allowed Jesus to come to his house.

And I love what Jesus says there in verse nine. He says, this day is salvation come to this house. This day has salvation come to this house first so much as he also is a son of Abraham.

Yes. He was the son of Abraham. That tells me something too, doesn't it? He was a Jew.

So Jesus was interested in all people, Psycheas in, uh, he was interested in the people of the land. Read sometime, uh, go over to Matthew chapter 19 and read that how busy Jesus was. And we preach some things.

We have a bad because we might have a Bible meeting two or three times a year. And, uh, we have to preach every other Sunday and oh, yeah, you know, Jesus went from one place to another. Why? Because Jesus knew that people had to make a choice.

Now having said that, and I know our time is running out at all. I don't, here it is almost eight o'clock. Uh, I'm not minding the outside and when it's getting dark, I want it to stop so it doesn't get so late for so many of you.

But let's look at some facts of choices. As I meditated in this, as I thought about this, I like to share some facts. Number one, God made us free moral beings to choose, right? And let me tell you, there's a list of people you can look at in the Bible.

We can go all the way to the beginning of time. Now let me ask you a question that I ask people when they come in for counseling is why help me to understand why God put the tree, the forbidden tree in the garden? Why? Now it depends when you want to go home. So I want you to answer me.

Why did he do that? Anyone? Huh? So that we would have a choice and Adam have a choice and his wife had a choice, right? He said, look, you can eat up all the trees in the garden, but that tree don't you touch because the moment that you eat of that tree, you're going to what? Die. Now you think they understood what the word die is? They were live. They were perfect beings.

Did they understand it? Yes, they did. They understood what Jesus or what God was talking about. God said, you don't touch.

Cain and Abel came along, but you know what the I'm not going to go into the fall of Adam and Eve. You know what it is, but then their sons come along and they had a choice, right? Yes. God told them what he wanted for an offering and they bring, here they come and they each bring something different and but it was of the best that they had at the time by God said, bring it.

Did God tell Cain to kill his brother? No, it was a choice. It was a choice and we can go on to the two thieves on the cross. You think the thieves on the cross had a choice? Yes.

Yes, he did. They did. They didn't have to live the way they were living and got caught and now they're paying for it.

Consequences. Sin has consequences. See, we can talk about Ananias and Sapphira.

Remember that Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5? Yes, they had a choice. Didn't have to sell the land. They didn't even have to tell tell the apostles what they got for the land because they weren't asking them.

What about Paul? The apostle Paul, did he have a choice? What was Paul's name before? What does that mean? Excuse me? Chosen. Chosen. Yeah, it was chosen but what it means small.

Paul before his conversion, God wanted him to understand he's a very small man. In other words, he's a man that had the intelligence and history tells me he talked seven languages or more. Yeah, intelligent, right? Yes, and then when he converted to Paul, what does that mean? That means grande, big.

Now, what was he big about? He was big because now when he was in the world, he thought like they did. He thought he was doing God's will. He thought he was honoring the almighty God and God said, that's not what you're doing.

That's not what you did. But now he was humble and now he understood there's a way and he got right with God and then we can continue. We can go to Acts 13, Simon the sorcerer.

Remember that? He says to Paul, give me, give me that power. We talked about power last night. That power, want that power.

Well, that's not what God wanted from this Simon and the list goes on and on. God made us free moral being to choose you and I. The Lord saw that young man in New York City. He saw that me in New Jersey and he saw me in Pennsylvania.

I had to make that choice. Secondly, another fact about choice is whenever you make a choice, you are directly responsible for that choice, right? It's not my wife can't be for me. I can't be for her.

As parents, you can't really be for your children. Your children have to make a choice, but oh, when they come to the Lord, doesn't it make you, did it make you happy? It did my wife and I, it did my wife and I, because why they are now choosing what they want for life. They are choosing.

They can't come and say, um, and I heard this so many times, uh, broken homes in amongst the, our Anabaptist settings. So many of them. And I hear the children say, it's not my fault.

It's their fault. I hear the father said it and mother. No, it's not our fault.

It's their fault. Yeah. That's the excuse they like to, to give.

Let me tell you something. Bad attitude is your fault. Bad attitude is my fault.

All right. And when there's that, and then there's contention, it doesn't look good. It is wrong.

When we talk about that, we respond to what about holding a grudge? Whose fault is that? It's the other person's fault, right? We say that's not, I used to, uh, like I said before, I did this prison ministry. I used to love to teach in the prison system because I remember some, uh, some of the men would say when they came, well, and I never asked them why they were there, but they would come to me and say, you know why I'm here? Cause they wanted to talk to me. I said, no, I don't.

They don't tell, uh, the authorities here. Don't tell me why you're in here. Well, I'm here, uh, because of so-and-so.

I said, Oh, you really? Or someone would say, the devil made me do it. What I did. The devil made me do it.

The devil makes you do something. You do it because you heard his voice and did it. Do you see what it is? So different.

We have to choose to do it. We do and not somebody else. And it goes on and on critical.

Are you a critical person? That's your choice. Maybe the Ohio don't have that problem, but maybe you're a rebel. Sam? No, he's not a rebel.

I like teasing him. Rebel. Maybe you're a rebel.

I've had to work with young boys in the last year, starting at the age of 10, all the way to 17. Today, I got a call about another young man, 16. And the father was desperate.

I don't know what to do with him. I all of a sudden he wants to become a counselor. I said, you say he's 16 years old.

Yes. And I don't know what to do anymore. Even the law don't know what to do anymore.

And I heard that you reason to help someone this age. Well, yes, but I said, your son has to want it. Your son has to want it.

So we're going to try that one. Uh, once we get back to the office, whenever you make a choice, you are responsible for that choice. Remember that a third one, third facts is small choice choices affect your destiny.

Small choices. You don't have to kill anyone to go to hell. You don't have to go back, rob a bank to go to hell.

You don't have to. All you have to do is something small, or you can be disobedient. You can, uh, you can go to hell.

If you have the wrong music that you're listening to. Yes. You heard me, right? You go to hell.

If you're with the wrong company and they make you do something every now and then, well, they made me do it. No, they didn't. You choose to do it.

You choose to do it. And the list can go on and on again. I've said this, I think it was last night.

The Bible says love, not the world, right? Has that changed? No, it hasn't. No, it hasn't. Number four, right choices are not the easiest to make, are not the easiest to make.

Is it? Are they? Why, why, why are we so slow? Maybe you have an answer for me. Why are, why is it so hard to make a decision like saying, yes, Lord, here I am. Why is it? Because we're listening to the other voice.

Can I be very sincere? We listen to the other voice. The other voice has convinced me that, oh, you got all the time in the world. I mean, after all, you're only, uh, 16, 17 years old.

You're only 25, 20. Oh, you're 30. Maybe even, maybe 50 and you haven't yet decided for the Lord.

Let me tell you something. The Lord is merciful unto you and he must really love you. That's all I can say.

But this evening, right choices are not the easiest one to make, especially if everybody else is doing opposite of what the Lord wants us, right? Yes. I had a young man one time in one of the conferences that I used to serve with a very gifted, a young man. He loved to sing and he was in, um, how'd you say our artists.

He liked to draw and like to paint just beautiful things. And, um, one day he told his daddy about, he liked to go out there in the fast lane. You heard how he said, I heard that from my old, our oldest son.

Uh, I like to go to the fast lane just to see what it's like the fast lane. No, they were saying both of them, including my son, they would say, I like to see what it's like out there in the world. You know, my son wasn't a drug addict.

My son didn't, uh, didn't smoke or drink. My son, uh, per se was obedient at times. He had to be reminded, you know, but they want to go to the fast lane.

Anyhow, this young man, the first one I was talking to you about, he decided he's going to go out there. He did. He got, uh, in the wrong company, went into town just to see if he can talk to some of these young people, young men and lady.

He did. And it wasn't very long. Um, we weren't here at the time, but it wasn't very long though.

He got, um, with the local youth of the town, the city that he was in. And he realized that, Oh, he's going to have to try to see if he can change your mind, but it didn't work. You know why it didn't work.

It didn't work because he was slowly being drawn into their way of life into, he was just being sucked into that. So one day, a while later, I don't know how long it was anymore. He was in the city and in the afternoon, and I understand it was a beautiful, uh, summer afternoon, afternoon in Pennsylvania.

And he got, was getting drunk, kept drinking, drinking and got drunk. He had a fast car and he filled his car with friends, his girlfriend being to his side. And I think there were, um, five other people in the car.

And he said, let's go for a ride as drunk as he was. And he, they said he got in his car and he went down the road going, some thought he might've been going 65, 70 mile per hour on about a 45, 35 mile per hour zone, a lot of curves, you know, a lot of curves. And, um, as he was, was going around with the road around the curve, all of a sudden this oak tree appeared out of nowhere.

That's what most of them say. I didn't even know it was there. Of course he was so drunk.

He probably never saw it. Yeah. Yeah.

And guess what happened? A movable object messes with an immovable object, a lot bigger than him and the smash there. Apparently there was a lot of carrying on in the car, but all of a sudden everybody was quiet. And there was one that was slumped forward.

Only one. Take a guess. Yes.

It was this young man. It killed him instantly broke his neck and he was dead. His girlfriend was really sad.

They all screamed and they all got out of the car. And this young man entered an eternity. And I'm not going to stand here and say that young man, what a hell that young man deserves hell.

That young I'm not going to say that because I didn't know what all was involved in that. But his alcohol level was very, very high. You couldn't think straight anymore.

He didn't have to go to the city and become part of the world. See, sometimes they are the hardest ones to make. So if that's the way you think, may I encourage you to not think that way.

Fifthly, I have two I want to give to you yet some facts about choices and that is choosing right often puts a person puts one in the minority. In the minority. I remember again, after I became a Christian, that man that that I preached the message he told me before I left and he was talking my language.

He was talking to me in Spanish. I didn't speak much English at all yet. Very much English.

But he said to me in Spanish, he says like this. I want you to know something. He said, now you're a Christian.

You're a Christian. He said, and not everybody's going to agree with you and where you stand. And some may decide to push you aside because you're not now a Christian.

And was he ever right? And was he ever right? I thought another brother and his wife talked to me as well that night and he says, those who you thought were your friends may no longer be your friends. May no longer. Well, I wanted to be I'm the type.

I like people. I'm a people person and I wanted to continue meeting people, but I soon found out they were right. They were right.

It's going to put you in the minority. Why? Because you're not going to think like they think. And because that's the way it is.

You notice in what we read there in Matthew 7, many, many went through that wide gate, but few went in the narrow gate. So you're going to be in the minority. You will be.

Lastly, the last one I want to share is choosing right always. No, choices we make reveals our character, right? It reveals who you are. The way you dress tells me a little bit about you.

Yes, it does. Just automatically, you know, the way it might even be young man, young lady, the car you drive. Yes, it might tell me who you are.

Right now, I understand one thing that's become very popular again is the Western wear. I see that. The Western wear.

I said, now you're going to get nitpick, right? I'm telling you, you're telling the world who you are. Is that what you want to tell them? Is that what you want to tell them? Is that what I want to tell them? Are we satisfied to be able to come to Christ? And I would love to say more on how we probably can make right choices and the blessings of making right choices. The joy that it brings when we make right choices.

Yes. I preach many, many times at what we call funerals. A lot of them.

Weddings, yes, as well, but funerals, lots of funerals. I think more than most of the men and I preachers preach. And amongst them was young people, many young people.

And I will tell you real quick another story that's about this. I had a young man and this was in Guatemala. I was having revivals three hours away from my home.

And the church was very, very full. I remember that. And it was the second night when I finally got to know this young man.

He must have been, what they say was 10, 12, 10. He was 10. And anyhow, but he had a mind of about 15, 16 year old, quiet spoken.

And that night he stood up and accepted the Lord as his savior. One look at that little boy, it almost made me cry. I don't believe he had a, on the original shirt he wore and pants he wore, that there was an original patch of his pants.

It was patch upon patch. That little fella, very, very, very skinny, very, very thin. And the brother told me after he says he comes from a very, very abusive home, his father.

Oh, I said, well, he stood and we want to talk with him. So some of the brethren talked with him. I was helping some other, but anyhow, he says, this little boy wants to shake your hand before they leave, before he leaves.

And he had something like two and a half hour walk home because the van that was supposed to take him had already left. And he said, he doesn't care. He's not afraid to walk at night.

And that was when there was a real activity. In Guatemala. And I felt take the little fella, but all the cars route.

So anyhow, he said, I'll go home. But he told me he, and he had a smile on his face. And I said, you look happy.

I am. I, I am. He said, and immediately he said, brother Renee, he said, would you do me a favor? I would have done anything for that little fella.

He said, would you do me a favor? I says, well, what's the favor? He said, I have a daddy. That's a drunk. He is the drunk of the town.

And daddy comes home around 11, 12 o'clock every night, every night. And he says, he does something to my mama, my mama. And he does something to me.

And I looked at that boy close. I noticed that his face was all black and blue. When I looked at his hands, they were black and blue.

I said, what happens? Well, he comes home very, very drunk. And the first one that gets beat is my mom. He beats her too.

She can't move anymore because he's mad because the food is cold. So he beat her. He said, I like my daddy would get saved.

I would like for him to feel what I feel. He said, I'm a nobody. I know that.

No, you're not. I said, you are somebody you are. Well, I like to share with him about Jesus.

He probably won't hear me. I said, share that about Jesus. He did.

Anyhow, that was Thursday. That was Tuesday when I talked to him first. And I couldn't wait till Wednesday came around so I can see the little fella again.

He was there Thursday. We started service. He was nowhere to be seen.

The drivers, they usually pick them up and say he wasn't there. It was strange because he hadn't missed any. He would walk.

He said, I'll come if I have to kneel all the way to church. And I knew he would. And we're ready to dismiss.

I was ready to dismiss the congregation that evening. When I saw the brethren and some of the Guatemalans talking in the back and one of the brethren said, don't dismiss. So he came up and we stepped away from the mic.

And he said, well, I hate to tell you this news. I thought it was something from my home. My wife was not alone that time.

He said, the little fella that talked to the Lord, yeah, he was killed this morning. And I thought, that father killed him? No, he came to town. And Thursday was what they call the market day and where people can buy some of their vegetables and their things for home, the little bit that they bought.

He said he had bought a little bit of rice and whatnot, he says, but he didn't have enough fare to go home. So he jumped in the back of the buses. And if some of you have been to Central America, you know what the buses look like.

When they get full, they get full. Anyhow, he saw the bus and the bus was backing up. So he ran in the back, jumped on the ladder, but didn't get to put his feet on it.

And the fellow went on the break, knocked him down. And the bus started going back right away, ran right over his head, couldn't even see him. He said he died instantly.

He died instantly, but he made a choice. And he didn't realize that he was going to go into eternity that week. But it gave me joy to know that there was one that came, at least one that came up or more came up than just him.

But at least that if we could have helped just that one, I told the brethren, we did what the Lord wanted us to do. And anyhow, it was Thursday evening, late after church, the father and the mother said they'd like to meet this minister who's preaching there. So they did.

When I got there, he heard I was there and he come running. And I'm minister, we're the minister. And I took a step or two forward.

I said, I am he. And he come over, he held my hand. You can smell that he had been drinking, but he was not really heavily intoxicated.

He said, I don't know what you did to my son, but my son became such a happy boy. He says, he pled with me that first night he was in there. And he said, daddy, I gave my heart to the Lord.

Why don't you do the same thing? If you want to be happy, it's yours, daddy. It's yours because that minister said so that we can all be happy. He was very drunk, grabbed a piece of firewood like he did every evening.

And he beat that little fella. No, I'm talking about two days here. Friday, he died Thursday.

This was that evening, Wednesday evening. He says he came home and was very happy as well. And he says, I beat him.

And he says, some of his last words was before he went unconscious. Daddy, I love you. I love you.

Daddy, I love you because the preacher said, Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us. Dear one, choices, choices.

The next morning and the father and the mother both asked me to, if I would preach at the funeral, I said, absolutely. They have to bury within 24 hours. I told the brethren, I don't have a funeral sermon.

The Lord has not opened my mind yet for that. We'll see what he opens my mind to. And there was a lot of people.

We went in the middle of that graveyard. I stood on top of some of those tombstones and I decided I'm going to preach. And preach I did.

I hadn't gone very long into that. And I could use that little fella and his testimony and the happiness that all of us, the father gave out, I yelled, I want it. I want it.

He said, you'll be about to knock me off some of the, where I was standing. He said, I want it. It was the most beautiful service I ever was in.

The mother also responded. As far as I know to this day, they're saved. They're saved because of choices.

This evening that there's someone in the sound of my voice who has not made that choice. Please, I implore with you, talk to someone, to anyone and tell them that you like to make the right choice. That that is what you want.

And I trust that each one here in the tent, that you all have made that wise choice. Let's sing a verse, come gracious spirit, heavenly dove.