If you turn your Bibles to Proverbs chapter number 14, Proverbs chapter number 14. I do appreciate the opportunity every time I have the opportunity to preach, even the teen class and preparing my lessons for junior church. What it is, is each of those times provokes me to go beyond just my regular devotion time of the Word of God and to dive deep into what God has for me first. Before I can bring a message to share with you, the message is brought to me by the Lord and it works on my heart. And man, is it exciting. Anybody that's had to prepare a message, you realize how much is in a passage, how much the Word of God is just a never-ending well of resources and wealth of learning. And we'll never get to the point where we're as close to God as we need to be until we get to heaven. And it's just a joy. I've been preparing my messages for next Sunday, preaching three times out in Chalice. And it's exciting just to dive deep into the Word of God. And you say, I don't understand that. Well, try it sometime. It's really exciting. Find a topic. Say, I don't preach. Great. Find a topic and study it out in the Bible, and your mind will be blown. It is amazing how good God is and how amazing His Word is. So Proverbs chapter 14, we're going to look at a pretty familiar verse as our starting text. We're going to kind of go all over in the Word of God today and look at several different passages But we're gonna start in Proverbs chapter 14 with verse 12. Proverbs 14, verse 12. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. This evening I'd like to bring a message simply titled, Consider the End of Your Ways. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to be in your word. God, thank you for giving us your word, and I pray that you would use this message that you've brought to me, that you've worked on my heart with, and I pray that you'd use it in the lives of those that are here today as you have used it in my life. Lord, use me as your vessel to share only what you have for us this evening. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So several months ago when Pastor asked me to think about and pray about preaching the evening Vision Sunday message, I started looking at our theme of the old time way. And I figured that the theme verse, the actual text there, would be taken on Sunday morning. And I started praying about what would the Lord have me to preach on tonight? and I quickly was led to this topic. Because the idea of a way or a path or a journey is not too uncommon throughout the Word of God. We can look at the straight and narrow way and then the wide way. We can look at several different ways in the Bible. There's the way of the evil woman. There's the way of the sloth. There's the way of the foolish man. And there's the way of the wise man. There's a lot of different ways. But I tell you, oftentimes, if you're going to get directions, if you're going to go down a path, if you're going to take a journey in a specific direction, there's an end point. You're not just wandering aimlessly. I'm going to purpose to go down this way because I feel like it. But there's an end point. There's an end point. Hey, when I am leaving here, I turn certain directions in order to go home. In order to figure out, before you take a journey, oftentimes if you're at a fork in the road, it's pretty wise to know what's at the end point of each of those forks in the road. You can run into some danger, there could be a road washed out. So oftentimes, brought this here for the kids, This is what we used to have to use. Oftentimes, we'd pull out, when I was a kid, it wasn't just like this, but we'd have to unfold this giant map. Now, this is just a map of Israel, but when we'd pull out this giant map, and whoever was riding in the passenger seat, when we're driving, trying to figure out how to get to a specific endpoint, and you know those accordion maps, they pull open, and cover half the dashboard, and you're trying to make sure it's facing the right direction, and figuring out which direction do we need to go to get to the end point that we desire? To get to the destination that we desire to go? That's why I can tell you that if you take a left right here down Lewis Street, and then you take a right when you hit there on 4th, and it turns into Yellowstone, go down a bit on the left, there's Coldstones. It's a destination I've gone to before. I don't need a map for that one. Now, I'll tell you, I remember, I thought we were big stuff. I thought we were really cool when we upgraded from a map to we had a Garmin. We had one of these GPS, not, kids, not on your phone. I'm talking before iPhones, like literally before they existed. and it was this dimly lit screen that worked sometimes, and you'd plug it into the car, and you'd figure out a way to attach it to the dashboard or whatever was in the center, because there's no screen in your cars either. Put it on there, and you hope it knows where you're supposed to go, but it would give you direction and say, hey, turn right, so that you can get to a specific destination. And you'd think if in our physical life, nowadays we're spoiled with these phones that say, hey, I'll ask Siri to give me directions to so-and-so's house, and it'll give me directions to their house right there. But you'd think if in our physical life, as we're driving a vehicle or walking or even hiking, I've got a way to give me directions while I hike. We're going to want to make sure that we're headed the right direction to get to the destination we want to be. And oftentimes, we're not as careful making sure we're going the right way, going down the right path. to get to the destination that we desire spiritually. I believe that if I asked any of us here tonight, we'd say, yes, I want to draw close to the Lord. I want to have the walk with God that I should have. I want to raise my family the way that God wants me to raise them. I want to have God's blessings in my life. None of us here, I'm sure, would say, oh, I just want to have a miserably, terribly failed Christian life. That's not the destination we desire. Yet why is it that we fail to consider the end of the ways that we take? Consider the end of their ways. And I don't want to take a lot of time tonight. I know we've got things going on after the service, but I want to take a few moments to look at three simple points about how we can make sure that we're going down the old time path. Not because it's old. but because it hasn't changed. The old time path, the first thing we're gonna look at is the facts. The facts of the way. The facts of the way. First, before you're gonna take a journey, back before we had GPS, back before you had Siri on your phone to take you where you wanted to be, there was this thing oftentimes some people used called MapQuest. Right? And you'd print it off and you'd say, I want to go here in this town and then I want to go here. And you'd print it off and say, all right, just stop one. You're going to make this turn. Then you make this turn. And it would give you, step by step, exactly what you need to do. to get to the destination that you desire. I tell you what, we have the facts. We have the map for that old time way, and it's right here. And the problem is, is all over America we have Christians who are attacking the very road map, the Word of God. You're not going to get anywhere without this. What's sad is there's many people that I know, friends that I've had, that have turned on the Word of God and said, well, the words are just complicated. There's big words. Guess what else is on our fancy phone? It's called a dictionary. We don't need some new Bible that makes us feel better when we read it. We need the old time way of the old time Word of God. That's where it starts. And in there, we can get the facts. Say, hey, I want the destination of having kids who grow up and are raised for the Lord. Well, the Bible talks about that. It says, train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. He says, if you do this, This is your destination. Hey, but if you train them up in what's convenient and how we feel, or in the consistency that we're willing to put out, we're not going to get down the old-time way of raising kids. You look around us. Do we really want our young people to grow up like the product around us? The idea of this vision for our church moving forward is to say, we're going to determine that we are set apart for Christ. We're not going to try to take the Bible on our way down the world's way, down a new way, down a new type of Christianity. But instead to say no. No, the truth that was true a hundred years ago is still true. The truths that were true thousands of years ago when they were written in the Word of God are still true today. Why? Because God, not Siri, God gave us these truths. The fact is that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins. The old-time salvation. I tell you, we have an attack in Christianity today that's trying to water down salvation, trying to make it more palatable. Hey, it makes our numbers look better. We can save more people got saved if we dilute salvation. We don't need any of that new-time salvation. We need the old-time salvation that hasn't changed, that was given to us 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and three days later rose up from the grave. The facts, the maps, the way to go is laid out so clearly. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not on thine own understanding and He will direct thy paths. He will direct thy paths. You want God's direction? I hope we all do. I hope we all do. That's something we desire. It should be something we desire to have God directing our paths. Well, it tells us which way to go. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. The Bible talks about how we should, it says in Joshua 1 verse 8, it says keep this book of the law always on your lips and to meditate on it day and night. It says, then your way will be prosperous. You want to have a successful Christian life? You want to have God's blessings? Get attached to this book. Get attached to this book. You say, you're not telling me anything new. Exactly! We all are holding a copy of this tonight, and if we went home, we could probably dust off a few more copies to peace. I'm not giving you groundbreaking information here tonight. I'm just saying the fact is the way to go, the map, the atlas, the road map for a Christian life is right here. We have destinations and goals we want to achieve. We're starting out the new year and say, I want to achieve this goal. Hey, the way for me to achieve my weight loss goal is not to go down to the ice cream shop. after church, it's not open on Sundays, I checked. I can tell you all day long until I'm blue in the face, oh, I'm going to lose 25 pounds in 2025. And just a minute, I've got to go eat another donut. We know the destination that we want to have. We say, I want to be able to win the lost. I want to see my unsaved relative saved. Go ye, go ye. Where are you on Saturday? You're not gonna be a soul winner sitting at home. We don't need, I think we just had the Olympics last year. And Bible talks about how we need to lay aside weights, which does so easily beset us. Hey, we need to run a race to win. And the God says, get rid of the weight. Can you imagine, we had another record-breaking, there was a runner from the United States of America who became the new fastest man alive. Can you imagine how successful he would have been if he would have been carrying around a dumbbell in each hand? Not very successful. So someone, hey, if you want to win, if you want to get to your destination, toss those aside. The Bible tells us the same thing. The Bible tells us, hey, there's a way that you ought to think. There's a way that you ought to dress. There's a type of music you ought to listen to. There's a type of entertainment that's not okay for a Christian. There's a way to live that most of the world out there will look at you and say, oh, you're weird. That's old-fashioned. Exactly. Exactly. I'd rather old-fashioned holiness, old-fashioned Christianity over their new-fashioned filth and just wickedness. Because parents or kids are watching. I tell you, I've seen a pattern. In my very short life, I've seen a pattern. Parents will allow the world to come in a little bit into their lives. And it'll have this much of an effect on other families. I know pastor's kids who have let the world in and put aside with the facts of the Bible and how the Bible says to raise children. And now the one in particular happens to be my own uncle has got a son who thinks he's a girl. He said, well, it won't happen to me. Yeah, that's what I'm sure he thought. It's heartbreaking. We've got to get ahold of the Word of God. We've got to get ahold of the Word of God. Stay delighted in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37.4 Yet instead, we're neglecting being the parent we should be, neglecting being faithful to church, neglecting our Bible so that we can get the desires of our heart by working overtime to buy them. You're never going to buy the desires of your heart. You know what I think is interesting about that verse is God will give you the desires of your heart, and if you're desiring something you shouldn't have, He'll change the desires of your heart, and then He'll give it to you. What you think is so important, oh, I've got to have this, or I've got to do this, or I've got to go here, or I need my Saturdays. Hey, I'll tell you what's better than mowing your lawn on Saturday mornings is seeing a soul saved because you gave your Saturday morning to God. He's given us a roadmap. What's your destination? I want to finish well. My kids are out of the house. I want to finish well. I want to be able to run my race and be able to have God say, well done. Great. He tells us how to do that too. He says to be generous. You want to be given to receive? Give. Give. Joyfully. And He'll give back with good measure. Press down. shaking together, running over. I'm a very visual-minded person, and I can still remember sitting in the front pew on the piano side of the church that I grew up on, and listening to my grandpa and others preach messages using this verse, and imagining them shaking it up, and it going down a little bit, then pouring more in, and pressing it down, and it going down a little bit, and pouring more. That's how God wants to give back to us. You want God's outpouring of blessings? We sing that song, the sound of abundance of rain. Oh, for the showers of blessings we need. Alright. So let's stop being stingy with God. It's not that complicated. The facts are there. The road map is there. The problem is what we miss is oftentimes point number two. the facts, and then the following, the following. You can have a map and you can say, hey, this way leads to a cliff and a washed out road, and this way leads to a nice warm bed at home. And you can desire to be there all you want, but if you go this way, you're always gonna get the destruction. So I want to be here, but I'm gonna go here. We can have the Word of God, we can read the Word of God, we can get up in church and recite the Word of God, we can amen about it, but until we say, I will follow it, down that old time road that is talked about all through the Word of God, until that happens, it does you no good. You're just going through the motions, you're putting on a show, maybe you come to church and everybody in the room is fooled. But just because we all think you're going down that way doesn't mean you'll end up there. We need to consider the end of our ways. There's a fact in the following Proverbs 2, 5 and 6 that I quoted earlier. It says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. All thine heart. Not some of it. All thine heart. That's a letting go. And lean not unto thine own understanding. And on all thy ways acknowledge Him And then He shall direct thy paths. Hey, we know these facts. Like I said, I'm not telling you anything new. But the fact is, a lot of us don't want to go down the old time way and dress in a way that pleases the Lord. A lot of us don't want to go down the old time way and raise our family for the Lord and do what it takes. A lot of us oftentimes don't feel like getting up and having not just a reading time in the Bible, but a meditation in the Word of God. We know it, but we're not following it. We're not following it. Or, Sometimes we follow bad directions. Bad directions. Oftentimes bad directions come packaged nicely. They come very good sounding. Hey, well if you just do it this way, and if you use this excuse and this excuse, that's how you can kind of excuse your way around that truth of the Bible that you're uncomfortable with. It amazes me what kind of great lengths people go to to excuse themselves out of commands in the Word of God. You say, well, let me explain how I see that is. No, no, no. It's right there. Read it, believe it, follow it. I'll tell you a funny story, just as a matter of illustration. I shared with my dad the story that I'm going to share. So you remember that garment that I talked about? When we were on deputation, we traveled around to hundreds of churches on our way, raising support to go to Belize. So this was 15 years ago or so. So 15 years ago, I think the iPhone 1 came out. So we didn't have that. I think my dad had a brick of some sort. It basically didn't have a screen, let alone maps. But we had a garment. We were fancy. Very fancy. And we were headed to a church. I believe we were headed up into Michigan, New York. And it was up there, kind of upstate, out of the middle of nowhere. And we were following the direction. My dad was following the directions. And we turned down off the highway onto a little bit lesser. It was a residential road. And off the residential road, we turned down to a road, and houses started disappearing. There was no more houses. No more houses. And then the road started getting a little rough, and then all of a sudden, the pavement stopped, and it was gravel. And at that point, I recall my mom saying, maybe we should try a different route. And I says, no, the GPS says this is the way we should go. Pretty soon, the gravel stops. We are 100% off-roading it. But there had been some pretty wild rains in that region before we took this trip. And so several, so what? Oh, yes, this is one of these old Dodge Grand Cherokees, old minivans. It has about a clearance level of three inches, right? And we're all bouncing around in that minivan going over, and we're going through mud, and it's spraying up. And then we get to where there's parts of the roads that's washed, I mean, that's a river right there. And we get stuck, and so there's Ezekiel and my dad and me, and my mom slides over to the driver's seat, and we're behind this thing, just deep in our church. We were dressed for church. We're in our churches, just deep in mud, trying to push this thing. And we look over, like, ah. My dad says, I think you can handle the drop. It's, you know, just a rock ledge, that's all. are pushing in, and it goes, and then it slides and crashes into some rocks or whatnot on the side. And at that point, we realized it's not getting any better. And then we had to backtrack through all of that terrible, terrible road. We ended up getting to our destination, but we were pretty wet and muddy, and we wouldn't have got to our destination if we continued the direction we were going. several thousand dollars worth of images, if we would have continued on that way, and we were given bad instructions, we probably would have ended up on the news floating down some river somewhere. But the fact is, is there's a lot of bad directions out there. Hey, where there's one good path, And there's a dozen errant paths. And I think of, Josh, you were going through the corn maze with us, right? With some of the kids when we took them to the pumpkin patch. And there's like 20 different ways. Only one of them is going to get you to your destination. But we've got the cheat code. The Bible already tells us which one gets us to the destination. We've just got to follow this. Say, hey, I'm going to reject Dr. So-and-so, and I'm going to reject the philosophy of the day. I'm going to reject all that. I'm going to trust the old-time Bible and do things the old-time way. Not because I want to be goofy. I'm not talking about dressing the old-time way doesn't mean we're going to come in here and wear hoop skirts. I hope I'm not wearing a hoop skirt. But I wear all this. It doesn't mean I come in with a top hat. That can be goofy and funny sometimes. That's not what I'm talking about, but I'm talking about being right. Being godly. And being godly is out of fashion. Being godly is outdated. But that's okay. It should be okay. We need to lose the fascination with being up to date. I'm not talking about being slovenly. I think sometimes we do ourselves a disservice if we make godly living look just grungy and terrible. It's amazing to live for God. It's amazing. Hey, I haven't missed out on anything growing up at home that was focused on this old-fashioned Bible and the old-time way of doing right. I had wonderful, wonderful circumstances. Now, I never went fishing with my dad on a boat very often because he doesn't like fishing. But I tell you, I miss the days that we were riding around in a car singing songs about Jesus. and knocking on doors. Now, we all go separate directions. It's been probably a year since I've knocked on doors, personally, since Belize. Since we've gone together to knock on doors. Those are precious times. Precious times. I didn't miss out on anything. See, I don't want my kids to miss out on, you know, social life. So they need friends that come from homes, friends that come in and introduce them to things that are ungodly. I tell you, a few things the devil used to grab ahold of my heart as a young person going into becoming a teenager that rooted a lot of rebellion in my life came from friends coming into my life. You need to be guarded. I know parenting isn't the topic of this message, but I'm a new parent, really, really focused and really, really, really determined on this. So it's in the forefront of my mind. I tell you, the old time way isn't outdated. It's the only way. We can know the facts without following it. We oftentimes do, and I only have three more minutes. Point number three, we know the facts, We have to follow to get to the destination. But when we do, what joy there is in the fulfilling. Hey, you go down that old time way. You say, hey, I'm gonna do right. I'm gonna follow God with my family. I'm gonna follow God with my walk with God. I'm gonna follow God and be a soul winner. I'm gonna follow God in these ways. I'm gonna go the old time way. I'm gonna dress the way I ought to. I'm gonna listen to the right kind of music. I'm gonna get rid of that TV show. Watch what God does. I tell you, sometimes it is just laying aside those weights. Show it's not a bad TV show, it's good, it's clean, it's old. Okay, but is it the best that God has for you and for your family? To gather around together, pray together. That was important. That was important for our family. Now did we enjoy entertainment sometimes? Yes, rarely, but yes. The fact of the matter is, the fact of the matter is, the joy, the intense joy, that real joy, not Kamala Harris joy, real joy, that comes from a real walk with God, you're not gonna find that somewhere else. You're not gonna find that following a watered down Christianity down the road. The joy of becoming faithful, The joy of serving Jesus. Serving, not showing up and sitting. Serving Jesus. You say, it's hard work sometimes. Yes. Sarah and Reagan and I left the house yesterday morning, and man, it was late by the time we got home. Just go, go, go, go. Just all kinds of different things, serving the Lord. You know what? I was beat. I'm still beat. But it's amazing. It was a wonderful day serving God together. from morning to night. Late at night, last night, I'm in the junior church room downstairs and I'm washing the whiteboard so it's nice and white and we have the best for Christ for these young people. Putting the game together, putting everything together for today. Why? Because there's joy in serving Jesus. There's something so much more fulfilling than anything this world can offer. And then I look at people, if you ask me, who do you respect? Who do you look out and respect in Christianity and just in life? There's a few people I could name who have lived their life for Christ, not all preachers, but who've lived their life for Christ and who've raised their kids to do the same. You can't find happier people. The fact of the matter is, the opposite is true. I've seen the tears and the heartache and the crying of why, how. Well, how is you took the wrong path. You didn't do it the old time way. You say, well, but it's just not culturally accepted. I know. What is culturally accepted is heartache and awful and terrible. and the highest suicide rates in all of history for young people today. I don't want what the culture's offering. I don't want that for my family at all. But the joy that comes when you talk to someone You talk to Pastor Mosley, he came and did a revival services this last, but he came and did a family conference for us a couple years ago. Tell you something interesting, Thursday morning, before we start the family conference, it's like four in the morning and I'm dead asleep. And Sarah throws on the lights, sits down on the bed and shakes me awake, says, we need to talk. It's like, oh, what now? What did I do? Whatever I said, I didn't mean it. I know I left my socks out on the floor. I'll pick them up later. But no. She said, I need to talk. We're going to have a baby. And then that woke me up. And as I'm going throughout the day, I was working that day, and it's setting in, and then I realize, I think, God let us know today for a reason. We've got family conference. We got to spend some time with, and listen to the preacher, but also spend some time with Pastor Mosley, who's raised his kids to both be serving God. Both his kids, their families, I've gotten to know, and specifically his daughter's family, more than his son, but the joy that's there, that their kids are serving Jesus. And I said, that's the destination I want. I want to be old and gray with that joy. I want my kids not to be millionaires, not to be necessarily successful in business. Great, if that happens. But I want them to love God. I want them to get saved, love serving God, and live for the Lord. That's what I want. Because so many, so many people end their days are miserable and bitter because their families, talking Christians. Families don't want anything to do with God and don't want anything to do with them. And we all know the destinations that we want in each area of our life. Hey, I even have a financial goal this year. I know where I want to be going into next year. Sarah and I are praying we'd like to buy a house, build a house actually next year. 2026, so we gotta save, save, save. We've got a destination we want to be. Well, it starts with the start of the path. It starts with choosing, I know what the Bible says is the way I should go, and if you don't, you say, there's an area of my life I don't know which way to go. Well, find it, it's right here. It's right here, any problem in your life, the answer's here. here and on your knees. And then when we know the way we ought to go, we need to follow it wholeheartedly. Not tiptoeing that, no, follow it wholeheartedly. And then just marvel at how amazing God is and how he fulfills, fulfills the blessings of following that old time way. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this day. Lord, you gave me a very simple, simple message. God, I know I needed it, and I pray that there's those here that use it to work on their lives as well. Lord, as we launch out into this year here in 2025, Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to have, Lord, another chance to live for you, and I pray, I pray that we would, we would live our lives and make our decisions not on what's popular, not on how we feel, not on what others think, but on what you say in your word, and that we'd live our lives this old time way. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.