We kind of touched on this. I don't know if it was last Sunday or some other week about profane fables and that we are to exercise godliness. But for whatever reason, people choose to believe what they will. The Bible says that little differently but it's more or less talking about the same thing and first kings the 18th chapter i'm going to be reading in three different places and the 21st verse says and elijah came unto all the people and said how long halt you between two opinions if the lord be god follow him But if Baal, then follow him. Now listen, and the people answered him, not a word. Now, if you turn on over to Joel, the Bible says, in the third chapter of Joel, the 14th verse, it says, multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near, in the valley of decision. Then over here in the 18th chapter of Matthew, we could read the whole chapter, but for sake of time, we'll break into the 7th verse, and it says, Woe unto the world because of offenses. For it must needs be that offenses come. Let's start with the, let's start with the fourth verse. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a milestone, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee it is better for thee to enter into life halt or main rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting far and if thy eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. For I say unto you that in heaven, their angels do always behold the face of my father, which is in heaven. For the son of man is come to save that which is lost. We woke up with that thought on our mind. How long will you halt between two opinions? And then would you rather go into heaven, halt in Maine, or to have the restoration, as it were, or to never have your body made unwhole, but that your hands remained and your feet remained? How long will you halt between two opinions. Now, we know that this word halts being used slightly different in these two instances, but I want you to ask that same question that Elijah posed on that day when he was more or less there confronted by so many bailed worshippers, that they had the condonement of the king and the king's wife, that they were there to destroy, as it were, any semblance of the things of God. We know that Elijah finally come down to the point that How long will you stand still? How long will you tarry? Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. But we need to make a decision. We need to get moving. We need to follow the Lord or follow whomever else you would choose to follow. But the Bible says How long will you halt between two opinions? How long will it take you before you make a decision? Every one of us. One might say, well, Darryl, you're awful opinionated. Well, is that your opinion, or is it someone else's? We all got multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, but what are you going to do? Who are you going to choose to follow? We can have opinions, but we need to be very careful, don't we, that we don't offend anyone, especially these little ones. The Bible says that we have no reason. You can't give any reason that would be legitimate in order to miss out on heaven. The Lord says even if your hand or your foot or your eye offend thee, cut it out and cut it off and remove it. But shall I also cut my hand off and my foot and my eye If it offends you, the Bible says, no greater love hath man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Do I have a responsibility? Is it true that offenses must come? But woe unto thee, do I have a responsibility? What was it that Cain said? Am I my brother's keeper? Well, you might not come to the conclusion that you are responsible for your brother, but if you take that attitude, What it will snowball into is what he should have been saying, is I am my brother's murderer. If you're not your brother's keeper, if you're not careful, if you don't worry about offenses, if you think one decision is good as another decision, if you think as long as I make a decision, everything will be all right, Kane made a decision and his life was changed forever. Adam and Eve made a decision that they had to live with for the rest of their life. But here's the beauty of it. If your hand or your The Bible says cut it off, but I serve a God that can restore those that are maimed and hauled and those that are blind. Not only in the world to come, but we have a Every man has a road to hoe, a mountain to climb, a river to cross, and you come over my way. If you're going to come to church, you're going to cross either the Gasconade fork or the Osage fork of the Gasconade, or you're going to cross the Gasconade. But I understand it, it ain't everybody that comes to church here. That's gonna, well maybe not. That's gonna cross. The gas can aid in the same spot that Daryl crosses in. This morning I crossed it on 32. My daddy crossed it on no highway. But you know what? The point being is, every one of us, we gotta make it to heaven. And we gotta see to it that when we do, when we follow Christ Jesus, that we don't let nothing stand in our way. How long will you hold between two opinions? Well listen, if you got a river to cross, I know a man that can help you. He's more than a man. We studying in Sunday school about the 10 lepers. Every one of them had a road to go down. Christ Jesus met them in the way, and while they were far off, he said, go show yourself to the priest. But there was one that didn't, or did he? My Bible teaches me that they went to show themselves, the other nine, went to show themselves to a descendant of the Arian. But there was one, glory to God, when he began to think of what had just happened to him. Because as they were on the way to the priest, the Bible tells me that they received their cleansing. And there was one. I said, wait a minute. Look at what's happened to us. And I'm a Samaritan. And that Jew done for me. What he done for these nine Jews. Why am I going to Jerusalem to show myself to a priest that don't want to have nothing to do with me? I reckon, don't you, when that Samaritan come to that high priest, He would have said, get out of here, you filthy dog. But instead, his road went to the priest. After the order, the Bible tells me in Corinthians, after the order, Hebrews is it, of Mt. Chesedek, glory to God. When he went there, he received more than a cleansing of his body. But he received a cleansing inside and out. Do you got a road to go? A road to hoe? Do you got a highway to get down? Let me tell you something. Multitudes, multitudes are in the valley of decision, but I want you to know that you can have a peace with Christ Jesus if you make a decision and you base it on the facts, that God's word is true, that it'll lead you and guide you wherever you need to go. But there are some things, right, and some decisions that we can make, there ain't as clear cut as the decision the children of Israel was making. And when Elijah posed that question, how long will you hold between two opinions? If God be God, serve him, and if Baal be Baal, a god, And you serve him. Did you see what I did there? Bell was Bell, and Bell wasn't God. And Bell was a creation of a wicked man's mind, or it was one of the demons. I have no idea, but I do know this. that it was a road that led straight to hell. But Jesus Christ is inviting each and every one of us to walk a road. And if you find yourself laying in a gutter drunk, come to Christ Jesus. You're going to walk down a gutter, Nellie. You're going to walk down a gutter. And some of us others, it's called sitting there with our Our head in our hands, crying, sitting on a hawk trough. And if God speaks to you, you're gonna have to walk by the hawk troughs. It ain't everybody here that's gonna have to come out of the gutter. We're gonna have to walk by the hog trough. But every one of us, in order to make it to heaven, is gonna have to follow Jesus Christ wherever he leads us, wherever it takes us. And we gotta be willing to give it all. Give Him our all. You can believe in Jesus and in His existence, but are you willing to follow Him? Are you willing to go where He says go? Are you willing to lay down? Are you willing to remove that which somebody else, wiser than me and you, removed a long time ago? And why was it? because it was an offense to the body of Christ. Do you hear what I say? There's some people that might, Lord, help us, that might think that you don't need to do this and you don't need to do that. But the Lord says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. There's a lot of people that might think that you don't have to go to a mountain To pray I might have a little son That the Lord's laid on his heart To go to the woods And pray for his lost loved ones Well guess what? If the sweet Holy Spirit Tells him to climb that hill that I can't hardly climb no more. It isn't no reflection of what God's told me. Oh, but I don't want to stand in the way when it comes a snowstorm to say, I know, honey, the Lord told you to go to the mountain to pray, but today will be all right. No, this old man, I can't wade the drifts, I can't climb the hills, I can say, honey, if the Lord has told you to climb the mountain, daddy, you climb the mountain, I'll pray here. Why, because if we offend one of these little ones, how can we sweep them with a millstone? Let us first remove that which offends us and maybe offends somebody else. If I had a responsibility to these little ones. Oh, but we're so self-centered. So many times, we've seen it over and over and over again. Our revival's about ready. How to cut loose with some old A so-called Christian stuck in the mud is afraid that because God told this little child, go pray on the mountain, that they're going to think less of me if I don't go with them. Or if I don't do as they are doing. Or they're going to think they're better than me. Listen, we can all have our opinions. And there's nobody that don't have an opinion. It was Elam. He likes to tell this to me when he disagrees with me. He says, well, my grandfather always said, everybody's entitled to their wrong opinion. What he's saying is, he's saying, Darryl, your opinion is wrong, but he's saying it a little bit more. It's as eloquent as an Amish filler can. After all, they don't speak, it's second language English is. For the most part, I can always a win in a verbal spar, a sparring match. But you know what? When they start talking Dutch, I lose every time. But the point being is, it was a nice way of saying that his grandfather had come up to say, you're wrong. Well, guess what? You could say, you could be. Well, you could say that the Eagles are going to win tonight, and I could say the Kansas City's going to win. And you might have an opinion, and I might have an opinion. But come tomorrow morning, One of us is going to be wrong, but that doesn't mean that God's got an opinion. When God declares it, it comes to pass, and I reckon we'll figure out pretty shortly here who is going to win. But these things are trivial, and there's no reason to get offended. that the fans of Kansas City are sick and tired of going to the Super Bowl every year. They said they were bellyaching. Listen to me now. You ain't a Kansas City fan. You're going to get mad. But there are so many fans that say, I just can't afford to do this. They go to the Super Bowl year after year. after here and here are some and then there's the cleveland brown fans that are like because they've been rooting and rooting and rooting and never get to go. But the point being is, these things are trivial. All of it will melt with a firming heat. But what we do for God will stand the test of time. When we stand before God and we look down at our stump on the end of our leg, we will then see that we have a foot. and that it was all worth it. Everything we removed from our lives. Oh, but if you're so, if the holiness of another convicts you, well, don't be offended. And whatever you do, don't offend one of these young ones. If the Lord is elevating them to a higher plane. Why? Because multitudes, multitudes are in the valley of decision. Some of us worry about making the right decision to the point we don't make no decision at all. That's what the devil wants, right? How long, oh, I just said, how long were you hot between two opinions? You're going to waste your life away. Your children are growing up. They see your indecisiveness. They say you're doing that. The Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Now what do we got today? Is people actually standing in the valley of decision trying to surmise between two opinions? How long will you hold between many, many, many opinions? Listen, you can come up with many reasons why to do what you want to do and feel justified in it. But if you hunger for the truth, you're going to search it out. and it don't matter whether you're right or wrong, whether your father was right or wrong, whether your sister was right or wrong, your brother, your pastor, you're going to crave the righteousness of God and want what He wants in order to be willing. To have that you've got to be willing sometimes to leave the mind and to go back to Jesus and say thank you only to discover that Jesus was more than the man and that he was the high priest after the order of Melchizedek and that he had more for you than to clear up your complexion. and to restore any digits that might have already fell off, but that he had the desire to restore and to cleanse what was lost all the way back there in the garden, and to restore the peace that one can have in one's heart. But you know what? You won't be able to find it searching amongst the priests of this world. But what you got to do is follow the Lord wherever He leads you and guides you. And He might send you to the mountaintop or He might send you to the valley. I don't know, I can't tell you. But I do know this, that the Lord will restore all that that we give to him. He will give us more. We can trade in fools gold for streets of gold. We can trade in a temporal life that is but a vapor, the Bible tells me. Here today and gone tomorrow like the grass of the field. for eternity in the presence of God. What are you holding on to that won't burn up in the judgment of God? What are you clinging to that won't pass away when the Lord comes back? Because if it doesn't withstand the destruction of God, you'll go along right with it. Oh, but not for a moment. And the Bible tells me that there was a rich man, and he longed, for he thirsted, being tormented. Being in torments, the Bible said, in the flame. And he seeked to have one whose name was Lazarus to come and to dip his finger in just a little bit of water. I don't know about you, But that wouldn't even get me going. Have you ever been so thirsty that you think, well, I'm so thirsty I can spit cotton. And you thought, I'll just take a drink. And you get a glass, and there may be some sweat rolling down the outside of it. You put it to your lips, and you don't stop until it's empty. And you say more. Oh, I'm telling you. He said, oh, no, just a drop off of Lazarus' finger. Guess what, honey? Jesus Christ ascended to heaven over 2,000 years ago, and that rich man is still on that drop of water. I'm telling you, whatever in this life that you're holding on to, it ain't worth it. It ain't worth it. And it won't take you a day to figure that out. Because in hell, all men are believers in God Almighty. They see and they'll know, just like the rich man did. They'll hope that somebody will go. What did he say? He said, well, I might go warn me brothers. And he said, send Lazarus, that she might that he might warn my brothers." And Abraham said, oh no, even if one would return from the grave, who's he talking about? Well, he's talking about Jesus Christ. Or he could be talking about one whose name was Lazarus, who returned from the dead, amen? But you know what? If you read that account of that man was hoping, that rich man was hoping, if they seen that old beggar, A Lazarus that once sat there at my doorstep, if they'd seen him, well then they'd believe in God and they'd know in their self-righteousness they'd have said, Lazarus, my brother ain't in hell, he's in heaven. He did all that was right. He did all that was good. Look how the Lord blessed him. And they didn't believe him. But you know what? God did send one back from the grave whose name was Lazarus. And there's no account that people believed and feared and trembled. But the Bible says, though there was those that feared, there was those that seek to kill Jesus Christ from raising him from the grave. And they're still wanting to do it today. Yeah, if you serve the Lord, people's gonna hate you. And you'll be numbered with those that dismiss the things of God. Now listen, we ought to embrace that. Why? Because if our own body offends us, we are willing to remove that which is offensive to God and to His children in order that we might have restoration with Christ Jesus. Somebody said that my children are opinionated. Well, I would hope so. But you know what? I hope they're not offensive. Now, if somebody said that to say and to mean that they are very offensive, well, that's not good. And listen to me, children, and I speak to us all. We need to be very careful with one another's feelings, right? And we want to make sure that our opinions are not based on what Papa believes or what Papa says, but what the word of God says. That used to make me so mad. I worked with a fellow, Bob, and he was of a different denomination, and he taught Bible with me. And I said, well, my granddaddy, or my church, or my father, and he says, I know what they believe. He says, but what do you believe? And that angered me, because it's like, what do you mean, what do I believe? I'm a good son, I'm a good grandson. I believe what they believe. But he challenged me, and he said, Daryl, I know that's what they, believe but is that what the Bible says and that settles it all right and each and every one of us we have to read God's Word and then apply it to our life and to our heart and so long so how long will you halt between many opinions how long will you remain in the valley of decision life will pass you by and you don't have to move from right where you're standing but if you want to make it to heaven you're going to have to follow Jesus. And if you're going to want to grow in the Lord, you're going to have to follow Jesus today. Because if you follow, if you stand there, if you're waiting, if you're looking to gather some more evidence, this is the beauty of it. You follow Jesus Christ and you'll be following all over and tripping all over the evidence of God. And it won't be a stumbling block, though it will be. in times, but once you stumble over it, and you see where Christ Jesus and his word is true, it'll become a stepping stone. And that be the difference between those that believe and those that don't, right? The Lord said that what those that would have stumbled over, we that believe, it is stepping stones. Stepping stones where? Stepping stones on the way to heaven. I love each and every one of you. And I apologize that this message was full of opinions, but I hope every one of them was rooted and grounded in the word of God. Except the Kansas City part and the Eagles, that was all just to make a point. And we're everyone entitled to our wrong or right opinion. And it's God that decides, not the referees and not the and not the Catholic priest, not the Baptist preachers, not the Episcopal women preachers. Listen to me, God himself, and he loved us so much that you don't have to take my word for it, but we have his word, and every one of us. Has he called you out to go to the mountain and pray? Well, if he has, praise the Lord, and I hope of that in your obedience you might encourage others. Not because it's right or wrong, but because to get closer to God is to experience more grace. To get closer to God is to have power. To get closer to God is to love your brother as yourself and willing to lay down your life for him and willing to maybe even cut your hand off or your foot in order that you might not be offended or that you might offend another. Let's get some song to sing. Who is my brother? He's asking the wrong question, wasn't he? When old Kane said, am I my brother's keeper? He was diverting because he just killed his brother. It wasn't a matter of whether he should have been watching him or not. It's a matter that he killed him. And then when the Lord said that we are to love our neighbor, and what did the man say? Who is my neighbor? Once again, diverting. Why? Because we want to do what we want to do, including killing even our own flesh and blood. That's how broken mankind is without Jesus. But he has made a way that we don't have to live in our iniquity, but that we can be restored to Christ Jesus. That we can be as filthy and unclean and damned to hell as these lepers were, only to come in contact with Jesus. And when we obey him, we discover that he was much more, right? Much more than a Jew, but that he was a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Go ahead. And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, Turn it over to daddy. Anyone got a word, anything on your heart?