The Strength to Say No

No! No! No! No! I heard it when I was a child. Didn't like it. Didn't like to hear no. Usually, my parents, no, were followed by a simple name. Or sometimes even worse, as I got older. So, no is something that we sometimes do not add to our vocabulary unless we have to.

But the title of the sermon today is, Strength to Say No. Strength to Say No. Many years ago, decades ago, the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, came out with a policy, a program, called Just Say No to Drugs. Well, as we can look 30-40 years later, guess what? It didn't work. Not enough people say no to drugs. We have terrible epidemic. Now, as I was reading so many pastors in the South Florida area have come together to say that flakka is epidemic. And they are dealing with it. I have yet to deal with it in my area, but many ministers here have in this South Florida area. In case you don't know what flakka, I won't take the time to explain, but it is a terrible, terrible drug that is being brought into this country and used by so many young people and even older people that literally can...it makes LSD look like it's something that you just play with. So, it's very mind-altering and caused many deaths already, but it's so cheap. It is dirt cheap. You can buy even some of it for as little as $5, and it will literally alter your mind. So, that policy really didn't work because it's always easier said than done to say no, to come up with solutions. A lot of the problems are harder than just saying no. It's very involved. But, in many cases, no is the right answer. But a lot of people do not have the strength to say no.

I bring up a very good friend of mine, so I don't know whether this will be taped because he's in the church. I won't mention his name. But we grew up playing ball together, and he eventually came into the church. But I remember in high school, he wanted to go out with his girl really badly.

And so, he asked, and he answered, and finally she accepted. So, he went out, and he was a good athlete. He was a very good student. He was almost straight A's. And it was interesting because I noticed something changed because the next day after his date, he came over to my house. We were sitting there talking. He was 17, junior in high school. And he goes back, and he said, well, how did the date go? He said, well, it's okay.

And I said, well, you don't seem too enthused. You were all enthused. Two days ago, I was like, ah!

I said, what happened? And he said, well, I didn't realize that she liked to smoke pot.

And he didn't ever smoke. You know, most athletes don't.

Never thought about it. But he, that day, said he regretted it because she was smoking pot. And she said, oh, come on. Be cool. So that was the first time he ever smoked marijuana.

The last time he ever smoked marijuana, he went out four or five times after that with her. And he said no, every time. And the last few times, he said, no, I don't want you to do it. You're not going to smoke in my car. And it eventually ended where he just didn't find her interesting anymore. At all, it wasn't attracted to her. But he always said, you know, I regret that I have to, if my kid's ever asked me, well, wait a minute, Dad. Do you smell dope? And I have to say yes. And then when I should have said no. No.

Yeah, it's easy for me to say no about a lot of things.

Brussels sprouts. Absolutely no. No, no, no. Right?

Free opera tickets. No. No, thank you. Not interested in going to the opera.

Run a marathon. Nope. Can't. These niggies won't take it.

And it'd have to, every mile would have to be located near a hospital.

And then I thought about a hot dog eating contest I saw on TV.

No way. No.

Now, those are easy for me to say no. And you have the same thing in your lives, don't you? There are certain things it's easy to say no. No problem.

But then there are those other things that's not as easy to say no to. We all have our weak points, don't we?

Our weak areas. Our most vulnerable times. When it's hard to say no. No. When we need the strength to say no, we don't always have it.

We all have our water loose.

Intestinal fortitude is an inner strength that is. And will be required of us if we are to successfully arrive in God's kingdom. The same kingdom you just spent eight days picturing.

Some big no's are in our future.

Do we realize that? Can we prophesy or see into the future that things are coming our way?

Or would we prefer to stay blind? Or would we prefer to go, I don't know, I'll handle it when I get there.

Some big temptations are headed my way. Some big temptations are headed your way.

Well, how do you know that? I know it because Satan is alive and well, and living in South Florida.

He certainly is.

He covers a big area, Namath. Yes. Yes. And the one thing that we do know from Scripture, he's seeking to devour you, as the Scriptures say. The strength to say no. Do you have it? Do you want it? I want to look at real-life examples of the no, of the lack of no answers in Scripture. We won't go to all of them. I'll add just a few that I want to talk about. But I want you to think how being able to say no would have changed people's lives and possibly their destiny. And it can also change your destiny, your life as you know it. It's how big it is sometimes to be able to say the word no.

Go to the Bible and we see the story of Samson. All of you know Samson. Imagine how his life would have changed. He probably wouldn't have had his eyes put out by a hot branding iron, as they typically did there, as they were holding him. And so all he saw was this red hot coal coming towards his eyes as they burnt one and then burnt the other one out to where after that he only saw black.

And then he spent, I think, about two years, maybe even two and a half years, pushing this grinding wheel behind horses or cattle and just walking. Minute after minute, day after day, month after month. He had a lot of time to think. And I wonder, in that darkness that was his mind and at that time in his eyes, if he ever wondered, why didn't I say no?

Because we do know that there is an amazing form of repentance, obviously, at his last few years, because he happens to end up in the faith chapter of chapter 11. He was a judge by age 30 and judged over Israel, the tribes, for 20 years. But yet, he was a judge, but he couldn't say no in his own personal life, could he? You know the story. Between his women problems, his temper problems, and his strength problems.

Big lesson about saying no would have changed. Was God using him? Yes. Could he use him in a different way? Absolutely.

Go back, if you had the power and look how he could have changed. So many things in his life and how God could have still used him to an even greater extent. You think about Judas Iscariot.

Men came to him and said, we have this money. If you'll just betray him, he could have said no.

I wonder if that no was one of the last thoughts in his mind, as he hung himself from the guilt in that potter's field.

Think about Esau. Think about that. There's a lot of people. As lives, destiny could have been changed. Think of Esau, crawling up to his brother, hungry, desperate, weak. His brother said, yes, I'll give you something to eat. In exchange for your birthright. Here was a time Esau could have said, no. I guess you'll have to let your brother die.

I think we all know Jacob, in reality, was not going to watch his brother die.

But Esau... Sure, okay. What good is it going to do me? I'm going to die anyway.

Take Adam.

He could have said no. When his wife said, oh, wait a minute. Oh, take a bite of this. I did. Look at me. I didn't die.

Historians believe it was a pomegranate. Other people said it was an apple. That's why men have Adam's apple. I don't know where that came from. That's what they say. Yes. And then you go all the way back to the story in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, of Lucifer. And it said, at one point, iniquity was found in him. Somewhere along the line, after millions of years, he did not say, no, I'm not going to let this happen.

One of the best examples involves people in King David's life. I don't want to look at it in the time we have this morning. Because it's easy because Christ said, let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Great words for all of us. So we're not kind of like, well, you're a no, no, yeah, yeah.

Because that's where a lot of us go sometimes. Especially in the difficult parts. Yes. No. What did Christ say about the rest? Anything else is of... Yes.

That's where we get into trouble a lot of times. Well, here we have the story of David. David should have said no. Many times. But the people in David's life should have said no. And I want to look at that because we can learn lessons. That's what we're here for. You know, my father, when he was alive, he would tell me these stories of growing up. He would tell me of the problems when I got older. He would tell me all this stuff and say, I tell you this so you do not have to make the same mistakes. And the Bible is full of those. So we can learn from other people's mistakes and say, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to make that mistake. Because here David was a big shot, wasn't he? I mean, at the time, David made some of his worst mistakes. He was around 50 years of age.

He had a reputation. He had wealth. He had prestige. He was a good-looking guy. He was the Brad Pitt of his day.

He was a composer. Great musician.

He was everything anybody could want to be. Except he had a problem when he did not say, no. No. So no matter who you are, and I doubt you have, as I do not have and haven't met anyone walking on this earth in God's church today that has David's total baggage. Sorry. Haven't met anyone. So we can learn from this incredible giant of the Scriptures from things that he went through. He just needed more knows. I could turn back, if you will, with me to 2 Samuel 11. As we will jump in the story, because most of you know it. I'd just like to bring out a few other points so that we can be reinforced in how important it is to say, no. 2 Samuel 11. I'll read from the New King James Version. Now, it came time to pass in the spring of the year, at the time when the kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all of Israel. And they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabah. But David remained at Jerusalem. Why?

Why?

He had a chance to go out, as the kings did. He was so powerful at that time. He did not have to go and fight hand to hand.

But he stayed behind. Because you have to look by this time, they had conquered a lot of the lands. They conquered a lot of the people. There were some different villages and cities that they were now to take on. It was spring time of the year because basically people in that era did not fight in the wintertime.

There wasn't a lot of cover. So they basically waited until spring.

And so here David had the whole winter over there, the feast. Basically they stopped fighting about this time of the year. And they would hold up until spring. And then they trained their soldiers. They sharpened their weapons. They made more and then they would go out in the springtime when the weather was better.

So David had all this time to rest, relax.

But then when it was time to go, he decided, no, I'll stay behind. And too many times, idleness opens the door to temptation.

David was complacent.

Now let's go to verse 2. He said, then it happened one evening. In fact, it was just about dusk, so it wasn't dark because basically he couldn't have seen anything dark because they don't have lights like we had there.

But then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. Basically he had taken that afternoon nap when it was the heat of the day. And so then he got up.

And David arose from his bed and he walked on the roof of his house, which basically his house would have been higher and bigger than any of the other houses that were there.

And from the roof, he saw a woman bathing.

This was the time to say, no.

Any of you men that are around realize your visual. You see from billboards, you see on TV ads, you see on the computer, it pops up all the time. You either see naked women are what? Or what? Partially naked women. It's just... it sells. Advertisers know it sells.

Good point to us. It's time to say no. Otherwise we get drug in down this road. A famous no was Joseph. Remember?

He said no. Changed his life forever. In a good way. So here was David. And from the roof, he saw a woman bathing, which would have been his chance to turn, but he didn't. And the woman was very beautiful to behold. So I wasn't like, oh well, that's... no, she was like...

And he looked, and he looked, and he looked. It's obviously what the Scriptures are saying. So David sent and inquired about the woman. It didn't stop. He just started. Because there was no no there, there was not a no here, where he goes, uh... servants. Who's that?

It was a time for the servant to go, not your wife, or not even your thirteen concubines.

By this time, David had at least four wives, possibly five. Now satisfied.

So David sent and inquired about the woman, and someone said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So here, someone, his servant, high up enough to talk to David, said, it's somebody's wife.

And not only somebody's wife, it is the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Do you think David knew Uriah the Hittite? I think it's 2 Samuel 23-24 in one of those chapters. It actually lists David's mighty men. And there were actually, I read a book many years ago called David's Mighty Men, and it listed thirty. There's actually thirty-seven listed, so whether someone was killed and taken away and others added, I don't know. But it was basically known that he had thirty men. That when he went to battle, those were his own personal guards. And they fought around him so that if all else failed, they would die protecting the king, even though David was a mighty warrior. And so, the way it was laid out in the city, according to historians, David's house was here, and the thirty men, these mighty men, and you'll see what they did, one actually killed eight hundred men in one single day.

Fought lions with their bare hands. I mean, these were just, it makes an incredible study, sometime where you see these thirty men that were not just Israelites. They were guys that were hired from all parts of the world, because they were the elite of the elite. They were the SEAL Team Seven. You can have that of that day. They were there for one reason. They were there as skilled. They were fight, and they were to protect their king. And so, in case the city ever collapsed, and the nation came over, those thirty men's houses were stationed near him. So, they could actually, their last defense, fall back and protect their king.

This was one of the thirty best men in all of Israel. One of, if not the most dedicated men of all of David's army. Dedicated to him.

And David did not say no. Verse 4, Then David sent his messengers and took her, or brought her to him. And she came to him, and he lay with her. For she was cleansed from her impurity. And she returned to her house. Historians believe that she was actually bathing on top of the house, because it was the end of her menstrual cycle. And so, she was cleansing herself, or cleaning herself. Which also, she knew, which would have been great to tell David, that only you women know, most of you fathers know, that the most fertile time in a woman's time is just after her period. So, this woman was very capable of giving birth to a child. It would have been a great time to say no.

But it says that she came to him, and he laid with her. Lay with her.

By this time, the snowball was headed down the hill for David. By this time, the gloves were off. He was just going to do no wasn't in his vocabulary at that time. But it sure could have been for Bathsheba. Now, I definitely, as some critics, have actually blamed her as much as him, which that's absolutely ridiculous. Because David actually had his guidance, because David actually had his God's Holy Spirit. She didn't. That we know of. It was his job to say no, he didn't. But imagine if Bathsheba had said no. What would have happened? Well, it would have saved multiple lives, I was told. It would have saved her husband's life. It would have saved her baby's life, because a life required a life at that time.

And it would have saved her shame that she would have carried.

She didn't say no. She didn't have the strength to say no. Was she a neglected housewife? Reading the story pretty well sounds that way.

She had needs that weren't being met. Sounds that way. But she had the strength to say no. I actually read a commentary, it was actually last night when I got in, that actually was false commentary, big time, because it actually said she had no choice, because the king had told her, wanted her that she had no choice, but to lay with him. Absolutely ridiculous. No, because there were laws. I mean, adultery found out at that time they would have been stoned.

And verse 4, it said, and she returned to her house. Verse 5, and a woman conceived, so she said and told David, and said, I am with child.

Here goes the snowball, picking up speed. What does David say? No. This has got to stop. He did not have the strength to say no. And the story continues. And you know there, I won't read it, because we will move on down from here, but you come down to chapter 11, most of you know the story, hopefully. Chapter 11 and verse 14. As David connived to try to get Uriah back, to come in to sleep with his wife, so that hopefully this would pass, and he could go, whoosh, dodge the bullet.

But it didn't work, because this man was so dedicated to his king and his bosses, that he said, no, how could I do that with men fighting at the battle? And so then David brought him in and said, well, you know, let me get him drunk. Another sin. Maybe then he'll go do that. No! He couldn't even do it when he was drunk. He was not going to go over there. And obviously, she was a beautiful woman. This was, this told the story of a man who was more dedicated to David than David was to God, because he was going to defend his king, and he worked for his king.

So it teaches us a story that, guess what? We can too have lapses of good judgment. We can have times when we should say no. But there are times when we do not have the strength to say no. And that's the purpose of the sermon. We must realize that we do not have the strength to say no.

We must realize that the enemy knows our weaknesses, and he's going to tackle them. Chapter 11, verse 14. Then in the morning it was so that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. How warped had David become? He was actually going to send the death warrant of this man and put it in Uriah's hand and say, Deliver this to the general.

And in the letter it said, Make sure you send all the men in this party forward till Uriah's right at the top, and then pull the men back and let him be killed. And from where Rabah is, from where the city of Jerusalem, it took a little time for Uriah to get there.

And you obviously know that not one time did Uriah open the letter, which I'm sure it was sealed with the crest. Sure it was sealed with the paraffin. But David knew he was so dedicated. You know, as I thought about this morning when I woke up, I was thinking of this sermon.

And I was just thinking about the Great White Throne Judgment and the sermon of the last, you know, on the eighth day. And I was thinking about all those people as I gave a message, and many of you heard that message, of all those people who will be resurrected, that you will be working with, that perhaps you know your family and so forth. What about David? Can you imagine any man other than David who will be working with Uriah?

Wow! Not something I would look forward to. Now, wrote a letter to Joe Ebb and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter saying, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die. So it happened while Joe Ebb besieged the city that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. When the men of the city came out and fought with Joe Ebb, and some of the people of the servants of David fell, and Uriah the Hittite died also.

And you can see from the story that it was actually, Joe Ebb had to turn this around and it didn't actually be able to pull them back. But you can read the rest of the story. I won't go through it. But basically it tells that the people came out and they ran back to the city wall. And Joe Ebb, where you had protection of the archers, you had protection of people, because actually at that time they would stand there.

If somebody got too close, they would actually throw rocks down. But many times it was just the people with arrows. So you didn't get very close. When they retreated, you stayed back. When they went back into the wall, you stayed back. Now, Joe Ebb said, go. Go all the way up to the wall. Chase them all the way into the city. So what happened? Sitting ducks.

And did you see that? And some of the people of the servant of David fell. So here we have not only Uriah the Hittite, you have some men. More than two could have been 10 or 12, because someone did not say no. David didn't say no. Bathsheba didn't say no. And now, Joab did not say no. He received this letter. Why didn't he say, this is top 30 men. This is the most valuable man on my team. Are you crazy, David? He didn't do that, did he? It is so good to have dirt on your boss. It's so good to have an upper hand on the most powerful man in all the kingdom, and one of the richest.

It's good job security that nobody's going to replace me. Joab did not have the strength to say no. Joab and David were both men of war. Lives, they get killed. Lives just disappear. Lives are left on the battlefield. It's part of the job. But not these men. These men died fighting for Joab and for David and for Bathsheba. And actually, when David, you can read on down there, when this is sent back, Joab has to cover his tail and say, well, this is the reason I did this.

And if you look at the state of mind of David, he actually said, when these men were killed because of his order, because of him not saying no, he actually said, ah, Joab be encouraged. So be it. That's not so bad. Can you imagine? You see where the state comes in to where it just consumes you. Because Satan gets a hold and he's not going to let go. If you're not going to say no, he's going to take this as far as he can take it. And that's each and every one of us. Not just David. He's going to use everything he can to destroy us. Multiple lives. Like you turn back to Luke 9, if you will.

Even though it said David was a man after God's own heart, he did. He was a very repentant man. He's a bigger repenter than he was a sinner. And he did turn. He did change and so forth. And that's a good story for all of us. But I want you to see how Jesus Christ handled this. Because it's a story of the Samaritan village that rejects Jesus Christ going through. Many of you know this.

I've brought this up many times here. And in verse 51, Now it came to pass when the time had come for him, Jesus Christ, to be received up. That he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. He's winding down. He's in the last six months a year of his ministry. And he is headed back to Jerusalem. So basically it's the last six months since we've talked about the feast.

And so by this time he'd already done three years worth of miracles. Everybody knew who this guy was. Everybody was like, oh yes, man. He's a miracle worker. Oh, look at that. Have you heard? He walked on water. Have you heard what he did to bread and fishes? And ah! He was big. And I'm sure what also happened was, did you see those twelve guys with him? Heard they walked by and heard they cast out demons. Heard they healed.

Wow! They must be big too. Viewer's 52. And so he sent messengers before his face, and as they went they entered a village of the Samaritans. You remember the lowlife Samaritans that typically everybody looked down on. Okay? The scourge of society. So Christ had been there before in Samaritan village. He had healed before. Remember John 4 where the Samaritan woman, you know, and she gave him water. And he said, let me give you water. You'll never thirst again. And then her whole village came out and she said, he taught me.

He told me about everything I'd ever done. And then he performed great miracles in that Samaritan village. So here they're going up to Jerusalem, but they're going through the Samaritan village. Now most good Jews would go around the village because they didn't want anything to do with these stinking Samaritans. Okay? But they said, no, Christ is unclear.

But go ahead in front of and tell them we're coming. But they did not receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. It means he was just going to stop by. He wasn't going to stay. And they said, uh-uh, we want you to stay. They had a lot for him to do.

And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did?

Look at these! These low lives are not...they don't even respect you.

They think you're just plain Jewish trash. How dare they do that?

Let us call fire now. We'll wipe this whole thing out. Boom! It's done.

But Jesus Christ said, no. No. Absolutely no.

Why? Because the disciples were humiliated. They were humiliated for Christ. Christ wasn't humiliated. It didn't bother him.

But pride got in the way. And these two disciples, two of his main disciples at the time, had to be told, no. And it's written in this Bible for us to learn there are times when we need to tell our brothers and our sisters, no.

There are harder no's for all of us. Bigger no's in the future.

Let's just go through just a few as we wrap this up today.

How about one more drink? Do you have this drink to say no?

How many people wish they had said no to that? One more drink? One for the road. Can you say no?

How about another tax deduction? Wow. Another deduction on your tax return because you pay too much anyway. And there are thieves anyway. These IRS people?

Can you say no?

Just a little white lie. Maybe to the boss. Maybe to your mate. They'll be better off if they don't hear the truth.

Is it in your mind to say no? I'm going to tell the truth.

How many marriages have been ruined? Because one or both did not tell the truth. Did not have the strength to say no.

Wait a minute. God? There's only an hour left of the Sabbath anyway.

Once again, an hour. Why don't I just go?

I remember I was 19. No. I was 19. 19 or 20. And like my friend, I got this date with this girl in the church. And I thought, oh man, this was our first date. It was going to be great. We're going to go to services and then afterwards, because I had to drive 50 miles into where she was at. I'd been thinking about this date for a while. So after services, we were going to see this movie. That's what we did back then. We'd go to a movie and then we would go out to eat afterwards and so forth. And so I went over to her father's house. I changed clothes. She changed clothes. I went there and then we started wanting to see this movie. I don't even remember the movie now. I can't even remember what boat, boy, it was important at the time. It was amazing because the movie, the second movie didn't start and the sun wasn't set yet. And she and I both knew. And she looked over me and she goes, well, the sun's at its only 30 minutes anyway. You know, we're only... the movie's two hours long.

Hey, we should just go to that movie.

Here was my chance to say, no, let's go get something to eat. Let's see the 9 o'clock movie. But I looked at those blue eyes. I did not have the strength to say no. And we went into the movie. And it bothered me, the entire movie. And now I think about it, 40 years later, 30-something years later, I don't even know the movie, but I remember what I did. Because it was against my conscience and I did not have the strength to say no. Isn't that crazy? That that will stick with you when you're trying to do what's right.

Bigger no's in the future like no.

Spending more time on social media than with God on the Sabbath. Happens, doesn't it? Well, let me see what the church is... Oh, yeah, and look what's happening here. And three hours later, it's, oh, Sabbath's over.

And the Word of God is sitting over here. Strength to say no.

The truth is a truth is a truth. If it's not, it's a lie. We must say no to a lie. It's all part of it. Strength to tell the truth.

You know, it's easier to lie. It is easier for most people to lie than to tell the truth. Because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Or what is a politically correct thing to say? Or, they don't really need to know. Nobody needs to know what I did or what I said.

It all comes back to the strength. Strength to say no. Strength to live this way of life. You know, a man once said it's as wrong to sing a lie as it is to tell a lie. He's talking about Christmas songs. Oh, aren't they beautiful? And they are! Some of them are just so beautiful you'll catch yourself!

Or, are there somebody going up to heaven? And they're going to be living in heaven, and they're looking down on us now, and they have these songs. And then we really can't live like the world.

Because if you live like the world, it's going to be hard to say no. It's just the way it is. And all of you know it. I'm not telling you anything you haven't experienced or will experience. Crossville, Tennessee. Up in the hills of Tennessee. 30 plus years ago. There was a minister. I won't put his name out here. I don't know whatever happened to him. He's no longer a minister.

But 30 plus years ago, the church of God's time played a lot of basketball. And it was very sports-oriented, and I loved it. And I loved playing ball. And so they actually had a seminar on a weekend, on a Sunday, that we would drive up there, and then they were going to talk about basketball. And this minister, I was 20, 21, I was coaching basketball at that time, playing very little with coaching. But this minister got up in front of 100 people, and plus other ministers.

There must have been 10 ministers. And he made this statement that he said, as he was relating the lessons and how we were to conduct ourselves playing basketball. And he actually said that a foul is a sin.

And no one said, no. No. No one said, no. A foul is a sin. Sin is a transgression of God's law. A foul is a rule from a stupid game. Right? I even knew that. It's just a ballgame. And I sat there that day, and as a matter of fact, got home that night, a pastor called and talked to me, and I said, why didn't anybody say anything? How can you even compare a game to the power of God's Ten Commandments?

It's not even close. It shouldn't even be in the same arena. Because God's law is holy. Basketball. It was asinine. It lost its way. It tried to merge the physical with the spiritual. I look back now, shake my head, and I did not stand up. Say, no. I know someone who would have if they'd have lived at the time, but they didn't. I'd like you to turn there as we wrap this up today in Acts 17. Acts 17. And here we see that Paul is run out of Thessalonica, and so they send him on down to Berea. And in Acts 17 and verse 10, said, Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.

When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded or noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. They would have said, wow! Are we Bereans today? Are we that way? Do we study the Scriptures to be able to say, no? Do we study the Scriptures daily to point us towards the Kingdom of God? Are we like these newly converted brethren in Berea that said, I'm going to live by the words of the Scriptures?

And they just had the Old Testament, or what would have been the Septuagint at that time. And yet they lived by it. Great lesson for us. They wouldn't have had a problem saying, no. That's not right. That's not what the Scriptures say. I've been corrected by many people. I have a list down here.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 that I know of corrected me because of something I said in the 20 years I've been given sermons. Matter of fact, I have another 1, 2, 3, 4 people in this congregation who have brought something to me and said, well, I'm not sure when you've said that. And they made me go, look, they made me dig deeper because it's something I'd researched many years ago. That's being a Berean.

That's what we need to be doing. It's these Scriptures that for something I say, I said that from the very beginning. You don't just let it go. You help me if you can prove it's from Scripture. And some people bring other stuff out from the world that I really don't care about.

But that's what we're here. Before I last Scripture, I want you to consider the book of James. Why don't you consider the book of James? Because it is a tale of the tongue. It's a lot of tongue. It's almost in every chapter about the tongue. And that tongue is what gets us in trouble, isn't it? It's a tongue that does not allow us to say, no. It's the tongue that sometimes allows us to say yes when we shouldn't say it. The tongue is very powerful. But if we learn, if we learn both the good and the bad about the tongue, and being able to do this, it'll work out.

It'll become easier and easier to say no and to tell the truth. Because it becomes habit for me. Haven't you known people who just lie? They just lie and lie and lie. And it becomes easier that they even lie about stuff they didn't even have to lie about, but they felt good about lying about it. Right? We all know those. We must be people of integrity. Integrity. So you don't have to back up and go, what did I say? We see all these people running for political office. And they have to backtrack because some of that, wait a minute, yeah, I did say that then.

I did do that then. And very few of them go, well, no. That's what I said and that's what I mean, even if it's not politically expedient. Right? We have to be that way. Are we? Are we willing to do that? It's very, very important. Interesting about four years ago, three years ago, here in this congregation. I had someone that actually went to my boss and my boss's boss because of a message that I gave here.

And it was on the book of James. I actually gave a four-part series here, four or five parts. Many of you, some of you might remember that four years ago when I came here. And I was then contacted by my bosses that said, the sermon that you gave, I said, yes, I remember it. Oh, yes. They said, you plagiarized that sermon. I didn't have to think about it. I didn't have to say, no.

But I could say, no. I didn't. No. Well, this person who sent this in actually found a sermon given two years ago, three years ago, on the Internet, with your very same title. And most of the points were the very same points you made, which I could have gone if I'd have done it. But I knew because I actually said, well, I came up with this on my own because I studied the book of James. The only thing was, I wrote the sermon ten years before. Up in my room in Tennessee, I knew exactly where I was.

I spent about a month in the book of James, and I wrote this. And I wrote the Ten Commandments of James. And it just hit me as I was reading chapter 4, and then I go to verse 7, and I said, wow, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you, resist the devil, and He will flee from me. I was going, wow, James just laid these out.

It's easy to see ten commandments there. Ten commandments of James. And so they asked this question. I said, no, absolutely not. And so then the boss above my boss called me and said, okay, how do we handle this? Because I went on the Internet, and the notes are just like yours.

He said, you know, what would you say to it? I said, well, I gave that sermon ten years ago, and it was on the Internet then. I think the guy stole my sermon.

And he said, no, Chuck, this is serious. And I said, I am deadly serious. Learned a long time ago, it's easier to say yes or no, but I don't have to say anything except the truth. And I said, so I went and looked up the sermon. Half of it wasn't even near mine. But you see how important it is? Because I knew what I said was right. What you're doing is right. So whether, if it's right, if you're right, and you stick with God's Word, stand by it. Be a person of integrity. Even when it's easier to lie or to say yes instead of no. This is what we're here for. When yes is not an option, I'd like to turn to a friend from Jamaica there that I met earlier, because he talked about Asaph. He's an incredible poet, Asaph. And he mentioned to me this verse from Psalm 72. I'd like to close with that verse if you will join me. And I'll read it from the New Living Translation, because it's very powerful. Psalm 73 verse 26. 73 verse 26 from the New Living Translation. Asaph said, My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart. God is our strength. And then he says, He is mine forever. You can have strength forever. The strength to say no. The strength to tell the truth and to have integrity. Because this scripture says, yes. God remains the strength. Brethren, God is the source for the strength to say no.