A Matter of Life and Death — Jesus Is the Way

Welcome to the Southwest Apostolic Church podcast.

This podcast is brought to you by the Southwest Apostolic Church,

located at 3161 South Rowena Street in Indianapolis, Indiana, 46241.

The podcast will feature preaching

from our pastor and from other ministers, so we hope you enjoy it.

Without further ado, let's get right into it. God bless.

Regardless of whatever's going on, he's good. He is good. Praise the Lord.

Well, I probably won't keep you long tonight, but have a little something I feel inspired on.

And we're going to read from John 14.

John 14. And again, we are glad Sister Matthew's out in the house tonight.

We're glad everybody's here tonight. Glad to see you tonight.

Amen. Amen. Amen. John 14 and 6.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

And I'd like to talk just a little bit about it's a matter of life and death.

Would you pray with me one more time? We love you, Jesus. Thank you for your word, oh God.

We need you, God, tonight. We need you, Jesus.

Have your way, oh God. Have your way, oh God. Help us tonight.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Amen.

You may be seated. Praise God. It's a matter of life and death.

The burden of my heart tonight is, if people knew, you know, that's the options.

In our spiritual life, you're either, it's a matter of life or death. It's just that simple.

They told me that one preacher went to a meeting when he just got out of the

army and went to an evangelistic revival, and the preacher preached about two roads.

Everybody's on one of them. You're either on the Broadway that leads to destruction

or you're either on the road that leads to life eternal.

And they said that the preacher, he became a pastor later on,

but he came home from the army, and he decided that he was going to get,

And the preacher said, the good thing about it, you can always change roads.

Aren't you glad you can change roads tonight?

And the man made up his mind, and he said, I'm changing roads.

I'm changing lanes tonight, praise the Lord.

I'm changing lanes, and I'm changing the road that I'm on. And he got on the

road, and he lived for Jesus until the day he died.

Amen. That's the way I want to be, don't you? I want to be on the right road.

There is a way that seemeth right to a man, the Bible says. There is a way that

seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

And death is as much as reality as life is. You know that?

And I was listening to Sister Matthews sent us a message by Brother Raymond

Woodard, and Sister Young had it on this morning.

And he was preaching, and he said, if you—let's see, how was it?

He said, if you die, what did he say? You remember that, Ruthie? Huh?

Nope. Sorry. No help out there. Praise the Lord.

Something about if you live once, you'll die twice, or if you live twice,

you'll die once. That's what it was.

If you're born in the world and you're born into sin, you're gonna die twice.

If you just live once, you're gonna die twice. You'll die, they'll have your

funeral, but there is a second death.

But if you die twice, if you die, yeah, there you go. You got it.

You wanna preach for a while?

Oh, yeah. Give it to somebody you can handle it. Praise the Lord.

But if you live twice, you die once.

And he was talking about being born again. And I'm glad one day the Lord got

a hold of me and changed my life. That's all I know. Amen.

Amen. But there is a thing called death, and we don't talk about it a lot, but it is real.

And there is something the Bible talks about called the second death.

And that's one I don't want no part of.

I don't want no part of that second death. The Bible talks about that.

He talks about those whose name were not found written in the book of life,

and they were cast into the lake, you know, as burners of fire and brimstone,

which is the second death.

I'll tell you what, I don't want nothing to do with that second death.

I want wherever the life is, that's where I want to be.

Amen. Whatever gives me life, that's what I want. Amen. I don't want nothing to do with death.

Man, I'd just as soon go into raptures, I would die anyway.

And you never know that could be the truth that could be tonight

we if that's another thing life and death is

a matter of you know we don't even know the timing of either one

you don't know when you're going to die and you don't know when you're

going to be alive we're talking about that today sister young we was talking

about that on the way home you know you could live to be real old and then die

and we talked about you know you get old and you know that you got less i said

yeah i got less days ahead of me than i do behind me anybody relate to that

tonight i got less days ahead of me than I do behind me.

But you know what? Death comes to young people too.

Amen. Life comes to people and death comes. And I'm here to tell you our spiritual

situation and living for God and whether we're saved or not and whether we're

not saved and whether we go to church or not and whatever we do,

I'm here to tell you tonight it's a matter of life and death.

I said, it's a matter of life and death. It's not something to,

you know, and people, and I'm going to give you my heart tonight. People take it lightly.

People don't think about dying. I was talking to a man at work.

I said, I was telling him I saw an uncle of mine in the obituaries.

And I told him I saw his name there. And he said, you read those?

And I said, well, yeah, I just happened to go through and see if I know anybody.

He said, I don't, he said, I want to stay away from them.

He don't even like to read the obituaries My dad told me, he said If I know

where I'm going to be when I die I'm going to stay as far away from that place as I can.

If I knew where I was going to be when I die, I'd stay as far away from that place as I can.

But death is just as much a reality as life is.

And whether we're saved or not is just as much a reality of us sitting right

here in this room tonight.

And whether we go to heaven or whether we go to hell, it's a reality that people need to think about.

And they need to realize living in life is a matter of life and death. Praise the Lord.

It's a matter of life and death. death and the thing about it is in our world,

I'm thinking, comes to my mind, we're living in a world we're living in,

our culture is a culture of death.

The culture around us and the music and the films and the media and the things

of this world, they're not promoting a life. They're not promoting life at all.

They're not promoting a culture of life.

Satan is promoting a culture of death. Amen. He's promoting broken families.

He's promoting messed up children.

He's promoting transgenderism. He's promoting lesbianism. He's promoting sin.

He's promoting the sports world.

He's promoting Hollywood. He's promoting all this stuff and it's just a matter

of life and death. And he's promoting death.

He's promoting things that lead to death. He's not

promoting anything that leads to life the devil

promotes cool cools and marbles he promotes marijuana he promotes heroin and

he promotes all this stuff in the world that it doesn't lead to life but i'm

glad tonight somewhere in the world there's a place like this little place right

here where somebody's saying hey we're not promoting it.

It's a matter of life and death, but we're not interested in anybody dying.

We want to see everybody live. Amen.

We want to see people living. We want to see them enjoying life.

We want to see them on their way to heaven.

We want to see them doing good. Praise the Lord.

We want them to see them doing the best they can.

And you see, the life is in Christ. You know, no man come to the Father but by me.

I am the life. and the thing about it is you either have Jesus or you don't.

You know, you're either saved or you're not. You're either really living for God or you're not.

You know what I mean? You're either born again or you're not.

You've either been baptized and repented and been baptized and got the Holy

Ghost and have a mind to live for God or you don't.

And I don't pretend to make judgments.

You know, I mean, I know if somebody's been baptized and I don't know whether

they haven't or whatever.

But what I'm saying is, even people that tell you they've been baptized and

tell you they got the Holy Ghost and tell you they're living for God,

if they tell me that, I believe them. I don't really know. But I want to tell

you, God knows the heart.

He knows who's really not. He knows who's in the church and who's not.

Let me tell you, he's got a church too.

I said he's got a church. He's got people that are wanting to live.

They want life. They don't want death. That's the kind of people I want to be around.

I want to be around people that enjoy living and they want to make it to heaven

and they want to and making it to heaven is your most foremost concern.

If it's not your foremost concern, it needs to be.

Whether you go to heaven or hell ought to be on the top of your list,

whether you make up your mind or not.

You ought to make up your mind. One thing I don't want to do is I don't want to go to hell.

I want to go to heaven because I'm here to tell you this material existence

that humanity finds itself in is a matter of life or death, praise the Lord.

It's a matter of either going to heaven or going to hell, and I don't want nobody

to go to hell, do you? I don't even like to say it.

I like my wife's attitude. She says, I don't like to say hell.

I just say the bad place because it is going to be a bad place.

People say, oh, I get to hell. I'm going to party with all my friends.

No, you ain't. You're not going to party.

When I get to heaven, when I see Jesus, when I stand before him,

I'm going to shake my fist and I'm going to hold a cancerous bone up to him

and say, why? No, you're not. Thank you.

No, you're not. If John the Revelator was a holy man, the apostle,

and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, he's dead. What do you think a sinner is going to do?

He's going to say, I wish the rocks would cry out. I wish the rocks would fall on me. Praise the Lord.

Hide me from the face of him that sitteth on the throne. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.

I'm starting to feel like preaching tonight. I don't know why, but this is serious.

This is serious business. I said, this is serious business.

What we're involved in here is not a play thing. What we're trying to do is not a play thing.

What we're trying to accomplish is not something that's to be taken lightly. Praise the Lord.

And I'm not talking about having a beautiful building, which we want to have one and we have one.

Somebody say, man, God's been good to us. We got a beautiful,

we got one that we got, we got a good looking church is anywhere around.

If you ask me, it looks, And it looks better in some of them. Praise the Lord.

It looks better in all these things that are all dark. Never mind.

Praise the Lord. Back where we were.

Praise the Lord. Where was I? I was talking about having a beautiful building,

but that's not what it's all about.

What it's all about is getting people on the road to eternal life.

Finding life. Praise the Lord. Finding out what real life is.

There's people that are living that don't know what real life is because they've

never tasted the power of God.

They've never had Jesus in their life. They've never had the real life. Praise the Lord.

Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more

abundantly. Aren't you glad for abundant life tonight?

I'm glad for the Holy Ghost. I'm glad for the spirit of God.

I'm glad that I'm alive tonight. I'm not dead.

I don't plan on being dead In Jesus, I want to be alive. Hallelujah.

Because I'm going to say it again. This is a matter of life or death.

You're either on your way to heaven or you're not.

And I don't like to say that, but you know, that's the truth.

In our world, you know, the world, they don't want to hear it either.

They don't want to hear anybody say anything about anything that goes against what they're doing.

You know, that's just, you know what that is? That's a culture of death.

You know, if you got somebody trying to tell you something good and they're

trying to lead you in the right way and you don't listen to them,

that's not a good, that's not going to lead you to life.

You know, when a teacher tries to tell you to do better, you need to listen to them.

Amen. When a teacher says, you know, you could try harder, Johnny.

Johnny, you could study a little bit. I need you to study. Don't get mad at them.

You know, I don't think nobody here's in school, but you get the point.

You know, when God, someone, somebody, when God tries to change you and tries

to help you, try to make you better, don't get mad at him.

He's trying to get you, he's trying to get you on the road to life.

Hallelujah. He wants you to have an abundant life.

He wants you to be the best you can be. He wants my grandchildren to be the best they can be.

Amen. He wants everybody to be, and he don't want nobody to be lost either.

He wants everybody to make it to heaven. It's not the will of God that any should perish.

He wants everybody to have life. He died on the cross that you and I might have

life eternal. Do you know that?

You know that's in the Bible. He come that we might have life and that more abundantly.

We can have a life in Jesus Christ.

I wanna have life in Him. I wanna make sure I'm in.

Going to stop us from it praise the lord i'm going to live i'm going to serve

him i'm going to live for him i'm going to follow that path of life for the

rest of my days hallelujah hallelujah,

hey man and i'm going to tell you you don't get on the road and jump on you know jump back and forth,

you know you're either on the highway of holiness or you're not you know that

you don't jump over on the broadway and run over there for a while and jump

back over here you got either one one or the other.

And let me say, if you're sincere and you're trying to figure out which one

to be on and you're jumping back and forth, just make sure you're on the right

one when the trumpet sounds.

Just make sure you're on the right road when that trumpet sounds. And that's the thing.

Stay on the right road because we don't know when that trumpet's going to sound.

We don't know when he's going to call our soul. We don't know when our numbers up, praise the Lord.

We don't know when our life will be over.

Serious thing. I said, it's a serious thing.

You know, I got the little thing here in the back of my Thompson chain,

and I wanted to talk about the fact that Jesus is the life. How many believe he is the life tonight?

He is the life. He is life for the dead.

Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me,

though he were dead, yet shall he live.

You see, death is something we don't want no part of, but it's not any problem for him.

He's overcome death. He's got the keys to death, hell, and the grave.

Doesn't bother him at all. And that's the guy I want to be with.

I want to be with the guy that's got the keys, don't you? Amen.

I want to be with the guy that's in charge. I want to be with the guy that's got the authority.

And I want to tell you, Jesus has the authority. All power in heaven and earth

is given unto me. Praise the Lord.

He is the way, for the, he is the way, the truth, and the life.

He, there is life for the dead. He is life everlasting. And by him,

death is, has been abolished.

I like that part. Don't you?

Amen. And he is the only source of life. He that, now listen to this.

He, this is what the Bible says. He that hath the son, hath life.

If you got him, you got him. Aren't you glad you got him tonight?

Aren't you glad you repented of your sins one night?

Aren't you glad you got baptized in Jesus' name one night?

God filled you with the Holy Ghost, and you know you got him.

We used to sing that old song, I've got it, I've got it.

I don't know about you, but I'm glad I've got it tonight. And I'm glad it's

got me, and I don't want to let go of it, and I don't want it to let go of me. Hallelujah.

I'm in this thing to go all the way. Amen. And nothing by the grace of God is

going to get me off that road to everlasting life.

Because this is a matter of time for death.

It's that simple. It's not a plaything.

Your soul is not a plaything. Living for God is not a plaything.

Whether you serve God or not is not a plaything.

Whether people come to church or not is not a plaything. Whether they do or not is not a plaything.

Whether they go and what they do, and I'm going to tell you something,

everything is serious. It's all a matter of life and death.

Let's raise our hands right now before I go any further. Say, God, give us life.

Move, Lord, with the spirit of life in this neighborhood. God,

give these young kids around here the opportunity.

God, help them, help them, help them, help us reach them, God.

We need to bring life into a dark world.

We need to bring life into a culture of death.

We need to bring life into this neighborhood. Amen.

I said we need to bring life in this neighborhood. We need a light to shine

in this neighborhood. Amen.

We need a light to shine in our nation.

Amen, amen, amen. man, there is a spiritual life. There is a spiritual death.

There is life, and there is death. Praise the Lord.

Life is only, behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth,

and mine age is as nothing before thee.

You know how much your life is? That's it. Right there. In the whole scheme

of things, that's your life right there.

Life is like a vapor, the Bible says. It comes, it appears for a little while,

and then it vanishes away.

And I want to tell you, the older you get, the faster it goes.

I said, the older you get, the faster it goes. And we're, of course,

my buddy Chris says we're heading, he says the reason it goes faster is because

we're gaining momentum at the end and we're heading towards the speed of light.

He has all kinds of theories, and I said, well, that makes sense,

but we're heading towards your gain in speed. We're gaining speed.

We're gaining speed. You see, it's like they're accelerating.

The future comes, and life and death is coming, and our destiny is coming.

It's coming down the road, and there's nothing we can do about it.

We're either on one road or we're on the other one. We either have a heart to

serve God or we don't, and we're just going, and somebody said life is like,

especially after you've had grief or trouble, life gets a hold of you and it just pulls you along.

Even if you don't want to go along, life pulls you and we're heading to one

thing or the other. We're heading to our destiny.

We're heading to our eternal life or eternal damnation.

We're going one way or the other. I'm here to preach tonight that it's a matter of life and death.

Praise God. It's time to live for God. It's time to be saved.

It's time to do right. it's time to live for God with all your heart.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. There is life, but it's like a flying shuttle. My days are swifter

than a weaver's shuttle.

And Job said they're spent without hope.

Amen. A lot of people going through life that don't have any,

Life is brief. Life is like a shadow. Life is like a flying shuttle.

Life is like a hurrying messenger.

Praise the Lord. It's only a hair and breadth width. Praise the Lord.

It's like a weaver's web. It's like a vanishing vapor. Praise God.

Amen. Life and life and death. We see death is coming.

Death is coming. Death is coming. It's coming to everybody.

We don't know when it's coming. We know it's coming though.

And we don't like to talk about it. I don't like talking about it.

I don't spend my time talking about dying.

I mean, I know I'm going to, and I understand that, but I want to tell you what,

you can, you can, you can get to a place where you're not worried about it.

You can get to a place where death doesn't bother you because you know,

you've done everything you can to live for God and you've obeyed the gospel

and you got saved and you've been living for God.

I don't think a saint ought to fear death. Do you? I think we ought to be ready to meet him.

Amen. I want to be ready to meet him. Praise the Lord. And I know I've done

everything I could. And let me say this. I know I took my salvation seriously.

I know for 43 years every day that I've lived since I got the Holy Ghost, I've thought about God.

I've thought about what's right, and I think about what's wrong,

and I think about life and death, and I think about heaven, and I think about

hell, and I don't want anybody to go to hell, and I don't want anybody to be

lost, but I'm here to tell you we ought to think about it.

We ought to think about it. We ought to think about it one day.

One day we're not going to be here, and we're going to have an eternal existence somewhere.

You just don't go to the grave and die. You just don't go in the ground and cease to exist.

There is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. Somebody help me out here tonight.

It's a matter of life and death.

I'm preaching a matter of life and death.

I said it's a matter of life and death. People don't realize that sin is death.

Sin leads to death. It leads to bad things. It leads to problems. It leads to sorrow.

Oh, Bishop Tyson used to say hell's still smoking and God ain't joking.

And that's the way it is. Hell's still smoking and God ain't joking.

It's not time to joke around with God. It's not time to play around with God.

It's time to say, Lord, I want life and I want life for me and mine.

And I want life for everybody around me. And I want to use me to bring life

around those that are around me.

Use me to spread life. Use me, Lord.

I don't want nothing to do with death, spiritual death.

I don't know what it means when he says weeping and wailing and gnashing of

teeth forever away from the presence of God.

Ever cast out of the presence of God. Darkness, gross darkness.

That's the second death. And men are going to face life or they're going to

face death. I got this on my heart tonight.

It just burdens me. Men, men, men and women need to think about their soul.

They need to think about eternal life. They need to think about the lake of fire.

They need to think about the things of God. Hallelujah.

Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,

hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

It's a matter of life or death. Whether you go to church or not,

it's a matter of life or death.

Whether you live for God or not, it's a matter of life or death.

Whether you serve God or not, it's a matter of life or death.

What you do in life is a matter of life or death.

Everything's a matter of life or death. It's not something to just play around with.

We live in this life in humanity. They get so far away from God that they deny the existence of God.

They don't want to deal with the fact that there's death and they don't know

what causes it. We know what causes it. The Bible, we have a theological answer.

We have the answer. Men die because they disobeyed God and sin entered into the world. That's why.

That's why there's death. I don't need a Ph.D. to tell you that.

All I need to do is read my Bible.

And men get so far away from God, they don't even believe the Bible.

They don't think a thing. Oh, you don't tell me you're going to bring the Bible

into this. Yes, I'm going to bring the Bible into this.

Yes, I'm going to preach out of the Bible, because that is the book that tells

me about life, and it tells me about death, and it tells me where people are

going to go that don't obey God, and they don't care about God,

and they don't love God, and they don't care about doing right,

and they don't care about serving God.

Somebody said, you're making your own bed.

Man, this sounds hard, don't it? I'm not trying to be hard. I'm preaching my

heart tonight. I want to see people live for God, don't you?

I want to see people get saved. I want to see people come to church consistently.

I want to see people come in and live for God, join the church,

not just join the church, but be born into the church and serve God.

Life. Praise God. You see, when people don't realize, when they have potential

and they don't let God use them, they're not promoting life.

When they have potential to be used by God, but they don't give themselves over

to God, they are hindering the work of God.

They are actually, you see, you're not promoting life. You're promoting death.

If you're holding back, The Bible talks about they that hold the truth in ungodliness.

Translation says they're holding it down.

They're holding down truth. They're holding down righteousness.

They're holding down light. They're keeping the light from shining.

I'm here to tell you, we need to let the light shine.

Amen. We need to come to church. We need to shout. We need to sing.

We need to worship God. We need to let the light shine and let people know we're

alive in Jesus. Hallelujah.

We are alive. Praise God.

Don't want death. I want things that bring life.

Don't you want things that bring life? When I look out into the world and I

see what men follow or what people follow after and what they do,

it's a road to nowhere in life. It's not bringing life.

Spending their money all on lottery tickets, like I said this morning.

Spending all their money on this.

What did you say Marlboros were, Ruthie?

$137 for a pack, a carton of Marlboros today.

And men go through life and they spend $137 on a carton of Marlboros. But you know what?

If Jesus hadn't given me life, I'd have been right there with them.

You know, I'd have been right there with them. I'm not saying I'm better than

anybody. I'm just saying I found life and I want to keep it.

I found life and I want everybody to have life don't

you i want to promote life i want to promote living i want to promote enjoyment

i want to promote happiness i want to promote peace and joy and all those good

things and it's all found in jesus christ life is in christ men need to get in christ and stay in.

They need to get in. We have life. We are tested in life. Life is a refining process.

There is a spiritual life, and we need to make sure we are alive spiritually.

We have a life that is of a divine origin.

We were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

When you're born again, you're not born of the will of man. You're born by the will of God.

You see, the life I'm talking about, you see, that just blows my mind sometimes when I think about this.

We're talking about the almighty God. We're talking about the creator of the universe.

We're talking about being involved in his plan and his will and his mind.

And we're talking about being involved with that which is eternal.

He said, I have come. Jesus said he want us to have eternal life.

And men look at that and hear that and just keep on walking,

don't they? not just men, but humanity.

Everybody, they just hear that and just keep on walking. They don't think about it.

Either that or they, you know, the Bible said, if the gospel's hid,

it's hid to them that are lost. The God of this world's blinded their mind.

I don't want my mind blinded. I want life.

Amen. I want a preacher to preach life to me. Don't tell me something just to pacify me.

Don't preach to me and just tell me something to keep me happy.

Tell me what's going to bring life to me. Tell me what's going to get me to heaven.

Tell me what I need to hang on to and tell me what I need to let go.

Because I want to tell you everything men attached to is not going in.

Praise the Lord. Sin is not going in.

Whiskey's not going in. Marlboros aren't going in. Lottery tickets aren't going

in. Come on, somebody. Things that men grab a hold of.

NFL's not going in. Hollywood's not going in. Praise the Lord.

I don't want to be attached to anything that's not going in.

I want to be attached to something that's going to pull me right through those

pearly gates. Hallelujah.

That's what I want. I want to be involved with something that's really going

to give me life, not just suck it out of me.

Society and the programs of this world, they suck the life out of you.

You know why people don't dress very nice anymore? They can't afford to.

You know why they went around in Led Zeppelin t-shirts instead of a nice jacket

or a nice button-up shirt?

Because a button-up shirt's a lot more money. And suit coats and slacks are a lot more money.

And they can't afford it. And you know why they can't afford it?

Because somebody has promoted a culture of death that says, buy this lottery

ticket. It'll give you life.

Drink this. It'll give you life. Smoke this. It'll give you life. Watch this.

Pay $150 a month for your cable bill.

Pay $150 a month for your cable. That's what you need for life.

Pay $150 for cable. Pay this for this. Pay this for this. Buy this. And it sucks people dry.

It sucks people dry. And they don't have money for what they really need.

Oh, the devil's plan is so vicious. It's so ugly.

Then the people, you see, it goes from there to where people don't have any money.

Then the devil makes them mad at somebody that doesn't spend their money on

that, somebody that doesn't do all that, and somebody that has something,

and somebody that goes to work, and somebody that plans for their future.

Then the The devil starts dividing those people and thinking what they've got

belongs to me. They don't deserve that. I'm the one that deserves it.

Give it to me. Let me have it.

I heard a thing on the radio. It was either on the radio or I read it. I can't remember.

Back when they was worried to

death, you know, everybody was going to lose their food stamps, you know.

Lady, I think it was an article in the paper. I saw it, and it promoted this

article about this lady, and she was worried about whether she was going to lose her food stamps,

and she was worried about whether she was going to be able to feed her dog or not.

I don't know. Maybe I was supposed to feel sorry for her dog,

but I didn't. I didn't feel sorry for her dog.

I don't mind giving food stamps to somebody that really needs it,

but what you're telling me is if you don't get food stamps, you're gonna take

the money you have and buy dog food with it?

You mean to tell me you're gonna take your money and buy dog food and then you

don't have money for groceries and

now you want me to give you food stamps because you gotta feed your dog?

I'm talking about a culture of death, you see. I'm talking about a way of thinking

that's just off, a way of thinking that leads men to darkness.

Praise the Lord. It doesn't lead them to God. It doesn't lead them to righteousness.

It leads them to a crazy town.

Come on, you know what I'm talking about. We're living in crazy town.

I said we're living in crazy town.

We've got all kinds of crazy ideas. Sister Young said they come in Speedway,

and they'll take their food stamps and they'll buy, what are those stick things called?

Beef jerkies, you know, and beef jerky's not cheap, you know.

And they'll spend food, take their food stamps and they're buying beef jerky for their dog.

That's for my doggy, that's for my doggy. Yeah, here, here, give me $10 worth

of gas and here, let me buy this beef jerky with food stamps for my dog and

then give me, take my cash and sell me about 15 lottery tickets.

We're talking about crazy town.

We're talking about darkness. We're talking about just people just messed up, man.

People are, this, our society is messed up. We don't have a money problem.

We have a priority problem.

We have a priority problem. People need to realize things are more important

than their dog. And I love my little dog.

Believe it or not, I had a dream. Somebody took my dog and I went after him with a gun, praise God.

I never did even like dogs before. I got this little dog and I like it.

And I had a dream the other night that somebody stole my dog and I went to get

my dog and I had my pistol with me.

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I had those emotions about that little dog.

Know what? Thank God Sister Young buys him some tender dog food or whatever that stuff is she buys.

And he gets some of my Doritos.

And he likes Doritos. And he likes Cheetos.

And he likes all that stuff. I don't care. Give your dog some Cheetos.

Just don't ask me to buy them for you.

Come on, somebody. Help me, Lord. How do we get out here? But it's the truth.

And the thing about The thing about it is it promotes, it's not promoting life.

It's not promoting something you can build on. That's what I'm getting at.

It's not something you can do continuously that will edify your society.

You see, our world, oh, yeah, you can get a divorce. Go ahead.

Go ahead. Go ahead. It's easy.

Irreconcilable difference. The sign off and go. They don't think about the danger to the children.

They don't think about it what it does to a kid's life. They don't think about

what's going on in the mind of a child when their parents get divorced.

They don't. The world doesn't. They're not thinking about that.

They're not thinking about life.

They're so caught up in the cycle of death. But I'm here to stand up tonight

and say we need to promote Jesus

Christ and the things of God because they bring life. Praise the Lord.

Amen. We believe in marriage because it promotes life. We believe in righteousness

because it promotes life.

We do what we do because it promotes life. I don't smoke cigarettes because

it promotes my life. Praise the Lord.

Tell people to leave it alone because it doesn't promote life.

It's not helping you any. Not helping anybody any.

We're interested in things that help people. We're interested in things that edify people.

Edify means build up. We want people to be built up. We want people to be happy. Come on, somebody.

We want this place to be a place of life. Praise God.

And when you preach Jesus, you're preaching life.

Hey man, you're preaching life. You're preaching death being abolished.

You're preaching about the only source of life. You're preaching about life everlasting.

You're talking about life from the dead, abundant life, radiant life.

As the music comes, I want to be involved in life.

It's a matter of life and death. I said it's a matter. Think about it, folks.

I wish I could get up on the rooftop and just yell this out tonight.

I've been down at the mission and get under the anointing like I feel right

now, and I open that door, and I step outside, Brother Danny,

and I let her go, just like I'm doing here tonight.

I open that door, and I said, Jesus loves you. Hallelujah.

Jesus wants you to be saved. Praise They might, somebody walking down the street

like, what are you going on over there?

But I want to tell you, we ought to let life ring from every open window.

And we ought to open our doors. That's why we need to get outside.

That's why we're going to make some plans. And I was telling somebody,

I want to have a tent revival over here.

I want to have a meeting outside where we can sing the praises of God and let the light shine.

Let life go out into the neighborhood.

Let them feel the spirit of life. Hallelujah.

Amen. man drive back to death drive back to darkness drive back all that stuff that drive.

Yeah, folks, whether we have services, don't have services, turn the lights

on, no, turn the lights on. It's a matter of life and death.

Amen. That's why you keep the lights on. That's why you keep the doors open.

That's why you keep having services.

That's why you keep going down to mission, Danny. And that's why you keep bringing

biscuits and gravy that you might promote lives, that you might let somebody

know there is hope. Jesus can give you life.

Let's raise our hands right now. Let's say, God, open the door. Let us express life.

Let us drive back the spirit of darkness and the spirit of death, Lord.

Oh, God, help us. Help us let our light shine. Praise the Lord.

God, let your spirit go out. Oh, praise the Lord. Let them feel the spirit of

life, the spirit of life.

Come on, somebody. Let's reach for him right now. We need life, God.

We don't need death. We don't want to start 7 o'clock sharp,

8 o'clock, 9 o'clock dead.

We want to start at 7 o'clock sharp and leave here midnight living. Hallelujah.

We want to go out of here rejoicing. We want to go out of here alive.

Praise God. We want to go out here with a dance in our step.

We want to go out here with a run in our feet because we're alive.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

I think it'd be good every one of us tonight make our way to the altar and say,

God, I want to make my calling and election sure.

I want to make sure. Maybe I haven't prayed for a while. Maybe I'm getting a

little cold. Maybe I'm backing up a little bit. Let me tell you, don't back up.

Amen. Keep on going. Keep on coming. Hallelujah.

Keep on, keep on, keep on going after life. Keep on reaching after God.

Don't back up. Don't go away. Don't back up. Praise the Lord.

Come on, let's Gather in the night if you're able. Hallelujah.

Get us a song. Go ahead. Get us a song.

A matter of life and death, folks. I said, it's a matter of life and death.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. God help us. Help Lord our families, help our children.

God help this neighborhood, help our society. Oh God, help us tonight.

Help us tonight, Jesus. Oh,

thank you for listening to our podcast Southwest Apostolic Church is a place of refuge,

if we can help you we'd be glad to do it pastor's cell number 317-469-3100 if

we can help you we'd be glad to do it God bless.