Memories Worth Remembering | Pastor Wylie Rhinehart

It's a great truth. Don't ever get two things messed

up. God will never hurt you and the

devil will never help you. That's a great truth.

Glad to be here on this grandparents day and I can't

resist. My grandma ate spaghetti every

day of her life until she passed away.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry every day till she passed away.

Some of you get that on the way home, but I have great memories

of my grandma. I never had a grandpa.

I saw my dad's dad one time. I just remember him sitting in a

chair. And my mother's dad died when

she was 16. And here my grandsons had me,

Karen, Cody's dad and then my dad.

They had five grandpas and I didn't have one.

And but that's, that's OK. That's that's just life

sometimes. But my grandmother, I did have

one grandmother in my life, and she was fearless.

She would have won Survivor. She would have won.

I mean, when I was a kid, she had a fireplace in the house and

it looked like she reached in there and grabbed a fiery log,

moved it around and we were out. One time she was getting wood

and there was a snake. She just promptly picked up a

big brick, clonked it on the head.

Grandma was fearless and then we were didn't get to go to the

store much with her. But I think I got my toy buying

stuff from her because we walked to the store downtown and she

said pick out a toy whichever 1 you want.

I can't do that today. Not whichever 1 you want.

Back then it was all dollar toys, you know, not not much.

Now you know their their toys have changed.

I tried to fool my grandson. I just be seated for one say I

tried to fool my grandson. I took him to the $5 store.

We played ball and I thought grandpa's going to get off easy.

We played ball and we played, got out the sword and

everything. And which one do you want?

He said, I want to go to Walmart.

He ain't dumb. So he used to love one of the

Toy Story characters. The other one, the robot dude,

Buzz Lightyear. So he had a Buzz Lightyear and

it had a torn finger off of it or something.

And his mom, he's like, mom, I need a new Buzz Lightyear.

And she said. That's fine.

It's your. Your Buzz Lightyear is just OK.

He's that's OK. Papa will get me one.

He was right. He wasn't.

Wrong. And thank God for the

grandparents that make the world go around.

Let's give all of our grandparents a hand.

We're we're glad for you. Time is getting away, as it

always. Does if you.

Turn to Joshua chapter 5, we'll read a verse and I'll let you be

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

seated. How appropriate to have a

grandson or granddaughter crying on the Grandparents Day.

I tell you, be sad. If we didn't have no crying

babies around here, sometimes I think we need to have a crying

baby choir. Did you know God understands

their talk that they could literally defeat the enemy?

What the Bible, that's what the word of God says Joshua, Joshua

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5 and I have wrote the wrong verse down Judges.

Let's try judges. Hey man, God is good.

Tell your neighbor Bible search. Hey, man, we're going to get

there. I'm thankful for all the tools

that we have today. Aren't you?

I have a strong concordance. And some of you, some of you,

you'll know that in the back. I just got tired of trying to

find that Hebrew Greek dictionary.

And I, I took a pen and I marked where the Hebrew dictionary was

and where the Greek dictionary was.

And now we got it all. Tell your neighbor, no excuse to

study your Bible today, Amen. Tell your neighbor I love

grandparents. Amen.

And I will tell you this, I never ever thought I'd be

married to a grandma. All

right, Joshua, chapter 4. That's one chapter on verse 5.

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

And Joshua said unto them, Passover before the ark of the

Lord your God, into the midst of Jordan, and take you up, every

man of you, a stone upon his shoulder.

According on to the. Number of the tribes of the

Children of Israel. Tell your neighbor memories

worth remembering. Hey man, you may be seated

today. It's amazing the capacity to

remember. I've reached the age now where I

get a thought and I think and I love that, but I don't write it

down because I forget that I'm going to forget.

Tell me you'll get that on the way home.

And after a few minutes I don't even remember it and I have to

remember that I'm going to forget.

There's a Chinese proverb that says weak ink better than strong

memory. But here they are in Joshua

Joshua 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. They are going to cross the

Jordan and God tells them He commanded them.

That they stay approximately 6. Tenths of a mile between them

and the ark because with such a. Crowd of people.

You you think? God's going left.

You got to stay far back. Enough to let God lead the way.

Anybody. Anybody believe and know that

God has your life planned out, worked out?

He calls those things that are not as though they were so

they're they're 6/10 of a mile. Away and God said this day he's.

Going to magnify Joshua? In the side of Israel, God.

Does a lot of. Things on a day and this is the

day. That the Lord hath made say not

you're. Going to go anywhere tomorrow

except it be the Lord's, will you?

Tell somebody I'll see you next week.

You better say if it be the Lord's will.

But I love it that there is no biblical limitations on what you

can. Do today.

You can plan great things today, but tomorrow, if it be the

Lord's will. We don't know where that is.

And Joshua chapter 4. And it came to pass, when all

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

the people were clean, passed over Jordan.

The Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you 12.

Men. Out of the people, out of every

tribe. A man and.

Command ye them saying, Take ye hints out of the midst of

Jordan, out of the place where the priest feet stood firm 12

Stones, and you shall carry. Them over and leave.

Them in the lodging place where ye.

Shall lodge this night. Anywhere from a six to 10 mile

journey to Gilgal, which is where they ended up lodging.

And then he also said every man take upon you a stone upon his

shoulder. These aren't pebbles to put in

your pocket. This isn't something that you

can carry in your. Hand matter of.

Fact. It would look quite odd to have

a. You got to have something that

you can hold on to, something to keep you stable.

These were large. Stones.

It goes without saying that they were large because they had to

be born upon the shoulder. And this may be a sign among you

that when your children ask their fathers in time to come,

saying, What mean you by these stones, then you shall answer

that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the

Covenant. Memories worth remembering.

You see, this would be set up as a memorial.

What I would like to do if I had the power, I would, I would hope

I would dam in the middle of the river because the Bible says

they're there to this day, that they are still there.

Somebody needs to know God is working on your life.

He hasn't forgot about you. He doesn't love your pastor more

than you. He doesn't love anybody in here

more than you. He has a plan for you and you

just got to get in His will. How do you find His will?

I'll tell you how. You find it at midweek service,

and you find it at Sunday service, and you find it at

revival, and you find it at camp and you find it in local

fellowship meetings. I'm glad God doesn't play hide

and seek with His will, but this verse of scripture is intriguing

to me because they had just crossed the Jordan River and it

overflowed. It's amazing.

God said it shall come to pass as soon as the soles of the feet

of priests that bear the ark. You know you can go through

anything if you got the Lord with you.

I'd be careful about stepping into storms that God isn't with

you, he told. God told Moses.

Tell the people to go forward in the Red Sea before he even

parted the waters. Somebody needs to understand God

wants you to have faith in him, that you believe that he's with

you. As soon as they step in the

water, the water is going to part.

Now they had just crossed this river and, and crossing rivers

is is very symbolic of a milestone of, of a new start of

leaving the past behind of God-given the victory it, it may

be that there's another exception, but I haven't found

it yet. It's the only thing, it's the

only permission to go back into the past.

They had just crossed the river, if you will.

Now God says, I want you to go back into the middle of the

river, and I wanted you to take a memory to your lodging place.

So I think I'm safe in saying that the only reason you should

be going back into your yesterday, your last week, your

last year, 10 years ago is to bring something good forward.

We got too many of us that's remembering something yesterday

that's not going to profit you today.

It's the only biblical permission to go back to what

happened in the past. And can I tell you that it's I'm

not sure I'm physically fit to carry a large stone from here

out to the parking lot. I probably need some help but

this is carrying a stone on your shoulder.

Some commentators say 6 miles 10.

It just depends on where they were at on the river and which

angle they approach Gilgal. But a large stone on your

shoulder for one mile is a lot of work.

At least 6 miles of carrying this stone it.

One observation I can make is making good memories sometimes

is hard work because it's too easy to complain.

It's too easy to tell your children how hard you had it.

It's too easy to complain about the weather or you got to work

or there's a million things that we can complain about.

But if you're going to remember good things, that's hard work.

Why is it hard? Because you got to forget.

You got to forget the bad stuff that happened.

And we need to be filling up our grandchildren's ears with some

good news about what God can do for them.

Oh, our children are so invaluable.

You see, some years ago, Brandon Dalton, some of you know him,

We're at youth service and I'm sitting back here and, and, and

he's speaking. He's around 30 now.

He was 21. And God spoke to me and said,

you see that young man up there? That took 21 years.

Now we do understand that a 21 year old could come into church

and become a preacher and not take 21 years.

But he started out in the nursery and then he went to, you

know, the primary class and then young adult class.

And then eventually, you know, he's 21 years old and he's

preaching. And it did take 21 years for

him. But God said when you count them

in a war, I want you to start at six months old.

Don't look at the one that's fierce and got all the muscles.

But when you count the men start counting in the nursery, you see

it. I love for the baptistry to be

troubled. That's great, but just as great.

It's a teacher back there teaching a 2 year old that Jesus

loves them. Oh, yes, And they remember and

they believe everything. I almost had my grandsons

convinced that I was Chuck Morse.

Some of you might know Chuck Norris.

He counted the Infinity twice, that guy.

But Chuck Norris, I'm like, yeah, I'm on YouTube and they're

like Pawpaw. No, no, I said.

No, that's me, right? There fighting Bruce Lee, that's

me. And there was, there was

something in them that didn't believe it yet.

There was that possibility belief that really, Papa, No.

I mean, you can tell a kid anything and they'll believe it.

I'm telling you, we need to capitalize on that.

We need to tell the children that Jesus loves you.

You're going to be great. You're going to accomplish great

things in life because they'll believe you.

You know what we we should be telling them we should be having

moves of God and we do among our children.

They they can get the Holy Ghost easy.

Why? Because they believe they

haven't developed the tools of skepticism.

It's just not in their brain for you for them not to believe what

you tell them. So this may be a sign among you,

verse 6, that when your children ask their fathers in time to

come, this would not be today, but later when they see these

stones, they're going to say, what does this mean?

And now they can tell them that God rolled the waters back.

What does it mean, mom, when dad runs the aisles?

Well, you know your dad used to be bound, but now he's free.

Why is grandpa jumping up and down?

Well, because his son was in jail, but now he's not and his

wife got healed of cancer. Why are they jumping up and

down? Because God has done something

great. God wants to make memories and

He wants you to make good memories and anytime we talk

about memories, they they fit. 2 Classifications to Forget or to

Remember In Psalms 119, the largest chapter in the word of

God, David said no less than six times, I will not forget thy

law. You see, it's not just saying I

remember, I remember, I remember.

But we should be saying, I will not forget what the Lord brought

me from. I will not forget what God has

done for me 6 * 6 times I'm not going to forget.

Why? David knew, just like we do,

that we are prone to forget. We are prone to forget.

In 1871, the Chicago Fire started on a Sunday.

How appropriate, 40 years later. They had been celebrating for 40

years, from 1871 till 1911. They celebrated with festivities

about, you know, all those that work to save and, and they

remembered those who had perished and all the buildings

and, and they, the, the problem with Chicago was they had built

that city out of wood. Everything was wood.

I mean, the sidewalks were wood, the buildings were wood,

everything was wood. So when the Fire came, there

wasn't much left of Chicago. Then steel and brick came along

and just just just a simple point, you need to build your

life out of something that's going to last.

Don't build your life on sand and say this looks like a good

place to build, but when you find a rock, you might have to

level it out. It's going to take you a little

bit longer to build your life on a foundation that's going to

last, but the same storm is going to come.

Amen. In 1871.

So for 40 years, they decided the best way to commemorate it

was with festivities. And finally they said, wait a

minute, we need to quit celebrating that fire with

festivities and instead we need to start talking about Fire

Prevention Week. So in 1939, the slogan was

Somebody was careless. 1941, Defend against the fire.

I can't help when you talk about fire.

I can't help but start thinking about the church.

You know, when they, when they assembled around the temple,

everybody's tent, when they opened up that tent door, it was

directed toward the presence of God.

We need to make sure that in our homes where people think there

is security. You know, I'm, I'm a student of

psychology as we all are. And the greatest thing is our

own experience that we've lived. But here there's people think

that they're secure because they got a lock on their door and

then they said in their lazy boy and they're all secure there.

And then they go to the bed and they lock all the doors.

But there is no security in your home.

Your security is found in these four walls right here.

This is the greatest place in your life.

Is this House of God. 1939 Somebody was careless here at

First Apostolic Church in Mount Carmel.

They don't know how the fire started, but they think it was

an elder sister in the back that was letting a few careless

hallelujahs erupt from a mouth. And the next thing you know, the

one standing next to her started saying Hallelujah and before you

knew it, that church in Mount Carmel was on fire.

You see it? Don't take much defend against

the fire. You want to defend against the

fire? Then don't be here at midweek.

Just sit there and don't lift your hands.

But somebody needs to understand that.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.

You want to defend against the fire, then don't.

Amen the preacher. Don't be a prayer meeting.

But if you show up at prayer meeting, you just might start a

fire. You see it don't take much.

Before I was even a preacher. Remember what year it was?

I asked my dad. I said Dad, can I read a few

scriptures? He said sure.

And I got up and I, I began to read the scriptures about praise

and let everything that hath breath praise the Lord and lift

up your hands in the sanctuary. And just a very simple thought.

You see, some people come to church and they think, well, I'm

not a Christian, I'm not saved yet.

But no, no, no. The command is let everything

that hath breath praise the Lord.

That's the trees, that's the branches, that's the whales,

that's the scars, That's mom and Dad.

That's Grandpa, that's grandma. Oh, there's another thing too.

Now there's another thing too. Well, I'm not ready to repent.

Well, you, you already got a commandment too.

At the time of ignorance, God wants wing tat.

But now I love how it says it. He commandeth all men everywhere

to repent. Who wouldn't want to turn from a

road of destruction? Who wouldn't want to turn around

from a road that leads to certain death?

Now we get to the New Testament. The word forget is only found

there three times. It's replete dozens of times,

don't forget in the Old Testament, but in the New

Testament it's, it's only mentioned three times and it's

as if Paul said I'm going to take care of it.

There's 2 forms. God's not unrighteous to forget

your work in labor. There's one.

That's the one that really matters.

I did the math this morning. I'm like, OK, if, if somebody

don't believe in me, what do they really represent?

It's like .0000000003% of the population you don't find, you

don't, you know, look, everybody ain't going to forgive you, but

somebody will. Everybody's not going to believe

in you, but somebody will. Everybody's not going to forget

your past, but somebody will. Somebody needs to understand

there's plenty of people that's for you and everybody's not

against you. Musicians, would you come?

Hebrews 13 and 16? But to do good and to

communicate, forget not. And the other one?

We all know it, brethren, and he's in prison while he's

writing this. You know you can read the Bible,

and I've read it. I can do all things through

Christ with strength of me. Oh, OK, that's easy for you to

say, Paul. You're living in a mansion, you

got servants, you got fresh flowers every day, and you're

eating steak. And you know your.

Your livestock's multiplying. You got 50 grandkids.

It's easy for you to say you can do all things we would question

and if that was. The way he was living.

But no, he was in prison when he said that.

He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we

ask. For thank you.

According to the power that worketh in US.

Well, that's easy for you to say, Paul.

No, he was in prison when he wrote that too.

And he was in prison when he said, I count not myself to have

apprehended. But this one thing I do

forgetting those things which are behind and see when we take

proper Bible study, then we've got to understand that he's

forgetting those things that you need to forget because the Saint

Paul told Timothy, I call into remembrance your mother and I'm

persuaded that it was in your grandmother.

He the the language there. It sounds like he never met the

grandmother, but because of the mother, he's now persuaded that

it was in the grandmother. You see.

Call to remembrance. Can we start today of

remembering? Things worth remembering.

You know, just like in a computer, you, you've only got

so much memory, random access memory.

So it is in our minds, even though we can hold petabytes of

information in our mind, in reality, some of our minds are

consumed with bad things that happened to us, bad things that

people did to us. But I'm going to tell you what

that's the wrong way to think because I find this amazing.

Not, you know, I've had things done wrong to me.

I've had people lie on me, had people hit me and you know, all

those things. But I, I, I I must pale in

comparison to the things that's been done to humanity.

Horrible. Things have been done to people,

but you take the worst person or the worst circumstances that any

man or woman has ever existed on this earth, when you come to

God, you have to say forgive. Me.

I can't even describe the adjectives that would be

ascribed to that simple truth of self protection in which God

don't want you coming to him saying they did this and they

did that and he did this and she said that.

You have to say, God forgive me. And you see, when God Forgives

you, now you're going to have a capacity to forgive those people

that did those things to you. The men's prison in Mississippi,

they started 2 churches in Mississippi.

They call it men of honor churches.

This one prisoner has baptized 104 inmates.

And he's. Currently serving two life.

Sentences. That's some perspective.

He may yet die. I don't think he's on.

Death row or he wouldn't be out. But.

Two like 2 life sentences. That's one thing we never do.

We never ask. Anybody what you did?

I've had a couple people tell me I've never asked and I don't ask

when I'm. Praying for people.

You know why? Because there's nobody going to

meet you at the door that says, look, this is the first

Apostolic Church of Mount Carmel.

You're sick, but we need to know how sick.

Yeah, you got. You got some problems, but we

need to know the depths of those problems.

You got some addictions. We got some people that are

praying with you and you're going to preach, but we need to

know how addicted you are. No, there is no such

questionnaire in this house. It's whosoever will let him come

and drink of the water of life freely.

I don't never question if God can do it, He can do it.

It don't matter how big your mountain.

I got to ask a question yesterday.

He texted me and said where's the scripture where you can

speak? Anything into existence said,

well, that's not in there. I mean, you might take some

verses and say, you know, there's power of life and death

in the tongue along those lines, but if there was, I promise you

I wouldn't be driving that 8. Year old car home if I was.

In there, I would walk out to a foose automobile, Karen would

have to put earphones on and a coat on, and I'd outrun every

cop from here back to Dayton. But it got me to thinking, there

isn't one of those verses that say you can speak.

Anything in existence? But there is a verse that says

you can say to this mountain. Be thou removed.

You see, the real power that God has given us is not to get

whatever we want, but that we can say to yesterday, you're

gone. I'm not going to give any more

attention to what happened 20 years ago.

I'm not going to walk around, but I'm going to forget those

things which are behind. God knows, you know, the power

of the apostles. They already had the power to

heal the sick and the raised the dead.

They said give us the power to consume people with fire.

God knows better than to give us power to speak anything we want

into existence. Because there wouldn't be no

more hungry people coming to church.

There wouldn't be no more people in the Pew saying, it's been

weeks and weeks since I felt the presence of the Lord, but I'm

going to go ahead and praise Him anyways.

We wouldn't be much if we just felt God all the time.

We wouldn't be worth much. But that farmer knows that the

the the last thing that he wants is to plant the seed and rain,

rain, rain, rain, rain to fall. That farmer wants some roots.

Sometimes you got to keep coming back to church.

And make sure you're. Anchored.

No, you didn't have any chill bumps, but you believe what the

pastor preached. You believe what the Bishop

preached and and you're not. You're not growing upwards, it

doesn't seem, but you're growing downward and getting anchored to

the rock. Let's all lift our hands as they

sing. This altar is open today.

Memories worth remembering. I want you to go through the

catalogue of your mind this morning and start throwing some

things out that you quit giving energy to.

Maybe it was a parent that hurt you, maybe it was a sibling,

maybe it was a friend, but you're giving too much of your

time and energy to those things in the past that you got to

forget Jesus loves you today. If there be any virtue, if there

be any praise, think on those things which are true, honest,

just, pure, lovely and of good report.

He wrote that in prison too. He was getting ready to sing

King Agrippa. He wasn't happy, but he said, I

think myself happy. That's why God said enter it to

his courts. Enter to his gates with

Thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.

Because when we begin to thank God for what He's done, it's

going to cause a praise to come to your lips.

Stand with me today if you're able.

Let's lift our hands as they sing.

Come on. God wants to minister to you

today. Thank you for your Oh yes, thank

you for your grace. Come on, that's beautiful.

If it's appropriate, won't you? Pray for your neighbor that's.

Next to you, don't you lay a hand on her shoulder.

Tell them God wants to heal your past.

God wants to take away the hurt. God wants to restore you.

God wants to renew you. Redeem and save my soul and I'll

never be the same. Come on.

That's. Beautiful.

Oh, thank. You for thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you for your grace.

Come on. God's doing the work.

God's doing the work right now. Then you wash to play with me,

redeem and save my soul. And I'll never be the same.

Oh, yeah, Come on. This is the day.

This is the day you never have to be the same again.

You never have to be the same again after today.

God wants to give you a new start today.