he didn’t want you to get saved but now
that you are he wants to do everything
that he possibly can to keep you from
growing and acting like a Christian
you see if we all acted like Christians
and behaved like Christians
if we heard the word and then took it
out into the world and lived the word
everybody on the planet that was ever
going to give their life to Jesus would
have already done it
and we’d be on our way
to getting to go home
I don’t know if you even realize how
important it is
how you behave
out in public
do you realize that our behavior is so
important you can put a bumper sticker
on your car and hang cross around your
neck
but all you’re doing is inviting people
to watch you and see if you’re the real
deal
are just a phony
and we all know that it’s easy to lose
our temper it’s easy to get impatient
when things don’t happen the way that
you want them to happen
but you know stuff just happens
in life
we started just for fun a couple of
years ago keeping a record of the crazy
stuff that happens when we’re out on the
road doing conferences
at the end of the year it’s hilarious to
see all the stuff that happened now this
is the first time we’ve been out
this year and
one of our guys that goes ahead and
drives all the routes and makes sure he
knows the church and meets the people
and does the walk through and all that
stuff well his plane got canceled
yesterday
and then
without asking him they canceled his car
his Rent-A-Car
so when he got here he tried to rent a
car but there’s no cars to rent
so he had to borrow a car
from the church
well that was just
aggravation and trouble
number one
and then
this morning I sat down to study
got about four sat down to study and the
light bulb in the lamp
next to my chair went out
so now I got to get up and I got to go
find
another light bulb somewhere and
go back and
put it in there and
there’s just stuff how many of you know
there’s stuff
that happens all the time just stuff
and the more calm you can stay the
matter it makes the devil
did you hear me
even when you’re by yourself in your own
home
see there would have been a day when I
would have just really let that light
bulb
make me mad now here I am trying to
study the word and God I don’t
understand why you let this happen
well now I know it’s the devil just
trying to aggravate me and so I just
calmly get up go find myself another
light bulb
put it in there
everything works out all right just stay
calm
how many of you need to stop getting mad
every time something happens that
you don’t like if you’re going to be a
Christian there’s always going to be
stuff happen
that you don’t like
we’ve got a huge what’s it what kind of
tree is that in our backyard that great
big one that you like to look at is it
an oak tree
it’s a huge oak tree it’s been their
Towns how many years and
let me tell you something when it storms
in St Louis which it did a couple times
in the last week that baby don’t move
it’s there
there’s no storm knocking it over
but
there’s other little
Twigs of trees
that still have a lot of growing to do
amen now I’m talking to somebody
little Twigs of trees that still have a
lot of growing to do and you get a storm
there and it can break it in half or
uproot it we had a pretty bad storm a
couple weeks ago and there were some
sizable trees that actually were torn
out of the ground
by The Roots but it didn’t bother that
oak tree because there’s no tellings how
deep those roots go so I’m going to ask
you today are you a tree or a twig
a tree
or a twig
now let’s go back to mark four and they
have no real root in themselves and so
they endure for a little while and when
trouble or persecution Rises on account
of the word they immediately are
offended
they become displeased indignant
and the word indignant
means being annoyed
at what is perceived to you
as unfair treatment
I don’t know why we think it’s so unfair
to us
if we have a problem
well God I went to church
I gave him the offering
and I just don’t understand why this is
happening to me
well it wouldn’t bother you if it was
happening to somebody else
you would tell them just trust God just
believe God
come on now
just
I mean I
just hang on brother that’s just the
devil just trying to aggravate you just
stay happy and keep praising God but
when it happens to us
we can get offended well
I don’t know why this is happening to me
well why not you
one man that I know his son had cancer
of course everybody was believing for a
miracle and
it didn’t happen and the boy died and
this man got really mad at God and he
said where were you when my son died
and God answered him back right away and
he said the same place I was when mine
died