Because of the events of this
past week, and not simply this past week, but what is happening
in our nation and what's happening here locally, I've got many emails
that ask primarily this question. Do you think that God is slowly
lifting his hand upon this country? and that there are many people
in our land who are reprobates. I remember you speaking many
times about God turning us over to a reprobate mind. I know that
things like this have been happening for some time now, but this one
has shaken me a bit. And what she's talking about
is, you just heard Dwayne say that they were very heavy, his
family's very heavy, And many of you in here know that the
four children that were murdered by their father this past week
in Dearborn was Vanessa and Dwayne's brother-in-law who killed those
children in a very barbaric way and also tortured their mother. And then Jason Bastien and Nicky, Nicky
and Jason Bastien. as I understand it, went to the
airport and were going to fly to Florida the next morning early. So they went out there to stay
near the airport. And Nikki went into the bathroom
at the motel, hotel, and there she OD'd and died. And that funeral
will be this coming week as well. So some very tragic events getting
very close to home here. Here's what the Bible says, and
that's what's important. The Apostle Paul, in writing
to young Timothy, said this. He said, in the last days, this
is in 2 Timothy 3. He said, this know also that
in the last days, perilous times shall come. In the last days,
horrible times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their
own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemer, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. truce
breakers, false accusers, fierce despisers of those that are good,
traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God. And then he says this specifically
about churchanity, having a form of godliness with no power. So we got this total depravity
thing going on. and people living out their depravity,
and then we have a dead church. That's what happens in the last
days. In other words, if there's a dead church and no gospel,
there's very little hope of anything changing because the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation. I'm gonna tell you this, if you're
just going to church and having church, you're a joke. There needs to be some power
shown in that church. Power to change people's lives
from the inside out. I want to see people's lives
changed. That's why I often say here at Grace Gospel and Grace
Centers of Hope, we're not a feeding trough for drug addicts. We're
not about simply giving homeless drug addicts something to eat
and a place to sleep. We're about you can have life
and have it more abundantly in Jesus Christ. So there's a real
war going on, a real war. And I know many of you leave
here totally disagreeing with me, but I'm telling you, I'm
on the front lines. I'm a soldier of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. I'm not going to cover it up.
I'm not going to paint a pretty picture. because sin entered
into the world. And the great problem is S-I-N
today. That's the problem. And there's
only one that can handle the problem. And that's the sovereign
Lord Jesus Christ in power. Well, I don't know whether this
is the last days or not. It sure looks ugly. But I was
reading this way from the book of Acts 2 and it says this in
Acts chapter 2 and verse 17, it says, and it shall come to
pass in the last days, saith God, last days, saith God, I
will pour out my spirit upon flesh. And your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams. And I will show wonders
in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath. Sorry, well,
what's the interpretation of that? I will show wonders in
heaven above and signs in the earth beneath. Wait a minute, I thought in the
last days there was going to be, yeah. but also God is not
dead. And therefore we're going to
have both awesome ugly things and awesome, wonderful, glorious
things are going to happen. I hope you believe that. Otherwise
you're going to be hopeless. Otherwise you're just going to
live your life thinking, oh, even so come Lord Jesus. Take
me out of here. That's not the way we live. We
don't live holding the fort, we take the fort. And what I'm
saying to you and to this church is, charge! Don't hoist the white flag and
give up. Sin. People don't change. Say, well,
I think things are worse than they were. Maybe in your community,
maybe in the little area on the globe you live, but men are totally
depraved. They've never been any better.
The doctrine of total depravity is so. Wherever you find a man
without spiritual life or a woman without spiritual life, you got
depravity going on. That's very, very true. People
don't get better. There is no change unless God
changes people. That's when the change comes.
And I want to tell you, Solomon and Job both had a clear understanding
of the fact that man born of woman has troubles as the sparks
fly upward. Sometimes so bad that it were
better if we were not born. There's going to be trouble in
your way. Trouble in your way, got to mourn sometime, got to
cry sometime because sin entered into the world. Depravity is
real. And depravity and sin demand
a savior, a redeemer. And that's where hope is. From
the womb, we are depraved. When we reach our years of maturity,
that depravity begins to leak out in the most awful ways. It manifests itself. In fact,
you don't have to be real mature. Look at your kids. Before they
can walk, they're almost showing that they're depraved little
creatures that came out of you. You don't have an angel. because
you can't produce one. You put two sinners together
begetting a child and guess what you get? A little demon. Who must be saved by the grace
of God. And you know what? I'm going
to tell you this too and it's very true. Separate from the life
of God in you, life is a vexation. and a burden. Why do you think
the epidemic, people are without God? I can tell you why you turn
to drugs. I can tell you why you run the
streets. I can tell you why you're injecting, because you don't
have a life. And life is a vexation. And if you had like Solomon,
this is for you guys. If you had all the women in the
world, if you had all the money in the world, if you had everything
there was, to have in the world. Your conclusion would be, in
the end, life's a bitch and then you die. That's on the coffee cup. That's
on the coffee cup. You know why? No God inside. No peace inside. No hallelujah
inside. No shout inside. No abundant
life inside. You know, I live as your pastor
in a social community of agencies, and even because I'm a pastor,
religious clerics, who are doing their best to get their arms
around and solve social ills, but it's not working. It's not
working. The religious movement is not
working. The social ills movement is not
working. And actually some of them are
coming to a point where they're actually accepting maybe, maybe
life prescribed is a part of the answer. So we'll look at
it. It used to be a time when I would
talk about how Christ saves things and everybody was going like,
oh no, we can't bring religion into this. We can't bring, oh
no, not the faith-based people. But I'll tell you, the epidemic
is so bad now that they're reaching out to some degree. Let me tell
you quickly about the last days we're living in. Over death dose. ODing is up 300% in Oakland County. So the fire chief tells me something
like this. How many fires you had in Oakland
County? And we're talking about fires. He goes, oh, fires are
not our problem. It's day in and day out the runs
we have to make because people are dying in the streets from
overdosing. You think about that. Let me
tell you, the only spirit that can handle the spirit of our
age is the Holy Spirit. Very, very true. You know, now I know some of
you in here know this, and the rest of you who don't know it
need to know it. You can buy a little heroin, real cheap,
and if you mix it With elephant tranquilizer, you can die in
30 seconds. Say, well, pastor, what do you
mean, elephant tranquilizer? That's what's happening. The
bad stuff now has elephant tranquilizer in it. I hear every day something
like this. Somebody talks to me about, it
being a brain disease. And when I hear that, I go like
this, well, you mean I could catch it? Well, get away from me, all you
heroin addicts who have this brain disease, taking elephant
tranquilizers, stay away from me. Let me tell you a better
cure. It's a heart disease. It's a
heart disease. You don't have a brain disease,
you've got a heart problem. and God gives a new heart. Think
about this today. Think about how long you've been
using, I'm preaching the gospel now, I'll talk about other problems
that we have in a few minutes, but think about this. You today,
God could give you a new heart. Today, you could have a new heart
in Jesus Christ. And all of that past life of
selling your body and poking drugs in your veins and trying
to get high and life sucks and I don't wanna live anymore. The
truth is, the truth is that Nikki went in that bathroom and injected
that stuff and died like that. I married them, performed the
wedding ceremony. I saw them come through the center.
And let me say this to you, your ODing just doesn't affect you. When you die, it affects your
mom and your dad and your pastor and your church and other addicts. Friday night at our fundraiser,
Night of Hope, in Birmingham, a mother practically fell in
my arms after it was over, and she handed me a check, but here's
what she said to me. I lost my 16-year-old, who OD'd. That's what happens. We're gonna
have an awful, we're gonna have a funeral this week. We're gonna
have two funerals this week that are gonna be absolutely horrendous.
How do you bury four babies? How do you do that without tremendous
who were murdered? Depravity is real, sin is real
and we need to get real. And let me tell you this, whether
you're a squeaky white church person, well, I really don't care what
color you are, person. I gotta have to watch my words. But you're squeaky because you
go to church. You need to be talking to your kids about this,
about their sin, about their need of a savior. Listen, most
of the girls at Grace Centers of Hope have told Ms. Pam that
they started using when they were 13. This is not a 42 year
old problem. 13, 12. Problem, sin problem, not a brain
problem. Your child doesn't have a brain
problem when it comes to drugs. It's a sin problem. And that sin problem came from
you because you're a sinner. So you owe it to your kids to
tell them there is a savior, there is a redeemer. Carfentanol, elephant tranquilizer,
dead in 30 to 60 seconds. Now, I'm going to these seminars
and hearings and things, and I'm hearing about a new drug
we have out. Now, Pam, you're going to have
to help me here. Is it naloxone? That's close. That's close. Guess
what this new drug will do? If the eight-year-old finds the
16-year-old who's OD'd, you can poke this drug in their veins
and it'll reverse the ODing. So you can live a couple more
days and relapse. That's not the answer. That is not the answer. but they're looking for some
kind of hope. We have the answer. I know we
have the answer. I hope you're convinced that
the answer is Jesus Christ. I want you to think about this
a little bit and blame Wanda for what I'm about to say now. He should never have texted me
this stuff. There's culture poverty, we call it. Culture poverty. And what I'm talking about is
welfare, I'm talking about welfare dependency. I'm talking about
modern day slavery. Now I know some of you are gonna
get upset with me about this, but I can't help but blame Wanda. You know what welfare is? It's modern-day slavery. Everyone
in here, let me tell you this, you know you're in the greatest
nation on earth. Oh, it has its warts. We have
all kinds of warts, and problems of getting along and loving one
another like we should, and there are tremendous injustices, but
this is still the greatest nation on the face of this earth. It
really is. And I want to tell every welfare
recipient You're enslaved to that. When you start getting,
you are dependent. You are dependent. And Wanda
brought this out in a text to me. I told her it was a masterpiece. See, I'm blaming her. I'm blaming
her. So all of you who are getting angry at me right now, see Wanda.
She exposed it. Wanda, can I tell a little bit
of your stories? Okay. When Wanda came to Grace
Centers of Hope, she was drugged up. I mean, they thought she
was crazy. They declared her crazy. That's
her word. They declared her crazy. When
she came, Miss Pam began to take her off those. By the way, do
you know she's a four-point student and going to college? And an outstanding mother to
William. began to take her off of those
drugs. She began to, oh, there was sometimes, didn't you deck
a couple of people at Grace? I think she decked a couple of
people. But certainly came to know the
Lord and has become an outstanding citizen, a person, a person who
loves the Lord, who gives him praise. But she told me in this text,
instead of blaming the recipients of welfare, we should blame those
who pass out the welfare. Because they make you dependent.
They enslave you. Do you know that, I don't know,
maybe you're sitting back there on the back road and you've been
a drug addict for 20 years, you come to know Christ, you have
all kinds of gifts and abilities and talents. You live in a country
where you have the freedom to become a millionaire, the freedom
to express ideas, the freedom to invent, and the freedom to
live in Grosse Pointe or Birmingham, or the freedom to get ahead.
Don't be enslaved. And let me give you a little
clue about this. I didn't say this. God in his holy word said
this, he who doesn't work shouldn't eat. Because work is good. There's not a man in here who
does not earn his keep who feels good about himself. You can't
feel good about yourself. You're less than a man. You don't
feel good about yourself, about being dependent on government,
depending on handouts. You earn your living by the sweat
of your brow, which brings me to something else. You know we're
$22 trillion in debt. If I were all of you, I'd be
buying gold and silver and getting rid of all that paper money,
because this thing's going to crash. You can't be $22 trillion in
debt and it go on and on and on. It's going to crash. It's
going to crash. That's going to be paper, nothing
to back it up, like it happened in Greece, another nation. I'd
be thinking about it. I'd be seriously considering
it. We can't keep passing out money. The national debt goes
up. Now I want to say something that,
I want to address this thing of, sin is the problem. You know, single women, single
moms, there's something wrong with that. First of all, God
made dad to be the head of the house and earn the living. Marriage
is of God. I'm not talking about Supreme
Court marriage. I'm talking about a commitment where two people
say, I'm going to love you. I'm going to take care of you.
I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to be true to you.
That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about,
before God. And by the way, any of you who don't wanna buy a
marriage license, and you'll have probably legal problems
on down the road if you have a will and all that. But if any
of you want me to perform the wedding ceremony without a license,
because I don't believe in state marriage anymore. The Supreme
Court ruined that. I believe in marriage. I believe
in marriage between a man and a woman before God. I also believe this, when a man
says, I promise to love you and cherish you and take care of
you and earn a living for you and protect you, that's before
God. State has nothing to do with
that. The state wants your 30 bucks. Marriage is important. That's
why I push it here. You can't be, you cannot be happy. You cannot be happy and have
fulfillness in life with just shacking around. You just are not a sex animal. You're a person who needs to
be loved and cherished, and you need another person. And I probably have no right
to this, but because I'm old, I can say this. To all our African-American
young men that attend church here, by the way, this is not
a black church, and this is not a white church, and this is not
a Japanese church. This is the church of Jesus Christ.
55% of African American babies are
born to unmarried mothers. Now, there's some problem there.
White people are just coexisting together, which is absolutely
wrong. Marriage has gone down, down,
down, down, and so has America. You look at what's happening
in this country. Total turmoil because we're not doing it God's
way. We just are not doing it God's
way. Over half of black families are headed by single women. Now, I love you and you can,
you know, you can point at me all you want to, but you African-American
guys and you snowballs guys, get a job, keep your promise,
and becoming outstanding husbands taking care of your families. That's what God's word says.
And I say to you ladies, I say this to you, if he won't put
a ring on your finger and commit to you, don't sleep with him. I don't know why we use the word
sleep anyway, you're not sleeping. Oh no, you're wide awake. And by the way, I'll perform
the wedding ceremony for free. Won't cost you anything. I'm
here. I'm here for you. I'm here. You know, here's the sad fact.
In 1960, Dominant families, that's dad
and mom and kids. 73% of the American people were
married and had those kind of families, 73%. 10 years later,
it dropped to 61%. And right now, it's at 46% here
in this country. And you wanna know what's wrong
with kids? Dad wasn't there. There are many
guys sitting in here before me, didn't have a dad to take them
fishing. Didn't have a dad who mentored how to be a man. We're
gonna do that here at Grace Gospel Fellowship. Mentor about how
to be a dad. I'm really just not interested
in being a Sunday morning preacher to you. I want you to watch my
life. It's not perfect, and you'll
find that I have warts, but I want you to know I love Pamela Jean
Clark. I want you to know that I think
about her every day in my decision-making, and I want you to know that those
two girls of mine, that I think about them, and even though they're
older now and married themselves, there's not a day that I don't
think about their good. I'm their daddy. I'm their father,
and before God, I have that obligation and privilege to care for them. Race relation, I wanna say this
to you. If you're here and you are prejudiced,
you're in the wrong church. You're just in the wrong church. And I don't know exactly, I know
that there are Bad police officers? I'm not that blind, I know that.
I mean, I've had a few experiences myself. I've heard a few stories myself.
I do know this, that in Christ Jesus, there is neither black
or white. And I know this, The gospel of
God's grace will not leave you prejudiced. You're not, let me
tell you this. Let me make this really clear. If you're white and you think
you're better because you're white, you're stupid. Not only are you stupid, but
you don't know the message of God's free grace. God didn't
love you because you were better than black people. Now let me
just reverse all that. If you're here and black and
think God's better to you because you're black, you're stupid too. What ought to be happening is
Wanda's in Christ and she's my sister in the Lord and I love
her. What's happening in America is
lawlessness. It's getting out of control.
And I think maybe the saddest thing, I've thought about this
all week, the saddest thing is, you know, I read some of the
Facebook things and some of the African American people that
I know are saying they, and I think, am I a they? They are killing our people.
I want every African American to know in here, I'm not for
killing anybody that color. I'm not for that. I'm not a they,
I'm a child of God. I'm a joint heir with Jesus Christ. This thing could get out of hand,
but I'm gonna tell you this, not at this church, because we
have really the answer to race relation. We really do. We have the answer and it's Jesus
Christ. And we love one another. So people
are writing me, too. What about all of the stuff about
the national anthem and this and that and this and that? I
want you to know, first of all, this. I love America. I'm American. I'm a patriot.
I have great respect for our flag. I have great respect, which
represents America. But you can figure this out when
you go home. But I don't trust our government. Just figure that out when you
get home. Things are a mess, aren't they?
But here's what I want you to focus on, and this is what I
want to say to you. And we'll go home, and I hope
we'll go home happy. Here's what I want to say to
you. Sin entered into the world in the garden. And as soon as
sin entered, God made a promise that a savior would come who
would crush the serpent's head. And I wanna say to every Christian
in here, one of these days, we're gonna leave all this mess behind.
We're winners. We're winners. Right now, stay
focused on the gospel. Stay focused on this, that the
answer to social ills is Jesus Christ. Stay focused on that. And remember this, that this
world is not a runaway. God holds the reins to this world. And by the time things seemingly
get really, really bad, I believe we're going to be out of here
anyway. So, but right now, I want you to think about this. I want
you to go home today and think about this. Well, the debate's
tomorrow night, don't be thinking about that. And when you get
all riled up tomorrow night, your God is in control. He's
sovereign. He's sovereign. And I'll tell you, whoever wins
this election will be permitted to be there because God puts
kings on the throne, takes them down. I'm going to do everything
I can to get the person elected that I think should be elected.
But I'm going to tell you this, if it doesn't go that way, then
I think things will pick up a little faster. And what I will do is
something like this. Well, the return of the Lord
is nearer than it was yesterday. That's what I will think. When
we go socialist, when free enterprise ends and all of those things,
and it might happen, it could happen in this country. And I'm not trying to rile you,
I'm just, I'm a thinker and I think this way. Well, we've had eight years of
an African-American president, but there's something bad wrong
between African-Americans and us. How come it hasn't got better? Well, first of all, because we
haven't majored on the gospel. You and I, as this church, can
make it better. And I'll tell you how we can
make it better. Keep centered on Jesus Christ, that He's the
answer. Democrats aren't the answer.
Republicans are not the answer. Jesus Christ is the answer. Now, what's going to happen is
some of you, you thought you were my friend, but you're gonna
leave here, I don't like him anymore. Others of you gonna like me more,
I think today. But you know what? That really
doesn't matter either because here's what I know. I know I'm
God's man with God's message. And I know the message is not
always received. They stone prophets, they kill
prophets. But I'll tell you this too, like,
you know, some of you got upset because I showed the film clip
a couple of Sundays ago of those people ODing and dying. I showed
that. And you covered your children's
faces. And I said to myself, I don't
want you to cover your children's faces. I want you to talk to
your children. In fact, they probably know more
about drug use than you do. They probably do. They know what's
going on at school. Let's don't live a double hypocritical
life here. We are a free church and look
what God has done here with our being honest and proclaiming
the message of his free and sovereign grace. Look at what God is doing
here. You know, I was raised in religion. I was raised in religion. It's
all a farce. And maybe you're here and this
is really gonna upset some of you. You know what I am? I am a sinner saved by the grace
of God. That's what I am. But let me tell you, you know,
our thrift store burnt down, the warehouse. And by the way,
we opened Saturday, this coming Saturday. It's a great celebration.
We'll open this coming Saturday. But a lady wrote me, Pastor Clark. I could hear the tone of her
voice, even though it was a text. I will never donate to Grace
Centers of Hope again. I went by where you had the fire
and your people were smoking out back. Oh, you should have seen those
people before they started smoking cigarettes. They were smoking
crack and hair. Are you condoning smoking? No,
but dear sister or brother you need to get real about your own
mess-ups What I would love you to do is
when you see a sinner that you have compassion and you go like
this Oh, wretched man that I am. Thank God for saving my soul.
Lord, I pray for so-and-so. They're smoking cigarettes out
back of the thrift store. They weren't in the store. They
weren't in the store. And the idea that God was punishing
us because of cigarette smoke, that's all religious. I don't
want to hear that. I mean, I want us to be real, just be real. And this is the way to be real.
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making
me whole. I know I'm no better. I may even
be worse than most people, but you saved me by your grace. You
washed me in your blood. I'm heaven bound. And let him that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall. Don't get too haughty. Don't
get too prideful. I think one of the reasons, one
of the things that's happening around here is, you know, I went
to breakfast Friday. Was that Friday? I went to breakfast
with someone and we talked about why the daycare wasn't open.
And I went home to get ready for a night of hope. And that
person that I went to breakfast with wrote a check for $100,000
and brought it back over and gave it to the girls in the front
office. And you know what? It was kind
of like this, huh? Actually, it was kind of like
this. Why didn't he give it to me at breakfast? I mean, that's
kind of the level. If you stay here just a little
while, you'll see things you cannot explain happening. Outside
of this, there is a God and He's awesome. There is a God and salvation's
by grace. And honestly, if you feel yourself
better than somebody, this is the wrong church. Come on over
to the inner city church. where all of us drug addicts
and self-righteous religious people come together and we look
away to Jesus Christ and trust him. You know, this place is filled
with unhealthy people. There are depressed people here,
there are bipolar people here, there are, you know, preacher's
kids, former preacher kids that are all confused about stuff. There are just all kinds of folks
here. I'll let you go with this. I
was pastoring in Kentucky, actually my first church, and God was
blessing the gospel, and two streetwalkers came to church.
One's name was Tootsie. And Tootsie, she said to me one day as she
was leaving, I was shaking hands, she goes, I think I'm a sinner
preacher. I didn't say it, but I thought
it. I know you are. I know about you, Tootsie. Anyway, Tootsie got saved. Well,
well, in fact, Tootsie's whole family got saved. That's a long
story, but the whole family, she was married too. That didn't
make it much better for what she was. But anyway, all her
kids, I baptized all the kids. Ronnie, her husband, was a Korean
vet. I baptized him. First time I
went out there, he was going to whip me. He was drunk. Had borne to raise hell on his
tattoo. And you know that day after I
went out to visit him, he came to church with Tootsie the next
Sunday. I thought, that's the guy that was going to kill me.
Anyway, Tootsie got saved, and our church clerk who was a mayor in one of the
little cities there in Kentucky came up to me and said this,
if that stray dog is going to be attending here, I won't be
back. Goodbye. Bye. Stray dogs are welcome here.
Amen. Sinners are welcome here. This
is a house of mercy and grace. Oh, I'm talking to somebody today.
Some of you don't like it. Some of you are loving it. This
is salvation by grace. Let's stand together and praise
our God.