Brother Jorgenson is the Vice President of Commonwealth Baptist College in Lexington, Kentucky.
“O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory.” (Psalm 108:1) David’s heart was fixed on praising God. He had decided he wasn’t going to change. He was going to praise God, regardless. I want to preach today about our heart being fixed. You’ve got all kind of things going on in the world today. Everybody is trying to tell you, “Don’t have your mind made up. Be sure you keep an open mind. After all, you’ve got to re-examine this and think through that and everything else.” But there are a number of areas in which, I am glad to say, my heart is fixed. I’ve made up my mind. I am determined. I don’t need to rethink it or re-examine it. I don’t need to think through it again. I don’t intend to change it; I plan to die living the same way. I plan to go out the way I came in. I was ordained at Highland Park Baptist Church, May 13, 1972, by Dr. Lee Roberson and the good men of that church, into the Gospel ministry. I plan to finish up my ministry with the same old, black Book, preaching out of the King James Bible, preaching the same message, preaching the same standards, and separation, preaching the same salvation through Jesus Christ. My heart is fixed. Somebody says, “You ought to re-examine or rethink these things. We’ve got new ideas for a new age. Don’t you know this is the twentieth century.” I’ve got news for you. It’s the twenty-first century, but it’s the same old Book. It’s the same old Word of God. It’s the same standards. It’s not any different. God has not changed. My heart is fixed. You can think of all kinds of different examples. The football player was not going to be denied. He had his purpose in mind. He was going to cross that goal line and it didn’t matter if they hit him, he kept plowing on because his heart was fixed on that end zone. Think about the fellow who has decided, “I am going to marry that girl. I’m going to find a way.” As hopeless as it seem, he managed to get her after all, and he did marry that girl. His heart was fixed, settled, and was going to do it. Talk to people that have achieved different goals and risen to heights. If somebody achieved something notable in life, most always they’ve got a heart that is fixed on that. They are not about to be turned aside. You show me somebody that is successful in any area of life and I’ll show you somebody whose heart is fixed. I don’t care if you are talking about business or athletics or serving the Lord. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about the fellows that started some of the big internet companies in the Silicon Valley. Common stories, “We were getting this thing off the ground,” a couple of sophomores in business college, trying to work their way through. We were sleeping under the desk at night, working 20 hours a day and grabbing whatever sleep we could. We were putting our whole effort into that business. Now we are multi-millionaires and the business is a big success, and we got this thing off the ground.” It didn’t happen without somebody whose heart was fixed on making that thing go. You show me anybody that is successful in any area of life, I’ll show you somebody whose heart is fixed. They are determined. They’ve decided, “This is what I’m going to do.” As a challenge before you get out in the ministry, let me give you a list of things that I think your heart ought to be fixed on as you leave Commonwealth Baptist College, as you get out in the ministry and serve the Lord. Your heart ought to be fixed. One of them is this old, King James Bible. My heart is fixed on the King James Bible. I’m not going to be a part of the bible-a-month club, or the bible-of-the-year club. You say, “Brother Jorgenson, you don’t know this. You’re not very intelligent.” You can call me whatever you want to call me. I’m not dumb. I’ve got a decent IQ. I do have a degree from Princeton. I did go to Tennessee Temple Seminary, did study Greek and Hebrew, taught Greek, took Hebrew, translated, did all that stuff. I’m sure there are a lot of folks that are smarter than I am. But I do know that I believe the old, King James Bible. If I were talking about this Book I would say, “Go get my black chapel Bible.” What’s wrong with saying, “King James Bible?” Some of you might say, “You know it’s the King James Version. God gave the words in the original.” God preserved the words right here in English, and what do I have? I’ve got God’s Word. That’s all there is to it. Version sounds like you’ve got six different versions, maybe they’re all the same. I understand the technical use of the word. You can call it King James Version, KJV, KJB, King James Bible, but I know I’m not going to read the NIV, ASV, RSV, or whatever else. I am sticking with the old King James. We’ve travelled together, my Bible and I In all kinds of weather with smile or with sigh. Now who shall separate my Bible and I. It’s not ism’s or schisms or new life that’s dry. I intend to stick with the King James Bible. I’m not going to be correcting it, or going different routes. Somebody says, “Don’t you think you ought to rethink your position on some of this?” No, I don’t need to. If you are taking U.S. History and getting ready for a test, somebody gives you a copy of the study guide, and it’s in Brother Jorgenson’s handwriting. Question number one, “Who was the first President of the United States?” You look at the answer key and it says, “George Washington”. So I’m going to write George Washington just like he wrote it. I’m not even going to shorten it to Washington. Someone might argue that maybe you mean a different Washington. We don’t need to fix it or change anything about it. We just need to read it and believe it and preach it and obey it. Somebody says, “Don’t you realize that you ought to rethink this? After all there was a Continental Congress and they had different groups and the Articles of Confederation. That’s a pretty simplistic answer to just say, ‘George Washington’ there for question number one. Maybe you ought to rethink this and expand on that a little bit.” I’ve got the answer key written in his handwriting. Why would I rethink it? Rethinking it is just going to help me get it wrong. I don’t need to rethink it. I’ve got the answer key. I have the answer key to life. I don’t need to rethink things, or re-examine things, or reopen things. I’ve got the answer key right here. It tells me that the old King James Bible is the Word of God. “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnac of earth,purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever.” (Psalm 12:6-7) Because the original was inspired; it’s been preserved; and if you preserve what is inspired, you’ve still got it. I don’t need to re-examine it. My heart is fixed on the old King James Bible. My heart is fixed on door-to-door soulwinning. I’m not going to leave that. I’m not going to get into different methods. You say, “Brother Jorgenson, don’t you know the thing is television now.” I don’t mind you being on television. Our church has a television broadcast, but that doesn’t replace soulwinning. “Don’t you know that’s the new thing and we’re reaching the masses now through television, or through the internet.” Our church is on the internet, too. Fine, that’s a good thing to do. We’ve got a radio broadcast. I’m in favor of radio. I’m in favor of you having television ads, newspaper ads, or whatever you want to do to get the message out and invite folks in, but you’d better never quit door-to-door soulwinning because God is going to bless door to door soulwinning since that is the command that He gave us in this Book. Somebody says, “That’s just old fashioned.” Then I’m old fashioned. Somebody says, “You need to rethink that for a new age.” No, I don’t. You say, “Where did you get that idea about door-to-door soulwinning?” I read my Bible. Acts 5:42 says, “And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” They preached the Gospel there at the assembly, and then they went to every house. I read it in the Word of God. We’re trying to build a church like they did it in the book of Acts. You say, “They didn’t have television in the book of Acts.” No, but they had the power of God. “Well, they didn’t have the internet in the book of Acts.” No, but they had the Holy Spirit. God blesses people that follow this Book. You’ve got to be an idiot to read this Book and come to any conclusion other than this one: God blesses people who follow His instructions. There is a God in Heaven. My heart is set on that. This is His Book, then I’ll do what it says. My heart is fixed on door-to-door soulwinning. I believe in going out and confronting people with the Gospel and saying, “If you died today, would you go to Heaven or would you go to Hell, or don’t you even know?” Or saying, “I’ve got a little tract here and a few Bible verses. In a just few minutes, I’d like to show you how you could know when you die you are going to Heaven. That would be a good thing to know, wouldn’t it?” You say, “Somebody might get offended about that.” Then they get offended. I guess maybe Jesus offended a few people when He went in and turned over the tables of the moneychangers. They might have said, “It’s offensive. We’re not coming to your meetings anymore.” He did it. Look at the preaching of the early apostles in the book of Acts. They didn’t worry about being offensive. They said, “You crucified God’s Son. You crucified Christ, you wicked sinners. You are the ones that put Him to death.” You are offending me, calling me a sinner. That’s what they did. The Holy Spirit took that and worked in the hearts of the people, and God pricked their conscience and they said, “Oh, no, what shall we do?” Peter said, “You ought to get saved, then get baptized and then start serving God.” My heart is fixed on door to door soulwinning. I’m not opposed to serving coffee at church or having donuts. I love seeing Brother Lewis pull into the parking lot with his bus and four dozen Krispy Kreme donuts every Sunday morning, but you don’t build a church on Krispy Kreme donuts and Starbucks coffee. You are going to build a church on door-to door, confrontational soulwinning, stopping people out on the streets, in the parks, highways and hedges, door-to-door soulwinning. My heart is fixed on the King James Bible. My heart is fixed on door-to-door soulwinning. My heart is fixed on the bus ministry and reaching poor people. One of the fellas with Brother Johnson being out of the country called and said, “We need a count from you.” I said, “I know we had at least 350 on the “C” buses.” In fact, it was 356, which will bring our overall bus total up to 950 on this past Sunday. Praise God! So what’s wrong with that? Why are you embarrassed about that? My heart is fixed on reaching the poor and the children through the bus ministry and trying to help people that nobody else cares about. Like Brother Fugate says, “Who says we are only supposed to count tithers?” Who says they don’t count because they are poor? Who says they don’t count because they are black, Hispanic, Asian, or whatever? They are people with souls, who are going to spend eternity in Heaven or Hell. My heart is fixed on reaching the poor. The problem with some of these folks, I guess, is they don’t spend any time reading God’s word. But you can’t help but get out of this, that God blesses the individual that cares for the poor. It’s all through here. Psalm 41:1 says, “Blessed is he that considereth the poor:...” Who blesses them? God does. If you read this Bible, you get the idea God blesses the church that cares for the poor. You don’t do it to get God’s blessing; you do it because you care for people and want to obey God. It does work out that God does bless people and churches that care for poor people. Why did Dr. Anderson get involved with the ministry of Clays Mill Road Baptist Church and Commonwealth Baptist College? How did that all happen? He saw us going out to reach the poor people on bus routes. He said, “Boy, if you’ve got engineers, executives, and people with nice homes that are willing to come and eat a sack lunch in the back of the car so they can go out and get poor people and bring them into church, that’s the kind of church I want to be associated with. It brought in some more folks who want to invest their money in souls. Most of you wouldn’t know who they are, but they are out there. How did they show up? Was it because we made an effort to go into fancy neighborhoods and get more tithers in our church? No, God blessed because we went out reaching poor people. Somebody said, I want to get involved and be a part of that.” Suppose you were walking down the sidewalk and you saw some fellow laying there on the ground, ten years old, all cut up, battered, bruised, and bloody. Kind of like the story of the Good Samaritan. It looks like he is almost dead and there is nothing about him that would make him attractive or interesting. You don’t have any idea who he is. You say, “This guy needs help.” So you try to give him a sip of water. You call 911. Maybe you put him in your car and drive him to the hospital and save his life. You feel good about that because you saved somebody’s life. Then you come to find out it is Bill Gates’ son. You didn’t know he was related to the richest man in the world. He flies in on his private jet and finds you. “You saved my son’s life. Thank you! What can I do for you?” You say, “Well, they are about to foreclose on my house. If I had $874 I could keep my house another three months.” He’d say, “What’s the mortgage balance? We’ll pay it off. You can live in that house as long as you want to live there.” Wouldn’t he? Guess who is richer than Mr. Gates? If you go find God’s creation out there and help somebody else and you invest in poor people, God comes back and says, “You helped one of Mine. What do you need? I’ll take care of it.” God blesses. The problem is that we don’t really believe there is a God Who answers prayer. God blesses people and churches that care about the poor and take the Gospel message to them. My heart is fixed on the King James Bible. My heart is fixed on door-to-door soulwinning. My heart is fixed on the bus ministry and reaching the poor. My heart is fixed on the preaching of the Word of God. I don’t mind going to a drama, play, or whatever you want to call it. I enjoy the Christmas cantata we have here, but it doesn’t replace preaching. I have a hard time staying awake through it, because they turn the lights off! It’s on Sunday evening after I’ve just had a nice meal. I’ve been out working all morning on the bus routes and different things in the afternoon. Then they turn the lights off and play that beautiful music. I enjoy it. I’m happy to have those things, but it never replaces preaching. Not drama, not musicals, not suave talks, but preaching of the Word of God is what this nation needs. It’s what our churches need. It’s what America needs. It’s what every city and town and hamlet needs in this area. We need somebody to go out and stand for the Word of God and proclaim the truths of the Word of God, to preach it. Preach it with some passion. Preach it with some enthusiasm and say, “My heart is fixed on preaching.” Somebody may say, “You’ll offend somebody preaching like that.” It doesn’t matter. If you’ve got unsaved people who can come and sit through your service week after week after week and never be offended, there is probably something wrong with your service. If you’ve got backslidden Christians, unseparated, carnal Christians who can sit through your service week after week after week and never get convicted, never get offended, never change anything, there is something wrong with your service. There is something wrong with your preaching. Our purpose is to get the lost saved and then help train Christians in righteousness and service to God. That’s what we are trying to do. God has called us to be part of a people that is separated unto Him. We are trying to get people saved out of the world and get them separated to live for God, separate them from the world unto God to live for Him. If you are not willing to preach the Word of God, you are never going to accomplish that. God didn’t send us out to gather a big crowd. They’ve got a crowd down at the UK game every week. Our purpose is not to gather a crowd. Our purpose is to get people saved and train them in righteousness. You are not going to do that without preaching of the Word of God. My heart is fixed on old fashioned Bible preaching. You need to teach. There are times for counselling. But don’t leave off preaching the Word of God. You are not going to build a church without it. You are not going to build anything like God wants it done without preaching. If you go back and read the sermons in the book of Acts, you’ll find things that had the potential to offend people and drive them away. I have no desire to drive anybody away. I want them to change and stay, but I can’t help them to change and stay if I don’t preach the Word of God. I don’t want them to stay without changing. I’m in favor of them staying. I’m in favor of them changing. I’m not trying to drive anybody off, but the Word of God will do that by itself. My goal is not to be offensive, but I have to be willing to preach truth and let them choose how they respond. I’m glad to have everybody come in, but on the other hand when you preach the Gospel and say, “If you don’t get born again, you are going to wind up in Hell.” Somebody who doesn’t want to get saved says, “That kind of preaching offends me. I don’t like to think of a loving God that would talk of sending anybody to Hell.” They go to Hell because they choose to go to Hell and not get saved. Somebody says, “Couldn’t we just talk about the love of God and the glories of Heaven and never reference Hell?” Not if you are going to follow the Bible you can’t. You can’t have a Heaven without a Hell. You can’t have right without wrong. You can’t have light without darkness. You’ve got to have the contrast. Our purpose in preaching is to make the Gospel clear, to go to the lost and say, “Your sins crucified Christ. You put Him on that cross. You need to get born again. You need to trust Him as Saviour and you can have your sins forgiven and have His joy in your heart and soul,” but if you don’t tell them that, how are they going to get it? Once you get them saved, you want to preach the Word of God and say, “Look, folks, God wants to change your life. You need to dedicate yourself to God. You need to be a good steward of the things that God has given you, of your time and your talents and your treasures. You need to start learning and giving and obeying and serving.” It’s preaching of the Word of God and teaching out of this Book that is going to change lives. Once you get them in church, that’s the purpose of the church, not just to have an assembly. If our goal was to get a crowd and serve donuts, we can just go down to Starbucks or Krispy Kreme to meet and count everybody that walks in and out. You’ve got churches nowadays that think at least evangelical or whatever. If anybody asks, they’ll tell them how to get saved, but nobody asked this week so we didn’t have anybody saved. We had a good time and good fellowship around the donuts, I mean Word of God. We had a good time and good fellowship around that coffee, I mean the book of Acts. I believe in preaching. My heart is fixed on preaching. My heart is fixed on the local church. God has promised perpetuity to the local church -- the local, independent, New Testament, Baptist church. I’m for ministries. This college is a ministry of the Clays Mill Road Baptist Church. I’m in favor of you having as many outreach ministries, soulwinning ministries, or whatever kind of ministries as you can have, but they all ought to be a part of the local church. I like it when I call places and somebody answers the phone and says, “Clays Mill Road Baptist Church.” Not Clays Mill ministries, I just want to call it the church. I want to talk to the preacher. I didn’t want to get the business director or the CEO. I want to talk to the preacher at the local church. God promised power to the local church. He didn’t promise it to clubs or organizations or lodges or mission boards. He promised it to the local church and to individuals working within that church. My heart is fixed. I believe in going to church. Somebody says, “Do you think you are going to lose your salvation if you just miss church once or twice on a Sunday night?” No, I praise God I’m not going to lose my salvation because I miss church once, but I’m still not planning to miss church. I plan to be there. My heart is fixed on being in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. You say, “You could save $200 on an airplane ticket if you flew during church.” I’m not doing it. My heart is fixed on the local church. I believe in going to church. I believe in giving to the church. I believe in supporting the programs of the church. I believe in getting behind the efforts of the church and getting involved. I just believe in the local, independent, fundamental, Baptist church. My heart is fixed on the King James Bible. It’s fixed on door-to-door soulwinning. It’s fixed on the bus ministry and the poor. It’s fixed on preaching. It’s fixed on the local church. My heart is fixed on righteous living and Bible standards. “Don’t you know this is the 21st century.” Yes. “Don’t you know that back in the 50’s I guess it was okay to dress like that, but this is 2019. Maybe you didn’t know that, Brother Jorgenson.” How dumb do you think I am? I know what year it is. I know what day it is. The best I can tell, this Book didn’t change. I don’t want to be different for the sake of being weird, but on the other hand, sometimes the world is going to think I’m weird because I’m different than they are. You look at anybody that is heavily involved in anything, those on the outside will look at them and say, “That’s kind of weird. He’s over at the gym five o’clock every morning. He’s still running stairs doing this and doing that, and doing the staggers at midnight. He’s really committed to that basketball team.” Somebody is going to look at you going to church three times a week and see your dress standards and righteous living and say, “Yes, they’re kind of weird.” I didn’t set out to make my neighbors think I’m a wonderful guy. My goal here isn’t for the people across the street to say, “He’s just like me.” My goal is to please the Lord. I imagine all our neighbors once in a while have said to each other, “That woman is crazy. She’s out there in a dress pulling weeds out of the garden. Why would she do that?” She’s trying to follow the Word of God, and her husband is too lazy to pull the weeds out of the garden. (I do sometimes.) What I like to do is spray them so they die. You don’t have to keep pulling them again and again and again. My problem is that I miss and get the other stuff sometimes. My heart is fixed. I believe and always will believe that pants are for men and dresses are for women, that marriage is one man and one woman. It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. There is a bunch of stuff in this Book my heart is fixed on. My heart is fixed on the fact that alcohol is from the pit of Hell. My heart is fixed that gambling is wrong. My heart is fixed. “Don’t you need to reexamine and rethink that.” No, it’s all settled. Somebody says, “Brother Jorgenson, you’re stubborn.” Thank you. I want to be stubborn about the right things. If I’ve got the answer key, why do I want to rethink it? If I’ve got the Book written by the Authority, why do I want to listen to Dr. Big Mouth to try to tell me what he thinks is wrong with it? I don’t care if he’s got 14 degrees. I’m usually about 98 degrees myself, body temperature. My heart is fixed. I don’t need to listen to this and rethink that. I settled it. I’m glad God settled the old account of my sins long ago. God isn’t going to re-examine or reopen it. It’s done. I’m glad when it comes to understanding the Word of God and preaching and the local church and standards and door-to-door soulwinning and reaching the poor, I don’t have to rethink it all the time. I’ve got the answer. If somebody else wants to see it, I’m glad to share it with them. I know the answers. I know what works. I know what God said. I know if I do it, He’s going to bless me. Whether He blesses me the way I want or some other way, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to try to live according to this Book. I want to try and go out like I came in. I want to finish like I started. My goal is simply not to change. Just be the same, be the same, be the same. My heart is fixed. |
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