If I can, if the Lord will enable me and give me the words he gave me this morning early, I had another message already written out, ready to go. And when I got up, I got another message. And so I believe this is what the Lord wants me to preach this morning. It doesn't go over always in a lot of places. But God wants you to get in the fight, the fight that he has for us and the battle he has for us, the warfare he has for us, to get involved in. Fight the good fight. That's what your Bible says, fight the good. It's nothing bad, nothing bad about taking a stand for the truth. We'll see here that certainly God has us down for a, to be responsible, to get in the battle, to fight off the enemy as much as we can and stand mainly your cause is standing for the Lord Jesus Christ, standing for his word. And so we certainly know that we're not in friendly territory. Don't expect it. Don't expect to get better. I believe it's going to get worse. Just as the Bible says, you think it's bad now? It's going to get worse. And certainly, we can sense that in our relationships in our day now, the changing, the changing of the character of people and the changing of our society. I remember as a kid, and I don't know exactly if he was forced to, but I remember if you seen a red door If you see the solid red door, it identified a home of a socialist. And I don't know whether they made them back there, mm, back there about 75 years ago. But somehow there was some that had. And I remember mom or dad telling me, that's a communist. See that red door? You didn't see but very few of them. But I don't know there was a real attachment or not. But I say that you can see in our day the advancement of all the false doctrines. You can see the advancement of a society that has turned its ear away from the Word of God. You're in a society where the churches are closing by the thousands. You're in a society where something that was once a law against it, you'd be, it was actually so serious a law, it was a felony. I need to keep that in mind. To be a sodomite nowadays is okay to be, I hate to even use that word, But I'm against it. God's against it. And he even says in the last days, it's going to be just like that. As of the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, socially being the coming of the Son of Man. You're living, you must accept it and understand it and know where to stand yourself. What's yours to do? We have responsibility. You don't coast as a Christian. You don't live your own life. You offered your life to God. You said, rule me, reign over me, order me, tell me how to live. You say that when you come before him and you die to self. You know the Bible tells us if you keep yourself, you're gonna lose it. If you're gonna save your life to yourself, you're gonna lose your life. And so we're living in a day that's difficult. It's full of anger, full of wrath, full of unruly people. Paul writes this down, some of it in 1 Timothy. People you just can't rule. You just can't have control over them. And there are many times, children, that foolishness is left in the heart of that child. See, some of these things are so far-fetched and so far off and so distanced from what is norm for the day that they don't even sound reasonable. but we're limited in that kind of day. And so God wants us to have this relationship with Him to where we realize we're in a constant battlefield fighting, fighting against evil. It's not a physical fight. It's a spiritual battle. And God makes it clear. that we're to be useful in this battle. Look at Ephesians 6, and I'll give you that. You have Ephesians 6, I'm gonna go to Timothy after this. Ephesians 6, first thing it says, finally my brethren, verse 10, verse 10. Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now he's gonna make you a soldier. He says, put on the whole armor of God. You got a reason that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. You're gonna need protection. You're gonna be in a battle that you need safety and things that'll protect you. This is a warfare. He even tells you the people here that you're going to face. He tells you the kind of people they are. He said, we're wrestling not against flesh and blood. That's what I said before. It's not a fist fight. It's not something you do out of your strength. But he says, you're going to against principalities. These are powers. These are principles in this world. Orders of the day and things. Principalities against powers. We don't even think about them. You don't even think. I mean, be honest. How often have you thought about demonic power? How often have you thought about demons in people? They didn't go away when Jesus left. They're still here, bigger than ever, stronger than ever, and empowered people the same as they did before. And you're gonna stand against these forces of evil. That's your responsibility. Notice he says, these people are against powers, against rulers of darkness of the world, against spiritual, spiritual, Wickedness. You need to meditate and study on that some. Spiritual wickedness. That's things that they use kind of a spiritual tone to. They want you to think they belong to God. They want you to believe these The music they're playing in a lot of churches these days, this rock music, is spiritual wickedness. You know as well as I know that those songs are teaching morality and wickedness, and yet now churches are welcoming them in their church and having people sing them and sway and do all these things. That's spiritual wickedness. It's not truthful spirituality. It's wickedness that people think or want to believe is spiritual things, and it's not. It's got nothing to do with it. I'm saying a lot of the worship of today has got nothing to do with God. It's got something that just appeals to the flesh. We're prone to want something we like, we can fit in, we can enjoy. We don't feel guilty what we're doing. We feel like we ought to be able to do anything we want to do, anything that feels good, anything that just gives us pleasure too. The Bible warns us in the last days. He says, I'm gonna tell you what the people are gonna be like. They're gonna be people that just want to have entertainment. He calls it giving them over to pleasures. People just give themselves over to it, no matter what the cost, no matter what it does to them spiritually, no matter what it's saying to the world, I'm a Christian. And still go to the same places as the world goes. You know, it's confusing kind of Christianity that's gone today. What is right? What isn't right? What's wrong? And that's where you read up in Hebrews chapter five and goes down in Hebrews chapter six. And God identifies these people that cannot, that have a serious spiritual problem that they probably need to be born again. but they got a serious spiritual problem that they can't discern between good and evil. You'll see it in the last verses of chapter five of Hebrews 11. I'm saying to you that it's chapter five, not 11, chapter five in Hebrews. Somebody, Somebody, a bunch of somebodies in church need to stand for what is true. Stand for righteousness. We can't just let people believe anything. We believe what is righteousness. We believe we ought to dress the way we are, places we ought to go and how we conduct our life. There's a responsibility there. to be strong. Let me look back here to 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1. Notice what the Bible says in chapter 1. I'm not doing good with my fingers. They're hurting me. Verse 1, Paul an apostle. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, I belong to Him by the will of God. I was called by God to be apostle according to the promise of life, which is in The promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, the one that has the power over it. To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father in Christ our Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve for father with pure conscience, that without ceasing I remember remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day. I tried to tell Mike that's what I was going to do. Oh, I hurt for him. Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy. What I call to remember is unfeigned faith that is in thee. It's pure faith. It's not defiled. which dwelt in thy grandmother Lois and in thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou shalt stir up the gift of God which is in thee by putting out of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, not given us the spirit of fear. Christians should be so Can I say dependent and trusting in God that they don't walk around with a 45 or a shotgun or something in their hand? Let me say something to you. You can put 40 locks on your doors and if they want to get in their house, they'll get in there. You know, If God don't take care of you all the time, you'd been mowed down a long time ago, you'd been in an accident, you'd be in bad shape, you'd probably be wherever you're gonna go. But our Lord takes care of us. For God hath not forgiven us the spirit of fear, but of power. Hallelujah. He gives us the strength to press on. And of love helps us And I'd like to deal a lot with this word love. It's misused according to the Bible. We all have our own sentiment and affections that we think the Bible's talking about. It's talking nothing about that. But he's telling us here in of a sound mind. The sound mind doesn't believe false doctrines. A sound mind will catch false doctrines when it's being preached. Now if something don't ring, if something just don't say in your conscience, as long as your conscience is not sealed, when there's air being put across this pulpit, any pulpit, You ought to get a warning sign in your mind. That ain't right. That ain't right. That ain't right. I've had the Lord do that times in my simpleton minor. Man, how can I say it's not right? I don't see anything wrong with it. I got to keep going. I'm not getting my message out here. Be thou therefore ashamed of the testament of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but be thou partaker, be thou partaker of the... What is that word? Is that afflictions? Is that what it says? Does that stand for the warfare, the battle, the fight, the afflictions? The Bible tells us here, of the gospel according to the power of God, Old Brother Roloff's got it right. He says, we're in a battlefield, brother, and he's got it down. But look over in chapter two of 2 Timothy, verse three and four. Thou therefore endure hardness, endure hardness, and here's what you ought to be like. This ought to be able to identify you. He says, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not asking you to join the military, and this is not speaking of the same, but God wants you to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He wants you to have that kind of identity about you, that you're a soldier. And you're willing to get in the battle. You're willing to put on the armor. You're willing to stand strong. Am I too loud? Am I too loud? Too loud? You're to stand strong. You're to stand holy. You're to resist evil. We've got a battle to fight that Notice this now. Let me finish this. He says, "...endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, no man that warreth." No man that warreth gets in the battle. Every Christian needs to get in the battle. No man that warreth entangles himself with affairs of this life. Why? That he may please Him who has chosen him to be a That's one of the reasons I had the songs sang this morning. I wanted to show that the Christian, the true Christian, recognizes he's in the battle for the Lord, and he recognizes that he's called to it. It's not something that he has to sign up in. It's the calling of God upon his life to be somebody that stands for the truth. I'm saying, wow. I'm saying that if we're going to stand, if we're going to resist the truth, I mean, resist error, and we're going to try to battle false teaching, if we're going to try to deal with the wickedness in our world in some way, take a stand against it, whatever it might be, We're gonna have to be a person that recognizes we're chosen to be a soldier. We're chosen to stand like a man and battle evil. Ye that love the Lord hate evil. There's scores of stories of truth about mistreatment of Christians. I remember a preacher telling this story, and I've never got away from it, and it's been over 50 years ago. But he said a young teenage girl, I think she's like 14, 15, somewhere in there, she went to school. And when she come home from school that day, her mother, which she knew was inside the house, locked the doors. The preacher was telling the story. He said the young girl begged, pleaded, Mom, Mom, let me in, Mom. Mom, I love you. Let me in. He said she pleaded and pleaded until she realized that her mother wasn't going to let her back in the house, and she walked away. I don't know where it happened to her, what it was, but I said, how can a person be so cruel to their children? I'm saying the teachings of our day, there's no strength to them. There's no power of controlling the Christian and the Christian standing for the truth, standing for righteousness, standing for godliness, standing for what God wants us to, how he wants us to live. I'm saying there's a warfare and we are to be soldiers standing in the battle, willing to do our best to try to defeat the forces of evil. saying where where I know I can read some minds preacher we're supposed to love our enemies and do good to them that persecute you right you ever said it But you need to understand that word, and you need to understand how it needs to be applied. That's not an affectual attachment. That's not something that's emotional. Your love is for their soul. Your love is for their repentance. Your love is for them to seek the Lord and desire them to see them saved. It's got nothing to do with hug and kisses and treating them that way. You love to see them turn to God and turn away from their sin. We got this love so mixed up, you don't know what you're doing or which way to go with it. And people use it in a wrong way. You don't love a sinner laying in his sin, living in his sin, walking in his wickedness. You don't love him personally. Hello? How do you pray for somebody? that's doing, how do you show love for them that's doing wicked, wicked, wicked things? How would you pray for that woman I just mentioned that locked her door out or her daughter out of the house? How would you pray? What would you say in your prayer about that mother? You'd want God to break her heart. You'd want God to deal with her. I'm saying you'd pray with a spirit in you to see evil put down and true love reign. I'm saying we've got love so mixed up in Christendom. God never told you to love a lot of the people, evil people, what they're doing. We're to love the Lord and hate evil, according to the Bible, as I said. have hatred for the vices of this world. Should you love a drug dealer? Should you love a doctor that performs abortion? Should you love him? No. No. You don't love him in a manner and a fashion that you really care about him personally. You love the soul that was made to be saved. That's what you love. You want to see that soul saved. The rest of that man is what he's made. God made him a living, God made him a living soul. He didn't make him a living idiot, a living wicked person that would kill babies, a wicked person that just give drugs to your children regardless of what happens to them. I'm saying to you, this love that we're to have is for truth and righteousness to reign in their lives, to see God awaken them to the truth, see God change their lives, keep them from wasting their life. So we got, you and I should desire to overcome evil, not let evil overcome us in any way. How could I be sympathetic with evil? Oh, they're good. No, they're not good people. They're not good people. They've got a wicked heart when they do what they do. You can't love that. You can't agree with that. You can't sympathize with it for sure. Stand up. Stand up for who? For perfection, the Lord Jesus Christ. For purity, the Lord Jesus Christ. For holiness. That's what you stand up for. That's what you stand against sin for. I'm saying to you, we should have desire. He said, let me just read this and I'll close. It's hard to believe this is gonna happen. But look in Matthew 10, in verse number 36. And a man's foes, shall be they of his own household. You read that? Your enemies may well be some of your own relatives, some of your own children end up being your enemy. When are we going to take a stand for righteousness and let the Bible speak and let the Bible order our lives and let us follow the Word of God? When are we going to see that God is right at every occasion in the disciplining and the leading of our children and the way we love our children? The Bible makes it clear, if you don't discipline them, you don't love them. You don't love them. You don't care where they're going. You don't care what kind of person they're going to be. You don't care how they're going to destroy their life. Remember, and I, to this day, I haven't figured out how she did it. But my mother put it in me, one of the principles she put in me, she says, don't you gamble. I mean, I was in the Navy, was out to sea most of the time in all kinds of I've been all over this world, just about. I've crossed the equator. I've been in Africa. I've been in most of the countries out throughout all those areas, most of the world. But I never gambled. I didn't live right in a lot of the other things. I wish, you know, beating me half to death kept me from a lot of other things. Dumbest, dumbest, dumbest thing I ever did in my life. One of the dumbest thing I ever did in my life. Is start smoking. It's a loser. It's a waster. God give you those precious lungs. I'm talking about be a soldier to fight against these things. Let people know they're wrong. Stand against sin. Stand it in your home and stand it in wherever it might be that you are. You're to be a person that stands for truth and righteousness and justice and godliness and holiness and love and understanding, mercy, forgiveness. Be a real soldier, I'm saying to you. I'll close with this. What am I to do, preacher? Well, let me just show you. Let me show you. One of the problems we have in our day is we're weak. And I don't know, I've never heard another preacher much nowadays. I heard a lot of this when I was a boy. I've not heard this preaching, not heard this preaching, I know, in the last 30, 40 years. But it's very possible for you to get weak in the faith. And you don't realize really what happened. Once you're strong, you really took a stand. But nowadays it's almost an easy pushover. But God wants you to keep the power of God on your life. But apparently, apparently we've missed the doctrines of the Holy Spirit of God and what he does for you, thinking, believe me, easy believism ruined us. It ruined us. If I ask every one of you that's saved, I says, do you have the Holy Spirit? Oh, yes. Let me ask you a second question. Does he have all of you? Does he rule in your life? Now, the Bible makes it clear that there are times that you need, you need to seek the Holy Spirit of God again to fill you. You can go to Ephesians 5. We'll just read that one. We'll go to Ephesians 5. Bible makes it clear to us. that we are to be people. He said in verse number 18, and don't think. Please, please study your Bible more about the word W-I-N-E. Do you think God would In one place in the Bible, tell you wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging. Tells you to not be deceived by that. Do you think he's going to put that kind of a wine in this verse? No. No. Wine basically means pleasure, enjoyment, feeling good. Everything's going well. Happiness is wine. Notice what it says here. Be not drunk with wine, with excess, but be. Wait a minute, wait a minute. When I got saved, that was it. I got it all I need. I don't need nothing else. I don't need more Bible. I don't need more of God. I don't need nothing. I am saved. I'm going to heaven. Well, here it tells you that it may be that you need the Holy Spirit of God work in your life again. He says here, he says, be not drunk with wine and with excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Do you know that the apostles were filled again? And again, in Acts 4, 31, Acts 4, 31, Acts 4, 31, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all, F-I-L-L-E-D, with the Holy Ghost. Now, wait a minute, these are apostles, these are preachers. These are godly men. Do what you want, believe what you want, and you're going to. You're going to believe what you want. Very seldom do people get on their knees and ask God, is this right? Is this what I need to believe? It's easy to say it sounds good. I can agree with that. I remember Finney writing this book, and he's the only man I've read in history, and I've read a lot of preachers in the histories just to know what the Bible says. And he's the only man that's ever had, only man that has ever been recorded as having 85% of his converts went on and served God the rest of their life. Only man I've ever read. I've read a lot of them. Some of the most popular, all them. Wesley didn't have that score. Whitefield didn't have that score. Finney was so cautious, so fearful of people not being truly saved, just making a profession, that he'd... I remember one time he asked the people, he says, now listen to me carefully. You that are concerned about your soul tonight, I want you to stand." He says, they must have misheard me. He says, most of the people stood. Couldn't be them all wanting to be saved. He says, okay, all you that stand, follow me. Out the door he went. He was in a city. Out the door he went. down the street, down across the corner, down across another corner, back down another street, and went into another building. They're still following him. I said, well, maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. So he questioned him two or three more times. And he said, he said, I just guess God wants to save all these people. I'm saying to you that people misunderstand the work of the Holy Spirit of God. We, as Christians, we need to be endued with power again and again and again. Phineas said, in the midst of a revival, thousands being saved, in the midst of a revival, I remember reading him one time, he says, this is the way he put it. I'm just going to say the way he put it. He said, it felt like, felt like the spirit of God was leaking out of me. He's doing the preaching, thousands being saved. He said, I'd have to steal away someplace and find a place to get on my face and ask God to fill me again. But would you say, would you say that you don't need any more of the Holy Ghost? You got enough. You got that easy believism enough where you just said, I do, and I'm done. The Christian life's a continual thing of growth, of maturing, developing, a real relationship with the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a reality that you experience it, but you're going to have to keep bad work, bad work, working at it, praying praying in an effectual way, in a way that brings you back to God, in a way that charges you up again, building up yourself in your most holy faith, building up yourself in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. Verse 20 in Jude. You're not gonna walk around without being in this battle and somebody just trying to knock you down some. Put doubts in your mind. You ever happen to do that? Put doubts in your mind. I remember a preacher at Sammy's one day. Now here's probably close to 2,000 people out there and this guy got up and preached. We'd never heard him before, he's a new guy. And he preached this message. I'm telling you, you got to watch, preachers. He preached this message. If you ever doubted one time, you need to be saved. He's talking to Christians. Scratched my head, and I said, let me see what the Bible says. John. John the Baptist said, go ask him. Is it him or do I seek another? Would you say that's got a little bit of doubt there about him? Jesus said, go tell him. I love it. He says, I preach to the poor. You're a soldier of the cross. You stand for Jesus. You stand against sin. Stand against wickedness. You're going to wait until it grips the kids. You're going to wait until it soils your house. You're going to wait until it troubles your mind. Old Brother Roloff's got it right. It's a battlefield, brother, not a recreation room. It's a fight. It's not a game. Shall we stand? Are you filled? Have you ever sought? Lord, I'm weak, but thou art strong. Jesus, keep me from all wrong. I'll be satisfied as long, but not until As long as I can walk with you, be close to you, sense your presence. I'm telling you, you're living in a wicked day that will try to slowly take you down. And you're going to need more of God, more about Jesus, what I know, more of his grace to others show. More of His saving and fullness free. More of His love who died for me. I want more. I've got to have more. I've got weakness. I've got trouble in my mind. Don't take Him for granted. Please don't do that. Don't do that. That's what I did in that one verse I read in the first part of the service. Kiss him. Meaning you better acknowledge him in all your ways. Jesus, would you go with me here? Jesus, is my house all right? Jesus, is my heart right? It's a battle. It's a battle. The enemy, your enemy hates your Savior and is doing his best, and he's very successful at doing his best, to send people to hell. Father, in Jesus' name, I feel inadequate to preach a message along this line, not covering all the things that I believe you give me even. I pray they would be able to see and sense in their own life when it just seems like they're wandering far away from God, straying, getting cold-hearted, getting indifferent to the things of God. And I pray, Lord, that you'd awaken us to righteousness. And I believe you mean it when you said, awake to righteousness and sin not. God forbid that they say one more sinner went to heaven. I believe it's saints that go to heaven with all my heart. According to your word, nothing that defiled is going to enter in. I believe that. I believe that. Watch over them, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. You are dismissed.