You may be seated. And it's wonderful to have Dr. Sheldon Smith with us to begin our Back to Bethel preaching conference. He's been here many times before, and his wife is also with him today. She's been here before as well, but doesn't always get to go. And we're so glad that she's here today. It's a real blessing to have her as well. We're starting on a journey. It began this morning in Sunday school. And if you've just now got on the ride, that's fine. But understand God wants to take us somewhere this week. Do you understand that? In Isaiah 44 verse three, the Lord shared this with me and I wanna share it with you. The Bible says, for I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my servant or my spirit unto thy seed and my blessings upon thy offspring. He says that he will pour water upon him that's thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. Hopefully we're not the Laodicean church who feel that we have needed nothing. May God reveal to us our need. I don't know what your need is. To be honest, I think I know my need, but many times God shows me my need. What I thought my need was, was not really what it was. Some of us may need to go deeper in our faith. Some of us might need to go deeper in our consecration to God. Some of us might need to go deeper in our obedience to God. God may want to fix that thing of that root of bitterness that someone may have. I just want to say we're starting a journey today. It goes through Wednesday night. Hey, get on board with me and let's cry out to God as thirsty people and let's ask him to pour his spirit. Dr. Smith has been the editor many years now at the wonderful Sword of the Lord in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. That has changed so much from the very first time that I went to Murfreesboro. The city's not even anywhere like what it was back then. You'll see the Sword of the Lord paper out front. Let me encourage you. Those of you who aren't already taking it to pick up one and take it home with you. I read through it. I look through them. I read through them. I try to find sermons on Saturday nights for Sunday morning in them. Maybe you don't need to get it. Then you'll know I've heard that message. But it's a staple in the Christian life. It goes well with the word of God. It's a common joke among all preachers. Have you got a message? When I get my sword, I'll have one. That's a common joke among pastors. Get good reading. Know who you're reading. Some of you online, you're reading Calvinist. You're reading Piper and different people. You don't need to read. And get good reading. And the sword's been in our life for many, many, many years. I'm thankful, thankful for it. I'm grateful for Dr. Smith. He is a great preacher, but he's a Bible scholar. And you get to know him and Mrs. Smith this week while you can. He'll just be with us for a little while, so don't be shy. You come up, you make them feel, give them a Tennessee welcome. They're in Murfreesboro, so they know what that is. But just make them feel at home. Before he comes to preach, Jesse, you come. Well, so very, very true. Thank you, my brother. Take your Bible, please, and turn to Philippians chapter number one. Philippians chapter number one. It's certainly a privilege for Betty and me to be here, to be in the Back to Bethel preaching conference once again. Appreciate our friendship that's developed here. with Brother and Mrs. Savage and with many of you as well. I'll be here tonight, Lord willing, and again tomorrow night. And then Brother Allison gets here tomorrow, and we'll do a little doubleheader tomorrow night. And I think I can tell you without any, my wife will say amen, because Brother Allison is one of our very favorite preachers. I mean, that's a family, not a secret, but it's a, Pastor, I lost that thing. I don't know what this does, but I got it right there. I think it's an electrical charge if I talk too long. They're going to set me down with it. Brother Allison is a dear friend and I'm sure some of you, maybe a lot of you have been over there to church, great church in Huntsville, Madison, Alabama. And he always just comes and gives us good stuff. And you'll be blessed by that. These other men that are coming later in the week are good men as well. And so you got a week in front of you, a week to load up with good stuff. I like going to places where they've got a hundred things on the buffet, and I can go out and put about eighty-nine of them on my plate. But this week you're going to get a buffet of preaching that will be good for you, and so bring your kids. Let them—I'm telling you, there's not anything wrong with your children that a bunch of preaching wouldn't help. Maybe a paddling here and there, but the preaching helps them. So get them here, get them under the spout where the good stuff comes out, and it'll be a good time. Philippians chapter 1. I'm going to look at several things here, and I'll read all of it. But I'll just do a little bit here at the beginning. Verse 3, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you, all making request with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Let's drop down, and we're going to skip some important stuff, but look at verse 20. According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. Remember, this is a prison epistle written from a dirty, damp, dungeon, and that as always, he says, nothing's changed. Always, with all boldness, as always, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. Look at verse 27, "...only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ." that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel." As I read these verses, I hear it saying to me that when we see each other, In other words, if I see you, I ought to also see Christ. If you see me, if you look at me, you ought to see something of the Savior. We ought to magnify Him in who we are and what we do. He ought to be so big with us that you can't help but see the Savior when you see us. If I may testify for just a moment, and make a statement in doing so, I'm going to suggest to you this morning that the Christian life is an absolutely fabulous, incredible journey. Pastor, you used the word journey a few minutes ago talking about the back to Bethel days, getting on here Sunday morning, going all the way through what day? Through Wednesday night. a journey of preaching and fellowship, time together. It is a journey. Now, sometimes I hear people use that term, journey, and it's some kind of a euphoric, generic thing that doesn't add up to much. But the Bible does. It is a Bible word. In fact, 1 Corinthians 16, it talks about how the Corinthians helped the apostle Paul on his journey. And I travel a lot now. I mean, half the years I've been at the sword, the last 23 years plus, I travel a lot, about two and a half million miles now, and I travel a lot. And I guess you've got to like travel to do that much of it, I guess. I think about some of the trips that Betty and I have made. When we were at the church in Maryland where we were for a long time, we'd only been there a year or two, and they gave us our first trip to Israel. The church gave us that trip to Israel. Paid our way for Betty and me to go to Israel for 10 days. Now, we've both been back additional times over the years. She's been a few times, I've been more times. But that trip, she and I made together, that first trip, I mean, you talk about the trip of a lifetime. I mean, right now, just ask us, we can tell you things about what happened on that trip. She and I have been to Europe several times. and we both love Central Europe. You talk about Austria and Switzerland and Luxembourg and Germany and France and Italy and Greece and all of those countries. We've been there, and I'm telling you, you want to talk about it, we'll talk about it because, I mean, the trips had an impact on us. I made a trip to Japan a few years back, was gone for three weeks. Probably the most significant trip in terms of impact on me spiritually of any trip I've ever taken. Maybe with the exception of the Holy Land trip. Just made a tremendous impact on me. Trips can do something to you and for you. I've been to Mexico any number of times. I've been to Canada any number of times. I've been to the islands numerous times. Trips are something. The Christian life is a trip. It is a trip. And I'm saying to you this morning now, I hear people sometimes, and in fact sometimes I'll get up and man, I'll almost make you sick talking about how terrible the times are. We're not careful. We can beat that drum so much that nobody will want to become a Christian because it's like, Oh, my, man, it's terrible. No, it's not terrible. I mean, we have the heat, we have our hurts. There's heartaches that go with being a Christian, obviously. But I'm telling you, putting your head on the pillow at night and knowing that you are saved and heaven bound and secure and that you're forgiven, you're washed in the blood of Calvary's Lamb, and that's true tomorrow night and the next night and the next night. I'm telling you what a trip it is. You know, the friends that you make at church, And the time that you spend, I mean, you go out to eat with your Christian friends. There's some things you don't take on that trip. Some things you'll never worry about on that trip because it is your Christian friends that you're with. The Christian life, I mean, it's something really, really special. And if I may say so as well, while I'm at it, I think the ministry is something special. I started preaching as a 14-year-old kid, and that was a couple of weeks back. Been at it a while. Pastor for 34 years, and I'm not over that. I love being pastor. You say, you must have had churches that didn't have any problems. Hey, listen, every church, churches have problems. You got people, you got some problems. I always figured if we got where we didn't have any problems, they wouldn't need me. But I love being pastor. The ministry is tremendous. I've been at The Sword of the Lord a little over 23 years now, and you know, the little handful of problems that I had when I was pastor, I mean, they multiplied a bunch of times. The day I walked in the door at The Sword, I mean, problems, yes, yes, yes. But oh my, the blessings, the good things, the incredible trip that a Christian's on and those of us that get the privilege to do what Brother Savage and I get to do, I mean, it's absolutely a fabulous trip. You say, why are you so stirred up about that? This passage right here, this chapter tells me some things about which I ought to be energized. For example, verse number three talks about what I'm gonna call unforgettable memories. He says in that verse, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. Memories are what you've got tucked in your mind. And I'm telling you, some of the trips we've been on. I'm talking about some of the Sundays. I'm talking about some of the other times. Absolutely unforgettable things. When I was pastor out here at Decaturville, Betty and I had only been married a couple of years. I was a student here at the university. That church had had some problems before they called me, and we only had about 30, 35 people when we got there. But the 35 people we had on Sunday morning, they were also there Sunday night, and they were also there Wednesday night. I mean, we had about 30, 35 good people. They offered to pay me a salary that was so small, I've often said, you don't need to use the whole word, you can just say a sap. But they were so good to us. They were so good to us. As soon as they could, they raised the sap, and it got a little bigger and a little bigger. I remember people knocking on the door and bringing food stuff. I remember going to the post office box, people box 296. The time when our first baby was born, we didn't have any insurance. And that little bit of salary and I was paying my own way here at the university. Driving 50 miles in 50 miles back five days a week. And I remember Fridays, every Friday going to the mailbox for months on end, and there was an envelope with $2 in it. Two bucks. I never knew. I never, to this day, I do not know. I have a suspect or two. But to this day, I don't know who that $2 came from. But I went to that mailbox almost every Friday needing that $2 to buy milk for my babies. You talk about memories. You talk about things I'll never forget. Unforgettable things. I remember the day I got saved. I remember the day I announced that I believe God wanted me to be a preacher. I mean, the day Betty and I got married. I mean, there are days locked in unforgettable things. I remember that first day I came to work at the sword 23 years ago. I remember a lot of those kinds of things that have just locked into my heart and memory. Unforgettable memories. This adventure, this trip of a lifetime, this trip that IS the lifetime. Unforgettable memories. Look at verse 4. It talks about unceasing prayer. He says, "...always, in every prayer of mine for you all." He said, I just pray and pray and pray for you. Here he is in jail, they're out running around free and loose, and he's sending up prayers on their behalf. Unceasing prayer. You and I do well in this journey of the Christian life to learn to pray some little two before prayers. Pray and ask the Lord for things. One of the guys who works at the sword this week, we were talking about. We were talking about money-related things and he said, he said, what if somebody, he said, he said, if somebody walked in and gave the sword a billion dollars with a B, a billion dollars, he said, he said, we'd have to hold you off to the hospital, wouldn't we? I said, no, wouldn't have to at all because I've already been praying for it. And when I pray for rain, I carry an umbrella. Now, I don't know how soon that billion dollars is coming, but whatever comes, we thank God for it. We pray. We ask God for things. When I was a pastor, we prayed for land. Absolutely miraculous. I don't have time to tell you all the story, but some absolutely miraculous things that the Lord provided for us. some multi-million dollar acquisitions of land that we handled easily. Now, you say, what's the deal here? There's a God in heaven. As His child, I can lift up my voice to heaven and be heard. And this passage says, on my journey of the Christian life, oh, you're gonna build some memories, friend. But part of those memories are going to come because you're going to pray some little tiny prayers, and God's going to give you some answers that you ask for. Unceasing prayer. Look at verse 5. It talks about what I'm going to call uninterrupted fellowship. Your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. Well, the first day he met these Philippians, these folks in Philippi, he wasn't in jail. But he said, The fellowship's been good. Here I am in jail, and we're STILL in good fellowship. You know, I was standing here a while ago while you folks were running around over the building, shaking hands. You said, what's that really about? Well, obviously, Brother Savage would like for everybody to feel warmly welcomed. But at the same time, those of you that are here all of the time, it really gets a little deeper than that. Because you get to know one another, and as a result of getting to know one another, you're not just welcoming new folks who are in the building, but you are extending yourself in friendship to people that you've gotten to know. Now, I'm not trying to speak for you, but I'll go ahead and say what I think. I think we all need that. I think I need that. And it's hard for me to do what I ought to do. I'm not sure I can do everything that I ought to do if I just go along. But when you and I are in fellowship together and we do some things together, oh, that's good for all of us. It is good for us. He says, from the first day till now, we've been in fellowship together. That New Testament fellowship, uninterrupted fellowship. What does it do? It helps me. Sometimes you'll walk inside these buildings. I mean, something went wrong. Your car broke down. I walked out to the door of the hotel over here this morning, and there's a guy sitting right, I mean, right in front of the front door under the overhang, and he's driving a little old car of some kind that, I don't know, I'd be afraid to get out on the road in it, a little tin can of some kind. But he's got a flat tire sitting right smack dab in front of the doors of the hotel. I'm sure he didn't expect to have a flat tire today. Things do happen. I mean, there's times people come through these doors. Some of you come through these doors. I mean, you had more than a flat tire. Somebody ripped a fender off your car. I mean, one of your family members is in the hospital. You come inside these doors. You're dragging your tracks, as my mama used to say. But the fellowship helps you on your journey. So unforgettable memories, unceasing prayer, uninterrupted fellowship. Look at verse number six. A lot of good stuff here. Verse number six talks about what I'm gonna call unshakable faith. Confident of this, this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. That is saved and secure right there. That is ETERNAL SALVATION right there, as it is on every page of the Bible. So what is he talking about? He said, God started something in you, you put your faith in Him, and NOTHING'S going to shake that. Nothing's going to jerk. Hey, listen, you get born into the family of God, you are IN the family. You may misbehave and you may become a prodigal, and the Lord Godfather in heaven may tan your hide. Well, let's see, the Bible calls that chastisement. He may tan your hide, but you're in the family, and that is unshakable. Look at verse number 7, it talks about unmistakable blessing. Verse 7, right at the end of the verse, he says, You're all partakers of my grace. What I'm in on, you're in on. Your ministry is my ministry. You're a part of what I'm in. Unmistakable blessing getting in on the good stuff that God hands out. You know, I don't count my well-being in terms of what's in my bank account. But I do like to count my blessings. This thing sitting down here in the pink. Gal, I've been married to for a long time. Blessing from the Lord. God's given us children. God's given us six grandchildren. Blessings from the Lord. Our team of people who work at the Sword of the Lord, about 40 of us work there every day. Precious, precious people. People that I can count on. If I need them on a Saturday, I don't have to push them to get them to do what I need them to do. One of the young men that works there met me there early yesterday morning to finish up two or three things. I didn't even have to ask for it. He just told me, he said, I'll be there. Precious, precious, wonderful. Unmistakable blessings. Look at verse number eight. Verse number eight, he says, God is my record. I greatly long after you all. Talking about the compassions of the Lord, I mean, just he says, as in the bowels of Jesus Christ, talking about from the innermost being of Christ, he said, I long after you in that same kind of a way. Unearthly compassion. You know, if we just do things the way the world does it, we'll come to a place and say, I'm not going any further. Enough's enough. I'm not done anymore. But whenever we think like God thinks, there's no place to stop. People are ugly to us. We don't let that stop us. People act like they don't care. That doesn't change how much we care. Compassion that is unearthly. It's got the touch of heaven upon it. No church, Bethel or any other, no church survives like it ought to survive and no church thrives like it ought to thrive unless it has a heart for God, it has the heart of God in the way that it relates to the things going on about it. One of the reasons why we stand firm on things. One of the reasons why we preach against sin. Not because we're just delighted to announce condemnation, but it's because of the heart that we have from God that tells us we ought to sound the alarm about things that are not good. Tell the truth. Unearthly compassion. Look at verse 20 we read. He said, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all bold. I mean, this guy's in prison and he says, I want to be bold. Betty and I were talking this morning while we were in the car, and I said to her, I've seen some of my brethren, my preacher brothers, get to their senior years and they lose it. They get to the place where they're not willing to stand. They get to the place where they're not willing to stand up and be counted and cry aloud and spare not. And sometimes they just soften. I mean, I've had guys say to me, I'm just tired of the fight. I don't want to fight anymore. And it's right about then they ought to vacate the chair. You know? Fact is, I mean, you and I need to maintain that motivation that says living or dying in jail or walking free. Whatever the case, He said, in my body, whether it's by life or by death, that Christ will look BIG because of what I've done. He'll be MAGNIFIED through me. Unreserved motivation. Well, I'm 50 years old, or 60 years old, or whatever you are. Say, well, okay, enjoy your birthday. But let's don't quit. Let's maintain our motivation. Listen, people, you know, one of the reasons, and you hear me talk about it, I guess, every time I'm here, I can't help talking about it. One of the reasons I go to, we have 11 McDonald's in our city. In Murfreesboro, we have 11 McDonald's. and I've been in all of them. But the one nearest the SWAT offices, I go to every morning and get breakfast. I work a while, and then I go down there about 7.30 every morning and get breakfast. And a bunch of homeless people hang out there. And one of the reasons that I do not ignore them. One of the reasons that when I walk in there, they all know me is because I don't want to lose my motivation. And one of the things that helps me with my motivation is to hang around people who need me. hang around people who have needs, and people that I can encourage, and people that I can lead to Christ, and people that I can give pointed direction to. And Betty will tell you, she goes down there with me once in a while, maybe once every two weeks. She'll have breakfast with me down there. And she'll tell you, I walk in that place, people who work there as well as that homeless crowd and other people, business people and others. They're coming to me, coming to me, coming to me. You say, What's the deal here? Just staying motivated, seeing every one of them as somebody for whom Christ died. Now, unreserved motivation. This passage, verse 9, talks about what I'm going to call unlimited growth. He said, I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in all knowledge and in all judgment. We say, you mean I need to keep growing? I need to keep getting better at this? Yep. That's country for amen, you know. Yep. Unlimited growth. I always wanted to be big enough to dunk a basketball. I'm not there yet. Keep growing, buddy, keep growing. Verse 10 and 11 talks about unimpeachable integrity. He said, approve things that are excellent. Be sincere, which is another way of saying be real. And without offense, don't have a bunch of junk in your life that offends the testimony of Christ. And be filled with the fruits of righteousness, verse 11, which are by Christ Jesus and the glory and praise of God. So unimpeachable integrity. Your yay ought to be yay, your nay ought to be nay. You, I mean, over the years, the journey, the trip of your life, you ought to build a reputation with people who are close to you and people who are out here at a distance from you so that when your name is mentioned, people will say, hey, whatever he tells you or she tells you, you can count on it, take it to the bank and write the check because they're a person of integrity. In the Christian life, your integrity, is a big deal, a real big deal. And one more piece of the puzzle here. Verse 14, verse 14, he talks about what I'm going to call unexplainable influence. He said, many of the brethren waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Here he is in jail, not whining, Not talking about how terrible he has been treated, not talking about what he's entitled to, but instead still raising the flag to the top of the pole, still holding the banner high, still doing what he can to minister to and encourage these folks in Philippi, and using his influence as he can. He said, a lot of the other brethren, they've stood up, they've grown up, they are using my example in a way that they have done more. It has worked out to the furtherance of the gospel. because that he's been in jail. Somebody said the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. We have to decide we're going to go on the trip. The things that I've walked you through here this morning, the memories, the prayer, the fellowship, the faith, the blessings, the compassion, the motivation, the growth, the integrity, the influence. All of that out of the text tells me something about what my journey ought to be like. The first year I was at the Sword, 1995, One of the men who was on the staff, he had been there with Dr. Hudson, had come from Atlanta with Dr. Hudson. His name, the guy I'm talking about, his name was also Curtis, like Curtis Hudson, but it was Curtis Collins. Mr. Collins had been press secretary to the governor of Georgia at one time and had also run a governor's, been a campaign manager for one of the candidates down there. Very capable man, he'd been with the S.W.O.R.D. for, I don't know, maybe eight or ten years when I got there. The first week I was at the S.W.O.R.D., he told me that he had a little trip planned to Oklahoma. He'd been a pilot, had had a pilot's license for years, and he said, I haven't had a plane in a while, and he said, I found a little plane in Oklahoma City, and he said, I've got a mechanic who's going to go out with me, we're going to look at it, and if it's what I'm looking for, I'm going to buy it and we'll fly it back. So they took a commercial flight, went out to Oklahoma City, looked the plane over, it looked great. They got in that little plane, the two of them, and headed back from Oklahoma to Murfreesboro. Everything went well until they got up over the Ozarks. And they were up over the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, and that little plane started sputtering. Single-engine plane. It sputtered a few times, and Curtis thought maybe there's some problem with the fuel. He's got a tank over here and a manual pump on it, and he pumped on that manual pump a little bit. Didn't seem to help, so he switched over to the other fuel tank and pumped on it a little bit, and it kept sputtering, and he kept switching back and forth trying to get it. And finally, it quit on him, and then he got the engine started again. Of course, he's losing altitude now. And he told me later that he was down, he put it into a glide so he could stay there after the engine quit and he couldn't get it started. He put it into a glide to keep it airborne as long as he could, realizing he was headed into those mountains with all the trees and stuff. And he said he was down close enough that looking out the windows this way, he could see the mountains. He was already down between two mountains. And he said, I was just praying out loud. And I said, Lord, if you don't, you don't help me out here. He said, if something doesn't happen pretty quick, he said, I'm going to be looking at your face to face in a matter of minutes. And sure enough, he, he glided around between those mountains and out in front of him, just a few hundred yards. One of those mountains had a flat top and some farmer had cleaned it off and was grazing cattle on it. And Curtis put that little airplane down in among those cattle, didn't kill a cow. The only damage here the mechanic had, he tore up a thumbnail pumping so hard on that manual pump. But it tore up the landing gear and ripped the wing off and some stuff, but they landed safely. The FAA guy told him, he said, Mr. Collins, he said, you're the only two guys I've ever walked out of these mountains who crashed. He said, we always carry the people out in body bags. Curtis got back the next week and was telling me the story. And before he got done, I said, Curtis, I said, glory to God. I said, do you realize what you have just told me? I said, here, the great God of heaven knew, I mean, he knows everything. He knew you were gonna pray that little tiny prayer, winding down, gliding between those mountains, praying for a place to land. And 40 or maybe 30 or 40 years before you prayed the prayer, he sent a crew up there to clean off the trees and he's had a farmer up there with cattle mowing the grass and keeping that place trimmed for you so you'd have a place to put it down. Now, you may say to me after now, Doc, you're stretching that out. Listen, I'm just telling you, the blessings that come, the great Almighty God that MOVES on our behalf and LISTENS to us when we pray, nothing comes as a surprise to Him. And consequently, I'm able to stand here this morning and tell you, Christian life is absolutely an incredible trip. I hope you get to go to the Holy Land, and you'll agree with me. Oh, what a trip! I hope you get to make some trips to Europe or to the Orient. You'll agree. Wow! Or down to the islands. You'll like it. Go to the Rocky Mountains. Benny and I have been to the Rockies a few times, taking some vacation time in the Rockies. Oh, you'll like it. But I'm standing here this morning to tell you Go ahead and sign up, come to Christ, trust him for salvation. Get in the family and walk the walk and live the Christian life. And one of these days, you'll come to the place where somebody will ask you how it is, and you'll be able to tell them, nothing like it. An incredible journey, being a Christian. You're gonna like it. Stand up with me, let's pray together. If I'm talking to somebody this morning who hasn't gotten on board yet, I sure would like to help you with that. Would love to see you make the choice, make that first step of that thousand-mile journey. First steps come to Christ. Trust the Savior. Get born into the family of God. And if you don't have that settled, you say, I wouldn't know what to do. Let us help you. We can show you right from the Bible how to get it done. Maybe some of you have been saved. You haven't been baptized yet. You need to come and say to the pastor or whoever's going to meet folks here at the altar, listen, I need to make arrangements to get baptized. And maybe some of you haven't joined Bethel yet. You need a church home. Well, you can do it today. Let's bow together and pray. Father, I ask you now to move in our midst this morning. And let the sweet, sweet blessings that we need be ours during these days of this Back to Bethel conference. And Lord, I'm going to ask you this morning. I'm gonna ask you to help us. I'm gonna ask you to fill us up fresh with some good things and fire us up once again for the task that is before us. And dear Lord, if there are those in this service who have things that they need to decide, coming to Christ, getting baptized, joining the church, whatever, I pray that this will be the day that they'll do exactly that. May others of us who've been touched and moved in the service today find our way to the altar to seal things and ask for things, get things done that we need to have done. I pray that it shall be so. Give us this morning a full measure of your daily bread in Jesus' name. Amen. Pastor, are we singing? All right. Let's do it. Start the music, if you will, please. The altars are open. You do the business that the Lord would have you to do, and we'll be happy and excited for that. Don't hesitate to do it. Listen to the Lord. Listen to His prompting. Do His bidding. What a trip it is. What a journey it is. How exciting it is to serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, to know that you're born again, forgiven, washed in the blood of Calvary's Lamb, heaven bound. If you're here this morning and you're not certain heaven's your home, we invite you to come. Let us take a Bible in a quiet place, in a quiet room, and show you how you can know for sure, for certain, that heaven's your home. Don't leave here the way you came without Christ. Church family, perhaps we should come and say, Lord, on this beginning journey, Lord, I want to surrender myself. I want to be submissive and speak to my heart, speak to my wife or my husband, speak to us. Do a work in us and do a work in our home this week. Won't you come and seek the Lord? Tell the Lord you're thirsty. He's promised to pour out the flood rains, the flood water, to pour out His Spirit upon us. day.