I was just talking with Travis, and I was just singing around the house and just kind of came up with a medley. And I was sharing it with him. I was like, you know, I just want to worship God. I just want to worship God. And these are just some medleys you guys might know. As we're singing, as we're worshiping God, I hope that in your hearts, you're worshiping God as well. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me. Spirit of the living God, fresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. I heard an old, old story How a Savior came from glory How He gave His life on Calvary To save a wretch like me I heard about his groaning, of his precious blood atoning. Then some sweet day I'll sing up there the song of victory. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's just something about that name. Jesus, like a fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there's something about that God is so good. God is so good. God is so good. He's so good too. I will serve thee because I love thee. You have given life to me. I was nothing. you found me. You have given life to me. Heartaches, broken are why you died on Calvary. And your touch is what I long for. You have given life to I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship you. Oh, my soul, rejoice. Take joy, my King. Make it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh Oh God, I Something about that name Philippians 2, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He said, because of that, wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him that name above every name. Go ahead. Amen. Amen. Amen. Never heard of Buddha doing that. Never heard of Allah doing that. You understand all these other gods want people to do things for them to find peace and grace and there's like he did it for us. What we could not do he did. And what a blessing. You can't feel the Spirit of God in this place now, I'm sure I'll tell you. It's good, isn't it? All right, we're gonna get into the service. Listen, I know it's 11.30 right now, but I'm gonna let my Uncle Howard preach till he's done. We're not putting time limits on the Spirit of God, but I do wanna say this, I'll tell you what, this is one of my heroes. And I don't just say that. I watched him throughout my life. You know what, Tuesday I'll have known him 37 years, amen. He's been the same. And it's had a huge impact on my life and helped keep me in the straight direction. I know I praise the Lord for a dad that kept me in church and things, but just watching God use him and use my cousin Jason and help motivate me to do the same thing and to follow in those footsteps and to search the Lord. And let me ask you this today. While they were singing, there was that one phrase jumped out, the spirit of the living God fall fresh on me. Let that happen to you today. Uncle Howard, you come and preach. Take your Bibles this morning and turn to the book of Ephesians, if you would. It is our privilege to be with you this morning and throughout the week. Appreciate the song. Appreciate the spirit in the church. Appreciate your attendance. I thank this church for your prayers. I've had many come up and tell us that they pray for us faithfully. We depend on those prayers. We depend upon your support. I had some other things I really wanted to say, but I don't think the Spirit of God will have me say them this morning, perhaps tonight, Monday night or Tuesday night, we'll see. Try to be back every service. Any service you miss, you miss a blessing. I'll be preaching a message tonight on getting dressed to serve God. It's a message of something that God began to work in my heart back in October, and I've worked four messages up now on this subject. It's not preached in our local churches. I won't talk about it this morning, but I want you to be here tonight. I'll talk a little bit more about our ministry this evening. Jason will be preaching tomorrow night, as far as we know. I'll preach Tuesday night. Wednesday night we'll both be up here. I'll do a chalk drawing while Jason preaches and we'll see if God can bless and use that. We try to use visuals in our preaching. That's why we're called Seeing Truth Ministries. You say, what kind of organization is that? Seeing Truth Ministries, Jason and I and my wife and Jason's family and we serve together. It's been a privilege to be able to do so and we count it a joy and a privilege to get to travel across America. and be in local churches. My favorite place to be is in church. I'm not like most evangelists. Most evangelists are basically in churches. This next week, for the next 10 days, I'll be with over a million men. And I'll be at the largest sportsman show up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It's the largest sportsman show in America. Get a chance to look it up. Great American Outdoor Show. And the NRA is actually the sponsor of it now. And so we have a tremendous, we'll give out in the neighborhood of 20,000 to 30,000 tracts in 10 days. So we spend a lot of time with the lost folks, and I love that. I love personal evangelism. I love the opportunity to talk to people about Christ. But my favorite place to be is, of course, is in the house of God. Ephesians chapter 6, and we're going to jump around just a little bit. I'll try to keep ourselves moving for the sake of it being the Sunday morning crowd. I take advantage of the Sunday night crowd through Wednesday night. A little more sensitive to the Sunday morning crowd simply because you're not as spiritual as you should be. You ought to be in church when you ought to be in church. And you say, well, I don't really want to hear that. Well, I'm leaving on Wednesday, so I don't really care. But I do love you in the Lord. Anything I say, it'll be for your edification. You're good. Revival is, in fact, any message. Your pastor gets up here. It's instructional. It's to edify. It's to convict. It's to convert. My goal is to accomplish all of those things through the working of the Spirit of God. I want to instruct. I want you to learn. But at the same time, I want you to be able to make application. I want you to be converted, to be changed. I want the altars. Listen, I'm not giving a speech. I listened this morning to Mike Huckabee preach. There's a little difference between him giving a speech and him preaching. That old boy preached. You say, well, he's not exactly like this. He may not be, but he gave the gospel. He flat out preached. He gave his testimony on how he got saved in a vacation Bible school. charged my batteries up this morning. And so, listen, preaching is different because preaching, listen, my persuasion is for you to make application, do something with what I say. with what the Word of God says. Ephesians chapter 6, a very familiar passage of Scripture. We're dealing with us standing in Christ. The book of Ephesians deals with us sitting in Christ in the first four chapters. The latter part of chapter 4, chapter 5, we're dealing with walking in Christ. We come to chapter 6, we deal with standing in Christ. That's a progression of service. Till you're seated in Christ, till you have a relationship with Christ, you'll never walk for the Lord Jesus Christ. The walking for the Lord Jesus Christ is your testimony. We're going to deal with that in just a little bit. But you'll never stand for the Lord until you're walking for the Lord. You're not going to face out to the world. I'll get questions next week that I've never got before. I'll be confronted next week. I do a county fair right outside of Washington, D.C. I deal with a very, very liberal crowd. And they pretty much, what's politically correct is what they embrace. And I get some really, really off the wall questions. And the truth of it is I have to deal with them with the Word of God just like I deal with you with the Word of God. They don't care much for that sometimes. In fact, I've had them swing at me. I've had them try to push me and everything else. So the truth of the matter is you're not going to stand for the Lord unless you're willing to walk for the Lord. You'll never walk for the Lord unless you're seated in Christ. The Apostle Paul had the influence that he had. simply because when he got saved, even though his salvation experience was so dramatic, I mean, like falling out of heaven, man's voice speaking to him. But the truth of it is what made him different was the fact that he went on the backside of the desert and spent that time with Jesus alone. It wasn't the disciple, it wasn't the disciples that taught him, it wasn't the preachers that taught him. It wasn't, listen, his discipleship came straight from God. And that's what gave him the influence and power that he had. So when we come to the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, we're talking about us standing in the Lord. And it says there in verse 10, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. And then it says, Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And you know that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. I understand, if you're saved and you're here this morning, you understand that our warfare is a spiritual warfare. It's not the physical fight that I have, it's the spiritual fight that I have. And it says there in verse 11, it says that I'm to put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand. In other words, God's saying that you cannot stand unless you have the whole armor of God. You can't have just faith, you can't have just a helmet of salvation, you gotta have the entire armor of God on. But it says something right there, it says put on the whole armor of God. I got hung on that. I was reading my Bible and doing my devotions one morning. I looked down there and it said, put on the whole armor of God. And I thought, put on? What's exactly God saying? How do I do that? When I read that, I'd already been saved 40 plus years. How do I put on the armor of God? I think that's a good question to be honest about it. I looked up that put on the whole armor, what that put on means. It means to do that which is necessary. Now the truth of it is, in my attire this morning, this thing right here is not necessary. Amen? Amen. The guy that came up with this thing, probably not saved, probably won't be in heaven. Pretty much persuaded of that. Amen? This is not necessary. These right here, they're necessary. You're glad and I'm glad I have them on. Amen? These are necessary. It says right here, it says, I'm to put on the whole armor of God. I'm to put on that which is necessary. It's needed. How do I do that? Sit here and think about it. I've got your attention in a moment. Think about it. How do you do that? I already see it on some of your faces. Well, I'm not sure. How do I put on the whole? Well, listen, if you don't know how to put them on, then you evidently don't have it. Take your Bible and go back to the book of Job. I know it's a wild place to go, dealing with the whole armor of God and how we put on the whole armor of God, but I want you to go back there with me. My two favorite books in the Bible is the book of Job and the book of Song of Solomon. Both of them deal with relationship on a very personal level with God. I don't know of any preacher that's preached any time or any Christian that's served God for any amount of time that can't relate to Job. At the same time, when I think of Jesus, I don't just think of the cross. I think of my friend. I think of my lover. I love the story of the Shulamite girl because the Shulamite girl, she's in love with the shepherd, but she's bequeathed to the prince. And you get to the end of the story, the prince and the shepherd are one and the same. Tremendous story. I love the personal applications made there. Here in the book of Job chapter 32. I'm just going to read two verses. I was going to read a little more but for sake of time I won't do it. Chapter 32 in the book of Job. It says there in verse 7, it says, I said they should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdom. Jason spoke of wisdom this morning in Sunday school. But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Verse 7 there, it says, Days should speak. I want to ask you a question this morning in reference to putting on the whole armor of God, and you've been prepared as a Christian to serve God. If you're prepared for eternity, prepared for Christian walk, prepared for service, what does your day say? Because that's the question here, it said days should speak. July 4th, 1776 was definitive day for this nation, was it not? That day spoke that we wanted freedom from tyranny. We obtained freedom from tyranny. That's a defining day for America. December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day, changed the face of America completely, totally. America has never been the same since December 7th. Why? Well, America, that day, my grandfather, who was a coal miner, and in his 40s at the time, he went down and tried to join up. And they said, listen, Homer, you need to go back to the mines, man. We're going to need coal. We're going to have to build ships. We've got to build tanks. But everybody went and signed up to go to war. We came into the Industrial Revolution here in America because of December 7, 1941. January 16th, 1967, you said, what in the world happened January 16th, 1967? Well, that's the day a 13-year-old boy bowed his knee to the Lord Jesus Christ at the Cleveland Baptist Church right over here and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. That's a defining day for me. What does your day say? That's a question to ask, isn't it? I want to do an acrostic, just a real simple one. I want to use the word put. Put on the whole armor of God. I want to use the word put and I want to think in reference about your day and what your days say. The first one has to do with yesterday. In Job chapter 8, and I'm not going to have you turn, if you want to write a reference down or you want to go to it, you can, but Job chapter 8, verse 8 through 10, the Bible says, For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers. That's Job 8, verse 8. For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow. Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? How do you look at yesterday? Yesterday says that we're to learn from it. That's what this verse says. Shall not they teach thee? See, too many people yearn for yesterday instead of learning from yesterday. Our church is soft in times today. In fact, there's basically two types of churches out there. The churches that used to do it and the churches that are doing it. That's the two type of churches. We used to do. I have men come up to me in revival meetings. I say, well, listen, how old are you? And they'll say, well, I'm 65 and I'm just retiring. What are you doing for the Lord? Well, I used to drive a bus and I used to go on visitation. I used to do this. What are you doing right now? Well, I just retired. Well, you retired from service from God. You retired from marriage. Did you retire from your wife? You retire from everything? What did you retire? Hey, listen folks. The Bible says that we're to learn from yesterday. What are you talking about preacher? Well, let me kind of walk through some things. This is a picture. I like to use visuals. It's kind of unique they did this. I'm having a hard time looking at it this morning, but this is a picture of my family. This is an old picture. This is the only, I don't know how your wife is, but my wife loves family pictures. She's got family pictures stuck everywhere. This is the only one that's in my bedroom. In fact, she's ticked off that I've got it. But I took it out of the frame, because this is the only one I can lay in bed and look at. This was taken on a Sunday. And my wife said, what in the world were you thinking? I set up to have our album for our church, our directory. I set up to have our directory taken at Calvary Baptist Church. And I set up for all the meals to come in on a Sunday. And she says, honey, it's August. We're going to be on a bus." I said, yeah. And she said, do you have any idea what the kids are going to look like after we get off that bus and it's 100 degrees out? I said, well, I really didn't think about it. And she said, evidently, you didn't. And so we got back in on the bus. And you noticed all the girls' hairs were tied back, because we was all just sweating. And I don't know if you remember how Nikki is, but Nikki, as soon as she got hot, she just sweat. My daughter would hate this if I'm saying this. My daughter didn't perspire. She sweat like I did. I sweat. I don't perspire. It runs off of me. And my middle daughter is the same way. Where's Nikki at? That's Nikki. She's over by Daddy. She's the only one with dark hair. Now, they look little, don't they? This is the one that's in the hospital right now, having a cat skin. Jason, doesn't he look different? He's getting old. He's back there doing junior church. This one right here, she's out in Wyoming. She's an assistant pastor's wife, and her husband runs an insurance business. This is Rachel, and Rachel's probably the most like her daddy, and just as carnal as can be. The one that's in the hospital, She's a secondary education English teacher and her husband's our assistant pastor. I'm showing you my family picture because it's something how we look back, isn't it? This is my favorite picture of my kids because we come in that day and my wife's trying to, you know how you lick? Kids hate that, you know, licking and trying to fix their faces and clean them off and she tied all their hair back. And we got this picture taken, but when I think about this picture, I think about what he thinks about. growing up and serving the Lord together. We lived in a parsonage that was next to the church that needed to be tore down. That's what needed to be done. And my perspective of that house is totally different than their perspective. Rachel thinks it's the greatest place in the world. She loved that old house. It had two bedrooms. I had five children by the time we were done. So I was constantly adjusting My one daughter says, well, you know the nursery, Dad, where you had my crib. I said, honey, that was my closet. That wasn't a nursery. We had one bathroom. I believe in modesty. I think you ought to be modest. But two bedrooms, seven people, it was tough going. Jason's bedroom ended up being the laundry room. Jason said he kept warm by taking the heater vent loose from the dryer, and he'd run it under his bed. Now to me, I look back on that, and I think all the hardships trying to keep that old furnace going, and the kids huddling around the vents in the winter months, and to them it's like a castle. Isn't it odd how our perspective is different? But when I look back, the one thing that's consistent was our service for the Lord, what we did for the Lord. There in Job chapter 32 it said, But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them, and what's that word there? It giveth them what? Understanding. Understanding. A good understanding giveth faith, but the way of transgressors is hard. Proverbs 13, 15. What's the definition of understanding? It's perceptive insight with the ability to judge. It is the knowledge and knowing how to use it righteously for his glory and your good. In other words, it's right thinking. Stay with me just a little bit. Would you do that? Because the problem we have today in America right now, we're not teaching American history anymore. Why? Because the world wants to draw us into one government. And they don't want us to define ourselves as America that was a nation that was built on the principles of God. So we want to eliminate that from our history. We want these children, their perspective to be wrong. It's our job to make sure that doesn't happen. And it says here, it says it's very important for us, it says, God gives understanding, but there is a spirit in man in the inspiration of the Almighty, giveth them understanding. The Holy Spirit perfects that understanding in us. It seemeth good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things, from the very first to right unto thee in order, most excellent Theopolis. That's Luke chapter one, verse three. Luke had, the Bible says, perfect understanding. In other words, Luke had the ability to have godly, righteous knowledge and know how to use it righteously for God's glory and his good. And only with God's understanding, which then reaps wisdom with God, can my perspective of yesterday be right. Or can I learn from it? See, man's the only creature out there that will do something wrong and do it his entire life wrong and keep right on doing it. He's the only one to do that. You're doing things right now in your life you know the consequences are not productive. They're not righteous. They're not holy. Yet you continue to do them. You're habitual in them. God says he'll give us understanding. But we've got to have a perspective about yesterday through godly understanding. The Bible says, Proverbs 3, 5, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto what? Thine own understanding. So I can't trust my understanding. In other words, my Rachel, my Becky, my Wendy and Jason, my Nick, when they look back, their perspective is off. They don't see it the way it really was. And the truth of the matter is most of us lean on our own understanding through life, so therefore our perspective of yesterday is always defeating us. Isn't it amazing how the devil will use your sin against you and defeat you? The sin you committed yesterday has already beat you up for today. Your failures, your losses, the things that you went through in yesterday have already beat you up for today. You're already a whipped dog. I see it all the time. I see people come to the altar, and when they're coming down the altar, I've seen them come before, they'll get down on their knees. Hey, listen, they may come down and confess. They may even be a form of repentance, but the truth of it is, there's no faith involved. There's no victory involved. They get up and go back to their seat, go right back out the door, and they keep right on living the way they've always lived. Their perspective of yesterday's wrong. They've not learned anything from it. Listen, I'm supposed to learn from yesterday. That young man right there will tell you I'm a blessed person. I'm blessed. I've got five children and none of them have ever told me no. He's never told me no. He knows what would happen to him. He's my nephew. Never told me no. And not just because I would take care of business, because my kids love me. I don't have to ever worry about going on to heaven and my wife being taken care of. They'll fight over their mother. Never one want her. I don't know if they want me, but they want her. My daughter-in-law has already told me, she said, now listen, if you get sick, I want you to know I can't take care of you. I said, what do you mean, Tanya? She goes, you're too big. I can't roll you around. Hey, listen, she's taken care of. I'm a blessed man. All my kids are married. I have no divorce in my family. All my kids are saved. Love the Lord. I have all my son-in-laws. Love the Lord. Love me and my wife. My daughter-in-law puts up with me. Loves me. Loves her mother. Loves her mother-in-law. All of my son-in-laws and my daughter-in-law are saved. Born again on their way to heaven. I've got 13 grandchildren, and as of last fall, they're all saved. Born again, to the best of my knowledge. My first grandchild is in Bible college. My dad, I got to serve with him his entire ministry. My dad got called to preach after me. We went to Bible college together. I've been, I've had a blessed life. I've got a blessed life. Brothers and sisters in Christ, listen, we cannot get that way without, listen, without having the understanding of God. We cannot lead unto our own. The Bible says in Proverbs 3 verse 4, "...so shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and men." God's understanding is acquired by faith and a living testimony before God. It's our perspective of yesterday that only comes through righteous understanding. I won't take the time, but if we were to go back to Proverbs 7, verse 7, it said, Behold, among the simple ones I discerned among the youth a young man, and what's the Bible say? Void of understanding. You go to Romans 1, it says that those people in Romans 1, like much of our society today, and those ladies that marched the other day, they have no understanding. It leads only to wickedness. That's what Romans chapter 1 is talking about. There's no understanding. Your perspective of yesterday is off. We have no common sense. We call the word common sense. We have no wisdom in our local church today because our perspective of yesterday is off. You'll never put on the whole armor of God until you have a right perspective of yesterday. You're learning from it. Did you learn from yesterday? Do you know I learn from kids? I learn from people in this church. I come in and I'm always listening to people. I want to learn. I want to be different. I want to be more tomorrow than I am today. And the only way to do that is not to be thinking about 30 years ago. I want to be thinking about what I found out yesterday, what I learned yesterday, what I learned last year. I listen to him talk. I want to learn. Why? I'm not done yet. I'm still a father. I'm still a husband. I'm a grandfather. Lord knows if He allows me to live, I'll end up a great-grandfather. And I need the understanding and wisdom of God. I have to have a right perspective of yesterday. But what does your day say? Because what about today? Well, I said a simple word, put. Perspective of yesterday. Secondly, is that you? I want to ask you a question. Are you utilizing today? Utilizing today. I learned from yesterday, but I'm the labor in today. I want, listen, I'm not really interested in what you did yesterday. I'm interested in what you're doing today. Because today's all you really have. That check yesterday, it's already spent. And you have no promise of tomorrow. Today's all you have. What are you doing today? You can only watch so much of the Andy Griffith Show, folks. What are you doing with today? I want you to go to Ephesians chapter 5. I want you to go right back to the same book where we started. I want you to look at something with me. Ephesians chapter 5. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. But today is something unique, and I've got a visual here. I want to use it with you this morning. Today is a what? It's a gift. That's why we call it a present, because it's now. You do understand you only have now. When I got up this morning, I had my devotions, I prayed and I always go through my children, I go through my grandchildren in my heart and mind, I go through the revival services, I go through family, I go through pastors that God lays on my heart. When I prayed this morning, I had no idea that right before I walked out the motel room that my son-in-law would text me and say, Becky just passed out, we're on the way to the hospital. You have no idea what the day holds. All I can do is listen, have a right perspective of yesterday and utilize today. laboring today. This is the present and it's a gift. You know what we do? We try to live, we live like these are endless. And all you really have is right now. Somebody passed away yesterday here. We're holding two funerals today at our local church in Winchester. We averaged a funeral a week for 28 years in Baltimore. We averaged between 40 and 50. The first Christmas that Jason was on staff as an assistant pastor, in the month of December we had 11 funerals. That's funerals we preached. I've had caskets this big, the caskets, Or well over seven feet. Custom-made jobs. Really big individuals. And it's amazing how people will stand by a graveside and everybody in that graveyard had the same idea that they're the exception to the rule. They're the ones not going to die. News for you, this is a gift. The present is a gift. There in Ephesians chapter 5, the first verse says, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. Back when Ben, my grandson who's with us on this trip, he's back in junior church, he's a big boy now, but back when he was four or five years old, I was working on a puppet stage for Vacation Bible School. And Ben hates being in the house. He likes to be outside. That's the way boys ought to be. They ought to be outside. Lock the stupid iPads and phones up. Let them get them outside. I mean, limit that stuff. You know, my son-in-law, two weeks ago, he had a box sitting in his teen department, and every teenager who came to the door had to put their cell phone in the box. I think that's a great idea. He said they had revival in the teen class that week. This is his third week doing it. You know what, kids, they're so used to having it in their hand. First of all, I got a question for you. What in the world, this kid's got cell phones at 12 years of age. What use do they have? I just don't get it. Who are they calling? Who in the world are they texting? They can't have that many friends. I'm 60, I'm almost 63 years old and I don't have that many friends. Just saying. Here in Ephesians chapter 5, I had little Ben and Ben was out there helping me build a puppet stage. And every time I turned around to reach for a tool in my tool belt, it would be gone and Ben would be standing there holding it. Just grinning at me. Had a... I had my tape measure out and I was pulling across to reach in for my pencil to mark the plywood and there he is standing with my pencil. Then I reached my belt for my square and I get it back to here son, give it back to me and there he'd be standing with my square. So I had to go get materials in town and I was standing in line at Lowe's and there right at the checkout was this little kid's tool belt. It wasn't one of them plastic jobs, this was a regular leather tool belt. I had all the little tiny tools but they were really good tools. and had a little yellow hard hat with it. And I said, man, I got to get that for Ben. And it was a little more money than I'd want to pay, but I bought it for him anyway. I went back, walked in the garage. He heard me out there in the garage unloading lumber. And so I said, I got something for you, buddy. And I gave him the tool belt. I strapped it on him. The kid slept in it for four days. Mark of a hammer at his side. And I happened to look and I'd get my tape out and I'd hook it on the plywood and I'd pull out a measure and I'd look back behind me and he'd be standing there hooking his little tape measure on the chair pulling across. What was he doing? He was imitating me. Isn't that what he was doing? Look what it says right here. It says, Be ye therefore followers of God. I looked up followers right there. It means to imitate. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. I'm to imitate Jesus. How do I utilize today? How do I put on the whole armor of God? Well, first of all, I have the right perspective yesterday. Today I have to utilize today, and how do I utilize today? It says there in verse 2, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. How do I walk in love? Now, I know this is the worship time, but how do we walk in love? Somebody tell me how we walk in love. Fellowship with Him. Well, I can do that in prayer. I can do that in Bible reading. I can do that. But how can you see me walk in love? How? Help others. Jesus came to give Himself. Did He not, brother? The picture of Jesus Christ, from the time that we see a picture of Him walking in the temple till He died on the cross, He had one thing in mind. Please the Father and help others to walk in love. So the truth of the matter is that for me to walk in love, I'll be given the gospel. So for me to put on the whole armor of God, I've got to be given the gospel out. I've got to be as Christ is. That's the way I walk in love. That's how I'm capable of walking in love. So for me to imitate Jesus Christ, for me to follow Jesus Christ, I've got to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll never put on the whole armor of God. I'll never utilize the day. I don't care how much you say you serve God, unless you're walking in love. You're imitating Jesus Christ. Drop down to verse 8. It says, For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light. And the Lord walketh as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. How do we walk in light? I think that's a question we ought to be able to answer. How do you walk in light? Well, that means you have a relationship with God. That means you have to be intolerant of sin. I've got a simple, this is a visual we use all the time, but a flashlight. Here's our idea of service for God. Our idea of service for God is that I have the light of the Holy Spirit living inside of me. Amen? And what I do, I serve God the way I want to serve God, thinking I'm going to take the Holy Spirit with me. Well you say, well God lives inside of you. Yeah, but does that mean I'm in the will of God? See, the truth of the matter is for me to walk in light means that I do this. You're not doing anything while I'm waiting on the Holy Spirit. Oh, the Holy Spirit wants me to go over there. See, we do what we want to do. But if I'm walking in love, that means I'm giving out the gospel. That means I don't have idle time because my life is not mine. I'm bought with a price. It's not my own. So I'm waiting for the Holy Spirit to direct me. Hey, listen, when you live by faith, you're waiting for God to tell you what to do. There's all kinds of things I'd like to do for the Lord, but the truth of it is God may want me to go to Macedonia. And I've got to be sensitive to that. So I'm to walk in love. I'm to walk in light. There's one more there. Go over there to verse 15. In fact, 14 says, Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeming the time, because the days are evil. The Bible says I'm to walk circumspectly. I'm to walk wisely. In other words, if I have understanding and I have a right perspective of yesterday, God will give me wisdom to walk wisely, circumspectly. In other words, what do you do with your time and how do you spend your time? That's what it means, walking circumspectly. I think social media, because it's here and we're not going to get rid of it, can be a tremendous tool. If you're friends with me on Facebook, and I am on Facebook, if you're friends with me on Facebook, then you're going to find out that when I post something, it's either a prayer request or something God's doing in my life or ministry. I'm not posting what I ate for dinner because I'm not even interested in what I'm eating for dinner. Why should you be interested in what I'm eating for dinner? Here's a problem. You said it a while ago. You said, listen, people tend to try to read the app on their phone. There's a problem. Now listen to me. There's a problem with reading the Bible on a phone or iPad. You say you don't do it. I didn't say that. Well, I have my devotion one because I get up very early and my wife were always in prophets chambers and motels and stuff. I don't want to be rude and turn on the light. I get up very early. So I'll lay and read my Bible on my iPad. But here's a problem with that. When I pick this up and read it, Huh, can't get Facebook on there. Hmm, can't check my emails. They're not on there. I'm not tempted to do it because I'm reading my Bible. You got your phone and your iPad, you're tempted because that's what we do. We jump from app to app to app to app. We're time wasters. We're not walking circumspectly. We've got to utilize the day. Hey, look, my Bible tells me that I'm, listen, I'm to imitate the Son of God, I'm to walk in love, I'm to walk in life, I'm to walk circumspectly. There's no better time to be saved than today. You know, I do, and I'll do this year, I think I'm doing 19 sportsman's banquets. Besides, I think we're doing seven revivals. Right now, that's what I'm scheduled at, and we've got 13 vacation Bible schools. So I'm going to get to see a lot of people saved this summer. There's no doubt. I'm going to get to see a lot of people saved this year. I preach a lot to lost people. You know what? I watch guys. I watch them sit back there and I can watch the Holy Spirit convicting. I watch it all the time. And the truth of it is the devil doesn't care if you get saved. He just doesn't want you to do it today. See the devil's lied to you. You've convinced yourself you have tomorrow. You don't. All you have is today. This is the only check you've got is today, this gift. And it is a gift. I oftentimes will say that to men and oftentimes I'll watch them respond. It's been only two years ago that I had, three years ago, I'm sorry. I had two men that were Marines. One was 83 and one was 82. And they were both friends and they served in Korea together and they was on either side of the auditorium. Didn't even know that they were both in the service that night. Both of them came forward to get saved that night. Isn't that the grace of God? Isn't that marvelous to think about them guys coming to get saved? I get excited about that kind of stuff. Hey, listen, you know what that old man told me? He said, you don't know how many times I've come to these sportsman's banquets. He said, and I always sit there and think to myself, well, I know I need to get saved, but just not today. I was in a hospital room with a doctor with the father of one of our church members at Calvary in Baltimore. And the doctor was standing there and he was telling the man, he said, listen, sir, he said, so you understand, he said, you probably are not going to live through the night. You're going to die. He told, that's a doctor, stood right there and told him, and I'm standing there, I'm the only other person in the room, no nurse or anything like that. The man is, listen, he's lucid. A lot of times they are on morphine, the man had cancer. And he's lying there, and so the doctor walks out, and I thought, man, what an opportunity. I've witnessed to this guy at least two times, maybe three times. I open my Bible, sit down, I said, can I read the word of God to him? I sit there and read the word of God to him. I took him back to Psalms, I read Psalms 32, I came over to the New Testament, I ended up in the book of John, I dealt with Nicodemus, I went through the whole plan of salvation, and he looked at me, and seriously, the guy's got tears well up in his eyes, and he said, preacher, I really want to be saved. Just not today." I looked at him and I said, Sir, you do know that the doctor just told you that you're probably not going to live through the night. He said, I know. I know," he said. He said, but not today. In fact, he says, maybe if you want to, you could come back tomorrow. I pleaded with this guy. I don't hardly ever beg. I want the Holy Spirit to draw a man to salvation. But I was just burdened for this guy's soul. I ended up leaving there. Listen to me. I went and made two more hospital calls, got home about 830 that night. I just walked in the house and his son called me that he died. To my knowledge, that man went into eternity without Jesus Christ. We need to utilize today. Today's all we have. Listen, you Christians, you'll never put on the whole armor of God till you have the right perspective of yesterday. You're learning from yesterday and you're laboring in today. Listen, stop talking about what you're going to do for God and you're going to get off as a teacher or you're going to drive a bus or you're going to start sewing. Do it today! Start today! I just said I'll be 63 in June. Right now, I have five lifetimes to live. I've got so much that I want to do for the Lord. Jason and I wake up talking about it, we go to sleep talking about it. I feel like such a failure before the Lord. I've got so much I want to do for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. It'd take me five lifetimes to live it. I want to go out on fire. I want to absolutely burn up for the cause of Christ. I get so mad, I got distracted sitting there this morning thinking about my daughter. I thought, I am not going to let the devil do that to me today. She's in God's hands. Two years ago, first week in January, I had a sportsman's banquet on a Saturday. My daughter-in-law called me and said my son was laying passed out in the kitchen floor. We were supposed to leave in an hour and a half to go preach up in Pennsylvania. Rushed him to the hospital, make a long story short, his heart rate at that time was well over 200 beats a minute. He was in AFib. He'd been that way for almost 13 hours. Got him to the hospital. They were trying to decide what to do. The doctor finally came up and he said, listen, we're going to try and shock him back into rhythm. He says, it's no big deal. It's something we can do. And he said, but we're not going to try to do it. We're going to try medication first. He said, we're not going to do it until about 3 o'clock. And I said, doc, there's any way you can do this any sooner? I said, yeah, Jason was, man, he was white as a ghost. He kept almost going out. His heart rate was up so bad. And Jason looked up and got me by the hand. He said, dad, you've got to go preach, man. It's time for you to go preach. I said, well, son, I don't know. Maybe I ought to call that preacher. He said, dad, listen, what can you do for me that you can't do in the car driving up there? All you can do is pray for me. He said, that's in God's hands. He says, I know where I'm going if I die right now. I'll be honest with you now. I'm just like anybody else. That wasn't easy going out and getting a car and driving on up there to preach. I took his son, my grandson James, with me. We went up to the church. I was setting up. The preacher invited me up. I did the presentation with the birds. I got up to preach. When I stepped up to preach, my phone rang. And it was my daughter-in-law. And she said, listen, they just shocked him back into rhythm. And they're going to let him go in about four hours. And she goes, it looks like everything's going to be all right right now. They're going to figure out what's going on with him. He's going to have to wear a monitor. I went ahead and preached. We had 11 people saved. Tough? Sure. But you've got to realize today you've got to walk in light, walk in love. Walk wisely, walk circumspectly. I've got one more here. You've got to get that T in and I know it went long. P-U-T. I come from a long line of fretters, people that worry. How many will be honest and say, I have a problem with worrying? Be honest, just raise your hand up. You know what I found out? I did this, I preached this message at our church at Lighthouse, and I had everybody bow their heads, because I wanted everybody to be honest with me. Who would raise their hand and say, listen, I worry about things that I know is not right to worry. And I had everybody bow their heads, and I had as many men raise their hands as women. Men just don't want to admit that they sit around and worry. Hey listen, the Bible makes it very clear that we're to trust in the Lord, amen? So we should trust God for tomorrow. In fact, tomorrow says to lean on Jesus. That's what it says. I learned from yesterday. I labor in today, but I lean on Christ for tomorrow. Worry is like a rocking chair. It'll give you something to do, but it won't get you very far. It doesn't. Danny's grandmother, my mother, my mother is one of those people that if she doesn't have anything to worry about, she'll invent something. Don't laugh, some of you that way. I had to come to grips with that when I was in my early 40s. I was having some health problems and I've had some general health problems throughout my life just like a lot of people. And I had to come to grips with this thing because I found myself being stagnated in today and not able to labor in today because I was worrying about what was going to happen tomorrow. Now listen, my sin yesterday can defeat me today, but it's very easy for me to allow tomorrow's worries to defeat me today. I was with a preacher, I was telling your preacher yesterday, he's a young man, he took a church over in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and it was an older church, and he's a younger man, and he had a problem in church, and he had a church discipline, a deacon's granddaughter, who'd moved in with another girl. And we went out to eat after Sunday morning service, and he didn't eat, he just sat there. And I said, what's wrong, son? He goes, I got to have Deacon's meeting now. He said, would you mind staying for it? I said, well, I can't participate. He said, no, I don't even want you in the auditorium. He said, I just need some support. He had about 160 people there, and it was a rough, rough meeting. But boy, God got the glory out of it. I mean, it wasn't anything pretty. And he looked at me, and he said, you know, I have been worrying about this for three weeks. He said, because I knew I had to have this meeting. So I shared with him some things of my own life. Psalms chapter 78, verse 8, the Bible says, And might not be as our fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. Now, let me ask you a question. Is God the same yesterday, today, and forever? He is. Is God asleep? No, He's not. Does God not love you? Yes, he does. You see, I know all these things, preacher. OK, if God does all of these things and God does love me and he's the same yesterday, today and forever, and he's given his son for me that I might be redeemed and he loves me as one of his own children. Then let me ask you a question. Does God know what's going to happen to my daughter today? Does, doesn't he, Danny? I wrestled with the Lord about my dad going on to heaven. My dad, I couldn't stand watching my dad lay with Alzheimer's in a bed. I wrestled with that thing. But God knew exactly, God knew exactly when to take my dad for his glory. He knew exactly. Let me help you with something here. When you worry about tomorrow, that's rebellion against God because you're saying to God, God you don't love me. God, you don't know what's happening in my life. God, you don't care. That's what you're saying. When He does, and He will. Amen? Amen. So as Christians, the Bible says we're to trust in the Lord. And I'm not to lean into my own understanding. I'm to trust in what God did yesterday, what He's going to do today, and what He will do tomorrow. Because it's for my good and his glory. Worry and rebellion absolutely go hand in hand. Worry about tomorrow does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but it does empty the day of its strength. I love that. In fact, Mark Twain, and I'm not a big fan of Mark Twain, but I love this statement. He says, I'm an old man and have known my troubles, but most of them never happened. You ever see that be true? Aren't you glad we don't know really what's in tomorrow? I don't want to know. I'm in the moment. I'm in the moment. So the Bible says put on the whole armor of God. How do you put on the whole armor of God? You have to have the right perspective of yesterday. You have to learn from it. You have to listen. You have to labor in today. Utilize today, walk in love, walk in light, walk circumspectly in wisdom with the understanding of God. And then you have to trust God for tomorrow. If we would listen, if we would just get everything we can get out of today for the Lord, imagine what God could do. If right now you would determine in your heart. It's not about me going to revival services tomorrow, it's about me serving God today. You're going to trust God today. You're going to serve God today. And tomorrow morning when you wake up, you're going to learn from yesterday because you went and served God today. You're going to do it again tomorrow. And you do it today. When tomorrow becomes today, you do it again. Hey, listen, I could die today. Jason may have to finish the meeting. See what I mean? Today's what I have. So let me ask you a question. What does your day say? Are you walking in love? Are you a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you listening to the Spirit of God as you fellowship with God daily? Do you have the wisdom and understanding of God as you walk through life? Are you trusting God for tomorrow? Or are you living in the defeats of yesterday? Those are relative questions, aren't they? You want to have revival in this church? Then you have to put on the whole armor of God. That's the only way you can stand. It's the only way this church can go forward. That's it. You have to put on that which is necessary. Let's bow our heads together. Let's bow our eyes.