I'm looking forward to this opportunity. I'm going to set my stopwatch. If I'm going to preach on time, I'm going to set my stopwatch. I always do that. In fact, I got some of my grandkids doing that now. They're time preachers. I hope they don't all get nervous. I don't want you all to look sophisticated every time. You've got to get in the stand. They're timing you. Really, what I should have done, I had a prop. I should have had an hourglass here. You know what an hourglass is? It's sand running through it. And so one time I preached a sermon at the Great Chapel many years ago. I thought I was being pretty smart. I had an hourglass set up there because I was preaching on the use of time. and told people your life is this is like your life is run through the hourglass which is true time just passing by. And also preaching I talked about how that you know I forgot how old I was then but if I could live to be 70 years old which you know 3, 4, 10 that how much of my percentage of my time had already gone through. So anyway when I got through preaching I had my I love my daddy-in-law he's a great man he'd been gone since 1997 he's a great Christian man a dinkin' but he wouldn't he wouldn't even shake hands with me in the psalm service in the handshake So they came to we went there have to eat that he would explain to me. I said, Tony, what's wrong? He said, as far as I'm, as far as you're concerned, I'm already dead. I didn't mean to make you feel that way. But listen, time is very important. Let me start out with three scriptures and then we'll talk about some very practical things. Let's look at Psalm 39, verse four. I'm going to use three scriptures this morning and then do some talking and basically scripture around those times is very important. Sometimes you're young you don't think about that you think you've got forever but you don't. So let me read four verses I mean three verses here three passages one of these will be Psalm 39 verse 4 Psalm 39 verse 4. These are two of these are prayers. One of them is an exhortation. The Old Testament both of these are prayers. It would be a good prayer for all of us to pray. Psalm 39 verse 4 Lord make me to know mine end and the measure of my days what it is that I may know how frail I am. We're very, very frail. Our lives are very frail. And so God wants us to know that. Sometimes young people think they'll live forever. See, that's one reason why the young men are directed to the service. They don't get cautious like older men do. They'll just go right into battle. They just think they're invulnerable. And so you're not invulnerable, but you think you are sometimes. But he wants us to know that we are very frail. Also, another prayer is in Psalm chapter 90, verse 12. this is ninety twelve. And here again the psalmist prays a prayer. So teach us to number our days, get that, not our years necessarily, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts into wisdom. That's a great verse. Let me read that to you again. Teach us to number our days. Why? We may apply our hearts into wisdom. You'll learn how to count your days and you'll apply your hearts into wisdom. And then finally in the New Testament the Apostle Paul in the fifth chapter of Ephesians had a I want to read to you. This will be found in verses 15 and 16. This is Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 and 16. Okay, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, get this, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Redeeming, buying back the time, making the best use of our time because the days are evil. Paul tells us to do that. Now let's say something about time. You know, first of all, Life is passing by faster than you think it will. You've heard old people say this. They say that time is passing by faster. And I'll tell you, from a 71-year-old man, it does seem like it's passing by faster. When you're younger, it seems like the days go by kind of slowly, but time does pass by also fast. And you don't know how much time you've got anyway. Some people may die young. So you don't know how much time you've got. But not only that, I want you to not think of time as just a long continuum. It's not just, here I am now, at a certain age, I'm just going to keep on going until I'm 70, 80 years old. It doesn't work that way. We live life in cycles. We live life in cycles. We live life in what I call the seasons of life. You need to make best use of each season of your life. Now, let me say something before I even get on to that. You don't know what God's going to do in your life. You may have some difficult times, but see, God is a sovereign God, right? He is interested in your life. And God's preparing you for things. And so I've got, I like to call this for a minute, God's school. You're going to God's school. And when you're in God's school, you need to make the best use of each stage you go through in God's school. You don't know what the end is. You don't even know you're in school sometimes, but you know you are in school. And three individuals I can talk about. One of them is Moses. How long did Moses live? Anybody know? How long did he live? Anybody know? He lived to be 120 years old. And his life is divided into three 40-year periods. OK, think about this. OK, now God's got something for Moses to do. Right, great. God's got something for you to do, too. It won't be as dramatic as what Motive did, but I'll tell you, God's got something for you to do. If you don't believe that, you know, life is just meaningless, and the devil would like for it to be meaningless. But I'll tell you, God's got something for each one of you to do. And so Motive, God had to prepare Motive for what he did. So Motive spent 40 years in Pharaoh's palace. And he learned a lot there, too. He probably learned a lot of administrative skills. But Josephus says he had a great military leader. So he was in Pharaoh's palace for 40 years in luxury. 40-year period. Think about that. Well, he's 40 years old. What happened to him? Anybody remember what happened to him? What happened when you four years old. Had a drug drug address where we're right. What happened. All right. He killed an Egyptian. So you had to play right here. He had. Do you think about a change now. This is amazing change. He had to go from being a famous man in a powerful environment and luxury to the backside of it. He might have been in despair. I don't know how he felt. Think about that man. He's the backside of that. Nobody knows where he is. But I'll tell you what, he's not wasting his time there. You may also someday be able to put on the back side of the desert. You may be somewhere where you don't want to be. You may be in a situation where you don't really want to be in, but God's sovereign. Remember, he's sovereign. So you make the best of where you are. I'm sure Moses made the best of where he was. You know what God's teaching him? I think he's teaching him humility for one thing. The Bible says he's the meekest man that ever lived, except for Jesus Christ. So Moses did not waste his time on that. He could have said, you could say this too. If you get in a situation you don't want to be in, say, well, I'm just going to be a lady. I don't like what's going on. This is not a very glamorous situation. This is not a very exciting time in my life. I'm going to be a lady. Don't ever do that. Say, God, what are you teaching me? You've got something to do. You're preparing me for something. So God preparing Moses. Then we know what happened at 80 years old. He entered the last phase of his life. That is to lead God's people from the wilderness, I mean, out of Egypt into the promised land. Remember that? But he would have been worth anything if he had only had that 40 years in Pharaoh's palace. He also had that 40 years in the back side of the desert. Then he was ready to do his job. So God's got something for you to do. You don't know when you're going to do it. So just be preparing. That's God's school, OK? Let's look at another guy, Joseph. And Brother Mike talked wonderfully about Joseph in that 39th chapter of Genesis. How old was Joseph? Do you remember when he got taken down to Egypt? How old was he? Come on, come on. Mike told us, brother Mike told us. 17 years old. Do you know that? It would be good for you if I stole your thunder. 17 years old. Now looky here. Here's a young guy doing the best he can. He's a good guy. He's serving God, like brother Mike said. He had a good position to be obedient. And for no reason at all, whammo, he stuck down in Egypt, away from home. I mean, he could have been better. His brother sold him into slavery. He had injustice. He said, oh, shoot. I don't know whether God exists or not. He doesn't love me. I'm just going to goof off down here. He didn't do that. He was a diligent man, wasn't he? He was so diligent. Every place he was put, he stood out. He even got to be the number one trustee in the jail. Now, remember that? And how old was he then when he got to be Pharaoh's number two man? How old was he then? Who knows? Come on. 30 years old. For 13 years, here he is now, away from home, in a pagan atmosphere, not knowing why he's there, being treated unjustly, but God's getting him ready to do a fantastic job to be the number two man in Israel. So my point is, whatever season you find yourself in, do the best you can, okay? Now one more man, this is an amazing man to me. This man, even before he was born again, was right in certain ways, the apostle Paul. Paul was not born again until he got struck down on the road to Damascus. But he was a conscientious man. Kids, I want to encourage you to be conscientious. Don't be lazy. Be diligent. Paul was so diligent, he knew the whole Old Testament, almost by memory, probably. So isn't that wonderful? When God did call him to be born again, he already had that Bible memorized, practically, knew all about the Bible, so then he could take and he could preach the gospel of Jesus Christ using that Old Testament background. But if Paul had been lazy and goofing off, he had not been the man he was. So he was going to God still, even while he was in his unregenerate state. God could hold our lives. So we have seasons in our lives. Now, I'm going to ask you to do some things. Don't miss the season you're in right now. You're in a season. See, I'm in a different season in my life. I go through different seasons. My wife is in a different season. She's a grandmother now. Pretty soon all of our kids will be gone from home. She did a great job while they were there. She's still a good job. We've got to shift gears when we get out of the home. We're not going to put serving God in a different way. So you kids now are in a season in your life. Make the best of the season you're in now. Don't goof off. I get a certain age, I'll start getting conscientious. This is my time to goof off now and just have a big old time. Don't do that. Don't do that. You can have a lot of fun, but I'm going to give you some suggestions on how to spend this season of your life right now. All right, here's some things you need to do. You need to prepare for the future. You kid right now, but you need to prepare for the future. You're doing it in some things, like your education. You need to prepare that way. Prepare for marriage. It may happen before you think it will. I married my wife when she was 17 years old. She was pretty well prepared. She was ready to be a wife. Are you girls ready to be a wife right now? What about you gentlemen? Are you ready to be a husband? Most of you are not yet. But you don't need to wait until you get married. You start preparing now to be the kind of man you ought to be. Learn what the Bible says about how a man ought to treat his wife. Now, study those scriptures. You sisters, learn now to be a virtuous woman. Get into Proverbs 31. Spend time with the kind of wife I want to be, the kind of husband I want to be. You'll be a mother, a daddy someday. How about I raise my children? Prepare now for that season that's going to come on. Don't let it sneak up on you. Be conscientious in your schoolwork, by the way, for several reasons. One of them is you, many of you people, will be educating your own children. Many of you mothers will be homeschooling your children. Are you doing good in your school right now? How can you teach your kid math if you don't know math? How can you teach your kid science if you don't know science? See what I'm saying? Do well in your school work. God got rid of you doing all that. Let me tell you about my dear friend, Jimmy Barber. Daniel's here. Jimmy's one of my best friends, too. He majored in agriculture in college, and he has a good degree, too. He learned how to do a lot of things. But he did not like English. He didn't like English. He goofed off in English. He didn't even try in English. So he will tell you this himself. I've heard him say it. He began to preach at a great handicap. He's doing well now. So over the years he learned to use English well. He learned to write. He learned to speak. But for a while, bloody Jimmy butchered the king of English. And he has said, I would to God, if I had only known God would call me to preach, I'd have done well in English. So my friend, you do well in everything because you know what God wants you to do. So don't be lazy in school. Don't be lazy in school. Now listen. I want you to learn now, learn now to assume responsibility. There's a new word in the English language now that's been coined the last few years. Have you ever heard of what they call adultolescence? Anybody ever heard that word? Raise your hand if you have. OK, a few hands are up. Adultolescence is a new concept now. You know what that's talking about? People who never grow up. People who never grow up. Many men now are waiting for a long time before they get married because they're having too much fun. They got good jobs, good income, spend it all on themselves, have all these toys, don't want to settle down. Don't be like that. Don't be like that. Be conscientious now to develop your life. Don't be wasting your time. Childhood is a time for fun, but it's not only a time for fun. Childhood is a time of preparation for your later life. You ought to think about that every day. So don't fall into this adolescence, this adult adolescence where you're just a big old kid. We've got a lot of big kids in our country that don't know how to do anything. They don't have a certain responsibility. So don't be that way. You know what? You can't believe how much you could do if you just would. I know most of us are not geniuses. I'm not one for certain. But brother John Quincy Adams was an ambassador when he was in his teens. He was an ambassador to a foreign country in his teens. John Quincy Adams was. There have been a lot of people who, at a very early age, have done incredible things. This business about, you've got to wait until you're 30 or 40 years old to be confident, that's a modern idea. You can be confident and should be confident now at an early age. Used to, people used to graduate from college when they're in their early 20s. Even people who went to Harvard and Yale in the early days, they were very young. They knew Greek, Hebrew, Latin, you name it. We are very lazy in our culture. But I want to encourage you, don't be the average individual. You know, I like to read those G.A. Hintze books. Anybody ever read those G.A. Hintze books? Well, you know, you remember the heroes, those books kind of have a pattern. I finally realized that after I read about a dozen of them. It's kind of the same story, just a different person. So I didn't quite as interested. I used to have all night reading. But here's the pattern. The hero is a young guy who very early begins to develop skills. If he's a sword-fighting guy, he just practices all the time, gets his gigantic arm. And my main man, by the time he's about 16 years old, he's ready to go out and fight everybody. You know, the Jay Hickey books. But there's a lesson there. Work now to be a competent individual in what God has called you to do. Now, don't be lazy and develop your skills. All right, a few things to really get down to practicalities. Use your money widely. You kids, some of you have jobs, some of you have allowances, some of you have... Don't blow all your money on yourself. Learn to use money widely now. You need to save some of it for the future. It would be college and other things. We have so many things in our culture today that tempt you to spend your money. You've got all kinds of gadgets. Y'all know about all the gadgets more than I do. I can't keep up with all the names. iPod, iPad, smartphones. I don't know. That's about how far I can go. I'm kind of back in the wheelbarrow age. But there's so many things to spend your money on. Don't blow your money all the time. You know, one of the main causes of trouble in marriage is if people don't know how to use their money right. You learn how to use your money right, right now. Use it right. Be generous in a godly way. Learn to give to the house of God. That's a very important priority. A very important priority. Give God what's coming to him. Right now, while you have your jobs and your allowances, you ought to learn how to tie out something like that. Some amount you need to give regularly in the service of God. I mean that. That ought to come first. You ought to develop that habit right now. Be generous to other people when you can. Don't spend it all on yourself. Now, boys, you need to learn how to fix things. I'm serious. You're going to get married someday. What are you going to happen if you've got to put a washer in your faucet? Some of you guys don't even know how to put a washer in a faucet. You see, de-faucets are kind of tough. You guys got to learn how to fix stuff. Learn how to fix stuff. Girls, what about cooking? Y'all cook? Can you cook? Learn how to cook. Some of you probably already know how to cook. But learn now how to cook. Get ready for the future. Use your time wisely. See what I'm saying? Use your time wisely. You girls need to learn how to be homemakers. I only cook for homemakers. All right, let's keep talking. I want to encourage you to be organized in every stage of your life. God wants you to be organized. God's organized. Is he not? Isn't God a perfect little God? Is God sloppy? He's not sloppy. And I'm going to talk more on the use of your time later. This is the last part of my talk. But use your time well. Be organized in how you use your time. Most people waste time. Be organized in how you learn how to use your money. Just don't be sloppy in life. Let me give you an example. You know, you've heard of what Mike said. I'll have a similar expression to yours, Mike. I've got just how you put it. But the idol of mine is a devil's workshop. That's the way I said it. I think you said something else close to it. That's the idol of mine is a devil's workshop. Now I'm going to tell you about a guy named Joel Reeves, OK? I love Joel Reeves. He's a young man in the Church of Great Shepherd at one time. And I went off to Clinton, Kentucky for three years to start a church. He came back to Memphis, and I had been studying a whole lot about counseling, like with Jay Adams. So I want to kind of get involved in people's lives and help them out in their lives. And so Joel, when I got with him, he was not involved in any particular bad sin, but his life was a total disaster. He'd sleep all day long sometimes. And by the way, I'll say something about that letter. Don't, listen kids, I know summertime is fun, you're not going to school. Don't lay around in bed all day long. Don't sleep till 11 every day. Get up and do something. That's not good to have habits like that. I'm not kidding with you. Every now and then do it. Don't stay up all night all the time and just goof off and watch stuff and get up a bit late and watch your summer. That's crazy to watch your summer like that. But anyway, old Joel, I started to realize he was sloppy in everything. He didn't know how to use time right. He didn't know when he was going to get up, what he was going to eat. You know where your money was? Well, here's what happened to him. It happened to you also if you're sloppy. He finally wound up and his life was just ruined. He finally got to doing marijuana and this stronger dope than that. He got married. His marriage broke up. His life's a disaster today. But I tell you what really caused the whole thing was Joel was not disciplined. The word disciple, the same root is discipline. Discipline. Exercise yourself discipline. Be hard on yourself. You have a fleshy nature. We're all lazy by nature, mentally lazy and physically lazy. You don't let yourself go by like that. Use the summer right. You've got some more time in the summer. Use every day right. Have fun, but it's not a big party. Life's not a big party. That's the devil's lie. Now listen, don't let disorganization drag you down. I know what I'm talking about. I know disorganized men in the world that try to be organized. I'm serious. I'm going to recommend a man that you might want to get on a website and read books by this guy named David Allen. Type in David Allen to a website, to a search engine sometime. See, sometimes, and God knows I'm trying. My wife knows I'm trying. I'm just disorganized by nature. My office looks like an A-bomb went off in there sometimes. But I clean it up all the time. Sometimes I guess I can't find what I want to do. I can't find this book. I can't find this paper. I can't find good gravy. I go nuts sometimes just trying to find stuff. That's crazy. Have a place for everything and everything in its place. Learn to be organized. Now, David Allen teaches you how to get organized. And here's what he says. He's right about this. I remember reading this one time in World Magazine, kind of a review of his book. It's called, Bought the Book. And I'm going to work on it when I get back from Siberia. I'm convinced I've got to do it. Even at my age, I'm always trying to reinvent myself. Try to get better organized. I got to do it. When you quit being better, you quit being good. That's a slogan that my daddy's boss used to say. When you quit being better, you quit being good. So we got to always try until we die to try to be better. But anyway, here's what Alan said. OK, look, sometimes there are things I know I need to be doing right. I need to do this. I need to do that. And I just kind of, I got this part in life, and somehow that's all on my mind, on the back of my mind. It's on the back of my mind. You can't keep everything on the front. So really, you're bogged down and your creative part does not work. Because you've got all this mundane detail you're trying to take care of, your creative part's not working. So Allen's got a system where you start putting things in categories and checking every now and then by color until then your mind is free from all that junk and the creative part can work. It's really brilliant. So I want to encourage you to get a hold of old David Allen. We need to learn how to get so organized Now, I don't have to worry about all the stuff that I need to worry about, because I just want to encounter somewhere some kind of a system. I look at that again on periodic times, but then my creative part is free to think. Sometimes we get so bogged down. You may not identify that, but when I read that review, I immediately identified it with it. It's kind of like a lot of things in the back of my mind kind of weighing me down. It's kind of like a hindrance. It's almost like a weight. that I need to get rid of. So try to be organized as much as you possibly can. Don't be putrid. That's why your mom and dad tell you, clean your room up. Listen, you don't need a messy environment. You need a clean environment. You need an orderly environment. God's orderly. The devil's disorderly. You know, your mind needs to be organized. Your room needs to be organized. You're in a dirty environment. You can't think straight. That's why I got the same office up every now and then. Man, there's a pile of junk over here, a pile of junk over here. I said, good grudge. I can't even think, man. I can't even put the 23rd Psalm today. I'm going nuts. So I say, Lord, I'm sorry I can't study right now. I got to figure out how to clean this place up. Then I can think then. I can think then. I'm serious about this. This is serious business. All right, now let's talk about time itself. This is the essence of the talk. Let me tell you about three or four people. I had a friend who's a preacher now out in California named Joe Holder. You get this. Joe Holder was ordained. He's 16 years old. That's too early to ordain anybody. But he was able enough to be ordained, preacher-wise. He just wasn't mature enough. Nobody was old enough at 16 to get ordained. But he knew the Bible well when he was 16. You know why? Let me tell you what he did. He lived on a farm in Louisville, Mississippi. And my brother and I would go down and spend some time in the summer with Joe. We got to be friends with Brother Joe. Well, we would be holding stuff. I like holding corn. That's kind of foreign to me I guess now. We'd hold corn. Sometimes I'd cut the corn out of the weeds. It would drive me nuts. I was a city boy. But anyway, me and Louis, my brother, we just had a big old time. We'd stop and get a drink of water. We'd just sit around and talk, shoot the bull. Nighttime we'd look at TV. Joe would carry a Bible in his back pocket. We'd stop to sharpen our hold. He'd have that Bible out looking at a few verses. In my time, we're looking at TV, old Joe, he's looking at the Bible. Brother and sister, he could preach the doctrine of justification, imputation, propitiation, when he was a 16-year-old kid. He had a way to waste his time. All right, let me tell you about some of my big-time heroes. These are big-time heroes now. One is a guy named Robert Dick Wilson. Robert Dick Wilson. He inspired me many years ago. I have not followed through with what he did, but he has had an influence on my life. Robert Dick Wilson was a great Old Testament scholar, OK? He's written books that have never been answered, defending the authenticity of the inspiration of Scripture in the Old Testament. Here's what Robert J. Wilson did, and he was a brilliant man, and he never married. I know he had an unusual probably gift of celibacy, but the principle is still the same. When he was 25 years old, he graduated from seminary. Then he said, I've got to decide what I want to do with my life. Now, I know you may not be quite this precise, but you need to have something like this in mind. He thought, what am I going to say? He thought, I want to defend the Old Testament against all these ungodly critics. So I'm going to spend 15 years of my life learning the languages of the Old Testament, not only the languages of Hebrew and Italian that it's inspired in, but the languages that were already used in the first few centuries that people commented on it. 15 years, I'm going to get my language skills. Then he said, the next 15 years, I'm going to do my language skills to do research in all this field. The last 15 years I'm going to use to write what I have learned. And God bless him, he lived 45 years. He lived that long. And my friend, it's wonderful what he did. They say he'd carry a book with him all the time. He'd carry a Hebrew book, he'd carry a Chaldean book, he'd carry a Bugary, all kinds of languages he learned. And bits and pieces of his time He'd be looking at that grammar book. He learned many languages. But he'd be a genius, like I said. He could quote Daniel in the Hebrew by memory. How about that? Now, I tell you, he's a mighty man of God. He had a childlike heart. Let me tell you one thing that really moved me to think about this little powerful subject a little bit. Not only was he a great scholar, he was a childlike man with a faith in God. He said one time in a seminary class, he gave this incredible lecture. on the authenticity of Daniel. And he'd get all these great technical terms. His genius was showing. But he said, at the end of that time, he said, young man, I'm an old man now. I've studied God work for many years. After studying all these languages, he said, I can tell you one thing. Jesus loved me. This I know. So the Bible tells me so. So he showed me a book about the crime. This great man, this great mind, this childlike faith. But my friend, he could not have done what he did. He awakened his time. So I'm not saying you've got to have a 15-year period of your life. You need to think something about what God's going to get you to do, and be working at it. Be working at it. I know it wasn't easy to learn those languages. It was hard to learn those languages for 15 years. But he could not have done the research had he not laid the foundation and learned those languages, OK? Now, another man I want to talk to you about for a minute is Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He's a great, I guess he's still alive. He's real old now, but he's still alive. I'm sure he is. He's a Russian. I've read some books he wrote. He wrote many books. I read the Goodleg Archipelago, books that thick, three of them. I read all three of them. I could have just read a few pages of mine. So you talk about the torturers in the Soviet prison system and stuff like that. It's just stuff you couldn't hardly sleep at night. But what he did, though, he wrote many things to expose the Soviet Union. He helped bring the Soviet Union down. But let me tell you what he did. He didn't wait. How did he write all these books? You might say, well, he had a big library, he had some helpers. Well, he did at the end of his life. He finally got exiled. He went to Vermont. He had that kind of situation. But for the most of his life, he didn't have that. What he would do, I read his book called The Oak and the Cab, his autobiography. And they're watching him all the time. He wrote anything to speculate from him. So what he'd do, he'd go in the corner of a room at night, away from the window. He'd get a piece of pen. He'd write real small letters, part of his book. He'd get a, you know, wad it up, put it in a knothole and spray it. He'd get out of the country. And he wrote several books that way. The point I'm making is, is Tolstoy had waited until the time was right. He had never written anything. He did what he could. He did what he could under arduous circumstances and had a great body of literature. So remember that. But he used his time well. Now, if he had not used his time well, he could have done that. And he's an old man now. He doesn't have the mind to do it anymore. So I tell you, kids, while you've got the mind, you better use your mind right now. Till the time will come, you'll not have the same mental powers you've got now. Don't waste your young mental powers. You're just goofing off. OK, number three, Henry Morris. Many of y'all know Henry Morris. He's the man who was the head of the Institute of Creation Science, ICR. What was that? Anyway, he's the guy who wrote Genesis Flood. He's the main man who is the father of the modern creative movement, a wonderful man, PhD, written many, many books. He's dead now. His sons are carrying, he's got two sons carrying on his work. And some other people. See, when Henry Warrick began to write on stuff like creationism, he's a brilliant PhD in hydrology, and he taught at Virginia Tech for many years, head of the department there of engineering, but then God convicted him that he needed to, at his time, defend the doctrine of creationism in the Bible, in a strong Bible delivery. So there's nothing written, and they had this college going, so you know what he did? He made it, he duplicated his work. He made it count two or three different times. We got to learn how to do that too. He had to write a lecture. He'd have to just stand here in his class one class at a time. Got to write a written lecture for him. He had to write a lecture. And those days before computers, his mother, his dear old mother would type those things for him. Then he'd read that lecture in class. Well, you know, that lecture became a chapter in a book. Another lecture became a book. And over the years, he wrote book, after book, after book, after book, a little bit at a time. He had purchased it before. It'd be a chapter in a book. It'd be a pamphlet. It'd be a letter. So he did this. But he left a tremendous legacy behind. I've got a lot of books that he wrote. But he did it. See, he spent some time every day doing this. He had vacation time. He had fun with his family. But it wasn't a life of goofing off. It was a life of diligence. If you want to count for God, you've got to live a life of diligence. You've got to live a life of diligence. All right, let me talk about me a little bit. And God knows I'm the most disorganized guy in the world. I don't know why God let me be that way. But I'm always trying to get organized, so I can say that part that's good. And I try my best to learn how to use business pieces in my time right. So here, I want to encourage you. I'll just tell you some things I do about memorizing. Some of y'all know this. You get tired of hearing it, but I don't care. I'm going to keep that. As long as I've got a sound mind, I'm going to keep doing it. You need to be memorizing the scriptures. I'm serious about that. Memorize books, if you will. If you want to at least memorize portions of a picture. I got to quote, without it, 103 today. I know Simon learned three. I quote right along the way what he's written in, and I enjoyed that. One, and I've got a, I have a, I don't, my memory is not, I'm not like David Powell. I wish, I wish I were sometimes. He's got a photographic memory. I'm kind of jealous of him. I did have one time, I said, David, I've got a banjo for you. I'd like to read, oh, what's that guy's name? Gee, old, you know, the old detective, Sherlock Holmes. I can read Sherlock Holmes every five years and enjoy it again. I said, you can't, you don't get the story. So I got in a bit of trouble with that guy. He can't enjoy it, he don't know what the story is. I was getting the story, I was enjoying all of it. But anyway, I had to work like a, I had to work, sometimes I was, you think I'm crazy, kids? I'll say a verse sometimes for 10, it's one verse. But I decided many years ago, I remember I was just looking at a letter, and I did. Well, I've read it hundreds of times, I said it, I enjoyed it so much. Now I let it go for about oh, maybe a year. And when they said, I'm going to send this letter. I couldn't do it. Oh, man, I can't do it. All that work was with me and I couldn't do it. But the good news is, I began to remember how to do it. It came back just like that. So I realized that this in there is on the back burner of my mind. So I decided, I've got to step up now. I've been around many books in the Bible. I didn't start until I was a lot older than y'all are. If you start now, you'll be a maker if you do. I know I know Philippians, I know I know Phagians, I know James by memory, I know 1st Pentateuch by memory, I know 2nd Pentateuch by memory, I know Romans chapter 1 and Romans chapter 8, I know 1st Peter and 2nd Peter, I know Isaiah 53, I know a bunch of Psalms. And what I do, I've got a system that every month I'm re-memorizing some stuff like this, but I remember Philippians, I've already done it, James I've already done it, 1st Pentateuch I've already done it, Psalm 19 I've already done it. I'm working on classes three on the way down here now, driving the car, talking to my wife, and enjoying that, but whenever we weren't talking, I didn't flip his story. I'm going to do two new chapters this year, because I can't memorize a lot of new stuff right now and keep all those old stuff going. I'm doing classes one and two, but I'm kind of behind on that. And I don't always meet my goals, but the point is, if I didn't have any goals, I wouldn't be reaching anything. Now, I'm really kind of a nut. I want to tell you to not waste my time, but you know what I do? That right there is laminate. You know why it's laminate? It's waterproof. You don't waterproof because it's a shower. You girls remember the whole Bible. If y'all think I'm trying to shower, you think I'm trying to shower. I don't sleep with 50 visionaries. Y'all got all the hot water out. And my kids, my kids actually bought me a laminate machine. I'm like a flying dog to me. I love that thing. So I'm not kidding. Make it convenient. If you don't laminate, see here's clutches right here. Clutches. Here's the amount of 9-6 and here's most of it. Make it convenient. Carry it with you. If you can't carry that, we'll give you a box. And I'm not saying you're not all Christians. You don't want to memorize as much as I am. But you're Christians, aren't you? You love God more. Memorize something. Work at it. Systematically. You can't believe how much you can memorize at your age if you would get on it. You know, we're here to get our cultures whole again. Have you ever, anybody read Laura Ingalls Waldron, The Little House on the Prairie? Do you remember how much they memorized? They used to have history books. If we had history today, nobody could pass it. They could just ask questions about today's American history. Memorize passages in a portrait. It's incredible what people memorize. Brothers and sisters, it's good for your mind to memorize. Memorize God's Word. Put it in there. So, but you got to set some goals. Be consistent and be persistent. Now in Bible reading, We read some every day. Let me tell you about something written about me on that because I'm always reinventing myself. You've got to because you're always we're senators. I read a lot of politics. I'm just you know I used to teach history and all that kind of stuff. So I keep up the Middle East. I hope that it's ready to go after those Iranian nukes by the way. If you talk to World War I hope they go after them. But I read stuff like that all the time. All the time. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'll tell you about that sometimes. It's not the place for it, but I can tell you every name of those jet carriers and how they got on all that, how the dive bombers did, what torpedo planes did and all that. But I got convicted one day. Hey, you know what? Yes, you remember I love scripture. You're studying for summer, but you're not reading the Bible in the Bible. And I wasn't. And there's something about Bible reading. Nothing takes the place of Bible reading. So I didn't make a Bible study. I made a resolution, and I'm sticking with it for the most part. I'm not reading anything I read in the Bible for an hour a day. Now, that's a lot of time. Most of you don't have that kind of time to read. You ought to make some kind of resolution. All right, let's talk about a few more things. Don't waste all your time, kids, on entertainment. It's not wrong to have entertainment, but it's wrong to entertain yourself to death, and America isn't entertaining themselves to death. And most kids, I'm kind of like Louis, I'm just going to say y'all are good. Louis is pretty blunt. A lot of y'all are good. You're entertaining yourself too much. So even some things are not bad in themselves. It's like they said the Hebrew blessed out every weight in the sense with the 50% you. It might just be a weight. If you spend so much time in entertainment, every night watching movies, but you're not in God's world, there's something wrong somewhere. And there's so many things today, these electronic devices, that, you know, and you know what? Guess what? I read this the other day. What's the average age of men who buy electronic games today? What's the average age? Who knows? I read it. 38 years old. 38-year-old men who ought to be having on something else playing computer games. Stupid, stupid. Play one every now and then, maybe. Can you believe a 38-year-old man that ought to be reading, especially if he's a Christian, and that's the median age they claim of men buying these computer games. It's crazy. Don't be doing that all the time. Listen, learn to think deeply, not only. See, you got, listen, I'm going to be frank with y'all. Too many of y'all are on Facebook too much. I'm serious about that. Now, I'm not on Facebook. The reason I'm not on Facebook is I'm easily distracted. I know I spend too much time at it. I'm glad I know some people who are on Facebook, because they see things I need to know. So it's not wrong. But I'll tell you what, if you don't watch it, you'll spend too much time on it. And by the way, you don't need to know everything about everybody. I love this quote that a man gave. I said, amen. Even though it wasn't out of the Bible, I still said amen. He said, I have the right, and you get this, I have the right not to know everything about you. That's the truth. My friend, we don't, you can't, we need to develop a little privacy. There's too much letting down, too much, and let me tell you, if you ever talk about your hair color again, you're always wrong. Never do that. Watch what you put on. But don't spend all your time on that. See, there's so many things that are good in themselves that we don't decorate ourselves. Listen, most of us think that deep. We think that wide about that deep. We need some deep thinking. We need, all of us need to be thinking deep. I'll tell you about Brother Old Strickland. He's a preacher out in Texas that was Sonny Pyle of the Daily Ministry. And Brother Sonny told me about Brother Strickland. He's a great preacher. We used to have a lot of great preachers like that. And Brother Strickland lived around Texas, and they had a farm out there where they had a parkage, actually, in those days. They had a parkage, and they had a farm. So Brother Strickland, what he would do, in the morning, he'd get himself in the Bible. He'd start studying and reading the Bible. Then he'd plow behind the mule all day long. But while he was plowing, that mule practicing, he'd think and talk to himself. So he said sometimes his brother and wife said that he'd kind of come up to the house, you know, and he'd tie the mule there. He would hardly see her. He was so deep in thought. He'd walk in, he'd get the Bible, he'd read it with his body, he'd go back in. He'd get in the pool and he'd get some death. When did you learn how to think? You kids don't know how to think, do you? So, but listen. Here, about time again, you've got to learn how to spend some time by yourself. I know we like to be with each other. It's good to be with each other right now. But I want to ask you kids about the ability to be by yourself in God. It's kind of hard, isn't it? It's kind of hard, and it can be scary at first. You know, we're kind of horrified to be by ourselves. But we need to learn to develop that habit. I want to ask you to do that, because see, Christ is the example. I'll give you one group, and there's a lot of groups I can give you, but one of my favorites is over in Mark 135. Okay, let's talk about exercise a little bit. I'm sure that if I know what you like, but if we want to listen, God has given us bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, that a man like Robert Mervyn Shandy, some of y'all probably read about him. He's a Scottish evangelist. He died real young. He wore himself out. He didn't take care of himself. He wore himself out and died young. If you know where he wrote before he died, he said, God gave me a message to deliver and a horse delivered. God gave me a message to deliver, and a horse to ride to deliver it. He said, I'm going to kill the horse. I can't deliver the message. You need to take care of your health. And you kids, of course, I'm glad to see a lot of y'all exercising. But I'm going to tell you, when you learn how to take care of your body now, and diet and exercise, and I can tell you from experience, when you get older, it's even more important. That's why I do a lot of exercise. I need to do more. I think old chef helping fight baby dead guys. I hate whoop their own chin ups. I've done by the way, I'm not bragging myself. I just like the fact I don't know we're not that good this year. And now Harvey Hill. I bet my ring I had to go to a ring recycle. I've been on record down there. So I've got a lot of nuts. He said he picked it one of my kids and put it on the back of the yard. He said he got to like the word go bathroom in there. I saw him just sitting there a minute, and I thought he took the hanging shelf. He didn't jump up there and get a bookshelf off the rafter. I did it for him that week. But the deal is, stay in shape. Stay in shape. That's something God teaches. The Bible is the body of the temple of the Holy Spirit. We ought to take care of the temple of the Holy Spirit. And be in good health as much as we possibly can. I'm glad I didn't finally start doing this exercise. I kind of got worried about him for a while. I really am. Look at him. I got too fat, and he went on an exercise, and so I'm really glad he got on that. Now, here again, see, okay, time. You say, how'd it come to a time-wrecker? Oh, here's how it comes to a time-wrecker. Hey, listen, okay, let me tell you two things about time. Okay, I don't have time to exercise a lot. I'm a busy pastor, a real busy pastor. But I got a chin-to-bar hanging up on Greg Chapman. Every time I get up to take a little break, I'm going to do a few chin-ups, see? And one thing, too, about walking, a guy named Herman Hoeksema said this. I like Herman Hoeksema, the great prophet quorum breaker. He's dead now. But what he would do, say he would kill two birds with one stone. You can kill two birds with one stone. He did a lot of walking. But what he would do, he'd get him on money and study real hard for money until he could get his arm up. Then he called it studying on the hook. He meant walking. He'd walk and he'd think. And so see that you can do that, so you can incorporate exercise into, and frankly I pray better, think better when I'm walking, I get the blood flowing better. So we can find ways, that fits in this time because you said I ain't got time, because a lot of people say that. But you can find time if you can incorporate other things with that. Let me say a couple more things and I'll be through. Alright, I want to encourage you on something, okay? You can do more than you think you can if you set goals and be persistent and consistent. Now, I'm going to close with this. A guy named Gary North. You ever heard of Gary North? He's a pretty good writer on economics. He's a Christian Reconstructionist, which I don't agree with his eschatology, but he's still got a lot of good stuff. Here's what North said. He inspired me many years ago. He said, anybody can become an expert in anything if they've spent 5,000 hours doing it. Now, get this. You think about something you might want to do, become an expert in. Anybody can become an expert at anything that's been 5,000 hours of doing it. He calculated that. We couldn't do this unless you're going to college or something. If you spent 40 hour weeks, that'd be two and a half years, OK? You can become an expert at anything if you're having every intelligence and state of the art. 5,000 hours, he'd be an expert. But if you only spent one hour a day, 13.7 years, that's not going to time with your age. And if you take 30 minutes a day, But something you really want to do, something you really want to get proficient in, see the deal is consistency and persistency. Most of us don't have that. You need to set goals, even at your age just now, a good time to do it. Get your life ahead of you. And kids, don't forget what I said at the first. Live your life in cycles. You're going through a cycle of life right now. It's a preparatory time. This is not a time to be pissing off. It's preparatory. You're preparing for the future. You're going to be grown-ups. You're going to be husbands. You're going to be wives. You're going to be leading members of your churches. You're going to be citizens of our country. It's such a time. Enjoy your youth. You already enjoy your youth. But don't enjoy it the wrong way. Remember now thy Creator, the day thy youth. Because the day will come when you won't be able to do it anymore. You'll be an old person like over in the crazy essay 12 describing a person who's just falling apart because of age and disabilities. It's a fun time to be ahead. But listen, it's more fun when you know you're heading somewhere. So I beg you, all of you, pray. God, show me how to head. Show me how to use my time. And again, don't play around with someone. It's 11.30. That's not right. That's not right. God don't want you to be goofing off like that. Except every night from 1 to 3 o'clock, watch a movie, stuff like that. Eat a bunch of junk food. And then get up in the morning at 11 o'clock, and just go back to sleep. Oh, I shouldn't have done it that way. Don't wait until you get back to school to get deafened. Deafen yourself. May God bless you. I love you. And I don't know if you'll do some of these things. I wish you guys somebody told you, Roger, I might have done a better job. But just get on with it. Just get on with it. May the Lord bless you.