And let's look at verse 10, where Paul writes these words, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death. Father, I pray that as we look at this portion of Scripture tonight, as we examine it and as we submit this portion, this verse to scrutiny, that we would understand it perhaps in a way that we have not seen it. But Father, it's one thing to understand a verse and quite another to apply it. I pray that we would not just have an academic understanding of the Bible, but that we would desire a practical living of the Bible. I pray for this revival where we're emphasizing righteousness and godliness in the home as well as in the church. And I'm asking tonight that this verse might become the cry of men and women, couples and singles, children and teenagers, that we all might desire to know Thee, and the power of Thy resurrection, and the fellowship of Thy sufferings, and even to be made conformable to Thy death. Would you minister the Word of God to Thy people tonight? Please fill all of us with the Spirit of God. Fill me as a speaker, I pray. And fill these dear folks that have come out on a Monday night, fill them, I pray, as listeners. And may fruit, fruit unto God and fruit unto holiness, arise out of this verse and its work in the lives of your people. Amen. In the book of Philippians chapter 3, Paul takes some time to outline his resume. He says in verse 4, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. In other words, what he's saying is, if there's anybody out there who thinks he has a reason to trust in the flesh, well, I have more reasons than he does. Paul had an impressive resume, brought up in the city of Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was the rabban, and if you know anything about Jewish history, the rabban was the rabbi of the rabbis. And he was training Saul of Tarsus to take his place. Saul of Tarsus had risen to great fame. He said he profited in the Jews' religion above many his equals. In other words, Paul surpassed everybody else. And yet, what does he say here? As he outlines his impressive resume, verse 5 of Philippians 3, circumcised the eighth day in obedience to the law. A male child was to be circumcised on the eighth day of his life. Of the stock of Israel, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. What does it mean to be a Hebrew of the Hebrews? It means that both parents were full-blooded Hebrews. as touching the law, a Pharisee. In other words, he was identifying his religious persuasion. He was not a Sadducee. The Sadducees denied the miraculous. They denied the supernatural. They denied the existence of angels. They denied the existence of the resurrection. And the Sadducees believed only the first five books of Moses to be the word of God. They didn't want anything to do with the prophets. They didn't want anything to do with the Psalms and the Proverbs. It was just the first five books of Moses. That is the reason that when Jesus dealt with the Sadducees, He always quoted from Moses. Then he says in verse 6, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. Nobody who knew Saul of Tarsus as a Jew could blame him for anything. Pretty impressive. But notice what Paul writes. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of notice of this word, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." In other words, the greater excellency of knowing Jesus Christ versus having all these impressive resume points. I mean, you can see his resume. Bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet. And all these impressive things about Saul of Tarsus. And Paul says, look, I counted it loss. Moving on. Yea, doubtless, verse eight, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. Paul said, you know what? When I trusted Christ and I went out and started preaching Christ, I lost all of my status. I lost all of my position. I lost my possessions. I lost my prowess. I lost all of my pride. I threw it all away. I've suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may win Christ and be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God, which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. I want to preach to you tonight four ways to know Jesus Christ better. Four ways to know Jesus Christ better. First of all, notice in verse 10 that I may know him. I think it is significant that Paul did not say that I may know about him. We're in a good Baptist church here. I've had many conversations with your pastor. We talk on the phone. I'm going to say, four times a year, three or four times a year. And we talk about the ministry, and we talk about the things that are going on in the family, and things in the world, and how the world's shaping up. And even so, come Lord Jesus. And we have conversation, and it's just about the things of God. I know that this is a church where you have a good doctrinal statement. And in a doctrinal statement, you know about Jesus Christ. But do you know Him? I'm not asking do you know Him as your Savior. I'm saying do you know Him? And knowing Him has to do with fellowship. I want you to keep your finger here and go with me to the book of 2 Peter for a moment. Mark Philippians 3. We're coming back there. But notice 2 Peter 1 tonight. Simon Peter is the writer of 2 Peter. He is the writer of 1 Peter. Notice how 2 Peter starts out. Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. You know how we have salvation? You know how each one of you who has obtained like precious faith, you know how you have it? You have it through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our Savior. You don't have it through your own righteousness. You have it through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, your Savior. But notice he moves on from there. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you. How? Through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power has given unto all things that pertain unto life and godliness, how? Through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue. knowing Christ, that I may know Him as we go back now to Philippians 3, that I may know Him, that we have a communion with God, that we are in fellowship with Him, that we talk to Him, that we spend time, that we invest time with Him in a prayer time, that we invest time with Him in worship, that we invest time with him. I'm not just talking about public worship. I mean, private worship. I mean, as you drive down the road, you're not occupied with the follies and the foibles of the world, but you're thinking about Jesus Christ and getting to know him. Now, maybe you've been saved for six months and I wouldn't blame you if you don't know him well, but if you've been saved for 16 years. He ought to be your friend. There ought to be some hours, indeed, hours of time, but but over the course of years that they would add up to months of your life. And if you live long enough, it would add up to years of your life that have been invested. Just talking to Jesus Christ. Knowing. Him. Personally. I said, I want you to have a sermon tonight entitled, Four Ways to Know Jesus Christ Better. And you need to know Him personally. You get married, you find out that you don't know the person you married. Oh, I mean, courtship comes along, you know. You find somebody that you really think is the one. I was just chatting with a young friend of mine today, a preacher's son, and he put a picture on Facebook of him at a church banquet with just a young lady. And I said, who's in the picture with you? And he told me her name. And I said, is this someone you think might be The one for you, he said, oh, I don't think she is. I know she is. And you know, it's sweet. He's 20 and I don't know how old she is. I've never met her. But you know what? He doesn't know her. You get to know somebody when you live with them 24-7. You get to know someone when you come home to that person night after night. You get to know someone when that someone comes home to you night after night. You don't know them until you know them. And you know, there are things I'm learning about my wife, and we've been married 44 years. I'm still learning things about her. I'm still getting to know her better. And she's still getting to know me better. And it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. But the fact is that we are in a non-relationship generation. We are not, don't contact me, don't touch me, stay six feet away from me, do not this, do not do that. You know, germophobes abound. Look, I don't care about your germs. I tell people I grew up on a dairy farm. I have had worse things in my mouth than you have ever had on your hand. Every day. You milk 40 cows in the morning and you milk them again at night and you do that seven days a week, 12 months of the year, you think you're going to be clean when you're doing that? Listen, during the lockdown, all these will stay away, stay away, you know, don't shake hands with me. Oh, you know, OK, I get it. If you don't want to shake hands, that is your prerogative and you're not going to offend me. But I'm just telling you, That does not bother me. We're living in a generation that is pushing back from fellowship and relationship. And it's dangerous. When God created the first man, what was it that he said about him? He said it's not good that he should be alone. And the devil knows that. And that is the reason that in salvation God provided the basis, the blood basis, the forgiveness basis for you and me to have fellowship with Him, for you and me to have communion with Him, and He sent the Holy Spirit to live within us and we have the Holy Spirit there. And I'm not a charismatic. I'm not here tonight to preach on all the gifts that have ceased and the manifestations of gifts that have ceased. What I'm here to tell you is Philippians 2, the verse before this, talks about the fellowship of the Spirit. What is that? 2 Corinthians 13-14 talks about communion of the Holy Ghost. What is fellowship? What is communion? It has to do with communication. I would imagine that this church sings the song He Lives. I serve a risen Savior. He's in the world today. What does the chorus say? He walks with me and along life's narrow way. Is that just good poetry or is that true? We probably, at this church, maybe not as often, but you probably sing the song, I Come to the Garden Alone. While the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses, and what? He walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. Do you know that? Do you know Jesus that way? Do you know Him personally? Do you take time out of your day to just talk to Him? Do you take time out of your day to praise Him? Do you take time out of your... There are times that I will go out, I like to pray as I walk. I'm a mover, you've noticed that. I tell people, I can't help it, I'm an Indiana pacer. I just keep moving. I think better when I'm moving. I don't think very well when I'm sleeping. I have to be moving around. And when I go out, there are times that I just take a large portion of my walk thanking the Lord for things He's done in my life. Thanking the Lord for letting me know Him. And you know, as I've grown in grace, I have grown also in the knowledge That's what Peter said, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so I want to challenge you tonight. Four ways to know Jesus Christ better is the first one is to know him personally. Commune with him, fellowship with him through the through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Take time to just talk to Jesus Christ. And then be quiet and let him talk to you. It's not going to be an audible voice, but it is an assurance. The Spirit of God beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. It's a witness. It is a communication. How many times have you said to somebody, well, the Lord has persuaded me that I ought to do this. Was it written in the sky? No. How many times has your pastor made the statement, I sense the Lord wants me to preach this message to you? How did the Lord show you that? Well, you get to know Him. And that's not limited to preachers. That is not limited to missionaries and evangelists. You know what? Everybody in this room can know Him. I want to say something. Young children can know Him. You don't have to have a Bible college degree to know the Lord. You can draw an eye to God and He'll do something. What will He do? He'll draw an eye to you. you can find that God is a God who is waiting. He's always waiting. He's watching you. And He's a responder. You know, the Bible says, Him that honoreth Me, God said, Him that honoreth Me, I will honor. He said, You turn to Me and I'll turn to you. The bottom line is God is not a God who resists. our fellowship. He is a God who welcomes it. He's a God who desires it. And He wants everyone in this room, He wants every one of His children to know Him better personally. Our problem in this non-communicative, non-fellowshipping generation is that we are learning to exist without anybody, and that's dangerous. You know, Elijah did all right until he went out into the wilderness and left his servant and went another day's journey with nobody. You ever thought about that? It wasn't good for Elijah to leave his servant. It wasn't good for Elijah to take off and say, you know what, I don't want anybody with me. He needed to be alone with God. but He didn't need to be alone alone. That I may know Him. Paul wanted to know the Lord personally. And I believe that should be the prayer tonight. I believe that Jesus would love it if your prayer would be over the next six months, over the next year, over the next two years, Lord, I want to know You better. I want to know You better. Nathan, who was here in the service last night, was in that car wreck a little over five years ago. Smashed to pieces. There is no human reason Nathan should be alive. There is no human reason that being alive he should be able to talk or walk or function in any way. There's no reason that he's not a vegetable. Except God. But the miracles are not just physical miracles. What God did in drawing my wife and me into closer fellowship with Him. I did not take that as the reason to think that God didn't love me. I won't mention names, but I had a gentleman approach me soon after that wreck. And he said, Brother Farnam, I just don't understand. You've given your life to serve the Lord, and this is how God treats you? I said, hold it right there. I said, sir, I've been, and of course at that time I had been pastoring LaGrange Baptist Church for 20 years. I'd been a pastor of two other churches. I'd been an assistant pastor previous to that. I'd been in the service of the Lord for over 40 years at that point. I said, I have stood in many a hospital room with my arm around a grieving father and mother because their son was smashed up or their daughter was dying of some mysterious disease. I said, I have stood in many a hospital room with a family while a wife and mother or a husband and father was dying of some cause. I said, in every one of those situations, I was able to finish the prayer, assure them of my love, walk out of the room, walk down the hall, go down the elevator, walk out into the parking lot, get in my car and drive away. I said, this time, it's my turn in the hospital room. I said, am I better than those people? Am I somehow immune because I'm a preacher? Am I supposed to be somehow shielded from real living? No. And you know what? It was during those dark, dark days of terrible uncertainty of what was going to happen that my wife and I drew near to God and got to know Him better personally. Number two, not just that we would know Him better personally, but that we would know Him better powerfully. That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. I think we have to go to the book of Ephesians for just a moment, the book right before Philippians. Back up, if you will, to Ephesians chapter 1. There is a prayer in Ephesians 1. We'll come back to Philippians in a moment. But there is a prayer in Philippians chapter 1. And when Paul says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, Paul is not just talking in figures of speech. Paul is not just giving us something that sounds good. Because in Ephesians 1, Paul writes here in verse 15, "...wherefore I also..." Ephesians 1.15. I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints cease not to give thanks for you Making mention of you in my prayer. So now beginning in verse 17 Paul is actually writing out a prayer that the Spirit of God gave him to pray and It's inspired and preserved for us in the Bible. Look at this prayer that begins in verse 17 of Ephesians 1 Number one, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. God wants you to know Him. that God would open your eyes to that. Notice the next thing. Verse 18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. God wants our eyes to be opened to spiritual things so that we would know the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance. God wants us to know those things. But look at the rest of the prayer. Verse 19. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power? To us-ward who believe. We don't say to us-ward anymore. That is an old English form. We put the W-A-R-D with the two. We have the word toward. And we would say in modern English, toward us. To us word is the equivalent of toward us. We're not changing the Bible. I'm just telling you what it means. Nothing wrong with the old words, nothing wrong with the new words. But notice what he says. He wants us to know the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe. Now, what is this power? According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. That sounds to me like the power of His resurrection. And it's something God wants us to know about. It's something God wants us to be aware of. It's a dimension of knowing Jesus Christ that God wants us to know. In other words, God can take a dead man and raise him back to life. And how many times is that brought out? We find it in the book of Romans 4 where Abraham is cited by Paul and he believed in Him who had the power to raise up Isaac from the dead. Look at Romans 4. Keep your finger in Philippians 3. Let's find Romans 4 tonight. Romans 4.17. As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were. We see it again in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 1. Find 2 Corinthians 1 tonight, if you will. Verse 9. 2 Corinthians 1.9, but we have the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but what? But in God which raiseth the dead. And when God wants us to know Him, He wants us to know Him personally. We ought to want to know God personally. We ought to want to know our Savior personally. But we also ought to want to know Him powerfully. There ought to be things going on in your life that you can't explain. Because they're being done, not in your power, but in the power of God. We're sitting here in a church of mostly adults, with a few teens, and then a few little children. How many of you would raise your hand and say, I have a bad habit? Yeah. Why do you have a bad habit? You're saved. Well, because we still have a sin nature, don't we? And you know what we find? We find some of those bad habits hang on like a burr in a mule's tail. They just don't shake off easily, do they? I know a man, known him for years. Got saved out of a drunkard's life. The day he got saved, he went home and dumped all the liquor in his house down the drain and never touched another drop. Immediate deliverance. But you know what? He was also a smoker. And he struggled with smoking for more than ten years into his Christian life. He came to me one time, just talking. He said, Brother Farnam, I don't know if I'm ever going to get victory over this. He would come. He would say, you know, in church, I go to the altar and I pray and I weep and I feel like God's going to give me the victory. And, you know, I do all right for a day or two and then, man, I just fall right back into it. I don't know what to do. I said, keep praying. I said, one day the power of God is going to deliver you. And you know what? It did. God doesn't deliver us instantly in every area. You know why? Because He wants us to know the power of His resurrection. He wants us to get on our faces before God, and instead of depending on this corrupt flesh He wants us to come to Him and beg and plead and cry and weep and wait and beg some more and plead some more and cry some more and wait some more and one day see deliverance. And that goes for a foul temper. That goes for a dirty mind. That goes for a nasty tongue. That goes for gossiping and slandering. That goes for bitterness. That goes for any sin you can name. We talked about sin on Sunday morning. It is not your friend. And you know that. You think, well, he's an evangelist. He doesn't have any sins. Think again. Oh, we have this wonderful pastor. I'm out in the lobby tonight and one of your members came up and said, I have the best pastor in the world. Praise God for that. Feet of clay. We all have them. It's not an excuse. I'm tired of people say, well, we're all sinners to justify their sin. Why don't we all say we're all saints to justify not living in sin? Praise God. And why are we not getting to know the power of God to deliver us? To set us free. Not just to give us eternal life, but to give us abundant life. Not just to deliver us out of sin. I think it's appropriate for me at times to just be a little more transparent as a preacher. Because we're not super-Christians. I grew up in an abusive home. I went out into my adult life, just newly saved, not really understanding the Christian life. I knew I was saved. That's what I knew. I knew God had done something in my life. I knew that. I knew God had called me to preach. I knew that. But I was naive about the Christian life. Remember when I met my wife and you know, we courted for about 23 months got married We were married for I don't know how long and one day we had an argument Now this may sound funny but I what I went to work that day absolutely Mystified I Thought we're both Christians How did that happen? I didn't even understand the sin nature. I had brought certain baggage, if I may use that terminology, into our marriage. And by the way, everybody that gets married brings baggage. When you buy a farm, you always buy the back 40 along with the farm. And everybody has a back 40. Everybody. I don't care who you are. We all have a back 40. And I had a back 40 and I had things about me that I didn't even understand were still part of my life. And you know what? Over the years, I have found God to be powerful. To deliver, it's not just from sin. It's from brokenness in our lives that comes by living in this cruel world. Why did Jesus say he came to heal the brokenhearted? Well, what's the point of that? Because everybody has a broken heart. There's nobody in this room whose heart, whose spiritual heart is 100% whole. We all have injuries. We all have damage there. I came into my adult life because of the environment in which I grew up. Pastor Ruck, I came into my adult life feeling like a complete failure. and feeling like everything that went wrong was my fault. Because that's the way I was raised. I had lived in that environment of a family where I was blamed for everything. I don't have to go into the reasons for that. That is just the way it was. And I carried that into my adult life. And it affected my relationship with my wife. It affected relationships with friends. It affected my ability. And when I finally could see that, I got on my knees and I began praying. And I want to tell you something. God delivered me from that. By the power of His resurrection. Because there was a part of my life that was dead. I couldn't resurrect it. But He did. Because He's the God who raises the dead. And He wants us to know Him personally. But He also wants us to know Him powerfully. He wants us to be able to say, something happened in my life and I didn't do it, God did it. Because I couldn't. And He wants it to be more than just your salvation. When I was pastoring in LaGrange, Indiana, We had a Thanksgiving service every year, probably you do the same. And here was the way that we constructed it. We didn't preach that night. We just set up a microphone right here and we had people come to the microphone and testify. And here was the rule. The only testimony you can give is something God has done in your life in the last 12 months. but we had certain people that God hadn't done anything in their lives in the last 12 months. So they would get up and tell their salvation testimony from 32 years ago, and the next year it was 33 years ago, and the next year it was 34 years ago, and the next year it was, because God wasn't doing anything in their lives. They got saved and that was it. Well, praise God for being saved, amen? I'm not knocking salvation tonight. I'm saying how poverty stricken some people are because they don't get to know Him personally, and they don't get to know Him powerfully, and they can't look back over the last year and say, you know, something happened in my life and God did it! I didn't do it. I tried. I couldn't do it. I tried for years and it never worked. And when I finally got desperate with God and begged Him, He took care of it. The power of His resurrection, it is there for us, Ephesians chapter 1. He wants us to know that power. He wants us to experience that. He wants us to be able to say, God did something in my life. Do you know why we're losing our young people? Because they're watching their parents and their grandparents and nothing ever happens. And they're like, why do I want to waste every Sunday of my life? I have better things to do. That's one of the reasons. It's not the only reason. That I may know him personally. Verse 10, that I may know him powerfully. Oh, and then there's the next one and the fellowship of his sufferings. That I may know him painfully. that I may know the Lord in the valley, that I may know the Lord in the depths, that I may know the Lord in the darkness, that I may know the Lord through the times when I can't find Him, and I can't see Him, and I can't understand Him. When faith is all I have because I can't see my way out of this situation. Who comes to mind in the Bible when you think of that? Does Job come to mind? I want you to hold your finger here in Philippians and back up to the book of Job with me. Right before Psalms. Job was perfect and upright, he feared God and eschewed evil. The devil came along and made two accusations. He accused God of being a manipulator, manipulating Job by blessing him. The only reason you bless him is so he'll serve you. He accused Job of being an opportunist. The only reason Job serves you, God, is that you keep blessing him. The whole book of Job is about those two accusations. And you know what is written on Job's tombstone? He proved the devil wrong and amen to that Because Job did not serve God because of God blessed him Job served God because Job loved God and God did not bless Joe because Job served him. He blessed Joe because Job loved him And when Job lost everything his health included In chapter 23, we find Job testifying, talking. I'm in Psalms. That's why it's not reading right. Job 23. There we go. All right. Verse 8. Job 23, verse 8. Behold, I go forward. But He's not there. Ever feel like that? And backward, but I cannot perceive Him. On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him. He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. But He knoweth the way that I take. And when He hath tried me, Shall come forth as gold When he says I go forward and I go backward in verse 8 when he says on the left hand and on the right hand in verse 9 Job is one of the poetical books and he's using figurative language In other words job is saying I'm looking ahead to my future. I go forward, but you know what he says He's God's not there I can't see God there. I can't see any good that could ever come out of this. I can't see God in the future that I am imagining from my condition sitting in the ash heap. I go backward. I'm looking back at my past. I can't think of something that I did that would cause God to think that I deserve what I'm going through. And by the way, it isn't about what you deserve. Testing has nothing to do with what you deserve. He says on the right hand and the left hand there in verse 9, he said, I'm looking around, I'm looking around and I see no way out. But God knows the way out. God knows my way. He knows the way that I take. And when this is all over, I'm going to come out of this mess, I'm going to come forth as gold. And if you study the book of Job, there were two things he didn't lose, he did not lose his faith. And he did not lose his sense of humor. And faith is far more important Because without it, you cannot please God. But a sense of humor is also important. Good humor, not dirty humor. And as we look at this, as Paul writes that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, in the book of Colossians, Paul writes something that is interesting to me. And I will not tell you that I think I understand it. It's Colossians chapter 1, just a page or two beyond Philippians 3. Notice. Colossians 1, 24. Colossians 1, 24, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you. And fill up now, notice these words. and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church. I'm going to tell you I'm not certain that I get all of that. But you know what Paul was saying? He's saying if the afflictions of Christ, if the sufferings of Christ would fill this room, I am so far behind that, my sufferings wouldn't even fill the little hole where the flagpole sits in the stand. I'm so far behind Christ. And he said, I would like to fill up. That which is behind. Of the afflictions of Christ, in other words, Paul is saying I'm willing to suffer for the Lord. Because he suffered for me. And you know what happens when we suffer? we get to know Him. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I think of Hezekiah who was serving God, a faithful man. I would like to have said about me what the Spirit of God said about Hezekiah. The Bible says he trusted the Lord. so that there was no man before him or after him who trusted the Lord like he did. I'd kind of like somebody to say that about me. Amen. Wouldn't it be nice if the Lord would say that about us? That's what he said about Hezekiah. And one day, Isaiah the prophet came to him. He said, I have a message from the Lord. And the message is this, set your house in order because you're going to die. You're not going to live. And what did Hezekiah do? The Bible says he turned his face to the wall and wept and prayed. I don't know how long Isaiah stayed with him, but eventually Isaiah got up and left. And he's out in the courtyard. And God said, go again and tell Hezekiah, the captain of My people, I have heard thy prayers. I have seen thy tears, and I'm gonna add unto thy days 15 years. You know, Hezekiah got to know God in that valley. It wasn't a very long valley, a couple hours. Some valleys are short and some valleys are long, but you get to know God in the valley. You get to know God in the pain and the suffering and the difficulties and the disappointments and the disillusionments and the heartbreaks because He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and He's able to succor them that are tempted because He Himself was also tempted in every way just like we are yet without sin. And what happens in our times of difficulty and sorrow, if we're not careful, we get a little sideways with God. We get a little irritated with God. We think that because we know that God could have done something different, we think that He should have done something different, and we wish that He would have done something different, and because of that, we get upset with Him. And you don't get to know God when you're upset with Him. You just don't. You want to get to know God? You have to submit to it. And I heard this preacher one time say, every believer is either going into a valley or in a valley or coming out of a valley. That's about how life is. Paul said, a great door and effectual is open unto me. And there are many adversaries. Vance Havner used to say that opportunity and opposition run on parallel tracks. And they generally arrive at the station at about the same time. And here we are. And there are people right in this audience who are in some difficulty tonight. And you're saying, I just can't see God. So trust Him. when you can't see Him. And when you trust Him when you can't see Him, that's when you get to know Him. You say, can you explain that to me, Brother Farnam? No, I can't explain it. But I have experienced it. In those early months after Nathan's wreck, listen, for weeks we didn't know if he was going to live. He absolutely clung to life by an unraveling cobweb. It was just, he was, the amazing things that happened in those early months. And we had no idea when he was in the hospital for 217 days. Seven months and a week in the hospital. Hospital bills north of 1.1 million. Either way, they're all taken care of. All taken care of. And that's not because I paid them. We had no idea what was going to happen to our son. When he was discharged from the hospital, he had the mind of probably a seven-year-old child. His brain injury was so severe. We put him into a rehabilitation home. And he had outpatient therapy for another three years and eight months, four and a half years of his life. Nathan moved home a year ago. He got a job. He works at Amazon. He struggles with short-term memory. He has a body full of metal. He sets off the alarm when he drives by the airport. He has to have a car just to get into his workplace because they have to go through a metal detector. He's full of metal. There's no reason he should be alive. There's no reason he should be functioning. But in those days when we just had no idea what was going to happen. God was at work. Not just in him. but in us, that I may know him personally, and the power of his resurrection, that I may know him powerfully, and the fellowship of his sufferings, that I may know him painfully." And then Paul says this in Philippians 3.10, being made conformable unto his death, knowing him permanently. You know one day we're going to see Him face to face. And amen to that. But being made conformable unto His death will take us back to the Garden of Gethsemane where He said, Father, not My will but Thine be done. And He comes out of the Garden of Gethsemane and they take Him out and He goes through a mock trial and they nail Him to a cross. And He dies for our sins. He died the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. and to know him, yes, and the power of his resurrection, yes, and the fellowship of his sufferings, yes, being made conformable, letting Jesus work in your life so you're willing to die. And how do you do that? You die to self. You die to self. Pastor mentioned it. It's either tonight or last night. I think it was tonight. Wouldn't it be great if some young person would submit to the call of God on his life? And just say, not my will, but thine be done. Lord, I submit to that call. I'll do whatever you call me to do. What a wonderful thing. I remember the night I did that. I didn't know what I was doing in the sense of knowing all that God would lead me to do, but I just knew God wanted me to be a preacher. By the way, you never know at the beginning what the end is going to be. Only God knows that. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there would be a young lady in this church who would say, I believe God wants me to be a preacher's wife, and I'm going to keep myself for that purpose until God gives me a preacher. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a young man in here would say, You know, I believe God wants me to be a preacher, maybe an evangelist, maybe a missionary, maybe a pastor, but a preacher. And I'm going to keep myself for that purpose. I'm going to do that for Jesus Christ. Wouldn't it be wonderful if some young people would say, I'm not sure God wants me in the ministry, but I'm going to die to the fleshly passions, and I'm going to keep myself pure regardless of what God wants me to do. And when I walk down the aisle to get married, the white dress is going to mean something. It's going to mean that I kept myself for my husband. And it's going to mean something when I meet my husband, because he's going to be the one who kept himself for me. Wouldn't it be great if we could have some people do that? To die to self? You know, you have to die to self. You're going to live for God. You have to be the kind of person that says, not my will. Not what I want to do. Because you know what? All of us want to sin. All of us want to do our own thing. All of us have dreams that we want to accomplish. But God has a will for us. And to be conformable unto His death is to submit just like He submitted to His Father, not my will. but thy will be done." Now, if that is not the path that describes your past, I'm not here tonight berating you if that is not your testimony. But what I'm saying is God wants us to die to self. God wants us to be clean in His eyes. He wants us to submit to Him and die to the things that we want just like He died to the things He would have preferred. He said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Are those just words? Or is that what Jesus wanted? Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. to be made conformable to His death is to know Him in such a permanent way that few things can shake it. Do you know Him tonight? Do you desire to know Him better? You can know Him personally. You can know Him powerfully. You can know Him painfully. And you can know Him permanently. I'd like us to.