Well, it's an honor to be here, amen. It's been about 19 years since I was here, I think. And it is thrilling to meet you and to see you today. We're asking the Lord to speak specifically to us and do a mighty work in our hearts this week, amen? God wants to send revival in our lifetime. And he's able to do it if we let him. Isn't that amazing? God hangs the world on nothing and then he waits on us to respond to his word and to do what he has told us to do. What a long-suffering God. And I'm so thrilled that we can just take four days and say, okay, Lord, I want to get closer to you than I was before. How many of you believe you're a sinner? Oh, good, I think we're on Level ground right now, aren't we? Amen. I can relate to sinners because I am one. It was Calvin Coolidge that went to church one Sunday. His wife wasn't feeling well, so she didn't go. He was one of our presidents, by the way. And he was a man of very few words, very quiet person. And he came home and walked in the house, and she said, how'd church go today? What did the preacher preach on? Sin. What did he say about it? He was against it. Are you against sin? Take your Bibles and go to the book of Psalm. Take your Bibles and go to Psalm 97, verse 10. Psalm 97 and verse 10. Ye that love the, what? Ye that love the Lord, what's the next two words? If you love the Lord, you hate evil. Let's turn that around. What happens if you love evil? Well, we'd never really say I hate the Lord, But if that verse is scriptural, if it's true, if God hates sin, we should hate it. If we love sin, we are despising the Lord. And you know, that's a serious thing, isn't it, to look at? All of us have sinned. Why should we hate sin? I came across a little thing that I thought was interesting. I hate sin because of what it has done to me. Have any of you been affected by your own sin? I think so. It takes us from God, doesn't it? Selfishness is a horrible sin. We wouldn't sin if we weren't selfish. Right? If we were selfless, We would hate sin. It's like the time my father said, Daniel, I thought you were dead to sin, Romans 6, and alive unto God. Hmm. I guess I don't hate sin like I thought I did. Well, I hate sin because of what it has done to those I love. It may not be your sin you hate, but you hate the sin of others. Oh, we're good at criticizing people because of their sin, aren't we? Aren't we? It's easy to judge others. But the Lord said, we need to be careful about judging others. We need to judge ourselves. That's a full-time job, I discovered. Amen. I hate sin because of what it has done to my country. Our country is in serious trouble. Well, they're in trouble with each other, we're a divided nation. You've heard the phrase, a house divided against itself can't stand. You take Babylon, you take Medo-Persian Empire, Grecian Empire, Roman Empire, they all what? They fell. What makes us think that our own nation can't fall? A nation that forgets God is in serious trouble, aren't they? And so we need to pray. If the church doesn't get revived, we're going to lose our country. I've heard this said, and I think it's just a statement people make, but the only thing that will work for our country is revival. But why isn't there a hunger for it? There are so many churches now, I'm talking about 2022, that never have a revival. I've had preachers tell me, well, I'd love to have you in, but I can't get people to come out Monday and Tuesday nights. I say, you're the church that needs revival. right if you're not if you can't get people to come then you know you need revival so our nation's in a mess and it's all because of sin i hate sin because I hate sin because of what it has done to our world our world at large you know these dictatorships These countries that are dictatorships It's it's the dictator's love for self that takes all this money that nations give them and they spend it on themselves and they let their people just It's their love of self that brings starvation and all kinds of things. So the world's sin has affected the whole world. Hasn't it? Then I hate sin because of what it has done to God. Think about this. If I could feel bad about somebody else's sin, how much pleasure are we giving God when we sin? No, we're not giving Him pleasure. The Bible says that God is angry with the wicked every day. Right? So I think we are guilty of displeasing the Lord and not giving Him pleasure. So he's affected by our sin. In fact, the Bible, we cry for mercy. And God says, I'll give you grace. I'll give you mercy. But if you don't get with it, I'm going to judge you. And so that's where we find ourselves. We must hate, hate sin. Now, that's not my message. I just wanted to set that off to help us to understand that if we are sinners, which we are, and we have hurt our own lives, we've hurt others by our sin, hypocrisy's a horrible sin, it's when you appear to be all right, but you're not, right? If my people, he's talking about his own, if called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and what? Seek my face and turn from their wicked way, then and only then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. So we're in a situation where our sin has put God to work. I want to speak about how God works for you. Think about it. We often say, well, I work for God. In fact, I'm worshiping God today. I've come to church. Someone out with the bus, brought some people in. And here we are. We've gathered together. We've taken time to prepare ourselves. I'm serving the Lord and want to honor the Lord with my life. But that would not be possible without God working. You know, when Adam and Eve sinned, it put God to work in their lives. Remember God went right into the garden in the cool of the evening? Adam, where art thou? How many of you knew that God knew where Adam was? Remember, you can't hide anything from God. That's a foolish thing to do, because he's everywhere, and he knows all things. He's omnipresent, so he's with you, he's with you, and he's with me, all at the same time. Only God could do that, right? And so, I wanna talk to you about how God works. Would you go with me to the book of John chapter five? The book of John chapter five is where we'll begin. John chapter five, verse 17. This is Jesus. He's answering some folks here. And he said, my father worketh hitherto, and I, what? I work. God worketh, my father worketh hitherto, and I work. Let's see how God works. Let's see how God works. Number one, he works on us. Would you write that down? I hope you always take notes in Sunday school. I used to direct a Bible college, so I always wanted people to take notes. If you'll write it down, if you'll write it down, you'll remember it much more than if you don't write it down. And you can take a message that you've heard, if you write it down, write down the verses of scripture, you can go back and re-preach that to yourself. How many like preaching? How many of you ever preached to yourself? That's pretty neat when you get preaching boy. I'll tell you and it's exciting when you Will you take the word and meditate upon it and study it and say how does it apply to me? so your pastor gets up and he preaches but then you can take that message home by writing things down and and you can look over that during the week and really learn the truth and the Word of God. I'll tell you what, we need to saturate ourselves in God's Word. We need to take high doses of God. In fact, we even need to become addicted to the Word of God. I've got to have it. Amen. All right, here we go. Number one, God works on us. On us. In the book of John, chapter 16, if you want to turn there to verses 7 and 8, the Bible says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth. Aren't you glad God's not a liar? It is expedient for you that I go away. And if I go away, the Comforter, that is the Holy Spirit, will come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is calm, he's going to do some things on your life. He will reprove the world of what? Sin. That word reproving has a meaning of convicting you. If you want to write something down that I'd like you to remember is there's the six-fold work of the Holy Spirit. There's six things the Holy Spirit works. with you about. Here it is. I'm going to just give them to you real quick. I'll begin with the letter C. He convicts us. How many of you have ever been convicted by the Holy Spirit of God? He convicts us. He convicts us that we're lost. And then he convinces us we need to be saved. He convinces us that we need to be saved. I wasn't always convinced that I needed to be saved. And I'll talk more about that in the next service. He convicts us, he convinces us, then he converts us. He converts us. He saves us. Remember when you got saved? You knew you needed it, and he was willing to save you. That's why the Lord Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. So you made the Lord Jesus very happy the day you were converted. Amen. So the Holy Spirit convicts, convinces, converts, He confirms in us that we are saved. You ever get around somebody, and you don't even know them. You've only met them for maybe a minute or two, and you know that they have the same Savior you have. Your spirit, the spirit that's in you, bears witness with their spirit that we're the children of God, right? So he convicts, convinces, converts. He, what'd I say, confirms in us that we're saved. There's evidence. I know that person's a Christian by the way they act. All right? Then he conforms us to his image. That's the hardest work that God, you know, it's not hard for God to save us. It's getting us to conform to him. That means we become Bible Christians. Right. So it's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to constantly be conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ. How does he do that? Well, when you're a Christian and you do something you really shouldn't do, the Holy Spirit will let you know. Right? How many feel dirty when you sin? Okay, I understand that. I don't like that. I don't like that feeling when I know I'm not clean, I have to stop and confess my sin to the Lord right then and there so I can be clean again, right? So he conforms us to his image and we're supposed to act like Jesus. You say, yeah, but he was perfect. Well, work on it. Amen? The goal of our life ought to be like Jesus. All right? OK, so we have the next one is comfort. He comforts us. Boy, there's nobody that comforts me like the Lord does. I have a wonderful wife, and she wasn't able to come with me. Normally, she's with me all the time, pretty much all the time. Maybe five or six weeks a year, I do a meeting without her, but only because of distance and travel, and she needed some rest. We just got done with 16 weeks on the road. So we were ready to be home. She's ready to be home. We used to kiss the ground when we got home, but now we kiss the dining room tables. It's not so hard to bend over. So then he comforts us. And then the Holy Spirit, this is another one. I'm just giving you an extra one. This is free. This one here is free. He commissioned. Now some of you here have been commissioned by the Lord to give commission. You've been commissioned by the Lord to give to the ministry of Grace Baptist Church. You're faithful. You've been commissioned to go into all the world and preach the gospel to other preachers. You send out missionaries. Isn't it amazing? Yesterday, it rained like crazy on Friday night. I mean, pretty much all night. It was windy. Yesterday, we went out visiting for about an hour and a half, and it didn't rain. Right when we got done, it was starting to mist a little bit. But how many think the Lord wants us to do things like that? Yeah, he worked it all out. We could have gone in the rain, too. Umbrella worked still. But he commissions us to serve him. Now, wow, that's pretty good for the Holy Spirit to be able to do all those things. So God works on us. He works on us to bring us to salvation. That's what he does. He works on lost people to bring them to salvation. People drive by here. Say, you know, that church came and knocked on my door this week. I had one man say, I know right where that church is. Right? So we get a reputation of caring about souls. That's great, because most churches you go by and you say, well, that church there, they're noted for fighting. That preacher is always canceling services. I mean, there's all kinds of reputation. If you want to see a good fight, go to that church, you know? I'm just simply saying to you that we must ask God to work on us, to bring us to that place where we are His and He is ours. Number two, He works in us. He works in us. Once He gets in us through salvation, then He works in us. to bring us to that place where we really are thrilled about the things of God. That God is not just something we do and we don't have anything better to do. God is a priority in our life and he works in us. Take your Bibles and go to Romans chapter eight, Romans chapter eight, verses 28, you all know that one, but I really want you to see the next verse. And we know that all things work together for to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His, what? Purpose, that's the commissioning. He calls us and we respond. For whom He did foreknow, He knew all about us before we got saved. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might become the firstborn among many brethren. I want you to notice here that God is working in us by the Spirit of God producing the fruit of the Spirit You've heard about the fruit of the Spirit. There are nine Nine, well, we it's called fruit That means he gave you all of those nine things. The question is are you going to activate them? I Could have a credit card sent to me from the bank But if I don't verify it, if I don't call them, they won't empower that car. You see what I'm saying? So when it comes to the Christian life, he said, I've given you love. I've already given you love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Now, one of the neat things about the fruit of the spirit is you can't get in trouble with God if you do it. Against such, there is no law. You're not going to get in trouble when you love and you have joy and peace and longsuffering and gentleness and goodness and faith and meekness and temperance. Those things God gave to you. It was his gift to you. When you receive the Holy Spirit of God, you receive those things. Now you must activate them. And say, where's my joy? How come you look discouraged? Did you know I think it's a sin to be discouraged? Because it violates contentment. We're all guilty, aren't we? I'm not always content. The Bible says, in whatsoever state you're in, therewith to be I'm not always content. So if I'm not content, I'm violating the fruit of the Spirit now So God works in us. He works in us then number three he works for us now, this is really interesting because I surrendered to the ministry I God called me to preach in 1975 and That's a story I'll tell you later this week, but I told my dad I'll never go to Bible college and I don't even want to be a preacher. He smiled at me. You know why he smiled at me? Because he knew that God heard me. God hears everything we say. So about the time we say we're not going to do something, isn't it amazing how the Lord makes us do it? And what was really neat about that, I'm talking about God working for you. He called me into his service when I, the last thing I wanted to do. You say, why did you not want to be a preacher? Well, there's a number, I could give you a whole list. My dad was a church planter, started five churches. God gave mom and dad five boys. They started five Christian schools. My dad drove a piece of junk, because he was always spending money on serving the Lord instead of putting it in his own pocket. Can I get an amen right there? He was unselfish with his money. He worked 11 to 7, taught school during the day, and slept between 3 o'clock and 10 o'clock. and went off to work again. My dad was the most giving person I think I've ever met. The muffler was dragging on the car. Tires were bald. He believed in driving tires until they popped. He'd get his money's worth out of it. He was frugal and a little dangerous, too, right? And you know, my dad and mom never really had much. They struggled. But they loved the Lord so much that they wanted to help everybody they could. Pretty interesting. So I wanted to have a nice home. I wanted to have a swimming pool. I wanted a motorcycle. I wanted all the things that kids want, or even men want. You ever hear of toys? Yeah. You've got them, don't you? The Lord called me into the ministry, and he gave me tires that were really good. He gave me beautiful cars. He gave me a swimming pool. My neighbor said, one of the ladies in our church said, my husband doesn't want to clean the pool anymore. If you want it, you can come and get it. We'll just give it to you. And I said, I'll take it. And then an MP at West Point was going to Germany, and he said, I've got this motorcycle, and I don't want to take it to Germany. Would you like to buy it from me, Pastor? I said, well, what do you want for it? He said, well, I have five more payments at $25 a month. Would you be able to handle that? I said I can take that burden right off. Right? And what I'm saying is that when you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart. But you got to remember one thing. God is the greatest desire. our heart that verse doesn't kick in until God is first I want you to remember that because people can connive and manipulate and they can do a lot of things to get what they want and yet be miserable so it's a matter of putting God first and then watching him take care of everything else and it is so much fun to watch God work for me. I always thought I'm working for God. No, no, no, no. Before I ever did anything for him, he prepared my heart. He was working on me or in me to get me where I could be to where he would say, OK, Dan, you ready to do what I want you to do? My way's perfect. How many believe God's way's perfect? God would never ask you to do something. that would be in violation of his word. He would never ask you to do anything but what he would reward you for doing it. God's not a cheapskate. He'll give you exceeding abundantly above all that you could ask or even think. That is amazing. Why wouldn't everybody want to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit of God and serving the Lord with all your heart? Why? Because he's working for us. He works for me. I can't begin to tell you. My wife and I were talking one day just about a year or so ago. I said, Ian, look at all of the things that we've been able to do in the last 42 years, 43 years. And I was almost kind of bragging. It may have sounded like I was bragging. And she said, did you know we can't even take any credit for all that we've done? Because if God hadn't called us, we never would have done it. So we have to give the glory right back to God. I like that. What that does is keep you humble. My wife's good at doing that. She helps me, amen. Yeah, she helps, and I love her for it. Yes, God works for us. Then God works. He works with us. He works with us. He's willing to go into partnership with us. If that's what you feel you really want to do, I'll help you. And the truth is, we know that if God calls us, He's going to help us. There's no doubt about it. He doesn't leave us to our own choice. No, no. In fact, there are times where I've gotten my will mixed up with His will. And God always reveals whether it's my will or His will. Yeah. And I love it when I'm in the center of God's will, and I am working with the Lord. Take your Bibles and go with me, if you would, to 1 Corinthians 3, 9. The Bible says, for we are laborers together with God. So God works with me. I get in the yoke. You've heard of the yoke. The Bible says my yoke is what? Oh, really? Is the Christian life easy? If you're in the yoke, he's doing the pulling. My yoke is easy, he said, and my burden is light. You know what he said about a hard life? The way of a transgressor is what? Oh, really? So these people go around, oh, man, the Christian life is just so tough. You know, I'm just hanging in there. A lot of Christians like that. A lot of Christians are like that. Usually, they're living out of the will of God. That's why it's so hard. When you take God's yoke upon you, you will find that the Christian life is easy. I was rebuked by a guy after I preached. After the service, he came up to me and he said, Brother Knickerbocker, I've got a question for you. You're saying the Christian life's real easy. What about all the martyrs? I said, I just drew a blank. I didn't know what to say. What about all these people that down through the centuries of time have died for the cause of Christ? They were butchered. They were sawn asunder. You know what happened? The moment they died, they were in the presence of the Lord. Now, that's not the way I want to go, and I don't think that's the way you want to go. But if our faith in God causes us to be martyred for his cause, then we should suffer a little for it. Say, Lord, if this is what you want for me. How many of you have ever heard of John and Betty Spam? Some of you have heard about them. Did you know Betty, before she ever met her husband, John, she was in college and she wrote down Wrote it right down, Lord, I am willing to even die for you. That's the level of my devotion. Because if my life is taken by heathen people on this field, where I'm going as a missionary, she didn't even know where she was going at that point. I am willing to die for you. Pretty amazing, isn't it? Now, I think I'm going to keep going. So what I'm saying to you is that if God said, my yoke is easy, my birth is light, then he's right. If he says the way of a transgressor is hard, he's right. So you need to choose what kind of life you want. So he works with us then he works through us you can study that out. Let me give you the verse of Scripture He said I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it And he said the Lord added to the church you see God's work is always on us in us for us Through us and with us You can't lose serving the Lord. Amen? Please pray for this revival meeting. We're going to meet next hour, tonight, on Tuesday. Wednesday will be over before you know it. Give it all you can give. And let's ask God to meet us.