unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When thou saidest, seek my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek? Hide not my face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not. Forsake me not, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over into the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me and such as breathe out cruelty. I'd fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord." I think it's an encouraging psalm. We could go a lot of different directions with that. David's past deliverance has given him strength and courage and confidence in the Lord, the Deliverer, His salvation, His light, the rock, the very rock that his world is founded upon. And of course we could look at that in so many ways that in the New Testament with the church and you and I's daily, us needing our daily deliverances. And yet he still cries out for mercy, Lord still don't put me far from you, Lord still withhold your anger from me. Now we should know that David was in a place one time where he was feeling the anger from the Lord and it felt like, I think it felt like, the Lord was not with him. It felt like he was being forsaken. And maybe in a timely sense he was separated from the Lord, but of course we know the Lord eternally is that rock that he will never be separated from and never be forsaken by. So a beautiful psalm that we can, and I like that verse 14, we could probably preach a sermon on that about waiting. You know, we talk about, we tell our children to wait. It's a good thing to wait, wait in line. We say, be patient, wait your turn. But really, and that's a good thought, it's a good thought to be impatient, because patience will add some other virtues to us through that patience. But I think the waiting here, there's a whole other aspect to it, and we can think of it when we think about when we go to a restaurant and we have a waiter. When the Lord tells us to wait, when we read about waiting, it's not just waiting and doing nothing, waiting for the Lord to come again a second time. but it is a waiter like you would have in a restaurant, a servant, one that would be there for you, asking you, I mean, you've been there, and trying to chase this rabbit trail, but you know, it's kind of irritating to think that we're almost, we feel obligated to tip, even though the waiter didn't necessarily go above and beyond what he was supposed to do, but then when we get that good waiter, you know, you almost want to give them that tip, that bonus, because they have been there, and they've had a smile on their face, they've served you with a smile on your face, waiting on your every need, You know, they're asking you, what can I do for you? Even before you ask, they're bringing you extra. Would you like more of this? And we need to think about that as we wait on the Lord. David said it twice there. Wait on the Lord. Yes, wait on the Lord. Yes, patience. Be patient throughout all the things that we do in this life. Be patient with one another. But wait, serve the Lord as that perfect, that great waiter you would love to have at the restaurant who would just, every need, every desire, just waiting on you. Being a good waiter. But let's go back and look at that verse number four, and this is where I hope I'm not spreading out too much, but David said, One thing, one thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after. I'd like to maybe challenge you tonight, if you could think about, if you had a limited amount of time, and we do have a limited amount of time, our days are numbered, we don't know that number. We know the season of death, but we don't know that number. But if you had, say a day, or say this next week, just the rest of this week, what one thing, how would you spend that? You know, I think about that and I think about how much I need to go back and tell my wife how much I love her, and my children, one more time, how much I love them, and cry out for mercy, forgive me for what I've even done just this past week. And just what's that one thing you would tell someone to let people know your love for them and your love for the Lord? Would you tell other people about your love for the Lord? You know, sometimes the courage is not there, but if you just had just a small amount of time, if there was one thing, you had that one week, how would you spend that day or that week? Would your words be different? Would your words be to the use of edifying, full of grace, and not be pulling those, even that you love the most, be pulling those down? But think about those one things. Paul talked about that one thing. He said, I've been apprehended. I've been obtained by something, and I've not yet apprehended. I haven't yet got a hold of Jesus. He's got a hold of me, but I don't quite have Him all figured out. But Paul said, this one thing I do, this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before. Paul said, I press towards the mark. I press towards it. That's a diligent effort for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. Paul said, and there are some things that we ought to remember, the past deliverances. We ought to remember that the Lord is merciful through the times in our past sins. But in general, friends, we've got to, if there's one thing, Paul said his one thing is, to forget those things. And we know Paul saw in the persecution that he had put on the church and the sin, the evil that he breathed out as he said, he said, I've got to forget those things and I've got to reach forth to that thing that is before. It's so wonderful to think about the Lord and His mercies being new every morning. He's a God of newness. He's a God of newness. And so if we think about the old things being passed away when He makes us a new creature, a new creation, And not only that time in that new birth of that new creation, but day by day. Day by day we can, I messed up yesterday, but I can do better tomorrow. And so we press towards that mark, the high mark. And I want you to see that mark is high. I want you to see that plumb line, that standard is very high. It's not about comparing ourselves with ourselves. It's not about comparing ourselves with the church down the street, it's about setting, it's about pressing towards that high mark, that high standard of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was Paul's, he says, one thing I do, I press the mark. Well, David said this one thing, he said, and that will I seek after, to dwell in the house of the Lord. You know, and actually this was a time, remember David was the man who wanted to build the temple, but he didn't get to build the temple. He did a great thing though, he laid up for his children, Sometimes we don't get to do things and accomplish things and reach things in this life, but maybe our children will, and David laid out for that. But David was speaking of not necessarily the temple, and maybe he was speaking of the tabernacle, but I think he was getting at more of the place of God, the dwelling place of God. Jerusalem, the tabernacle, wherever God manifested Himself, that's where David wanted to be. He calls it a pavilion. We see lots of other names for this. But he said that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, the house of the Lord, the place where God dwells all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord. I think about sometimes when we go to our Lord in prayer, maybe again when we come to the house of God, we might think about, we might have that grocery list of prayer requests and the things that we want that God to bless us, or in other words, to see. We ask for God's hand in doubts. We seek his hand and his hand here, but what are we seeking? Are we seeking His face? Are we wanting to behold His beauty? Are we wanting to kneel at the feet of our King and say, Lord, what will thou have me to do? Prince, to behold the beauty is to be moved by the very manifest presence of God. I love to, I mean, not every time we attempt to preach are we beholding the beauty. I firmly believe that a man of God ought to be able to teach the Word and to read it and to give the sense thereof so that people might grow in grace and knowledge. But there come special times when the Lord will bless with power and demonstration of the Spirit and you can feel God and you embrace Him in that worship. And I believe that's beholding the beauty of our God. And he says to inquire, to inquire in his temple there. I think our hearts need to be in a place, a humble place, a place of inquiring. You know, I'll tell you that a pastor, a preacher, there's many things a preacher will love. A preacher loves to see somebody come down the aisle at the end of services. But a preacher will love if you'll ask him a question about the book, not about, you know, different preachers have different expertise, whether it's computers or car, you know, if you call the preacher during the week, and, yeah, yeah, your wife hands you the phone, and, yeah, I've got this problem with my car, and you're like, okay, I thought, I was hoping for a Bible question that went inquire in his temple. You know, God wants that. I think our hearts are prepared that way. When we come to the house of God inquiring, Lord, what will that have for me? What do you want from me? And to seek his face in that way. So that was David's one thing, and Paul's had his one thing, and I ask you, what's your one thing as far as what would you do? But I think about what is my one thing to preach about? What's the one subject I might preach about if I had one opportunity to preach about it? I don't know if I can preach this one subject, so I'm gonna say the word balance. And so I wanna take a little bit of time to talk about a couple three-ish subjects tonight, but balance is the idea. That's the idea. We need, Paul said, I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. And it's easy for us to get off on our favorite subjects and to stay there. Now, I believe if we just go through God's Word, it's all gonna be there. But that's the trick, is making sure we're getting through God's Word. We need overviews, we need details, we need one verse, we need lots of verses, we need all the counsel, we need a balanced diet. Just like when we eat food, we need, each different food group. It keeps us healthy. It keeps our bodies strong. Well spiritually, friends, spiritually we need the same thing. We need a balanced diet. And so I would say if I was to preach and, you know, Maybe not necessarily even know who I'm preaching to, but for sure one thing, of course, I'm going to go back to the essentials and get a couple essentials about. We believe in salvation by grace. And what does that mean? Salvation by grace, friends. Grace is that unmerited favor on the unworthy recipient. You know, we didn't deserve, why did God hate Esau? Why is that the question? Why could he even love Jacob? So we believe in this grace, this love that was unmerited. Jacob wasn't a good guy there and God yet bestowed his love and chose him to be a special man, a special nation he would become. But this salvation by grace, you know, there's some things that happened before the foundation of the world. Before he created, he spoke the world into existence about 6,000 years ago. Before he did that, he chose us. according as He has chosen us, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us." Now, I like, in my Bible, if we were to turn there, I've got all those little us's circled. It's very interesting that he didn't speak about choosing or electing. That word choose means chosen us, means electing, that's the doctrine, the teaching of election. And so we see that, but we don't see that he's speaking of choosing things or predestinating things. What we always find is this election of a people and this predestination of a people. Very, very important to rightly divide that, to understand the difference and that God did not look out before time and as some confessions of faith would say errantly, wrongly in my opinion, they would say that God has decree all things whatsoever to come to pass. I don't see that in Scripture. I see He predestinates a people to come to pass. Now, He's omniscient, He's all-knowing, and we won't ever be able to comprehend that, but His knowingness doesn't write things in stone. The Muslims believe that, Allah, it is written, and we don't believe that. Well, we believe that God the Father played a part, and God the Son We're talking about salvation by grace, that's what we're talking about. And God the Son played a part, and God the Holy Spirit played a part. And in that, what we call sometimes the eternal or that everlasting, we call it the New Covenant, but it's also the same thing as the everlasting or the eternal covenant. The New Covenant is actually older than the Old Covenant, if you can stay with me on that, because the New Covenant is the everlasting covenant. It stretches both ways. It's the one that you and I had nothing to do with nada, plus zero, plus whatever that title of that book says. But before the foundation of the world, there was God the Father. And He looked down. He loved the people because He purposed to love the people. He chose the people because He loved the people. He predestinated a people. And that's God the Father. And that was His job in that. And then He gave a job to the Son. And the Son came down from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father, which is set in Him. And His will was that all the Father gave Him in that election, in that choice, that He should lose nothing, but He should raise it up again the last day. And He's going to secure those people. But you know what? The Holy Spirit also played a part in it. There's lots of ways to look at it. We use lots of different words when we're describing these beautiful thoughts. And I love it. It's meat and it's gravy and it's, you know, is it meat? It is meat. I think it is. It's delicious to talk about and to preach about and to hear about. But then the Holy Spirit had that part, that third part of the Trinity, of the God in there. The Spirit, Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, but he didn't leave his comforter, he sent the comforter. He sent the Holy Ghost down into every child that had been chosen, every child that had been, can I say, redeemed, and that means purchased. There was a purchase there, there was a legal transaction, there was a redemption. Jesus Christ, once he ascended back into heaven, died on the cross, went into the grave, rose again, he ascended upon it, he entered in once into a holy place, into that holy place, the holiest of holies, heaven, the abode of God, and the Bible says, having, past tense, obtained eternal redemption for us. We know that, we know he's redeemed us, he's bought us, he's purchased us, we're purchased with a price. You know, this eternal covenant of salvation by grace over here, this God part that we're talking about, it wasn't unconditional, but it was unconditional on our part. It was conditional based upon, God says, there's got to be a spotless lamb that's a man that has to die. And that condition had to be filled by Jesus Christ, and it was filled. It was fulfilled. And that's the good, that's why this gospel that we preach, the fellowship that we share, this gospel we preach is such good news. We preach a successful Savior. And Jesus says, it's finished. I've finished my work. And then he says, I'm gonna send a spirit, the Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit comes down at a certain time between conception, natural conception, natural death, to give us, we say, spiritual life, to make that new creation in us, to born us again, to regenerate us. We use those terms, to spiritually resurrect us. And that's the work of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit. Now all these are God. And I don't know if I'm comfortable with calling each of these the Godhead persons. I don't know if I'm comfortable calling them manifestations. But I know it was God the Father. I know it was God the Son. I know it was God the Holy Spirit. It was God that did these things. These things were unconditional on our part, but they're very conditional within the agreement that they had. And boy that three-fold cord, that three-fold cord is not going to be broken. All things are ordered and sure when it comes to that everlasting covenant. Even though our house might be broken, our house might fall, our decisions might be wrong, that house, that decision, that perfect trinity will never fail and will never fall. And we must understand when we preach salvation by grace, We must rightly divide the scriptures. I think it's pretty easy to make a little T column, T chart. We have these things that are unconditional as far as man goes, or God's side. Here's the thing that God does. And then we've got this side over here that I'll first say God enables us to do. But when God chose the nation Israel, and He comes over there and now He says, now you're my people. I've saved you, I've delivered you, I've chosen you, you're special people to me. Now, Israel, I set before you a blessing and I set before you a curse. And if you're obedient, you're going to be blessed. And if you're disobedient, you're going to be cursed. Still going to be Israel, still going to be the people I chose. But now there's this condition placed upon the children of Israel. And we have to understand throughout all the scripture, as a matter of fact, I think probably Let's not even get into percentages or even majorities, but a lot of the scripture is speaking about that side. He's speaking about how during time, that we can be delivered based upon our actions and our obedience in Jesus Christ. He's got to enable us. I mean, He's got to be there first. Grace has to be there first. Nothing is pleasing, no offering, no obedience is pleasing to God without the heart of man being changed to a special thing, to a spiritual thing, so we can bring those offerings by faith and we can have obedience by faith, not just outwardly meeting the command. But dividing those things and seeing throughout the entire scripture, he teaches that, I mean, who is the Bible written to? It's written to you and I. And what do we see? What warnings does he give us? Paul didn't want to become a castaway. He warns people from falling from grace, not from the eternal grace over here, but falling from the favor of God, falling from the fellowship of God, not falling from the sonship or that relationship, but falling from that fellowship that we have. He teaches us lessons like, whatsoever a man soweth, you plant, whatever you plant, that you're going to reap. Who's gonna reap? The world out there? Well, sure, the world, that principle's true, the world, but the Bible, it's talking to me. It's talking to Jeff. If you do that, if you make that decision again, you're gonna reap what you sow. And by the way, don't ever say something about children, oh, they're just. sowing their wild oats, just let them go. No. That is a sin. Do you want them to reap what they sow? And as a matter of fact, you know what? Our sin doesn't just affect us. It affects those around us. And it's like leaven. It affects us to sin, but it also affects us, it just makes us sad when those that we love would not sow to the Spirit and reap those spiritual things, that spiritual, special, abundant life that we can have right now. But time and time again we find in the New Testament. I mean, even when you go over there to Romans chapter 10 and somebody tries to, somebody is maybe off on their theology and we read about, Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved. I say amen to that scripture. Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved. But friends, if we study that out, As a matter of fact, that's a quote from the Old Testament in the book of Joel. What word does he use there instead of save? He says, who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered. That's what he is. It's delivering from something to something. And that's what we always have to ask when we see the word save. Save, salvation, deliver. We see those things in the New Testament, we have to say, okay, what is he talking about here? Saving from what? To what? I read over there about a promise about this child being born, that this man, this boy's going to be, she's going to have a boy, his name's going to be Jesus, for he shall save his people. And from their sins, and from the punishment of their sins, and from an eternal damnation in hell. That's what the from was. Then I read over here in Acts, and we got these preachers, these apostles saying, save yourselves. And I got Paul writing about saving thyself. So I've got all these saves. I've got to draw my little chart down, I have to understand, my T-chart, I have to understand, God has done some things over here for me. He's chose before the foundation time, He's redeemed by sending His Son in time, He sends the Spirit down to regenerate, and He's done those things without any conditions on my part. We use a big, big word sometimes, mono, what's more, mono... I lost that word right there, I was about to say that word. Monergism? Monergism. And synergism. Synergy, you know, working together as a group. No, this part over here, this side that's God's side, it's God's side. God has done it, I have nothing to do with it. But there is a part over here, and it's time and time again we find in the New Testament scripture that he gives us something to do. You and I can do it, you and I can fail doing it, you and I can fall, you and I can stumble, I mean, study how the Old Testament saints, how they stumbled and fell and looked. I mean, sometimes they did not even look or sound like a child of God, but I think they were. Well, that's rightly defined in the Word of Truth as far as when it comes down to What's one thing? I've already covered several subjects, but the one thing I think I would divide it into the salvation by grace and understanding salvation by grace is understanding there's a part that God has done that comes to saving us from hell to heaven. And there's a part that he's given us to do. And it's, I mean, there's so many scriptures that we can learn about. how to deliver ourselves away from this wicked world and deliver ourselves into the peace and the joy that we have, the abundant life that we have in Jesus Christ and following Him and keeping His commandments, setting that mark high in doing that. But another thing I would talk about, and I will say this is a problem, but I'm doing it right now, and that is we sometimes compartmentalize things and we talk about doctrine and duty and practice. But I think we realize what the word doctrine means. The word doctrine means teaching, and so teaching is in all of that. There's teaching about salvation by grace, there's teaching about the duty of the believer, and there's teaching about the practice in the church. And I think if we do it right, and this is where one thing, balance, this is my thing, and I hope and I try to do this, and I fail. But, you know, if we just go through the book, if we just go through God's inspired and preserved Holy Scriptures, if we just go through it, it's everywhere. It's not about me figuring out if this chapter is a duty chapter or a doctrine chapter or a practice chapter. I mean, I think it's all over the place, everywhere. I mean, I should be able to read through it. I mean, you really could take even this psalm tonight and teach about the things that God has done for you and not the things that He would have you do for Him. And we can find it throughout all Scripture. So thinking of that, I would go to something that's been life-changing to me. It's been life-changing to me to have children. I've been blessed to have a sixth child now. And children are changing. Now, I'm gonna chase another rabbit trail. Let me just say one sentence about that. Experience, experience is a good teacher. But as some would say, the tuition is very high with experience. You can learn through experience. Are the Jews going to have to experience it themselves? Well, maybe, but the best teacher is wise counsel from a godly man. It's the Word of God. It's not having to go through it yourself. Listen to your parents. Listen to your grandparents so you don't have to go through that. It's not about just turning them over, turning somebody over to the world and just letting them experience it. That's not, I mean, the tuition is high. The scars will be there. It's like when Jesus said, come to me and you'll find rest. that my yoke is easy and my burden is light. There's a yoke there, there's a hard work there, and we can learn of Him, but that, it's not, it doesn't leave scars like the teachers and the experience and the yoke of the world and the yoke of sin will leave. So there's a couple of Bible verses that changed, that stirred me up and changed my mind. And one, I might read it, and it's in the very end of the Old Testament. Actually, let me go to the Gospel according to Luke. The Gospel according to Luke. He's going to quote, he's going to quote part of it. Luke chapter 1. Because, see, I told a brother that, you know, we're talking about that Supreme Court nonsense and the definition and the redefining of words. And the problem is, there's plenty of problems there. One of the problems there is the advocate arguing for pro-marriage and pro-cognitive marriage is that he doesn't use this. This is all we have. And Jesus himself quoted Genesis. He believed that there was a beginning. He believed that there was an Adam and Eve. He believed that there was a creation 6,000 years ago. He said in the beginning it was not so. He said in the beginning God made them male and female. That's what marriage is. That's our definition of marriage. That's what we stand upon. The Word of God is our authority. That's what we stand upon. And so when it comes to the mess we call politics up there in Washington, really all this stuff, it's symptoms. It's symptoms. And so we can fight the symptom and we can fight the symptom politically. We might win a few battles and get rid of that symptom. Let me read this verse here. If I were to ask you a question, Luke chapter 1, verse number... I'm not going to tell you the verse yet. If I were to ask you the question, how would you prepare a people for the Lord? How would you prepare a people for the Lord? What would it take? Well, Luke chapter 1 says in verse number 17, speaking of John the Baptist, John, this one that was prophesied, and the spirit of Elijah to come, and it says, And he shall go before him, go before Jesus, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. That verse right there, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord, and then I connect it to turning their hearts to their children. Then I go back and check where that's quoting from. So let's go back to the book of Malachi right here. And we find in the book of Malachi, at the very end of Malachi, I mean we're talking about the last scripture of the Old Testament. This is what left them hanging before the Messiah would come. And he speaks over here about this prophet. He's prophesying of Elijah that will come again. Elijah will come again before the Messiah. in Malachi chapter 4 in verse 6. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. We're talking about turning, we're talking about hearts here. We're talking about turning, first of all, before we turn the hearts of our children, because that's, because I'm telling you, what's going on right now is symptoms of what has started a generation or so ago, and there's no, you can't put your finger on one thing, and there's no blame to go around. But when people start stealing minds in education systems and they start stealing hearts from everything from an education system to a TV show, to a sport, to a youth group pastor, it doesn't matter. If somebody steals the heart, when they start stealing hearts and minds, and they start changing hearts and minds, And there's lots of ways to do those things these days. And that is their agenda. And they have been successful because now we're seeing the fruit of that. We're seeing the symptoms of the minds and of the hearts. I mean, people maybe talk bad, and maybe we shouldn't talk bad about dignitaries. I believe in Scripture it says that. But sometimes people talk bad about maybe the President. The President's just a... He's just a product of the system. He's just a product of the government educational system and the philosophy you get in a college. He's a product of that system. You've got 80%, 90% of the people that are teaching teachers, training teachers. They're all about the decision that the Supreme Court – the bad decisions they may make. They're all about the redefining of marriage. It's a product of the systems and the answer. We should, as I will always speak, use our civil liberties in every way we can to prevent and to treat those symptoms. We can do that. We can vote, and we ought to vote. We can speak of, and I believe we should preach about good things and preach about issues and whatever. I don't know why people even argue about that. Of course we should preach about the things the Bible speaks about. So we preach about those things. You might have a passion to go picket or go protest or whatever, but those things are gonna treat the symptoms. What's really going to change things? Do you want to change the world? Let me ask you this. Do you want to change the world? If you change the world, you can change the world by changing hearts. First take our heart, and fathers, I'll put it on you first, because it's the same goes, the buck stops here. I'm gonna look that up, what that saying really means. The fathers, and God has given us that, the fathers have been given authority, but they've also been given responsibility. And it starts with the fathers turning their hearts, but we can also say the mothers turning their hearts, the grandfathers turning their hearts, the grandmothers turning their hearts, turning our hearts, To our children, what do you mean turn them to our children? Of course I love my children. Well, where is our hearts? You know, I wonder about that. You meet a man, and sometimes the first question that comes to our mind when we meet a man is, I bet you could, I would think you could think of the first question. Usually it's, so what do you do? You ask about their job. You don't ask about their family. You ask about their job first. So I wonder how many hearts are stolen by the job. We work eight hours, we work 12 hours, we work 14 hours. Not just that though, but then we get home and we're tired, of course, and then our hearts want to just veg. We just want to retreat because we've had a hard day. We're trying to provide for our family. We're sticking with it. We're sticking with that family. We're providing for our family. Now I just need some me time. And we get home and we just need time alone. And for instance, this is me. This is everybody. We all struggle with this very thing. And so instead of giving and doing the hard thing and spending that extra time, turning my heart to my child. Sometimes we turn our hearts maybe to our hobby, or our TV show, or our video game, or our boat, or fishing, or college football, or NASCAR, or the list could go on. And I would hope that our toes feel a little stepped on when we think about those things. And how much of those times, if we have, if we want to redeem the time, if we think about that one thing, if we think about turning the hearts of our children, if we think about changing the world, it's about turning the hearts of our children Turn our hearts to our children and it's about bringing glory to God and bringing the essence, the picture of God the Father to our children. Turning our hearts back to our children and that's the first step. And then we can maybe, then we can pray, then we can get our children's hearts And we can change that next generation. We can apologize. That may be the first thing we need to do. I've done that many times to my children. I've apologized for my anger. I've apologized for the way I've spent my time, the way I shouldn't have spent my time. Maybe you're even a grandfather. Maybe you're a grandfather or grandmother and your children are already raising children. There's still time. There's still time to go and apologize and say, I made this mistake. Look at this mistake. I made this mistake. But my eyes have been opened. And I want to tell you that I'm sorry. And I want to tell you I wish I would have done it this way. And maybe you can do it that way. And when you have time with the grandchildren, don't joke about spoiling the grandchildren, reinforce what the parents ought to be teaching. And if they're not teaching it, then subtly, and don't overstep your authority there, but subtly drop seeds and help them in that and training them up in the way they should go. We're talking about preparing people for the Lord, making ready people prepared for the Lord. Prepared to do what? Prepared to meet the enemies in the gate. prepared to meet the enemy in the gate that that's that mighty man over there and that Psalm speaks about children in the hand of the mighty man are like arrows and they when you shoot those arrows out they're gonna meet the enemy in the gate that's what we're doing we're preparing for the next generation if we think we've lost this generation to don't we still have hope yeah hope is in the Lord look forward to that but friends if we can if we can turn our hearts back to our children then get those children away from the iPod and the the video game systems, and the handhelds, and the TVs in their rooms, and the sports. You know, I tell you, I can't go into that. Anyway, there's so many people out for our children's hearts. My heart was spread out all over the place. My heart was not for my parents as it should have been when I was young. And it may even be in the I mean, even somebody would say, you know, and of course there are reasons why we don't, biblical reasons I think we don't, that we worship together as families. That's the way we ought to say it. It's not that we don't have Sunday schools. We worship as families, and we believe that's the way to do it, the biblically prescribed way to do it. But somebody who would have a, even a youth group pastor, They're usurping the authority over the father. They're stealing the heart away of the father and of the mother. In so many other ways, coaches steal hearts. They do. They steal hearts. And boys and young men and young girls, they live up to that coach and that teacher and even the boss at work. You need to be careful with that kind of thing. Satan is out. He's looking for a way. He's a roaring lion looking out there how he can steal hearts and destroy families. That's one of the bullseyes that Satan has on that family, to prepare people for the Lord, to turn our hearts back to our children, turn our children's hearts back to us, to apologize to them, to start today, to start tomorrow, to meet together as a family, to tell them about the Lord as a family. I love that verse over there in Deuteronomy 6. If you're not familiar with it, you can write it down next to this one, or you can look it up later. But over in Deuteronomy 6 and 5, we try to get the boys to memorize this on the way down here. It's speaking of the Ten Commandments, and the commandments that Moses is getting. So Moses has just gotten the commandments, and he says, These words which I have commanded thee this day shall I keep in thine heart. He's telling that to the parents. And then he says, and thou shalt teach them. He's talking to the parents. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. And that's a talk of them. Talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and thou walkest in the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. That's what he says. He says, teach them to their children diligently. And here's how you do it. You talk of them. You talk of them when you're sitting down at your meal. Get one of these books, these daily devotional books, and break that book out at the meal. Read that, get a little lesson there. Start with a once a week reading a Bible verse to your children, have them ask questions, sing some songs at home. work with it with bring in the children the grandchildren and have 50 start somewhere you can just start somewhere start 15 minutes 10 minutes 5 minutes a little Bible reading time and turn their hearts and teach them diligently when you sit in your house and then when you walk in the way when you're when you're out in the way you don't just say how beautiful that is you say look at God's beauty and you bring it up and you put God in everything God isn't the top top row on a ladder seeking first the kingdom of God. But God is that center spoke in a wheel that touches every part of our lives. And God is in every subject in education. He's in every subject. Education should not be secularized and take God out of all these things, but God must be put into all these things. That's how we're going to change the world. That's how we're going to prevent the symptoms in the next generation. That's how we're going to make ready a people that are prepared for the Lord. And that's how we're going to also prevent, as he says here in the very last verse of the Old Testament, that's how we're going to prevent what looks like is coming in this nation, and that is a curse. I'll smite the earth with a curse, if you don't do that. If you let, like that verse, it's somewhere in Isaiah, I think. I can't remember exactly how it goes. Something like, when the children and women rule over you. Something about a curse in there too, I think. That's a bad sign, when women and children are ruling. And you can see, you can go to Walmart and see how children rule over their parents. It's like, you can almost make a little comedy skit about, hey Joey, watch me make my mom a count of ten. They pick up something and, I'm gonna count to ten. One, two, and they start to count. You know, and they train us. What happens? The children train us. And it's hard, friends. I'm not saying it's easy. It's hard, and it takes daily deliverances by God, and it takes God enabling grace as a foundation. You know, David's one thing, he said this, one thing, I have a desire to the Lord, and that will I seek after. I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, behold his beauty, he says behold his beauty and inquire in his temple. So I ask you, I challenge you to think about the one thing in your life. What are you passionate about? I hope you can find a zeal, a passion to lay hold on. Now we need to have knowledge with that zeal. We need to keep on studying God's word. Everything I said tonight, we need to be a good brain and seek it out, search it out to see if these things were truly so. We need to try all these spirits. But I think, friends, we need a passion. We need a spirit of zeal stirred up in us to change the world, to change the world for Jesus Christ, and God is in control, but I encourage you to think about, my one thing was balance, and I believe that God's word needs to be taught with balance, preach with balance, preach with what he's done for us, and celebrate that, and don't hide from it, but also don't take it and beat somebody over the head with it the first time you meet him. It's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's savory, that salvation by grace, wouldn't be anywhere else. I can't find that anywhere else. I can find bits and pieces of it in different places, but I can't find that anywhere else. But we must have that balance and preach to all the counsel of God and we must preach about this training our children and teaching our children and turning the hearts and keeping their hearts and keeping our hearts for the Lord, for the Lord Jesus Christ our King and Redeemer and teaching them and turning them back to us to follow us as we follow Him. I thank you for a good