I got to thinking a little bit today we turned to Luke chapter number 11 and I think I'm gonna pick back up where I started some time ago and maybe finish up where I kind of left off. and dealing some with prayer. It's kind of like dealing with the love of God. It's an inexhaustible subject. I'm sure many of you that have preached and taught for many years, there's just more and more that God just keeps opening your mind to. The more you can read the same verse and the book's alive, and something else will come out to you that you never did see. So I appreciate, we give attendance to that till he comes. And then when He comes He'll set all our theology straight, right? That's right. Anyhow, good to see all of you. Love you. And the Lord. And you know I was thinking earlier I was thinking about the anniversary that was done here for Brother Currier and his wife. And I You know it really should sober us men at the responsibility we have in which God is going to hold us accountable for our families. It's always a sobering thought. It's not our wives responsibility to train our children up and teach them the Scriptures and to teach them. You know it's quite actually to me when you go back through even the Old Testament you know the Lord has entrusted to that man, I always tell Christian young men when they get married, God's entrusted His daughter to you. And I can tell you something, Brother Lance can testify, this boy down here gets out of line with your daughter it's going to be a problem. Y'all may be looking for a new preacher, they mess with mine. There'll be a new vote coming in. God holds us quite responsible for His daughters that we take under our care. And so it's a sovereign thing that we treat these young ladies with great respect and dignity and love. The Bible says that husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it. Now here, that's an often quoted verse in there in Ephesians. Here He'll go on down, He'll say this, that He might sanctify them. was an eternal purpose. God didn't just save us so that we can just go on living any way we want to. There was a purpose in that. Christ loved His Church, He gave Himself for it that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing, the Word of God, by the Word of God. You know what that says to me brother? That says to me that it is my responsibility that my wife's sanctification, God is going to hold me responsible for part of it. It's a serious, sober thing. I know it seems kind of scattered, but this is just on my mind. Because there's a lot to think about. I was really overwhelmed thinking of the responsibility. I've got the responsibility of my children. I've got the responsibility to God. I've got the responsibility to my wife. Love her, train her, you know, get her. I'm being trained in that sense, you understand what I'm saying. But to teach her the Word of God. That's why the Bible says if a woman, if she has a question, let her ask her husband at home, right? It's on her husband. It's on him. He ought to know. are we at that place or are we just going to count on the Sunday school teacher and the preacher to teach our wives? That's not the way it ought to go. They learn and glean from that. But it's on that man, God holds him responsible. So much so if you go back to the Old Testament, and I know it's Old Testament, but if you go back to the Old Testament a woman in the house of her father couldn't make a vow to God and stand upon it. According to the Bible if she made a vow to God to promise anything that bound her soul, if her father heard it and kept his mouth shut, didn't say anything about it then it would stand. But if he heard it and disallowed it God would forgive her and the vow wouldn't stand. That's how much she held responsible that man. That's what you young ladies are in the house of your father. You better lean on your daddy. You are under the tutelage and governance of the time and point of the Father. But when you get that husband, then it goes on to say in the next verse, if a woman had a husband see, and she vowed a vow to bind her soul, but that husband hear it, and he doesn't say anything about it, it will stand. But if he vows a vow, and she vows a vow, and the husband hears it and disallows it, God doesn't count it and forgives her for what she said. Now, why do you say all that? Because I understand that is a lot of Old Testament stuff that a lot of us get bored with. But it is interesting to me to show the character of God and what He expects out of a home. The husband's the head, right? The wife's the help, children are the hope. It's wonderful when we do it right. I was thinking about these young couples, man, and they get married. See, that's why God, when He took that woman, He took her from the rib. Didn't take her from the head, didn't take her from your foot for you to walk all over. Right? Come on, man, oh me. That's right. She's not a tool in the wish to make your life better. She's God's daughter. To love and to cherish. To have and to hold. Isn't that right? And so, he took her from the rib, see? You know where that part is right here? That's under your arm. That speaks to protection. What did Ruth, when she went into Boaz, remember when Naomi told her to go in the threshing floor, remember what she said, go unto him? And she begged and humbled herself down before him and said, I pray thee, spread thy skirt over me. Ezekiel 16 was talking about the same thing, that spreading of the skirt speaks of protection. God entrusts us as men to protect our wives, to provide for our wives, but He certainly, certainly is going to require out of us how we've gotten in the Word of God with them and gone through the Bible with them and tried to teach them and show them and learn together. God's going to hold us responsible for that. I've heard a lot of people talk about, well, I'm gonna blame my wife for this and my wife for that. Well, she's probably just what you've let her be. Right? How much time have you spent in the Bible with her? Complaining about your wife all day, but you're not doing your job. Right? Come on now. Ladies, please help me. Y'all get bashed all the time. You can't dress good enough, you can't do nothing good enough. I'm gonna attack the men and I'm gonna hear an amen every now and then. Amen, amen. But he took it from that place. See, I'm a firm believer in that place. If you go back, if some of you young couple, and it took me years to understand this, and all of us, it's good to be reminded of this. But in Genesis 3.15, turn to Genesis 3.15, we might do Luke 11, we might not. Turn to Genesis 3.15, we all know the verse. But I think sometimes we miss, and seeing the truth of this shallow that is to come through the seed of the woman, that's a terrific, tremendous truth. I don't know why I feel that sometimes ladies in independent Baptist churches feel belittled. I don't know how that happens. I certainly am not for that in any way. They're just as important and vital. A lot of ladies are holding most churches together. They'll do more in a church service than a man ever will think about. There's a lot of churches I've preached in before, if it wasn't for the women in that church, the thing would fall apart. But somehow those kind of things happen or they feel that way. The women's lib movement has taught you you've got to be empowered and it taught you you don't got to put up with it and all that stuff and got you in a position that's just you're never going to find peace in. The only place you'll find peace is in the will of God. right? And embrace that and God it will all work out for you. But here is something about you, why we miss that. So we see in Genesis we see and what we are looking at here we see Jesus that is going to come to the seat of the woman because He is not of Joseph, right? We all know that. We all know that Jesus was born of a virgin. Behold the virgin shall conceive. know Jesus was, the Holy Ghost overshadowed her and she was born of a virgin, and He was born of a virgin because He wasn't of the seed of the man, He wasn't of Joseph. See He was begotten of God, the only begotten of the Father, right? Wonderful. You ladies, hey you ought to thank God for that. God put you in that kind of, man isn't that wonderful? Look at even Jesus getting to the throne. rights to the throne of David through Mary. When you look in the book of Luke when you see Mary's genealogy being traced back to David, you see it through Nathan, you see the blood fleshly rights that Jesus had to the throne of David through Mary. Joseph's line was tainted through Solomon and Matthew because of Jeconiah. But through Mary being the veli, you've got, you ladies are one of the, I don't know why you feel belittled in any way. Because here's the fact, it'll rise and fall on you in a lot of ways, why? Because the enemy, his ultimate goal is to get to me, to get to the man, to get to the head, and that's his quickest way to get to you, to get to that man, through you. This time the devil won't bother me at all, all he's got to do is get to her. Now I'm gonna tell you something, And you men can say amen to this, unless you're embarrassed to, or your wife won't let you. Brother, I would hope and pray God give me the grace to turn my cheek and take just about anything that's thrown at me. I really would. I mean, to be a pioneer, you can't be a brawler, you can't be a strong, I would hope I could take that. But buddy, you start attacking my wife, and we're gonna have to, y'all gonna have to vote again and go through it. I'm telling you, I don't know how much I can handle that. You can attack me all you want to, but leave my wife out of it. There's gonna be something happening here. There'll be two devils in the flesh before it's over with. Right? We all feel that way. God, that's my wife. God's entrusted me to protect her, to stand up for her. Any of us would feel that way. But the quickest way to disrupt my home is for him to start attacking her. See, if you read right here in Genesis 3.15, and especially I was thinking about you, Brother Phillips, I was thinking about you too over here, recently married, but you young people, now this is good to remember, because it took me a little bit of time. Genesis 3.15, I'll put enmity between who? The, talking to the enemy, and who? She's got a target on her back. Satan hates women. You don't believe that? Read Daniel 11. He might be a sodomite. But he hates women. There's enmity between him and that woman. He's going to attack her. And that's why you've got to dwell with her according to knowledge. You know that she's the weaker vessel knowing that her emotions and her makeup are so totally different and the enemy is constantly going to try to get to her. That's why we should take such a careful stand and to be careful to maintain a good time with our wives, to get in the Bible with them, to pray with them, and to try to help them, to understand them, to love them, to care for them, because the enemy is trying to destroy the home, and a lot of times, he'll skip right over the man, go straight to the woman, and completely wreck the home. Never even have to attack him, he can do it through her. How much better off would our homes be if we spent more time doing what God required of us to do, that He might sanctify it with the Word of God. That's what He's wanting to do for me and you. He saves us, puts us in His family, justifies us, soon to be glorified, but He's sanctifying us. Now, He's sanctified positionally, but progressively, He's, by the power that worketh in us, He's conforming us to an image. Some of you are better far along than the rest of us. Pray for the rest of us, would you? But how does he do that? That's why every one of you that are right with God anyway are here tonight, by the word of God. Faith cometh by hearing by the word of God and you get in the word of God and there's just something God does to you when you get in that Bible. I mean, even if you, a lot of times you don't get, you say, well, I didn't get nothing out of it. I promise you if you read the word of God, you got something out of it whether you know it or not. It has a cleansing, powerful effect to it, it's alive. It'll have an effect on you. And man, we can complain about our homes and we can talk about, in our day, you know in most churches that are closing their door, Ms. Jones, I'd say you've been traveling around, Brother Jones, all these years, I'd say somewhere in those churches that you all have maybe seen that have gone down or shut their doors, somewhere along the way it got into a home that comprised that body. We better be on guard. We don't have, hey listen, we don't have an enemy that's just glad we're doing good here. He's not glad you're happy. Last thing he wanted me to do was come here. I think every one of you know how that went. For three weeks I couldn't get well enough to get here hardly. Fighting against us. He's contrary to anything that's of God. He doesn't want anything to prosper that has to do with God. And he doesn't care whether he has you or not just as so long as you don't worship him. don't care what you're doing. You see in Genesis 3.15 there, He'll put enmity between thee and the woman. And then God turns to me and you and say, now, the head of the woman is that man and so is the head of the body is Christ? And we think we're going to get by just neglecting our wives? Yelling at them? Mistreating them? Not paying any attention to them. Watching football and letting them just sit there wondering whether or not you even care about them. Now why did it get so quiet? Football ain't even on yet. I didn't say deer hunting or something. Turkey hunting or something. But man, hey, I'd say, oh me. I don't know if anybody in here has arrived to the place of the expectation of God in the home. But man, we ought to follow after and strive after. So what are we going to do now? Well, I'll tell you what we need to do. We need to repent, tell God we're sorry, and get home, and get in the Bible with our wives and our families. Because I promise you, honeymoon will probably be short, and the enemy will be attacking, and he'll be attacking, you'll be looking for him in here, and he'll be waiting on you to get home. Because what we are at home is what we really are, not what we are here. What we are here is not quite all that, but what we are at home is what we really are. So let's be careful, let's be extremely careful to love our wives with the expectation, the highest expectation is Christ loved His church and gave Himself for it. You know what all that entails to give yourself? That means, though he was Lord of all, he humbled himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the crawl. You know what he had to do? He denied himself what he expects me and you to do. So we're not always getting to do what we want to do. We have to deny ourselves. and put that time and invest it into our families, and we're gonna have to spend time with our wives, and we're gonna have to get in the Word of God, and we're gonna have to love them and say, sister, Amber, let me use you, Amber, I'm sorry, I'm gonna get back to it, I'm gonna get back to doing what I know is right, I'm gonna get in the Word of God, and that's what we need to do, men. If not, we're gonna stand before God at the judgment seat of Christ, and nothing but ashes, having our works burned up. I don't care how many people we lay to the Lord when our wives are sitting at home just wondering whether or not we even love them. Charity don't do that. Right? I don't care how much work we do at the church, or how much labor you put in over here, or how much you witness over at the job. I don't care how much you're doing. When you've neglected your wife, you've missed the whole picture. And I just remember that. Now, you may bruise his heel, but he's gonna bruise your head. Boy, that's a great verse, isn't it? In verse 15. Now, turn to Luke 11. That didn't cost anything extra. That was just really on my heart, and I just thought I'd give it to you, because, you know, I believe the enemy's not changed his tactics much. He doesn't have to. He's making pretty good headway the way he's been going for a long time. And you ladies just be on guard as well because He'll be coming to you, coming to get you. That's a way to really get a church all tore up is get somebody's wife get all out of sorts, she gets her husband out of sorts and then he goes and wants to attack everybody. Hey, we all got to be on guard and be ready. Put on the whole armor of God, cast down imaginations, the pulling down of strongholds. Because our weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God, the pulling down of those strongholds. So every one of us we're going to have to do it with purpose in our heart. going to have to just get down on our face before God and just beg Him to help us. And He certainly will do that. He is faithful and we don't have to worry about Him not being faithful. He is always going to be faithful. Now, we'll just go over a couple of things here. I took a little time with that. In Luke chapter number 11, just kind of finish this up and then we'll try to go home tonight. But I believe we started, I'm just going to give you a little bit of this. We didn't get down through very far, but we looked at the person praying here and it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. said unto them, when ye pray." So you see the person praying. You see the perception to it. They notice he is in a private place. This personal petition that they made to him, Lord teach us to pray. And then he has a presumption to prayer here and he says, when you pray. And he is going to teach them a pattern to prayer not a vain repetition. And he says, and he said, when you pray our Father which art in Heaven. And he begins talking about the person of prayer but then he talks about number one to praise this person. And I notice a lot of old timers, when they start off their prayers, they just start off immediately thanking God. That's a good way to start things off. Thank God for who He is. Before we just give out our little list of commands to Him, let's just praise Him for who He is. Because He deserves all the praise we can give Him, doesn't He? He's been good to us, Brother Gary. He's loved me, Brother. He's been good to me. I'd have thrown me away and locked the key up a long time ago. But thank goodness he hadn't done that. He's loved me, been faithful, and every one of you can say the same thing. God's been faithful to you, love you, forgive you, been patient with you, working with you, helping you to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And so I thank him for that. So he starts off here, our father, behind all this power and intelligence is more than just a, for God is a spirit. We know that no man at any time has ever seen God. dwells in a light which no man can approach to. That all those things we know in the Bible, Him that spoke the Word into existence, Him that all things consist by Him. We know by the Word of God where the world is framed. All that we know about the power of God and all that He is. But all of that, you know what He is to me and you? Our Father. Isn't that, that's a blessing. Just to know God is not, He's not, He's not going to condemn me. He's not, see, I'm not His enemy any longer. Be to sin the double cure, the songwriter said. He's reconciled me to God and God to me, my days man that's brought us both together. that something? Hallelujah, our Father. And so He's going to go on and He's going to establish that which is quite different than what the Jews are used to, but He's going to establish the fact that God is your Father. And that's something we ought to thank God for. We take some of those truths for granted, but man I'm telling you it's a great blessing to know God is your Father. I've had my share of bad experience with earthly fathers, right? All of us. I'd say my kids have had a bad experience with their daddy a time or two, Ms. Jones. Maybe you real good fellas ain't never done anything like that. I told you last time, everybody I'd like to smack at work, I can't. Sometimes it gets too much for you. You come home a little too upset, take it out on the ones you love the most. Better be careful about that. But God's like none of that. He's not like an earthly father that might punish you to his own good, make him feel better, not God. God's not that way. But after we're yielded to peaceable, fruitful righteousness, He's working everything together for your good. Why? He's your father. He's going to teach us that. He's going to show us if we being evil give the good things that we give to our children. Go on down here look at this now when he sees the praise of His person and I believe that's where we stopped who God really is and not who the world pictures Him to be. See, to the world God is just some kind of long haired hippie sitting up in Heaven with a ukulele just waiting for everybody to get to Heaven. That's not an accurate picture of God. A God who's okay with everything. A God who's okay if you're a sodomite, if you're a drunk, you can just claim the name, you can repeat a prayer, and you can go to heaven when you die. That's hogwash. You don't find that in the Bible. Be not deceived. God is not mad for whatsoever man sow it. That's what He's gonna reap. He can sow to the flesh and reap corruption, or He can sow to the spirit and reap life everlasting. Right? So be not deceived. Let no man deceive you by any means. No drunkard, no idolater, no railer, no fornicators. I need to list the entire list. Isn't that right? Don't let anybody deceive you and say, well, you repeated the prayer you're in. I don't think so. I hope that regeneration brought some reformation. You're going to need to have a real good checkup. Right? That's not popular preaching, but that's the truth. Salvation brings a change. And if it ever did make a new creature, I wouldn't meet God with it. That don't mean you're perfect. That don't mean you don't have problems along the way. But there ought to have been a time when God changed you and made you a new creature and old things passed away and all things were made new. And if they didn't, I wouldn't say I'm backslid and need to get right and rededicate. I rededicated 15 times. The problem was I never dedicated anything in the first place. Southern Baptist Church, you know what they'd say, you just need to rededicate. I didn't rededicate, I never dedicated anything. I lived my own life, doing my own thing for 25 years. Didn't care what God thought about it. That's not a description of a saved person. That's a description of a self-willed man in the flesh. That God still loved enough to intervene. Hallelujah. Amen to that. Hallelujah. The Lord's so good. Now look at, look at now verse number three, because he's going to get to, well, he's going to, let me get to verse number two here. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He, God's name is to be hallowed, is to be sacred. And nothing makes me any matter. than to see wicked, evil, wicked people create and worship a God of their imagination. See, God's not who you want Him to be. He's who He's revealed Himself to be in the Bible. A God that hates sin, who hates it so bad that one, plunged all of humanity into depravity, one. One sin kept Moses out. How bad does God hate sin? Look at what he did to his son on the tree. Looks like he hated it pretty bad to me, right? Now don't get nervous now, it's gonna be okay. Gotta have preaching against sin. Sin is the problem. Sin is the problem in our day. That's why these sodomites can march up and down our streets. They used to be shamed of it and they'd be in the closet and now they're out marching in our streets and on our campuses and teaching our children it's okay, it's an alternative lifestyle, and there's an umpteen number of genders. I don't think so. Now, I don't know how much drugs you have to do not to know the difference. I'm telling you, people are messed up in this day. They don't even know which bathroom to turn into. They're a mess, they're messed up, their minds are corrupted. That's what happens in our government schools when people have taught other people, they've taught our young people, they got kind of stuff's okay. It's not okay, God's always hated it. He hates it now and he'll always hate it. He'll never accept it. I don't care if America gives them a marriage certificate or not, they're never gonna be married in the eyes of God. It's been an abomination from day one. God's never changed. Well, I love that kind of preaching. It makes these liberals so mad they can't stand it. You've even got independent Baptist liberals. You know what they'll do with it? Well, you know, no sin's any worse than the other. Have you ever read a Bible to make a statement like that? We're all equally sinners in the fact that we're all sinners in that sin. But you can't tell me that all sin's the same. biblical. I don't see God ever raining fire and brimstone down from Heaven on a group of people that told a white lie like He did a bunch of sodomites. I'm going to preach it until they lock me up. God hates it. He despises it. It's sick. It's perverted. It's totally against nature. Even nature knows better than that trash. And I'm telling you if you accept that I don't know who is worse a sodomite or somebody that is sympathetic to it. sit in the church and tell you that no sins are any different. And you're just lashing on to their sin because you don't do what theirs is. That's a bunch of hogwash. You can't tell me that stuff's equal. That's sick. It's perverted. I don't want my children around it. I'm not okay with it. God's not okay with it. And I'm just going to keep preaching against it until they lock us up. And I hope we stand against it, little man. Amen. I'm not compromising with him, Brother Ray. We're just gonna keep standing for what the Bible says, and God said that there's marriage between a man and a woman. It'll always be that way. Isn't that right? We stand on that. I don't stand on that because I'm a Republican. I stand on that because God saved me and put a Bible in my hand, and he put some knowledge in me. Didn't want me to be ignorant. I didn't believe that John 4 I got saved, be honest with you. I didn't know a lot that was right, Brother Lance, but I knew that wasn't right. I'd even tell you I was wrong. Now we got people making excuses for it. Well, it's how they was raised and all that stuff. Look folks, I'm going to tell you something, we live in a messed up society and we better keep our heads buried in the Word of God or before you know it, me and you will be just as messed up and backwards and unsure. God said, look, the child, what does the Bible say? The Bible says, an heir so long as he's a child differs not from a servant. And that's why the Bible says, though we're heirs and joint heirs with Jesus and all those things. And that's not 50-50 split, by the way. inheritance is a, is a, is a co, it's a joint, it's a, it's a joint. It's me and you own 100%. That's what we have is an inheritance in Jesus. Isn't that a blessing? But the heir differs not from a child, different not from the servant so long as he's a child. And so the Bible exhorts us to quit being such a bunch of children, go on. Don't be tossed to and fro with every whim of doctrine. You need to grow up. When you ought to be teaching, you have one knee to teach you. See how He's exhorting us that? I'm not telling you that, I'm quoting Him scripturally. That's why He's wanting to say, okay, you get saved and let's leave all this foolish stuff behind and let's go on, stay in the Bible, learn of Jesus. He'll fill you with knowledge. He'll fill you with grace and He'll help you to grow and just keep yourself buried in the Word of God and God will get you safely home. Right? Because He does not want you to be ignorant. We're not ignorant of the enemy's devices. I know what he's doing. I know what these liberals are meaning when they get on there and all sin's the same and don't judge me and all that stuff. Let's just stand with the Bible. You know what's wrong with you? I'm gonna tell you what's wrong with you when you say stuff like that. Well, don't judge me. What's wrong with you? You know you're wrong. You just don't like nobody telling you. Well, I'm gonna tell you the crowd that won't tell you does not love you. They're your enemy. The ones that love you are the ones telling you what's wrong. Don't do that. This way is leading to destruction. Don't go this way. The bridge is out at the end. Don't go down this way. But some of us claim to love people. We know the bridge is out. We'll let them go on down there so we can keep a good friendship with them. I'm not going to spare your feelings because you're my friend and I hope and pray to the Lord you don't do mine. Don't let me mess up and be wrong. Somebody please tell me when I'm missing it. Well, I don't want to hurt Brother so-and-so. Well, I'm going to tell you just something about your new pastor here. He has a tendency, you know, the Bible talks about it falls one to another, not sin. He has a tendency to sometimes assume. So if you have something that you really need to say to me, but you have a, your heart's telling you, well, I don't want to hurt brother, so I just won't say it. Well, by you avoiding me, I'm going to assume the absolute worst. And I'm gonna toss and turn and toil about it all the time. But if you just come up to me and tell me, we can just move on and get it over with. Right, Brother Reed? That's the first thing Brother Reed taught me. He said, look, don't hit him all around. Just come to me and tell me if you need me to do something or got something. That's where we gotta be, folks. Just be honest. And you know what God wants from us? Just be honest with him. Look at what he's gonna do for us. So we praise this person. We see the passion here. What do we really want? Not my will, but thine be done, right? So he's saying, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth. And then verse number three, he starts making his petitions and teaching them, by the way, to make these petitions. Give us day by day our daily bread. Just give us enough. Some people are wanting tomorrow's grace today. God will just give you what you need for the day. I don't want to be rich where I'll forget you, and I don't want to be poor where I'll curse you, just give me what's me, just give me just enough. Now what the man, the Bible teaches, and so verse number four, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. He's assuming that we're doing that. I got three minutes, because I went over my time this morning, and I'm not going to do that to you again, I promise. Not tonight anyway, it's going to happen again, I promise you that much. Some people be rich if they had a dime for every time a preacher said he was done. Sometimes I'll close my Bible and make you really think I'm done. It makes you feel better. And he's praying for provisions and he prays for provisions in verse number three, then he prays for pardoning. Forgive us our sins. Look for what he's assuming here. For we also not help us to do it. We also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. Have you done that? Now, here's something you don't even have to pray about. Should I forgive her for that? Should I forgive him for that? You don't even have to pray about it. Isn't that right? Just go and forgive them. Now, that don't mean you sweep it under the rug. You may need to go to them and face it. A lot of us are so afraid of confrontation, we won't do what the Bible says. The Bible says, your brother haven't asked you, go to him. We've swept so much under the rug, we can't hardly walk up and down church aisles anymore. Quit sweeping stuff under the rug and letting it sit there. It ain't gonna get no better. It'll fester and you're gonna notice every single thing that person does wrong. For you know, you'll get bitter and it'll defile many. So just get it out there. Now somebody remind me I said that when somebody hurts my feelings for long, okay? So he prays for provision, he prays for pardoning. And then he's going to go on down through here and he's going to teach them a promising parable. We'll try to finish this up quickly as possible. He said on them, verse number five, which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey has come to me and I have nothing to say before him. And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend." Well, I've had some good friends along the way. Have you? Who needs enemies when you got some of our friends? I got something running through my mind, God bless their little hearts. I heard one man say one time, we got to go home, I about killed it now. I've had one man come along one time said he had the ministry of discouragement. I thought, where do you find that in the Bible? Where is your calling to go around discourage everybody? They were proud of it, they laughed about it. Ministry of discouragement. You're probably right, but God didn't give it to you. Some people think it's their calling. They just go around, tell everybody what's wrong with them, discourage them, get them beat down in the dust. That's what he got on them Pharisees and them Sadducees for, is you're binding men with grievous burdens, and you won't even lift a finger to help them with it. That's what we do a lot of times in our church. We just spit out a bunch of stuff and expect people to do it, and we won't do nothing to help them get there. What we do is just look at it, when they don't measure up, we just write them off. Amen, come on now, help me out. Don't leave me out here hanging. For a friend of mine and his journey has come to me, I have nothing to say before him. Then he answers and he says, look, now leave me alone, me and my children, we're in bed, I can't rise and give you, these kids are in bed. Who wants to wake a sleeping kid? It'd be crazy to wake a kid when he's asleep. I understand what this man's going through. My kids are in bed here. You can have every bit of it. Get out of here. Be quiet. Now he didn't do it because he loved him, but he did it to get him out of there. Quit knocking on the door, right? Now God is not an unjust man like that, though you're much importunity. That's excess or that's extreme urgency or repetition of asking. Oh dear Lord, if I hear my children say mom one more time when we're driving home, I could just about pull over the car. I just have to get out. Lord, please help me. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. And my wife just, it does not bother her. And I'm sitting there going, oh Lord. Somebody smack one of them. And my wife, it don't bother her at all, brother Ray. She does not even notice it. And my wife doesn't get upset. She don't get all, like I do, just worried. And he's just, oh my goodness, what are we going to do? This and that. And this one, I'll be quiet. My wife, she sleep right through it. And I'm begging, please answer them. And I'll give them whatever they want. I don't care what it is. Just ask me a whole bunch and annoy me to death and you can have it. I didn't get the wallet out, what did it take to get you out of here? You know, I didn't do that with my first one, but when you got 15 of them, it just, it drive you insane. Well, I don't want to be foolish, Justin, but you understand the picture. This is a matter in which a man's, it's really an inconvenience for him to help. really He doesn't owe that man anything. And so what Jesus is saying here, what our Lord is saying here in verse number 8, I say unto you, this is the promising parable. Though He will not rise and give Him because He is His friend, yet because of His opportunity He will rise and give Him as many as He needeth. Now, this is how my brain works. When I was laying there trying to meditate and think upon these verses I had a picture of a man literally carrying out stuff out of his door going, get out! Just go, quit bothering me." That's not the Lord. There's never a time when you come to the Lord and you make your request known to Him and you petition Him, God please save my family, save my children, help my children, help my grandchildren. Lord, there's never a time where He says, you know what, fine, I'll just help, leave me alone. That's not God. For God is righteous. You go to him, he loves you so much as a faithful father, there's never a time that you're bothering him. He's never having a bad day. He's never already done too much for one of his other kids. Some of them, Brother Garrett, they come to me, look, your sister ain't got me, I'm tapped out. I don't know where y'all think money comes from, but I ain't got it. And she usually gets first dibs. My little girl. You don't deplete God's resources. Brother Garrett, you can't go to God and get so much from Him that He don't have to give to me. Never a time. God be with you at the same time, giving you everything you need and exceed what you can even ask, and at the same time be with every single person in this building, exceeding everything they want from Him. That's amazing to me. That's our Father. Hallelujah. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee, for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. Hebrews 11, 6, he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and he's a what? A rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Keep on seeking him. I'm going to read these and I promise you I'm not going to preach. I'm the powerful promise. Verse number 9, and I say unto you, ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you for everyone that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. My wife and I have prayed for 10 years. All I've wanted to do, brother Ben, since God called me to preach is be full time in the ministry and just serving with everything I've got. That's all I've ever wanted to do in my life. In 10 years, that's all we prayed for. It's just God would put us in the ministry and let me just give myself wholly to it. And I don't know how many times I prayed that prayer in 10 years. But I did know this, I knew there was a God in heaven that was working things together in His own time. In His own time, He was gonna answer that prayer. And He has. wonderful. Keep on asking. Keep on seeking. God will reward you. Diligently keep seeking Him. Powerful promise. Profound possibilities. We are reading verse 11, it is 7 on 6 and we are going to the house. No, we are going next door. Is that right Brother E? Now, there ain't no charge over there, is there? Okay, I'm going. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father. Daddies, look here. You know, you can attest to this. Most of us, man, if we've got it, we'll give it to our kids. Is that right, man? But if we've got it, we'll give it to them. Our father has it all. if a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will you give him a fish, will you give him a serpent? Verse 12, or if he shall ask an egg, will you offer him a scorpion? Verse 13, if ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? Now there are other places where that says good things, doesn't it? It is translated differently. But what could be better than the Spirit of God? That's the best God's got to give you. Isn't that what he said? I promise you I'm done, but listen to what he said. Remember when he said, it's expedient that I go away, because if I don't come, then the Comforter won't come. And folks, we get in our mind, boy, if I just had Jesus walking beside me, if I just had him walking beside me, Jesus said, I'll do you one better than that. better than me walking beside you in my body on this earth, I'm gonna do you one better than that. I'm gonna go away into the Father, and I shall ask Him, He'll send another one just the same as me, and He won't walk beside you, He'll live inside you. How do you want better than that? He'll be so close to you, He's closer than the air you're breathing in your lungs. God Almighty's closer than the oxygen we're breathing in and what we're breathing out. Is that carbon dioxide? I don't know, whatever it is. That's how close he is to you. Hey, that ought to encourage you. One of us Christians ought to walk out of this building tonight with our heads down hanging low. Hallelujah. Lord, herein is love, not that we loved you, but you loved us. And how thankful every one of us here tonight are that we are loved of our Father. And we are glad and thrilled to call you our Father, to be your children. What a blessing. Thank You, Lord, for working with us, dealing with us. Thank You for what You've done for the church. Thank You for what You've done for me and my family. Help us to love one another, submit ourselves one to another, serve each other in the fear of God. And Lord, I pray for that soul that may be here lost, maybe that soul that may be not right with God. I pray especially for them. Please help them by the power of the Spirit of God or conviction in their heart and life. Give them a space for repentance, Lord. We love You and thank You for all You do in Jesus' name, amen.