dot what a blessing what a blessing you pray for me tonight I've been every time I have a sinus trouble I have I get a touch of asthma and so I've been on the nebulizer twice today and the breathing apparatus twice and so you pray for me I'd like to preach out of 2 Kings chapter number 4. 2 Kings chapter number 4. Can everybody hear me alright? If you would, turn these monitors up a little bit. I can't really hear myself. Maybe it's my ears that might be clogged up. I'm not sure. Like I said, I've been a little sick. 2 Kings chapter number 4, we'll begin reading verse number 1. We found your place. I'd ask you to stand. We're going to try to be as brief as possible, probably just give you a little outline and we'll go to the house. But I think we got some, there's some things in here to be a blessing to you tonight. 2 Kings 4, verse 1, the Bible says, Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant, my husband, is dead. And thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondsmen. Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what have thou in the house? He said, I have not anything in the house save a bull. And he said, go borrow the bull. Borrow not a few. I got the bull out of me. Yeah, I'll switch and see if it works. We'll try this one. Verse number three, and he said, go borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons and thou shalt pour out into all those vessels and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels to her and she poured out. And it came to pass when the vessels were full that she said unto her son, bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, there is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she came and told the man of God, and he said, go, sell the oil, pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. I want to preach tonight for a few minutes on it's time to shut the door. It's time. to shut the door. You can be seated. Dear, kind, and gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we sure do love you tonight, and we thank you for everything that you're doing, and God, what you've been doing in our heart and our life. Now, Father, I pray tonight that you might bind even the very demons of hell from this place God, I pray you to eliminate our mind and God, you'd help us to preach. God, I pray you to loose me and let me go. God, you know, uh, that in me dwelleth no good thing. And God, you know, in this flesh is wicked. But father, I pray tonight, God, I might be a vessel that you can use. God, I pray you that you'd have your will and way in my heart and my life and these people's lives. God, I pray you to help us tonight. God, I pray that you receive glory and honor from everything said and done. Have your will and way, Lord, we do beg you tonight. In Christ's name we do pray, amen, amen. It's time to shut the door. Here we find a woman whose husband was one of the sons of the prophets, but he's died. And the creditors have come and they want to take her sons to be bondsmen. And she comes to him and she says, thou knowest that thy servant, my husband, did fear the Lord. Now I found it unusual that she didn't say thou knowest my husband thy servant, but she put thy servant ahead of her husband, of him being her husband. And she said that he's dead and the creditors have come and he begins to ask her, he said, first of all, what shall I do for thee? And before she could ever answer, in other words, he was saying, what do you want me to do? And before she could ever answer, he said, hold on, what do you have in the house? And she said, I have nothing in the house save a pot of oil. She didn't have a bag of beans in the house. She didn't have no cornmeal. She didn't have a bag of flour. She didn't have anything in the house. She done used up every resource. She done used up all the food. All she had was a pot of oil. Now, when she said that, It's like us saying, when people come to us with problems, with situations, and you say, you know, there's nothing I can do but pray. When there's nothing that you can do but pray, there's nothing that you need to do but pray. Sometimes the only thing that we got, amen, is the only thing that we need. It's time to shut the door first of all on outside influences. Here we've been talking lately, we've been talking a lot about, you've been hearing Brother Edward talk a lot about revivals. People have been talking about revivals, how we was in a revival for years. The only way we're gonna be in revival is we gotta shut out some of those outside influences and we gotta begin to have a personal revival on our knees. That's how we're gonna have revival, amen? It's time to have a revival on our knees and the only way we're gonna do that is to shut out outside influences. It's time, if you will, to take back our children, Brother Tracy. I mean we send our children into the world and if we're not, when you send them into Egypt, they'll come back with Egyptian ways. But it's time, I said it's time that we take back our children, amen. The only way we can do that is we got to shut out some of those outside influences. Hey, I mean, we gotta spend more time with our children. Hey, we gotta spend more time with our children in church around the things of God if we're ever gonna overcome those outside influences. It's time to shut the door on the outside influences of our character. Now that's an old-fashioned word. We don't hear that much anymore. But there's some things about our character that this world influences. Our character ain't just about how we walk. Our character's not just about how we talk. Our character's not just about how we dress. But our character's not just about our word. Me giving you my word and me honoring my word to you. But it's all those things together, amen. And the world has influenced us. The world has infiltrated our character. And we need to get it back, amen. need to have some character about us. We need to shut the door on outside influences, but we need to shut the door on impossible dreams. What I mean by that tonight, I don't mean that those dreams are impossible, what I mean is there's nothing impossible with God. I'll tell you what, sometimes we got some aspirations, sometimes we got some dreams, and the devil will come along and try to throw a wet blanket on it, amen, and sometimes, Brother Leroy, we get detoured in our lives. but I'm telling you what, I read over there about old Joseph and the Bible says that God let him dream another dream. Hey, I'm telling you what, when the road gets detoured, when our life ain't going like we think it ought to be, I'm telling you what, dream another dream. Hey, and let God show you the impossible things, amen. You know, God don't want you to be a great Christian. God don't want you to do great things for Him. But you know what God wants you to do? He wants you to do impossible things. We see the world, we see the world, they do some great things. Hey man, one of my greatest sports figures, I was reading about him today, Larry Bird. I love Larry Bird, but you know what, he does some great things. Hey, but you know what brother Larry, we can do some impossible things in and through God. Amen. This mic here I think is picking up a little better, you might need to turn me down. Amen. It's time to shut the door on impossible dreams because the devil will tell you it's impossible but it's not impossible with God. It's time to shut the door on those things that enslave you. First of all I know that and all this stuff I'm looking at my own life and I'm thinking about what's going on in my heart and my life. Those things that enslave you first of all I find the flesh. The flesh enslave you. The flesh is always trying to get you to pick up another habit. The flesh is always trying to get you to go contrary to the word of God, amen. The flesh is always pulling at you. Hey man, brother Larry, we'll get victory today, but you know what? What happens when we wake up tomorrow? Hey, we might not be as spiritual as we are today, and that old flesh will be pulling. That old flesh... Son, that old flesh is trying to rear up, amen. Hey, those things, they enslave you. You say, well, you know what? They deserve me to talk to them like that. They deserve because of what? No, that's the flesh, amen. It's time to shut the door on things that enslave you. First the flesh, but then our failures. How many times does our failures in the past keep us from going forward? You realize that it's only your flesh and the devil that remembers that old stuff and they keep bringing it back, bringing it back, bringing it back, trying to keep you from going forward, trying to keep you from doing what God really wants you to do. God wants you to be a successful Christian. You can't do that when you keep thinking about, well, I failed back here. How can I be a good Sunday school teacher when I did this way back here? Hey, I'm telling you what, there's some horrible, horrible things that I've done since I've been saved, amen? And if we'll let it, we'll think about it, amen? How many times? I mean, just right while ago, before I got up here to preach, the devil started bringing things to my mind, things I've done, things I've said. How can you preach after you've thought that? Amen. I'll tell you what, the devil is wicked, and he'll try to discourage you from ever doing anything for God. And if you'll listen to him, you'll be discouraged. You'll never have the victory. Failures, you gotta let them go. But then thirdly, we gotta learn to forgive. We gotta learn to forgive. And part of that failure is I gotta, first of all, I gotta learn to forgive myself. I gotta learn to forgive myself. And sometimes that's hard. And sometimes that's hard to overcome. I can't learn to forgive you if I don't even know how to forgive myself. But after I get past me. That's our greatest obstacle. I don't know about you tonight. Maybe you don't have no trouble with the flesh. And if you don't, please tell me how to overcome it. I'll tell you what, Brother Larry, it's like I said a while ago, you got victory tonight. We have a great service tonight. I mean, we swing from the chandeliers. Hey man, we can swing from a rotten corn cornstalk over hail and shoot the devil with a water pistol, amen, one night and wake up the next morning defeated. Hey, every time he says boo, it scares us to death. We got to learn to forgive ourselves, but we got to learn to forgive others. You know what? For some reason, now I'm just talking about me, how I think. Maybe you think different. This way I think sometimes. I think everybody ought to be like me. And that's a mess. You know, when you really think about it. Say, well, they shouldn't have said that. They shouldn't be like that. They shouldn't do that. They shouldn't say that. They shouldn't dress like that. You know what? God might not have dealt with them like He dealt with me about it. But Larry, they might not have come from, and most people didn't, come from the same hell hole he pulled me out of. They not been in this thing for 30 years. They ain't matured. We can't expect these little kids to act like we act. We can't expect it. They don't go to work. They don't know how to run finances. Why? They never done it. It takes time for them to mature, time for them to be able to do it. That's the same way we are. And sometimes we expect way too much out of each other. And sometimes we're not willing to forgive. I said, sometimes we're not willing to forgive. And maybe the reason I can't forgive you, brother Larry, is because I ain't never learned how to forgive myself. It's time to shut the door. It's time to set it, the Bible says here that when she got through that she set aside that which is full. She set aside that which is full. There's some things that we need to set aside. First of all, we need to set aside our talents. As I look around here, the Bible says that God give everybody a talent. I don't know what that talent is. I don't even know what my talent is, amen? But God give everybody a talent and it's our obligation to seek that talent out and to use it for God. I see people that get saved It's a church-going family. They got a teenage boy. He picks up a guitar, and he can really play it, and he can sing it. And the next thing you know, he's 16 years old. He's singing down here at Seagulls, down at the bar. I'm talking about a church-going family. I didn't say they were saved. I said the church-going family. That's a shame to me. I don't understand that. But everybody's got a talent. But Leroy, your talent might not be to preach. Your talent might not be to paint. Your talent might be whatever. It might be a gardener. It might be an electrician. Whatever. Use it for God. Whatever it is. Everybody in this church needs to be involved in something. that has to deal with this church. Use your talent for God. That goes along with my next point. Use your time for God. Now, I'm telling you, when God was dealing with me about this message, I had it for several months. But when he was dealing with me about it, I don't know about you, brother Larry, which ties into my next one. I'll go ahead and give it to you. Set aside your tithe. So those three things, your talent, your tithe, and your time. In a lot of ways, they kind of go together, you know? But it's a lot easier, a lot of times, for me to use my talent than it is to pay my tithes. And it's a lot easier for me to pay my tithes than it is for me to give my time. When this church was going through revival, the reason it was going through revival is because it had a bunch of people, mostly young people, giving their time. I mean, it was pouring a lot of time into the church. Pouring a lot of time into the church. 15 to about 21 age group. That's where the revival started. They's getting on that bus. They's going down the road. They's meeting here Saturday nights. They's going on Sundays, picking up kids, loving on kids, spending time with kids. Then they have special days. Special days. Wouldn't let nobody else come. This is for the kids. They have hamburger and hot dogs. Brother, they wouldn't let me have none. It's for the kids. They have special days at Easter and Christmas and cook hams and turkeys at Thanksgiving. It's for the kids. Wouldn't let us come over there. They're spending their time, their talent, and their money at the church. Now, when you're doing that, You don't have time to get out there in the world. You ain't got time to even think about the world because your mind and your thought is on the church. What am I going to be doing? What can we do for the kids? What can we do next? And by doing that, it keeps our mind off of a lot of junk that we don't need it on. It says, set aside that which is full. Then I see that the Bible says that the oil stayed. I'm so glad that the oil stayed. I'm so glad that it's not like it used to be in the Old Testament where the Holy Ghost would come on and he'd leave. I'm so glad that right now, this morning, this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow morning, when you're by yourself, just you and God. Me and King was talking the other day. We was just talking about the Lord and I got to talking about how I got saved and everything that was going on in my life when I got saved and I'm telling you, the oil started rising, brother Larry. We was sitting there talking and there was a guy that sits right beside me. I mean, the joker, he's just full of the devil. There ain't no other way to put it. He's full of the devil. But you know what I told him? I said, you know what? That guy that sits right there, God can change, God can save. If He saved me, if He saved you, He can save them. He can change them. See, we look at where we are now. I'm kind of getting ahead of myself. The oil stayed. One thing I know about oil is it's slick. It lubricates. It lubricates our life. That's what helps us get through life, is that oil. When we go out in the world, we're covered with oil and so that stuff don't stick to us. It's that oil. That oil, but I noticed this, Brother Larry, You know, I was in lawn care. I got all kind of motors, you know, lawn mowers, four wheelers, you know, spraying rigs. I got a car, truck, things that's got motors in them, things that have to have oil. But every once in a while, I got to change that oil. Oil gets old, gets stagnant, gets all kind of stuff in it. And it seems like when you change that oil, Man, it just seems like, I don't know, it just seems like it runs better. It runs faster, it just, you know, picks up quicker, gets better gas mileage. Maybe we need an oil change. And the best way I know to get an oil change is come down to this altar, go to your prayer spot, get alone by yourself, and just think about where you were when you got saved. Think about the mess you were in and think about where you would be right now had he not saved you, had he not changed you. He didn't just change the inside, he changed the whole direction of your life. It's slick, and it lubricates our life, but it also lessens the wear on our life. I was over in Folkston getting some feed several months ago, and I heard a voice behind me, a very familiar voice, although I hadn't heard it in years, but I recognized And when I turned around, I almost, I'm not exaggerating, I almost jumped. Because they'd been living like the devil for years. How many of y'all seen somebody that you hadn't seen in years and they live like the devil and you're like, ooh, grits. They're my age, but ooh, they look like they five or ten years older than me. You know what? good livin', it lessens the wear of life. Aunt Dot's 95. Tracy's mama's 84. I don't know how old you, how old you bro Leo? 82. I'm tellin' ya, his mama was over 100. Hundred and two. Tracy's mom was 84, and I haven't looked right now, but I would be willing to bet she's wearing high heels back there right now. Huh? Yeah. I don't know too many 84-year-old women that live like that. But it's because she got in church and she determined to live right. She determined to do right. She determined to raise her kids right. Lastly, he told her to go sell the oil. Now you can't sell something that ain't valuable. So that oil's valuable. It's very valuable. Where would we be tonight without the oil? We'd be dry. You'd be very dry. When you get alone and you start seeking God and you start praying and you start thinking about where he brought you from and what he's done in your life, you know what? You wouldn't shed no tear. But the other day when I was at work and me and King started talking about it, son, I was a mess. I was a mess. That oil just started running. It's valuable. But I want you to notice lastly, the last thing he tells her. He says, sell the oil, pay thy debt. Ain't you glad the debt's been paid? Pay thy debt and live thou and thy children of the rest. He said, live thou and thy children of the oil. They went into the oil business. Didn't even know it was going. Now, I don't know what you get out of that, but I get out of that that she's to live off of it, and then when she passes, they're to live off of it, off the oil. And that's what God wants us to do. He wants us to live off of it, and when we leave, he wants us to leave it in our kids. Brother Joe told me something years ago. We was talking. And he said, he said, Cornbread, he said, I probably won't leave my children much. He said, but that don't matter. That ain't what counts. He said, what counts is what I leave in them. You know, you can leave, you can leave these kids a million dollars and they could squander it real easy, real easy in today's society. They could squander it. But what you leave in them, Brother Larry, it'll never leave them. It'll never leave them. If we put something in these kids, every time they go to do wrong, it'll haunt them. You talk about when you come home and your mama be praying, it haunts you. It's like them Holy Ghost hounds. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Just tracking you everywhere you go. That dog's tracking you, son. That Holy Ghost hound, that's what I call Holy Ghost hounds. Because God's bringing it to your memory what happened. What the Bible tells us, that if we raise up our children right, that they'll come back to us. Sometimes, sometimes I try to get in the middle of stuff, especially with my kids. I try to get into stuff, and you know what? Every time it seems like I just make a mess. I just make a mess. So you know what I do? I just beg God to do something for them. I beg God to help them. I beg God to send somebody in their life that they'll listen to. And I'm trusting him. Now what about you tonight? Where you at? I'd like for them to come back and sing that song that they sang a while ago. And I want to give the altar call with that song. As I was preaching tonight, maybe the Lord brought something to your memory. Maybe there's something that's been an influence in your life and maybe the Lord said, you know what, that probably ain't the best influence. Then shut the door on it. Maybe there's some things that you have been doing and God said you need to shut the door. Maybe there's some things that you haven't been doing. God said, come on in and shut the door. Notice he told her, he said, go on in. So there was no outside influence. Just her, and them kids, and the oil. That's all staying. If God spoke to your heart about something, the altars are open. Won't you come? Won't you come?