Second Thessalonians, actually in chapter 2, we'll start in verse 13. The Bible said, But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. This verse right here, if you read this real close, it clarifies the fact that whether you is predestined to go to heaven or hell. OK, he says that right here because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through. This is how he did it, sanctification. OK. So he didn't just say, you know what I'm going to write? I'm going to write Larry Turner's name down before Larry Turner was born 5,000 years. And when he comes, he'll know. Larry Turner had to get saved. Thank God for salvation. Thank God for sanctification. That's the word. That's the word right there. OK, let's let's look on. So you'll stop me right there in the middle of it. I was OK. Sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. Where unto he called you? by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. Finally, chapter 3, verse 1. Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have not faith. I trust that you have faith tonight. Can I say this? I believe you do or you wouldn't be here. Okay? But the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from evil. And we have confidence in the Lord touching you that you both do and will do the things which we command you. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourself from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us. Father, I pray that you would Help us, Lord. We sure enough need you. I need you. And God, do for us, I pray tonight, Lord, there may be somebody here tonight that just needs something extra special. Might be somebody here tonight that needs to be born again into the family of God. Lord, I pray that this would be that night for them. I pray, Lord, that if you would, that you would feed us from your word, encourage us and strengthen us, prepare us for whatever lies ahead this week, and God will give you the glory for it. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen and Amen. I failed to mention this morning. I think everybody knows it. We didn't sing Happy Birthday this morning, but we can sing it right now. And Mama had a birthday this week and she turned 97 years old. She's the oldest person, as far as I know, that's ever been in her family. She's the oldest person that ever went to the school where she went at. She's the oldest person that lives on the road that we live on. She told me, she said, you wait until you get my age. I said, I'll never make your age. Makes the people going to worry Miss Beth. Amen. I ain't going to mention who that'll be, but nevertheless. I'll blame that on my wife, OK? Blame that on my wife. She knows better. But let's sing happy birthday, George. Can we do that? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. God bless you. Happy birthday to you. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Most, there comes a time in life, when you're real young, you would, I mean, your brother just about dies and somebody forgets your birthday. When you're real young, these young people, they, who, they say she's got a birthday coming up real soon, just real soon. It's real soon, ain't it, everybody? Real soon. In December. And I'm excited about that. I'm excited. She's excited. So I'm excited. And then, and then you get to a place in your life that you really wish people wouldn't make much to do about it. And especially the women, the men don't care. You know, thank God I got a birthday. Amen. And, but the women don't want nobody to know how old they are. And everybody wants to be 29 forever and ever more, you know, and that's okay. That's all right. That's all right. And then when you get older, you better not forget my birthday. Mama told me, we was in the doctor's office last week. She said, you know, I got a birthday coming up soon. I said, for real? She hit me, Brother Gary. She said, I said, I thought it was next month. She said, get out of here, boy. I praise the Lord. God really helped her this last month. And she's living back at her house. And for the most part, watching over herself pretty good. I'm thankful for that. And so anyway, we'll see how that goes. She made me promise one time, she said, promise me you'll never put me in a nursing home. I said, if at all possible, if at all possible, if it's if it's not a situation that's mandatory for medicines or medical care, what have you. Y'all know what I'm talking about. We will not do that. So I'm thinking what I may go to stay for. put her name on the paper and I'll go check in every day and say, I'm here for my mom. I'm just going to show up and hang around today. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Y'all know I'm kidding. I hope you know I'm kidding. Don't come up to me after church and say, you're not going to say something like that about your mom. You don't want to do me like that. I might be on pins and needles already and you wouldn't want to be the recipient of that needle. Did you want to say something? I thought you were just waving, giving glory to God back there. All right. You ain't getting no microphone. All right. Amen. Amen. I said, you're my pastor, but you still my friend. I've been part of this church for all the years that they have been coming here and supporting me. There's not much that I can say or much that I can do. I can't go on fast, but I can walk a little bit. I do require everybody, if they will, please pray for me that I can continue moving around like I've been doing. Praise the Lord. That was 34 seconds, I was holding my breath the whole time. Amen, amen, amen. All right, back to the Bible, back to the Bible, back to the Bible. I want to preach on this sort of a good spiritual progress. Spiritual progress. Did you know there's a lot of people who go to church the most part of their life and never see any kind of spiritual progress? You might could say it like this, spiritual growth. They get saved. They serve the Lord faithfully in a local New Testament church. But there's no growth. And there has to be something take place in the life of a believer that shows forth some kind of growth. It's real easy if we're not careful to have 49 excuses to not have growth. I would be a better Christian if it wasn't for other Christians. I would be a more faithful church member if the preacher could preach a little bit better. I mean, they're just one excuse after another. But the bottom line comes down to this when we stand before the Lord. Will there be any spiritual growth? We'll call it spiritual progress. Spiritual progress. This morning James was so excited about Super Church and he rounded this number four turn right here and let out a little yahoo and he was excited and that just tickled me. Little children. If little children don't make you smile, there's something wrong with you. I like being around little children. Art Linkletter started a show years ago and kids say the craziest things. Say that ain't what he said. I know, but that's the borderline cuss word. Borderline. And so I'll just say, kids say the craziest things. And you could find out some real truths about homes and families with questions to the children. Can't you do it? Sister Jamie, I'm sure every day you could ask questions that you would think, boy, wish I hadn't asked that one. You know? I would think that. I would think that. But we can see a he grows, he's going to change. And it might be to the place one day that he'll not be excited about church. He won't get up and run around the number four turn heading out to the children's church. But I'd like to see that continually grow. I'd like to see that get to the place where not only does he want to go to super church up till he's 12, but it might be that after he's Twelve, that he might say, but Father, can I help the Superchurch now? Just growth. Growth. Being a part of it. Just doing something. And doing something, doing something is just a part of the growth. So that's what I'd like to look at for just a few minutes, if I could, on spiritual progress. Number one, I'd like to say this. their spiritual progress from faith to faith. From faith that we've been given a little bit of it, just a measure of it, if you will, to faith. From the faith that God would deliver to us and give us, passing down the line to the Apostle Paul, being an example for us and then to maybe somebody that might have told you about the Lord and led you to the Lord on to the faith that you exercise yourself and now you live by your faith. The Bible says this in Romans chapter 1 and verse 17, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The just shall live by The just shall live by faith. We've got to have faith if we're going to live this Christian life. I know that we wrestle and I know that we fight. And you might say, Brother Edward, I don't never have these spiritual battles you're talking about. What are you doing then? It don't surprise me when somebody says, I had a spiritual fight this past week. What surprises me is when somebody says, I didn't have one. I'm wondering, I'm wondering what was going on. I'm wondering about their trip to Calvary, be honest with you. Paul said in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 11, but that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God. It is evident for the just shall live. by faith. So we, as we exercise this Christian life and we live from faith to faith, from day to day, walking in the light as we try our best to serve the Lord with gladness, as we do what we can to please Him and to glorify Him and to be a witness for Him and let somebody that's living in darkness know that they don't have to be stumbling through this life. But they could exercise a little faith. And I know we've seen people and we've read about them. You've read about them. I've read about people like George Mueller. George Mueller, they said that he had that children's home and he had so much faith. They said even when there was no food in the home at all, he would tell the children to set the plates out for everybody to eat and we're fixing to sit down and we're fixing to eat and no food in the house. That's faith. You know, you can't argue with God whenever you show Him you've got that kind of faith. You know God's got to do something whenever you show Him that kind of face? God has to do something. That's part of Him saying, prove me. I mean, if you've got that, and God knows if it's real in my heart, and God knows if it's real in your heart, and if it's really, really real, He sees it. And He says, listen, that kind of faith, that woman said, Lord, I know I'm not one of y'all. She said, but if you just let me have some crumbs that fall from the table. She said, Lord, even the dogs. You know what he said about her? Her faith has made it. He said, I ain't seen that kind of faith in all Israel. I'm just saying, God sees that. And you know what he does? He helps them. He'll help you. You say, boy, where can you help me? Well, ask him. Cry out. Exercise your faith. Let it just grow and bloom and blossom from face to face. Let it get big. Amen. Y'all know I like pocket knives. And sister, sir, I like my pocket knife. Amen. I like to keep it sharp just in case I need to cut myself. Accidentally. Accidentally. I'm not one of these. I don't do this stuff. I don't cut myself. I'm not one of these cutters. But accidents happen and I, you know, From a little boy right on up. But, Gary, I cut myself accidentally a bunch of times. I found out it will grow back. But I like to keep it sharp. That means from time to time, I'm going to have to take it out and a sharpener and they got to work some things out. And from time to time, as a Christian, if you're going to exercise your faith, you're going to take it out. and put it with His. And you've got to work it together. You've got to work it together. It's not your way. Not your way. God didn't give me faith. God didn't give you faith so that you could develop something to brag on yourself. God gave you faith to trust in Him with so you could glorify Him. for the great, great catastrophe that He brought you through or whatever. He knows how to do it. He knows how to do it. And He will. Spiritual progress from faith to faith. Spiritual progress from strength to strength. Strength to strength. Psalm chapter 84 and verse number 7, the Bible says they go from strength to strength. Every one of them in Zion. Epirus. before God. I mean, I mean, I mean, a whole nation standing before God had to prove that they had the strength to depend on His strength. We've made mentioned this before. My wife, my wife, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not into all this real good. Like, I mean, I want to be. I wish I was. But I'm not into this real good, like stocks. And I think about stocks, and I'm not, if you don't want to mess with it, don't worry about it. Don't come up to me at the church and say, I don't think that's right. Talk about that in church. OK, just write me a letter and mail it to BR549. And we'll get somebody to get it somewhere. But I like to look at it. And I used to like to talk about it a lot. And the person that I used to talk to about the most quit her job. And I'd go to the credit union. Sister Vanessa worked up there. And I'd just go knock on the door. And I'd walk in, shut the door behind me. And we'd just say, oh, it ain't looking good. It ain't looking good. And we'd just talk and fellowship. I tell my wife, I said, let's talk about this. She said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. She said, you promised me you'd take care of me, and that's all I care about. She wasn't having my strength. Not a bit in that area. But God wants us to have a strength that leans on Him. A strength that I can say this. You can say this. Whatever tomorrow holds, He's given me enough strength to lean in His direction. Not so weak in the spirit, not so weak in the strength that if something crazy happens that I'm going to lean in that direction. Not toward the world. Not toward the quitting line. I want to head toward the finishing line. I think I mentioned this, we went up to that funeral of the day, Brother Kenny Townsend, Brother C.T.' 's dad, and Brother Steve Hurts was sitting there. I was talking to Brother Steve, which is a Jewish pastor and a great preacher. We're just sitting on the front row on this side of the building over there. And he's just sitting there, and Brother Steve said, he's looking at the casket up there. He said he finished right. He finished right. Well, if you were to dig real deep, you'd probably find some things that you wouldn't agree with the terminology of finishing right. But he said this, Brother Tracy. He said he had a few bumps in the road. But he finished right. He finished doing whatever he could do in the church. That's right. It ain't got to be pastoring Lakewood Baptist, or whatever. I think it's named a church in Houston. It ain't got to be. It ain't got to be the president of the world evangelism. It ain't got to be all these things that get the spotlight of NBC News. It's just finishing right. And it takes strength to do that. And your strength alone ain't enough. I need His strength. I need to know that if I lean on Him, He's strong enough to hold me. And if I lean on Him, He's so strong that He can hold me that if I'm leaning, He can prop me right back up. I say that's strength to strength. Wouldn't you? I thank God that he's available for us and he's like that and willing to do that for me. My resisting to learn and to lean and depend on him shows the weakness of my strength. So I see my spiritual progress as I grow as a Christian, as I learn every day to try to do something more for the Lord. I learned that there's got to be, my faith has got to increase and it'll go from faith to faith. From testing to testing, every time something new, every time something bigger, every time. I'm saying I don't think there's enough faith for this one. But Tommy, you didn't want to get up and go back to work so bad. You've had to listen to that doctor. And you've had to exercise some faith that you've never had to exercise before. But God's had it for you. And He gives you strength to sit down. Say, man, who needs strength to sit down? Somebody that don't sit down very much. Somebody that's going all the time. So we see that our spiritual progress will give us a faithful grow. Our faith will increase. Our strength will grow. Our strength will increase. But then I want you to know also that when you have that spiritual progress in your Christian life, that you will grow from glory to glory. I mean glory to glory. Anybody remember when you got saved? I love to see people get saved. I love, I love, love, love to see people get saved. I love to see people just squalling. I'm telling you, snot dripping. I mean, squalling, heaving, crying. There ain't nobody in here like that. You ain't never been like that. Besides yourself, don't even know where you are. Thank God you can pray and ask God to save you and get from glory to glory. Amen. What's better? What's better than getting along with God for just a little while and the Holy Ghost of God reveal to us who we are and where we are and what we need. I'm just saying God knows how to do it and He knows how to put us right where we need to be that we can pray in a manner that we don't even care. Who's a looking and who's a listening? God just doing something real special for us changing our life, turning us around, transforming our minds. Amen. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 18 said, But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. John said, And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Well, thank you, Lord. I'm saying it was the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Man, you're talking about glory. Could you imagine? We speculated and we tried to think about what it was like. What was it really like? What would it have been like? to know that the Lord Jesus Christ would leave heaven. We've speculated, we've heard people talk about that. To leave heaven and come to earth and then to be cast aside and ridiculed like He was and talked about and abused like He was and to have to go hungry and to have to go thirsty and all of these things and the angels in heaven is wanting to do something. I don't know this all like that, Brother Tyler. I know this, the Bible says, I believe this, I believe what the Bible says. The Bible said in words was made flesh. It wasn't flesh, but the words was made flesh. The Bible said, and Brother John said, in the three that beareth record, the heaven, the Father, and the heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one, and they agree. So I think the Word's really important right in here. And as we look at this and we think about one day here he comes, and listen, and the people, whoever it is that's seen the wise men have come, and they come looking for him, they've seen his star, and they come to see him and they want to see his glory. I wasn't the only one that's ever like that. Exodus chapter 33, Moses told the Lord, he said, hey, I sure would like to see your glory. He said, you can't see my glory. He said, nobody's ever seen me and live. Nobody's ever seen my face and live. He said, but if you get in the rock, that's exactly what it said. You get in the rock. Can I tell you, church, if we'll get in the rock, If we'll get in Christ, hey, if you'll get in Christ, Mr. Trump can do anything he wants to do, it won't bother you. If you'll get in Christ, the governor of Georgia can do what he wants to, it won't bother you. If you'll get in Christ, hey, the Democratic Convention, the Republican Convention, whoever it is, whatever it is, I'm telling you, it won't bother you. But if you and I'll get in Christ, our life will be all right. We'll be able to set the cruise control, head out toward heaven and just ride along the highway going from glory to glory. I mean, God made a way that we should enjoy the trip. I want to do it. I want to do it. I want to be in the glory. I don't mean I got to be stabbed in every service. I don't mean that I got to see people. I ain't got to see James running around the aisles if he wants to. I don't care. If Clay wants to help him, I don't care. Say, well, they ought not do that. There's bigger problems in the world. There's bigger problems in the world. I think if God would let a little boy run around the church once in a while, we ought to just say hallelujah. I mean, that ought to be enough to get everybody excited right now. That little boy don't know he helped me this morning. I mean, God let us get in the glory. There is so much He's done for us. We ought to be thankful. I ain't got time to be disgruntled. I ain't got time to talk about Brother Randy. I ain't got time to look at what all's going on in the world. I'm saying somebody's gonna pass my way tomorrow that needs to be born again. I've already got my work cut out for me. But if you ain't careful, you'll get distracted along the way. And you'll forget about the glory. You better keep focused. Better keep your eyes on Jesus. So chapter 33, he goes up the mountain and God talks to him. And chapter 34, it gives him the Ten Commandments. Chapter 34 comes down the mountain. But because he'd been with God, the people went, whoa, whoa. We don't know what happened to you up yonder. I mean, I don't know if they taught in South Georgia style like that. But basically, what they said was, we don't know what happened up there, but you need something on your face. We can't take it. Is that what he done? Chapter 34, here's what happened. Verse 29, he covered his face and he talked to the people. He got too much glory on him. I'm telling you about that. That's just too much glory for the human side of us to handle. Here's what happened. He talked to them, and he left them, and he went back up, and he took the veil off, and he said, give us more glory. That's what I want. I don't want to just walk through Hallmark, pass out a card just to say, hey, I'm the preacher at this church. I want to go through Wal-Mart though, Gary. And I want it to be like this. Not for me. Not for me. That when I get up, give out of the car and I say, I pastor this church and I'd love for you to come and visit with us. It'd be so mesmerizing to somebody. Not for me. But they'll really know that I've been with the Lord. Because then he'll get the glory. So he's got the glory. I should have said this point here is from glory to glory to glory. Because he's the one who's got the glory. And he gives us the glory. And then we give him the glory back. You know what that does? Spiritual growth. You pick it all for yourself. I might be wrong. I might be wrong. I've heard some old time. I like to listen to old time. I don't care much for listening to. I've listened to a few young preachers. I have. And they've helped me from time to time. But them old preachers really helped me. That man said, I don't know if you listened to that man, Jack Wood. That old man helped me. Well, he just cut and dry. I mean, just. But then he said one time, said, well, Jack, tell me, he said, you know. He's doing this to help Brother Danny. He said, you know, I think this week here, he said, I think we're just not going to take a check. Now, the Lord ain't laid that on my heart yet. But if he does, I'm good with it. Answered Bud Denston. He said, I haven't got used to taking a check. Anybody got used to taking a check yet? He said, he said, OK. He said, I'm thinking in my mind, next week we'll double up. Get back. He said, but the next week, he said, Bud Jack told me, he said, you know, we did so good last week. Just skipping that check. We're going to do it again this week. He said, I learned something. Don't depend on what you think is going to happen. You want strength? You better lean on God. You want to give God glory? Brother Brad, come out of that church out there. Brother Dan comes. He said, now this church will be able to help you out a little bit. but you still need to be able to learn how to do a little hustle. And there's an honest hustle. There's an honest hustle. I mean, you can work on, you can do side work. Remember the time when I was getting older and I don't like to get out in the heat? I don't like to. But when you're young, when you're young, you're young, y'all work two or three jobs. Yeah, sure you can. You might not want to, but you could. You could. Just think about how much... I mean, unless you've got a job. Who was it that told me? Brother John told me this morning. He said he done put in almost 80 hours this week. Last week. And, and, and... I mean, you might have a job. You might have a job. Ethan, you work a lot of hours, from what I'm understanding. You work a lot of hours. That's why you're not here. God knows. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm frightening to look at him like that anyway. You better have a good job now, have you? I'm just saying, our faith is in Christ. You want to see some glory? It's going to come from Him. It ain't going to come from nothing we do. I want to put all my trust in Him. I want to give Him every bit of the glory that He gives me back. I want to build a sanctuary. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Take notice. Take notice. We have the kids at the house sometimes. And they'll be sitting at the table fixing to eat. And we always make them ask the blessing. Somebody said one time they were sitting at the table and they were going to ask the blessing. Some other people sitting around there. And they asked the blessing over the food and everything. Somebody said, do y'all always pray over the food? Does everybody always pray over the food at y'all's house? He said, no, the hogs don't. So what y'all teach kids, bro? And they'll bow their head and close at least one eye. I mean, I mean, they've been trained like that, Dave. I ain't got to say no more. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? I mean, We never could break our sons of that. Never could. All her life, even today, she's probably sitting there looking around. Who's going to get the biggest piece of chicken or the biscuit or whatever? Before they can ever really even say something real good, they know what amen means. The blessings been said. And when you give God thanks and you give God glory and you just know at the end of the day, at the end of the 24 hours time, whatever. And you pray and you thank Him for all He's done all day long. And you pray and thank Him for it. And you say, Lord, I sure hope in my life, in my life, somehow today you've received some glory. In Christ's name I pray, Amen. Don't you just think that pleaser thing? He's such a wonderful Savior. How can, how can we not want to give back to Him? That's the way He's given to us. I've eat twice today already. Intend to do a little bit more of it before I go to bed tonight. And I'm going to give Him the glory. And for the church, If somebody got some help this morning, I say, thank you, Lord. Amen. And if somebody gets some help tonight, I say, thank you, Lord. It's all about Him. Let's bow our heads just a moment. Just a moment. Nobody look around for just a moment. If you don't mind.