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Amen. Appreciate the good spirit, appreciate the blessing of being in church this week. I lost count several years ago how many times we've been out here. Brother Charlie, he keeps count of how many times we've been out there. I think he's around about 60 or 61 times he's been on the reservation. And a lot of stuff going on on the reservation that Brother Charlie is kind of familiar with. I just want to go on record tonight. I know this is going on sermon audio. I hope it gets back to the people I'm talking about. Back in January, I started going to the Navajo Nation capital. Actually, there's a motel there. I used to stay there, Navajo Nation Inn. At 6 o'clock in the morning, the Navajo Nation president and the vice president both have me come and do devotion to them, for them at six to seven in the morning on Monday mornings. The first time in the Navajo history ever we have a saved president. Got saved in Oklahoma. Thank God for your people, brother. That boy had to move to Oklahoma to find God. And he is a teenager. Came back to the reservation, and he got, you know, nominated to be president, and he beat out the other candidates. And they asked him, they said, who's your running mate? He didn't have to think very much. He said, he's got to be a saved man. Got to be a man that loves God. And everybody said, what's he talking about? And, you know, he said, I'm just going to pray. And he was telling me this. He said, when he prayed, he said, Lord, The first guy that comes and sees me, you know, I'm going to ask if they're saved. If they're saved, I'm going to pick him. Can you imagine that? He didn't want to know if he was educated or if he knew the, you know, all the things about the Navajo. He just wanted to know if the man knew God and loved God. And Jonathan Nez walks in and he said, Jonathan, what chapter are you from? He told him. He said, Jonathan, are you a Christian? And Jonathan said, no. He said, I'm a child of God. He said, I got saved when I was eight years old. So my daddy beat my mom last night. Next morning. My mom said, let's go to church. He said, my mom sat in the car because she was so blue. And I walked in. And the preacher was preaching. And the preacher was preaching. He said, do you know anybody that need help? And I raised my hand. I said, yeah. He said, my mama needs help. She's sitting out in the car. Daddy beat him up last night. And the preacher said, how about you? Do you need help? He said, no, I'm OK. Then he said, what if you died? Would you be OK? He said, I don't think so. So you need help. Jonathan said at eight years old he came to trust Christ. He saved him. That's a first. The two leaders of the Navajo Nation are saved men. Then another thing that's good about it is he chose a Baptist preacher to give devotion. Of all the preachers on that reservation, he said we want him. So it was a Baptist president, a Baptist vice president, and a Baptist preacher running the country of the Navajo Nation. That kind of reminds me of the United States, you know, when it was founded. You know what the president said? He said, let us be an example to the other tribes. Let us set some precedence on how, what God can do. And he made some statements, you know, and a lot of people didn't like what he said, but, you know, he's speaking because God moves him. So thank the Lord. Appreciate your prayers. That's a long time coming. I don't know how many years, like I said, I've been coming here and praying and asking you to pray for our people. And then this year I got a call. I got a call early on in the morning. Guy said, are you Wilson Calvin? I said, yes, sir. He said, this is the Navajo Nation president. He said, I'd like for you to come and do devotion with us. And God works behind the scenes, you know, and we don't know what's going on half the time, but you know, I'm glad he does, amen. Get your Bible tonight, turn to Revelation chapter three. I read this verse the other night, my message on whole fast. I still like this verse. Behold, I come quickly, verse 11. hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." Then I want you to flip over to Revelation 22. I want to read some verses there. Some of you still trying to find chapter 3, isn't it? Revelation chapter 3 says, hold that fast which... He said, behold I come quickly, hold that fast which thou hast. Then over here in Revelation chapter 22, verse 7 says, behold I come quickly, "...blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." Then of course, verse number 12, "...and behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be." Then of course, down in verse number 20, "...he which testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly." Amen. "...even so come, Lord Jesus." Now, four times In the book of Revelation, we have the words, I come quickly. Three times He says, behold. And then the last time He says, surely. Just in case there's some critics, you know, that say, you know, the Lord delayed His coming. In Revelation 22, verse 10, the end of that verse says, for the time is at hand. I believe this is the time which we live today, is the time of the Lord's coming. And over and over in the Scripture we're reminded, I guess, over hundreds of times, 200 times, maybe even more, how the Scripture reminds us of our Lord's return personally, physically. And we call it the rapture. And we are in a state of being carried away or carried off. And the Bible says, You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven. Then again in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, it says, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shouting, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Well, I'll tell you that, you know, if we believe that and we hold dear those words there in the scripture, you know, that makes us a premillennial, pre-tribulation, independent, fundamental, Bible-believing, hey, heaven-bound Christians tonight. Amen. I believe we, tonight, we are a crowd that's getting thinner and thinner. I'm glad I still believe in the old-time way. I still believe that, you know, Jesus is going to come. Nothing's going to happen before the Lord comes. The next thing, He's going to come. And when He comes, He's going to straighten out a lot of things. I'm telling you, I'm waiting. No, I'm not waiting for the kingdom to come. I'm waiting for the king to come for the church. And he's coming, folks. We're not looking for a sign. Hey, we're listening for a shout. It says there, shout. You ever study that in the Bible, people shout? Bible says David shouted for the battle. I'm telling you, there's people in the Bible over there where Joshua led that crew around the wall of Jericho and they shouted and the walls came down. Let me say this, the Bible says here that I come quickly. I want to preach to you tonight about this thought. He's on his way. I remember when I was a young boy growing up, you know, my dad had a job called, well, he worked at the sawmill, about over, pretty close to 80 miles away, and he never come home. All we knew was he'd left and he never come home, and mom and the rest of us kids would be home, and, you know, and we kind of, you get to a few days, you start counting, you know, when's dad supposed to be home? You don't have a real good idea, but you're kind of guessing that he might show up But, you know, when he had to, he'd go, be gone months at a time, and, you know, sometimes, you know, he'd be out there, you know, and all of a sudden you hear that he's on his way. And when they do that, I'm telling you what, all the boys are straightened up. Mom would say, all right, you need to fix this, you need to go do this, and, you know, make sure, do this, put this thing back in its place. And I'm telling you, everybody start running around like a chicken's head cut off. And everybody trying to do right, trying to live right, trying to walk right, you know, because death was coming home. And you know, when we heard those words, you know, he's on his way. I'm telling you, that meant that, you know what, he was soon to come and be with his family. And I always thought about that, you know. When, even when I was a kid, I grew up listening to that, but then when I became an adult and I was preaching, Mom would say that. Mom would say, like, Dad, go after the cattle or something, and then, and she'd come out and he'd say that. She'd say, he's on his way. He'd say that. That's the word. You know. And that's what it means. It means he's on his way. And I always think about that, you know, when I come to read about the Lord Jesus Christ, when he says, behold, I come quickly. You know that I want to say tonight he is on his way. I mean, listen, I think about Christian life. You know, Christian life is a life of tests. Thank God for the men of God, you know. I not only hear, but other men of God are represented tonight who are faithfully preaching and teaching every Sunday morning, and every Sunday evening, and every midweek service. Amen. Hey, sometimes you may not like it. Sometimes, you know what, you might just thought maybe I'd rather be somewhere else, you know, but you ought to thank God that man of God cracks this book open. Amen. He got something to say from heaven. Amen. Trying to help you folks. And every time he opens the Bible, it is a test. Amen. And a lot of us tonight, we don't understand, you know, a lot of things that's going on in the world, but we can know one thing. We don't need to go talk to, you know, these palm readers. We don't have to talk to somebody out there that's a witch. Amen. We know how this thing's going to end. We know the book tells us that He is coming. The last thing He said was that, you know, behold, I come quickly. Well, I'll tell you, there has never been a time like today. when the old time way is scoffed at, when the old time way is scorned by Christians. I mean, you know, it's laughed at, you know, people make fun of it. I'm at home preaching and people say, oh, you're that Baptist preacher that believes that Jesus is coming. We got Baptists back home that no longer believe in the premillennial, pre-tribulation return of Jesus Christ. There's crazy folks out there that believe in mid-trip rapture. Hey, if you're going to admit tribulation, it's not going to be a rapture. It's going to be a rupture. I don't know about you, but I'm looking for a rapture. I'm looking for my Savior to come take us out. Amen. I'm saying to you this morning, this evening, hey, He's on His way. You want God to move you and your heart and your home? You'll have to contend for this book. Jesus is coming. He said, Behold, I come. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. Folks, because he's coming, we ought to keep his word. And when I say keep his word, amen, we ought to keep preaching it. Amen, preach. The Bible said preach the word in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke with all longsuffering. Hey, you know what? You preach it when they like it. You preach it when they don't like it. You preach it when they don't want to hear it. Amen, just preach it. We get to the place where we get too soft about the preaching. Amen. Just rear back. Clear your spot. Just say, bless God. I want to tell you how the cow ate the cabbage. Amen. Let me tell you about what Jesus did and what Jesus said and what Jesus is going to do, you know. Now, it was all like that. But you know what? That don't keep us from preaching. I mean it's the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Ghost of God that will help establish you. Establish some things for you that nothing else can. Thank God for the Word of God. Keep the Word of God. When you keep the Word of God, keep it clear. Bible says, add not to it. Bible says, take away from it. That's the warning here in this portion of Scripture. Don't put nothing to it and don't take nothing from it. Just preach it clear. Just preach it pure. Amen. And we live in a day when the Lord is coming. We need to stay with this stuff. Stay with what God told us to stay with. I'm not very smart. I'm not very educated. But I can read. Bible says seek out the book and read. You get a whole lot more when you read it. And that's what's good about it. You keep the word clear. I want to say not only that, but John goes over here, and he's so moved by it, you know, verse 7, that John sees the voice, and he turns to the voice, and it's an angel. And he falls down to worship him, and the angel said, See that thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, thy brother, and the prophets of them which keep the sayings of this book. Then he says to him, Worship God. Amen. You know what? You and I tonight, we're going to keep the saints of the prophecy of this book. We need to keep worshiping God. There was a day when my people didn't know the God of heaven. That's been many, many years ago. And I'll tell you today, there are still a whole lot of different religions on the reservation. But I'll tell you what, when people came to a crisis and when people came to a place where, you know, they need help, you know, they didn't turn to the the mountains, and they didn't turn to the sticks, and they didn't turn to the rocks. Amen. They turned to God Almighty, and God answered them and said, I'll give you a man. I'll raise up a man. God raised up a man in Oklahoma, brought him home, made him the president of the Navajo Nation. God touched his heart. You know what? And today, the Navajo Nation, like it or love it, they've got to say president. God can work with God can do something with it and some of us today. We're saved born-again Christians out of the reservation It's about time. We really earnestly pray for our president and our vice president You know what we need to be serious about our worship I mean Keep the word clear get the worship clean. Amen. I Had you know I had to go up north and You know, when I got saved up in the northern part of the reservation, but I had to go up north to get saved. Listen, there's a lot of confusion about people today in churches, and I don't know about you, but I'm not confused about salvation. I mean, listen, when I got saved, folks, it's an amazing thing to me that, you know, among a lot of churches in America, what's being taught out of the pulpits, I mean, talk about work salvation, talk about you got to be member of this church and all this stuff, but you know what? I'm not confused about it. I mean, the day I got saved, folks, I'll tell you what, God turned the light on, you know what I mean? I mean, I got saved, folks, I got straightened out. Hey, folks, I'm headed in the right direction tonight. I remember that day when God moved me all the way from the southern part of the reservation, the place called Vanderwagen. That's even outside the reservation where the Navajo Nation bought new land, and that's where we live. And God took me up from there all the way to the northern part where the four corners come, Colorado, Utah, Arizona. I went up there and that's where I met my wife. And that's where God put me so I could get saved away from all my buddies, away from all the distraction, away from everything that was sending me to hell. And I remember when I moved over there, my mother-in-law used to pray day in, day out to the point where, man, it made me sick. I've never seen a woman so diligently pray. When I come home after work, she's praying. I've got booze on my breath. I've got cigarettes on my breath. She's praying. In the morning when I get up and have breakfast, she goes to praying. Then one day a house opened up there, but over in the eastern part of the reservation, a place called Kirtland. And you know, I went up there and I asked about that house. They gave me that brand new house. And we moved in. It was $400 a month. My wife said, can we afford it? And I said, well, I'm sure we can. But really, the truth was, I was desperate. Amen. I was desperate to get away from this stuff. So I moved up there and I settled in real comfortable. I thought everything was going to get better. And boy, I'll tell you what, before I could even turn around, that following Thursday, a knock came on my door. And I thought, who in the world would that be? And here's this tall white man standing there. I said, what do you want? I didn't know there were a lot of white people on this reservation here. Then he said this, he said, you know, somebody told me to come looking on you because I need to talk to you about something about your soul. And I thought, who in the world told on me? I told my wife, I said, is your mama still on the hunt? What's she doing? But you know what, my mother-in-law knew nothing about it. But I tell you, when we moved, took all the stuff out of her house and we loaded up on that little car and we went up there and unloaded, came back for a second load and we took a lot of stuff up there, little did I know that somebody else got in the car with us and went up there. Then his name is the Holy Spirit of God Amen he said you know what we're gonna call that preacher to come down here and get you right with God You know I'm so glad folks that tonight. I know I'm February 11 1983 and that gymnasium just on the right side there where God met with me amen I'm talking about a man. That's God was a drunkard fuck and I got up, man, I'm not a drunk no more. Amen, I got up, folks, to say living for God, one God. I'm talking about, hey, the day that I got saved, God moved in, the devil moved out. Hey, I've never been the same since then. The reason why you see me here tonight is because of that. But God was working, you see, God was working there. And I thank God that that man kept preaching. When I say keep the Word of God, you need to keep preaching. You need to keep practicing what the preaching gives you. Amen. We live in a day when people just come and amen you and hoo-ha out of the church and don't even practice. When a person comes to me and says, that was good preaching, I always think that they probably didn't get all of it or they didn't get none of it. A lot of times we just say that just to be nice. But how many has ever gotten any help and really asked that prayer or told that prayer? Sure, I sure appreciate that because that helped me. Man, thank God for the men of God that preach the Word of God and stay with it. You know what? Because, hey, folks, they'll help straighten you up. They help you get along with the things that's right. Amen. This is what he's talking about. I believe he said, you know, right there in the verse, he said that keep the sayings of this prophecy of this book. Not only that, but you notice he said there verse 12 and behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be. That verse there tells me we need to keep working. Amen. Folks, if you're in this church here, you ought to be here every time the doors open. Amen. Let's show up 30 minutes early or at least an hour early and act like you want to go to church. Amen. Don't come in here looking like, man, the world been beating up on you, and you along with that, you've been drinking lemon juice or something, you know, and you come to church. I mean, come in here and folks, and just say, hey, I'm looking forward to tonight. I'm looking forward to what God has for me. Thank God. Folks, I know that. Thank God. You know, I love my church. I love what goes on at the church. Folks, I got saved. When I got saved Sunday night, I got in church. You know, the best thing in this world we got, in this old stinking world, is the church. Well, I look forward to stepping out of that world and stepping to church every opportunity, every chance we get. Amen. Just load up on some old-fashioned Holy Ghost goodness and get down to doing something for God again. I like the singing. I like what was going on tonight. Man, I get goosebumps all over. Man, that never happened back in the old life. This kind of singing, man, steer the heart, it don't stomp the feet. Some of us Indians, we know how to stomp our feet, don't we? When that tune comes in, they start, hey, do we start stomping our feet? That's what they call it, you know, they said, acting like a bunch of wild Indians. Some of you go into these honky-tonks, you know. See, that's where I got saved. I got saved out of a honky-tonk. I didn't get saved in the church out of the pew or bus route. Man, I was as weak as hell. But when God saved me, folks, I got in the church and, boy, I never heard such good music in all my life. Man, I had old gospel hymns. You know, I remember when that preacher that led me to the Lord got to singing in Navajo. And he'd been on the reservation a couple years before I met him. And that old boy, he'd sound out the words all wrong. He's trying to sing it in Navajo, and instead of saying thah, he'd say thah, you know, and that was pretty near a bad word. And I'd laugh, I'd giggle, you know, and I'd say, man, he's pretty close to saying something bad, you know. And then after a while, he just put the songbook away and said, that's good enough. He said, that's the extent of my Navajo. Then he'd get the old book out. Boy, I tell you, he'd get stirred up, and he'd get to preaching, I'm telling you. But you know what? I never got over that old-fashioned gospel singing. We're sitting there a while ago and we, I've known Brother Westy, man, over 20 some years. I remember him when Miss Shelley and the girls were just small. And then his daddy, Brother Otis would get up there and his mama and they would sing. I'm talking about God just moved me. I'd run around that tabernacle, you know, I was tired out, you know, because I got, I have never heard singing like that before in my life. It messed me up. It was like that one time he got on at our camp meeting and I think it was Brother Tinney and somebody else went out and Tinney was running halfway around the church field. You remember that? And he stopped and I went around. I was running behind him around the church and I came around the corner and here's Brother Tinney. And I said, Brother, you all right? He said, Yeah, sure good, huh? I'll tell you, hey, good singing make a fool out of you. If it's the kind of singing that pleases God, man, it's all right to make a fool out of yourself or stuff like that, amen. I pray we never get over that. I pray when God moves in here and get to steering around, hey, that we just help it along, amen. Some of you so dark and restrained that it just stiffens you up when the singing starts. I like that singing. Boy, it's been good singing around here. It's the kind of singing I like, amen. I'm glad I got a hold of the real thing. Amen. Folks, I don't have skits at church. I don't have plays at church. We don't do none of that stuff. We don't even sing for birthdays. If you had a birthday and I sing for you, next week your buddy or somebody else would want us to sing for him. And the next thing you know, all we got is a big birthday bus at the church. That's what goes on in all the independent Baptist churches. We don't even mention that. Somebody come around and say, you know what, it's my birthday. I say, okay, all right, all right. We don't even make no big deal about it. I don't think the Lord made a big deal about his birthday. But see, we made you all the things that are not important, but then we get all bent out of shape when somebody comes up here and starts singing about God. The other night we was listening to the Enlighteners and I tell you what, on the way home I said, I want to just pop that tape in and listen to it again. He said, the people got so loud I couldn't understand the words so I need to get it again. It's that old fashioned singing. But we don't, you know, my kids, you know, I don't think these young men would be here if we did all them, if we played all them games and stuff. I believe that, you know, we need to stick with the thing that works. And God said, you know, keep the word, keep preaching it, keep worshiping, keep working. Therefore, my beloved brother, he said, Be you steadfast, I move always abounding in the word of the Lord. But as much as you know that your labor is not in vain. Jesus talking about you know how it was important that the night cometh when no man can work He said work while it's called day God He said my father sent me to work so that I can work in the day because the night cometh when no man can work Folks the Sun's about to go down on the church We're living in dark times And I tell you what, every once in a while, you know what, we get a bounce in our walk, we get a little shout in our singing, folks, and it kind of lightens it up a little bit more. Folks, I come off the world, getting to the church, man, I tell you, I get a lot of good help when I come to church. Then he said this, in verse 20, He which testified these things said, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come Lord Jesus. You know what that means? It means keep watching. Amen. We need to keep our eyes open, our spiritual eyes. We need to keep our minds clear. Amen. You know over there in Revelation chapter number 3, verse 11, he says that hold fast that which thou hast. He's talking about contending. Jude tells us we have to contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. Folks, if you're a Christian, there ought to be some contention about you. There ought to be some things you stand against. When people say that, I'm not for that. One of the preachers, a preacher friend of mine, he came and helped do the morning devotion for the president. And I'm talking about he got up, Brother Begay, and I mean he preached an excellent message. And I thought, my soul, that was good. And then there was about three or four of those Bible church preachers there, they were trying to hunt the verses, you know, and Brother Begay was, he said, just close your Bible, you don't have the book. He said, and he went and preached out of the King James Bible. These guys had NIV and New King James Version, and they were just sitting there quiet, and after he preached, man, he got more quiet. And he had a real good attention, and I told him, I said, you ought to give me invitation. You know what he did? He turned around and told the president, he said, hey, that casino money, what are you all doing with it? Throw some our way. You know what he did? He went and just destroyed what God just did. And I told him, I said, brother, but hey, go sit down and shut your mouth. Sometimes we're like that. We don't have a sensitivity of the Holy Spirit and we say and do things that God never told us to do. And you know what? It kind of bothered me for a while. I told Brother McGee, I said, you know what? I said, God wants to use you, but don't go around and do things that you want to do. I said, I like your spirit. You're contending, but you're contending in the wrong things. Amen. The Bible tells us that you know how to be able to defend some things, and we heard preaching this week about that. About the family and the home. You know, about places that are important to us, are important to the Lord. We ought to contend for that. Listen, if you're a contender, that quit is not going to be part of your vocabulary. Amen, we got a lot of quitters. I remember when I was a kid, you know, we ran in high school and we was always fighting the white boys or the Mexican boys or the black boys. You know, the black boys already ran because they were always a small number. But the Mexican kids, they were about the number with us and they always wanted to fight the Navajo. And so a few times we fight and then one time my buddy got to fight one of those guys and we didn't know he was a Golden Glove champion. And I mean, he's bouncing around, man, and I mean, he's weaving, he's bobbing, and Benjamin couldn't hit that guy. He kept swinging, you know, like an old-fashioned, you know, brawler type, you know, just... He couldn't hit that guy, and that guy would come in and just hit him, hit him real good, and he didn't know what hit him. And Benjamin would go down, and we'd say, come on, quit fooling around, beat him up. So he'd get up, and then he'd shake himself and say, all right, I'll get him this time. I was just fooling around. He'd go in there, and boy, he'd just get beat up again. He'd fall down again. Pretty soon, he's bleeding. Pretty soon, you know what? We don't have much confidence in him no more. Then we'd say, Benjamin, stay down. You're a whoop. And he'd get up, and he'd go, I don't care. He ain't with me yet. Come on, you know. Boy, I tell you, that day, that Mexican guy went and broke all his fingers. And you know what? We got to go free. Amen. Listen, let me tell you something. The devil's a contender, but we need some folks to stand up by the grace of God and fight a good fight. Amen. There might be some people out there that are bound with sin or bound with things. And hey, it might just be the very thing we contend with that will help loosen them and long enough for Jesus to save them. Amen. And help them. Amen. We need people like that today. Just learn how to contend. Then Revelation chapter 22 verse 7. You know what he said there? Blessed is he that keep the saying of the prophecy of this book. Not only contending, but let me say cleaving. We need to learn how to cleave. I like that Eleazar, don't you? I mean, he stood there in that field, and he took that sword, and he fought all day long. He killed a lot of enemy soldiers. And when it was over, bless God, he didn't say, well, I guess there's nobody else to fight me. He kept swinging until somebody came by and said, that's enough, son. It's over. Man, it's been over hours ago. And the Bible says that when they went to take that sword, it claimed to his hand. I'm telling you what, he didn't let it go. We need some people today just to take the sword, amen, and just hold on to it till the Lord comes. Hey, he's on his way. Let the word of God claim to your head. Hey, let the word of God be part of your life. Let it be something to contend with, amen. You know, the thing that I notice a lot today is that people don't really know what to do. Romans 12, 9 says, cleave to that which is good. Amen. Learn to get a hold of something that's good. It works. Just keep at it. Amen. Just stay at it. I remember when I was a little boy, my dad would hire people to go work out in the field. And you know, I was just a little boy, I was 10, 11 years old, and dad would take me to the barn, and I had to put the harness on the big mules. And one mule, his name was Charlie. And the fellow that gave it to my dad told him, he said, this is the horse's name, and he'll obey you, this mule. So he said, his name is Charlie. My dad had never been to school, so he called him Challah. And that was the Navajo slang for Charlie. He said, Charlie. And the mule would just look at him like, what's wrong with you? If that mule could talk, he'd probably say, bless you. But he could never say it right. And you know, but one day he told me, he said, you go on there and you put the harness, everything on it. And I went in there and I put the harness on it. And I said that, I said, Charlie, you stay still. Boy, I'll tell you, he'd just stand there like that, and I'd just, because he wouldn't let my dad do that. And I'd put that on, and put everything on him, and went out there, and I'm just a peon, you know. Nobody cares about the little boy with the wagon, with the water wagon. Everybody's out there working. By around about 10, 11 o'clock, I'm the most important guy. I got down to the trading post. I got me some ice and I put it in that barrel. And he had this real thick metal barrel. And when I started coming back down, you could hear that ice rolling around in that barrel. And you see them men look up and they go, hey, over here. They want water. And boy, I love to play tricks on them. I love to give them a hard time. Now you know what my dad said? My dad says, Stick to it. That's what you're gonna do. Just stick to it. Every day, you make sure you do that. And you know what? It became part of my life. You know why? Because something held on to it. It cleaved to it. And you know, pretty soon, me and Charlie became good friends. I'd get a pop. I get pop out of my house and I pop, you know, the long pop, you know, and I go down there and I open it and I give it to him and he just stand there and he just chug it. And I strap him up and I get no problem out of him. And my dad said, you're going to kill my meal with a sugar. And I said, well, at least he's doing what you're being told. Amen. I think about that when I think about this word here. Number three, I want you to know something else. I'm almost done. Look in Revelation 22, 17. It says, The Spirit and the bride say, Come, let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Then I want you to notice back there in verse 12. He said, Behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be. I want to say not only God wants us to contend and wants us to be cleaving, but there's a compensation for it. My reward is with me. Folks, when you and I get involved in this thing, they say, let the bride say come. I wonder if that's what he's talking about is the fact that we invite people. We tell people, man, this is the best life. Man, when I got saved, folks, I lost... I used to tell my preacher, man, what am I going to do now? All my buddies, you know, they just come around, we drink, we play cards, and all the wee hours of the night, what am I going to do? He said, don't worry about that, son. I said, they'll leave. About two weeks later, nobody come by the house. I started worrying about it. Where are my buddies? The preacher said, you're going to get some new buddies. Don't worry about that. These people here, they live clean, they love God like you, and you're going to like them. He said, just go ahead and start learning about them. He said, the more you do that, he said, the more God will reward you one day. I mean, he put that in my mind, and I said, man, that's good. The Bible says our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Amen. Again, my dad taught me that years ago. Out of seven boys, I'm the seventh one. And I remember my brothers used to go out in the field, and we had to go work the field real hard. It was hard labor. It was hard work. It was heavy work. But my brothers would go out there, and they would complain. And when they thought Dad wasn't watching, they would gripe, and they would complain, why do we have to sack these beans all the way up? And then my dad would take a bag of beans, and he would shake it, and he would roll it around, you know how the Bible says shake it, and shake it up and down, and all that pressed down, running over. He'd do that, and then that beans would go down again. Then you gotta put some more. And after a while, you sew it up, and we'd load it on this big deuce and a half truck. And we were doing that, and my brother would always complain. And one day, my dad said, you're going to help the boys. So I went out there, and they make me pick up the beans and push it up there on the truck. And boy, that was hard work. I mean, my arms were tired. My legs were tired. And I kept thinking, you know, I'm going to say something. I'm going to let the boys know that they're just picking on me. And my dad is standing there all the time. We didn't know that. And they just kept doing that. Finally, my brother said, you get up here. We'll go back down there. And you get up here. And you stack it. So I went up there. And I did that without complaining. And after a while, you know, my dad came over. And he said, son, he said, you know what? He said, this bean is going to market. And he said, when it goes to market and that man gives us money for it, he said, you go with me. He said, I want you to be the first one to pick out everything you want at the store. And my brother said, how come we can't go? And he goes, complainers are last, he said. I went in the store, and he said, what do you want? And my dad said, what do you want? And I said, man, I just went in there. I just picked whatever I wanted. And no candy, none of that stuff, but just clothing. Because clothes was real scarce. And we picked up clothes, and pick up a hat, and pick up a brand new pair of shoes. Man, I walked out of there and I said, man, I'm glad we worked hard all summer. I'm glad for this. I got new clothes. A lot of Indian people come back to the dormitory, the school, and they would have no clothes. And then finally the government would issue clothes, what they called government issued clothes. But then a lot of those clothes were not your fashion clothes, you know. It wasn't Wrangler pants, it wasn't nice, you know, scent shirts, you know. It was just old third, fourth hand shirts and pants. A lot of those Indians didn't like them. They had that Maverick pants, you know, that time a lot of Navajos didn't like them. They said the W is upside down, so I don't like it. You know, that kind of stuff. But you know what? I go over there. I go over there and take them away. Or else, I said, let me have it. Because I knew how expensive they were, and the government paid for it. But you know what? A lot of us that didn't get those clothes, because my dad clothed us so well that we didn't get no issued clothes. But the kids that did didn't want them. Then the kids that didn't get them, we wanted them. And so I would end up with a lot of clothes, you know. And I always think about that, you know. Because I was faithful to my daddy and helped him, my dad saw to it that even in school I would get clothes. Then I got to thinking about that when I got saved and I thought, because we're faithful to the Lord for the, you know, for the things we have, God will give us more. And those rewards will be one day, will be something that, you know, we don't even know half, you know, like the Queen of Sheba said, we don't know half what's been told. All the stuff God has for us. That's because we've been faithful. I believe that this is what it's talking about. There's a compensation. There's a day when we're going to be compensated. And of course, Revelation 22, 20 said, surely I come. That's certainty. That's certain. I mean, there's no ifs, buts, maybe about it. The Lord is coming. Well, I'm telling you, all that work, all that doing will be worth it when it's over. Like that same daddy that finally came home one day. You know, we said my brothers, they're always up to no good. My sisters, too, sometimes when they get the house chores done and we get the plane and dad would be away. But we had a big, tall pinon, I mean, a ponderosa pine tree. And we built a treehouse way up on top. And then they'd always tell me that. They didn't want me to play, because they didn't want me to tell Dad and Mom what everybody was up to. Because the youngest one always tells, you know. Because he's beaten up, he's made to cry and all this stuff. So they tell me, go up there and sit in the tree and tell us when mom and dad are coming. So I had to sit up in that tree. And on that tree you could look across and there's hills all the way to the highway. And you could see the highway. Three miles, you could see that highway because you could, the trees just above all them hills. And then after a while, you could hear daddy coming in that old Studebaker. I mean, the whole thing's about to fall apart. The fender's about to fall off. I made all that racket, and you could hear it. And I would sit up there, and then I would say that, no, the wall! I'd say that. And you could see them people scattered like ants. I mean, everybody's putting something there, something there, you know? And I'm the only one that was happy to see Dad and Mom, because I had not been up to no good. I've been up there, I've been chastised, I've been punished by my family, and I'm up there, but when Mom and Dad come, man, he sets them straight. I just stare there and laugh. I say, you see, Dad knows what's going on. You know, one of these days, the Lord's going to come. He's going to straighten out everything. He said, let the just be unjust still. Everything that we ever done that we thought was hiding is going to be exposed. We're going to a judgment seat, folks. Just as certain as we're here tonight, we're going to a place where we're going to stand before God. Are you ready? Do you know tonight could be the night that that shout could happen? Tonight would be the night the trumpet could sound? He's on His way. Are you keeping things right in your life?
He is on His way
Series 2016 Magic City Jubilee
Sermon ID | 715169654 |
Duration | 45:36 |
Date | |
Category | Camp Meeting |
Language | English |
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