Ezekiel 22, 14. God says, Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it. Now, Paul said that we heard a message about this this week, giving our bodies to the Lord. And he said the problem is that our bodies are composed of many members, and in these members There's a conflict going on. He said that there's a warfare, there's sin in my members, he said. He said, with my mind I obey the law of God, but in my flesh I'm obeying the law of sin. He said, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, and they're contrary to one another so that you cannot do the things that you would. God said it's appointed unto man once to die, and after this, to judgment. Thank you, brother. And so one day, all of us are going to stand before the Lord, and we're going to give an account. He says in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 10-11, we're going to give an account of the things done in the body, whether they're good or bad. We'll give an account of those things to the Lord, and Paul says in talking about the judgment seat of Christ, he says, Therefore, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. The judgment seat of Christ is not going to be a fun day. It's going to be just like in a courtroom, and you're the defendant, and you're going to answer to the high judge, and he's going to question you about things you did in your life and how you managed your life and so forth, how you lived for him, how you didn't live for him, and we're going to give a full account of everything concerning our life since we got saved. And let's be honest, we haven't always lived for the Lord since we got saved. All of us have a lot. to answer for. Paul talks about the members. That's what I want to talk about this morning. You're going to give an account, and the question is, can thine heart endure when the Lord asks you about these things? Let's say, first of all, can your heart endure when the Lord asks you about your eyes? What did you do with those two members in the front of your head, your eyes? Job, the Bible talks about him being a righteous man, a just man, one that is true of evil, a perfect man before the Lord and so forth. But Job had a problem with his eyes. How do you know? In Job 31, verse 1, he said, Hey, I had to make a covenant with my eyes. And then he says the reason he had to make that covenant with his eyes, why then should I think upon a maid? He said, I had to make an agreement with my eyes so I wouldn't be looking into women all the time. You young guys, you need to make a covenant with your eyes to keep them off the girls. Older men need to make the same kind of covenant. Hey, the only reason a man can be called a dirty old man is because he used to be a dirty young teenager. We develop our habits in our young years. And they follow us all the way to the cemetery. Make a covenant with your eyes. The Bible says if the eye be evil, the whole body shall be full of darkness. He said in Matthew 7, verse 3, Why beholdest thou the moat in thy brother's eye? But considerest not thou the beam in thine own eye? You know what he's talking about? He's talking about looking down on people and having a holier-than-thou attitude. And he said, Hey, you can't get that little splinter out of your brother till you get that four-by-four beam out of your own eye so you can see clearly. Have you made an agreement with your eyes that you'll use them for the Lord Jesus Christ? You'll look at things the way He sees things. You'll see sin the way He sees sin. You'll see other people the way He sees other people. You're going to answer for what you do with those eyes. It's so serious, the Lord said, If thine eye offend thee, what did he tell you to do with it? Pluck it out, man. It's serious stuff. Peter says, talking about the last days, that's where we live. 2 Peter 2, verse 14, he says, They will have eyes full of adultery. Boy, we're in that day. We're in that day. We talk about don't look at pornography. All you've got to do is go down to Gafer's Opinions and see all the pornography you want to see. Hanging right up in front of everybody. Victoria's Secret, there in the mall, all that stuff, right out for everybody to see! Having eyes full of adultery! And it's not—he talked about the women getting tattoos as much as the men these days. It's the women involved in pornography as much as the men these days. Amen! He's going to ask you about those eyes. What were you looking at? Is your heart going into it when He asks you about your ears? Matthew 11, 15, Jesus said we need to have ears to hear. He's talking about hearing the things of the Lord and putting them into practice in our own life. Job 36, verse 10, God opened their ear to discipline and commanded that they return from iniquity. We heard one of the girls testify she didn't want to believe in God because if there was no God, then there didn't have to be an authority for her to listen to. You're going to have to answer what you allowed your ears to listen to, the kind of music you listen to, the kind of friends you let talk to you, and the things you let people dump into your ears. He says in Proverbs 4, verse 20, My son, attend to my words, incline that ear unto my sayings. But you know what we are a lot of times? We're like Israel. Zechariah chapter 7, verse 11 says they pulled away the shoulder and stopped up the ear and would not listen to God. And that's the way we act a lot of the time, even as adults, we act like spoiled brats. God's trying to tell us something, we'll pull away the shoulder, we'll stop up to here and refuse to listen to what God has to say to us. You've got to give an account for how you used your ears. It says in 1 Kings 19, verse 12, that Elijah, He couldn't hear God in the whirlwind. He couldn't hear God in the earthquake. He couldn't hear God in the fire. But you heard a still, small voice. You know what the problem is? The problem is sometimes while we can't hear God, there's so many voices out there in the world calling unto us, and sometimes we're listening to the earthquakes and the fires and all that stuff, and we can't hear that still, small voice of God trying to speak to us. We're letting everything else fill our ears but God. Let me say this. You cannot hear when you're complaining. You can't listen when you're running your mouth off and gossiping and griping and complaining and all that kind of stuff. Can your heart endure when he asks you about your ears? And that brings me up to number three. Can your heart endure when he asks you about your tongue? James said we're to be slow to speak. You know why? Because we've got a bad habit of diarrhea of the mouth. We run off at the mouth. We say things we ought not to say. And we say it without thinking. And when you say it, it's too late. You can say, I'm sorry, all you want to, the hurt's already been done, the problem, the devastation's already been put forth, and you can apologize all you want to, and it can never change it. God says in Proverbs 6, He says one of the seven things He says there, it's an abomination to Him, one of them's a lying tongue. Boy, we're all good at that, aren't we? Did you know, you know you can lie by telling the truth? You can tell somebody something in such a way, and what you say is absolute truth, but it's designed to cause them to think something else, and what they think is a lie. But you said it designed to make them think it that way. You're going to have to answer for that tongue. James 3 says the tongue is a world of iniquity. It's a fire. It's a serpent's poison. It's set on fire of hell. He says, Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. We'll go to church, and we'll bless the Lord, and we'll bless the people of God, and then we'll walk away from the church house and curse the people of God. Out of the same mouth. I think you Indians used to call that speaking with a forked tongue. Is that correct? Amen. That's the way we are a lot of times. We're going to have to answer for that tongue. He says it's a little member, but it kindles a great fire. And it does. Jesus said, you're going to be justified by your words, or you're going to be condemned by your words. Amen. Can your heart endure? when he asked you about your tongue. Psalm 120, verses 2 and 3 talks about a deceitful and a false tongue. Proverbs 17, 20, a perverse tongue. Proverbs 25, 23, a backbiting tongue. He said in Proverbs 18, 21, that death and life are in the power of the tongue. You can say things that lame people to hell, and you can say things that lame them to heaven. It's all in the power of the tongue. Somebody said a long time ago that the pen is mightier than the sword. The pen comes from here. You're right what you would say to somebody. Mightier than the sword. Let me ask you, can your heart endure when the Lord asks you about your hands? What do you do with them? What do you use them for? Ecclesiastes 9.10, he says, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. And of course, in context, he's talking about doing things for God. He's not talking about using your hands to rob the 7-Eleven store or something like that, or use your hands when you ought not to be using them, when you're in a dark place with the wrong person. He's talking about use your hands for the glory of God. He says in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, do all to the glory of God. Everything you do should be for the Lord Jesus Christ, for the glory of Him. He said in James 4, verse 8, cleanse your hands, you sinners. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 1, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh, members of the body and the spirit, our thinking, our mind, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. He's going to ask you about your hands. One thing your hands can do, 1 Timothy 4, verse 8, he says, pray, lifting up holy hands. Pray, lifting up holy hands. That means clean, undefiled. Ezekiel said, when you stand before the Lord, are you going to have to give account for blood on your hands? We could have witnessed if somebody didn't, and they'd die and go to hell. The Lord says, their blood's on our hands. He said, you didn't warn them about their iniquity, and the blood is on your hands. I'm going to hold you accountable for that. But He said, if you told them, and they still didn't get saved, You've relieved yourself of that responsibility. The blood's not on your hands anymore. Let me say something to you parents. Brother Coley was preaching more so to the parents than he was to the kids. Lamentations 2 verse 19 says, Lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy children. It'll help a whole lot if you spend a lot of time in prayer for your kids. That'll help a whole lot. And then God will give you the wisdom to order your children and train them up in the way they should go and so forth. So use your hands in prayer to God for your kids. He said in Proverbs 31, 20, stretch side hand to the poor, reach forth to the needy. God's going to ask us how we used our hands to help those in need, to lift those up who were fallen. We're going to have to answer for all those kind of things. He said in Luke 9, 62, Jesus said, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back And it's fit for the Kingdom of God. We do that a lot, though, don't we? We got saved. We put our hands on the plow. We entered into the Kingdom of God. But we sure do a lot of looking back at what we left behind. You know why a farmer can't afford to look back when he's plowing? Because when he gets to the end of the row, it's going to be like that. instead of straight like it should be. And that's why our Christian life is like that sometimes. We're looking back into the world back there instead of looking forward to the Lord and plowing a straight furrow there. He talks about in Galatians 2, the right hands of fellowship. What is he talking about? Unity among God's people. Unity among God's people. And by the way, you can shake hands with somebody coming into church on Sunday morning. That doesn't mean you've got unity with that person. It doesn't mean that at all. It grieves the Spirit of God for a Christian to sit on the pew and to cross you out on the other pew. Somebody, they hate them and they got bitterness toward them and unforgiveness toward them and all that stuff. And it hinders the Spirit of God working in the house of God. You know how many people it took to stop the Spirit of God from working in the lives of 600,000 men plus their families? How many did it take? One. We don't have a church of 600,000 people. One person is all it takes. What are you going to say when the Lord asks you about your feet? Well, God says a weird thing in Scripture. He says, how beautiful are the feet of those that take forth the glad tidings. Feet are the ugliest part of you. But God says they're beautiful to Him when we use our feet to take us places to tell people about the Lord Jesus. feet to take us out to give forth the gospel. But he says in Proverbs 6, 18, another abomination, their feet swift to shed blood. Oh, I'd never kill anybody. John said, if you hate your brother, you're already a murderer. And if we go around gossiping about each other, running our mouth about each other, we actually have feet that are swift to shed blood. We just can't wait to get somewhere and tell somebody else the latest juicy bit of gossip. Proverbs 25, 19 says an unfaithful man is like a foot out of joint. A foot out of joint! He said that's the way you are when you're unfaithful to the Lord and the things of the Lord. What are you going to say when they ask you about your thoughts? You know, it's our thoughts that motivates the rest of our members, causes them to do what they do. He's going to ask you what went on in your mind. Peter said, gird up the loins of thy mind. Paul said, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. How can I be renewed in the spirit of my mind with this? with this study to show thyself approved unto God. That means if I don't study this book, my life's not approved. Why? Because I won't know what God wants if I don't study His book. How can I possibly be approved? Put the Word of God in your heart, thy Word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy Word. What you got in your mind, young person? What you got in there? Put the Scriptures in there. Somebody was telling me the other day, one of our young people was telling me that she had memorized this chapter and that chapter and so forth. She made a statement that while she's young, she wants to fill her mind with the Scriptures. Amen. I'll just tell you now, it gets harder as you get older. Instead of putting junk in there and all the junk, why don't you just put the Word of God in there? Amen. I mean, how could the Holy Spirit work with you? How could He bring the Scriptures to mind you need when you're facing temptation if they're not in there? So He's not going to work it that way. He tells you, we've got a certain amount of responsibility before God to do anything. He's going to ask you about your thought life. He's going to ask you what you dwell on. Paul said, casting down imaginations, 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5. Imaginations, that's in the mind. And every high thing that exalted the self above, the knowledge of God, that's in the mind. And bringing into captivity every thought that's in the mind under Jesus Christ, under the obedience of Christ. Every thought, bringing into captivity under Him. He's going to ask you about your mind. You say, well, nobody knows what I'm thinking. God said in Ezekiel 11, verse 5, I know what comes into your mind. The thoughts that come into your mind, every one of them. Every single one of them. We need to get our thinking right. Well, my thoughts, I'm just always thinking the wrong thing. You know what He said how to do that? Proverbs 16, verse 3. He said, Commit thy work unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. You know what that means? Sell out to God. I'm going to give my life to God. I'm going to serve Him. Commit all my works to Him. Do what He wants me to do. And then He said, He'll establish your thoughts. if you'll just do that. Let me ask you, is your heart going to do it when He asks you about your heart, your emotions, your desires, the things that you've got inside of you that you want out of life? He said, Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Physically, you may be what you eat, but spiritually, you are what you think. You're the sum total of your thought life and your spirituality. Proverbs 23, verse 7, As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. He said in Proverbs 6, 18, The heart that deviseth wicked imagination. Devise it. Sit around and think about wicked things. Devise wicked things. Jeremiah 17, 9, I think somebody's already read that this week. The heart is what? Deceitful. Did you know your heart is more deceitful than the devil is? Say, how did you know that? Well, the verse says so. The heart is deceitful above all things. It doesn't say that. More deceitful than anything is your own heart. We deceive ourselves. Make ourselves think, well, this will be okay. Well, I can do this and it won't hurt anybody. Nobody find out about this. We deceive ourselves. The heart is deceitful. You know why God destroyed the world back in Genesis 6? The thoughts of their hearts is only imagination continually, evil imaginations continually. That's all it was. And he gets on the other side of the flood in Genesis 8 verse 21, and he makes this statement. God said, I'm not going to destroy it anymore with water. You know, that didn't change a thing. Basically, he says the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, from his youth, evil from his youth. The psalmist said, if I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear me. You say, why aren't my prayers getting answered? Is there secret sin in there regarding iniquity in the heart? He said, Lord, deliver me from secret faults and presumptuous sins. Are you going to be able to answer the Lord when he asks you about your heart? And one more thing, are you going to be able to answer the Lord when he asks you about your body as a whole? What are you doing with your body? You know, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. That's what the Bible says. 1 Corinthians 6 says your body is for the Lord, not for fornication. Interestingly, he threw that in that verse. It's for the Lord. And he says if you're guilty of those things, you sin against your own body. That's an amazing thing. I want you to look at that. Go over there first, wherever I was quoting from. 1 Corinthians 6. Boy, there's a strange verse there. A verse that just scares me to death. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Young person, you get this nailed down here and you won't have so many problems later in life. Verse 13. Meats for the belly, the belly for meats, But God shall destroy both it and them. Now, the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God hath raised up the Lord, both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not, now listen to this, know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ? my body, and make them the members of an harlot. God forbid. What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh." Do you comprehend what you just read? You just read, if you use your body for fornication, you are somehow, I don't understand this, but you're dragging Jesus Christ down into your sin with you. A member of the body of Christ, my hand can't do anything without affecting all of me. It cannot do one thing without affecting my body. You cannot do anything as a child of God without affecting the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, you can't bring Him down in your sin. In the Old Testament, God accuses Israel. He said, You caused me to sin. Why? They represent Him. Now, God Himself doesn't sin. You understand that? He doesn't sin. But we are Him. We are His body. Hey, from He's the head, we're the body. Is that what the Bible teaches? Well, my body can't do anything without affecting my head. Amen. You just read it there. Shall I take the members of the body of Christ and join them to a heart of for two cents here of one flesh? It is serious, serious, ultra-serious stuff, young person, to mess around with your body. Paul said, flee fornication. He said, we're to keep our vessel, your body, in sanctification and honor. Jeremiah 2.13, God says to Israel, He said, My people have committed two crimes. He said, they have forgotten Me, and they've made to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water. What is water a type of in the book? It's the Holy Spirit. He said, they've rejected Me, they won't listen to Me. They've made themselves broken cisterns, vessels, which can hold no water. Maybe the reason you can't hold the Holy Spirit is you're a broken cistern. You can't stay filled with Him because you're broken, because you're rejecting Him. Your heart's not right with Him. You use your body for yourself. That's probably the shortest sermon I've ever preached in my life. Think about it. You're going to stand before the Lord. He's going to ask you about your eyes. What are you going to say? He's going to ask you about your ears. He's going to ask you about your tongue. He's going to ask you about your hands. He's going to ask you about your feet. He's going to ask you about your heart. He's going to ask you about your body. Romans 6.13, the Bible says, yield your members. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness. unto God. Psalm 76, verse 7, Thou, even thou, art to be feared, and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Would you go to Ecclesiastes 11? Now, you think about this. You're going to stand before the Lord, and you might say, well, I've got a long time. I think we heard a story already this week about a young man that said, I've got a long time, and he lived 48 hours. You do understand to make caskets of all sizes, from two feet up to seven feet. Amen. Just go walk through the cemetery sometimes. Ecclesiastes 11, verse 9, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes. But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore, remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh. For childhood and youth are vanity. Remember thou thy Creator in the days of thy youth. He said, Go ahead and follow your heart. Go ahead and let it lead you off wherever it wants to go. Follow your eyesight. Go ahead and do all that stuff you want to do. But you better remember, down at the end of the road, God's going to call you into judgment for it. You're going to give an account for it. Can thine heart endure Or can mine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it.