you. I will take my text this morning from Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2. That means open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2. Because you knew that. I'm going to read the first four Next time, I'm gonna do it this way, everybody, at the same time. That's okay, you're up. The Bible says, Hebrews chapter two, therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed, that's the idea of listen, listen, listen, to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the words spoken by angels were steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a judge's recompense or punishment of reward, then, or how shall we, talking about Jews here especially, we'll get to that, how shall we, if we neglect so great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him. God also buried the witness both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles, different kinds of miracles, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will. I'll try to make sense of all that. I think you'll understand in just a moment, and I think it'll be a blessing. Father, bless the word this morning. We do have an anchor that keeps the soul. That anchor is the Lord Jesus and our faith in him. I pray God that hopefully I can share more in a way that will cause everyone to clearly understand this truth and will put it to heart ward. Not just hear it, but to take it, hear it, think about it, meditate on it, and obey it. Just because we hear something, We don't always obey what we hear. So God wants to hear what you have for us. And then as we hear, and we apply that, and obey what you command us to do, Lord. As the verse says, we ought, we ought to give the word, you see. We ought to be doing some things. We ought to be responding the right way. So as believers, then we do what we ought to do. So bless the word this morning. Give me the words to speak. May the power and the spirit of God be evident in those who, as I speak, but in those who listen as we work, they can grasp with their mind and their heart what you have for us. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Be seated, please. It's been several years ago now. I can't remember how long, but my wife and I had the privilege of traveling to Israel on a trip to church. We paid our way. Jordan Caribou also went. They paid their own way. 2012. Is that 12? That's not that long ago. Enjoyed the trip tremendously. A lot of things to see this year. I want to go back and instead of doing the tour, I want to just get in the car and go do my own tour. And it's not that hard to do, I hope. But one of the tour stops was at the Dead Sea. You know about the Dead Sea? The lowest part on Earth, a lot of minerals and salts in it and so forth, and the Dead Sea, it's almost impossible to sink. You can't sink in it. And so the big thing when you get to the Dead Sea, you have to get in the Dead Sea to experience that. So I remember that particular day, it was cold outside, it was windy outside, but I wanted to get in the Dead Sea. So I go from the motel, go down across, and go to get in the dead sea. And there I'm in the dead sea, floating. You can't see. You can't see what you want to see. My hands are up in the air. My head is in the air. My feet are sticking up straight up, and I'm just floating. Whoa, at this deep. I was cold. I was freezing. And then the wind picked up. Here's the bad part. The wind picked up. This started blowing me, and I started drifting. I started drifting out to sea, I thought. I was going to drift. If I didn't do something, I was going to drift all the way to the country of Jordan. I said, I can't go to Jordan. I don't have my passport with me. And so I was drifting. And then I was struggling, trying to get my feet down. It's very hard. You've got to get your feet down. You never want this water to get in your eyes or any place else, you're going to have serious problems. And so I was struggling, so I finally got my feet down, so it was no longer floating, and I got back to the shore. I'm going to preach this morning a message entitled, The Danger of Drifting. The Danger of Drifting. And we'll see that in this text, and I'll show it to you in just a moment. Now I'm going to give you a little background. I'm going to give you a little background. Because it says in verse 1 of chapter 2, it says what? The first word is therefore, which implies what? There's some kind of reference back to something else because of something else. Paul, we're going to assume that he's the writer of the book of Hebrews, that Paul wanted to share something because of what he'd already shared. And he shares some things in chapter 1 that you need to be aware of. Chapter 1 is a great study. First of all, in chapter, in the first chapter, Paul writes with the purpose of concentrating, if you're taking notes, on the fact of the Jewish Messiah. The Jewish Messiah is none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Not just Jesus. There might have been others named Jesus in his day, but it was the Jesus of Nazareth, that little village up above the Sea of Galilee. It was Jesus of that little village. He is the Messiah, and he shares that And he tells about this Messiah, he talks about how Jesus is equal with God in every possible way, the exact image of God, that God spoke to man in one way in early days, the Old Testament, now he spoke through his son, and so he just addresses the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and that he is superior to prophets and priests and kings and anyone else, understand? He also is doing a second thing. He's also seeking to, and he does this really throughout the book, he's confirming Jewish converts. The book of Hebrews is written specifically to the Jews, okay? And the Jews, there were some Jews who heard the message of salvation through this Messiah, Jesus, and they believed what Paul taught and others taught, and they trusted Jesus as their Messiah. But because of their traditions in Judaism, they had to be taught. So really, the entire book of Hebrews confirms Jewish converts. It says how Jesus did this, and he died once. He said his blood is not the Old Testament sacrifice. So the book kind of confirms those who were converted from Judaism to Christianity. The third thing he does in this book is to confront Jewish skeptics. There were Jews who had heard the gospel, had clearly heard the gospel preached by Paul and the others, but had yet made a decision. They may have shown some interest, they had maybe come to Paul, but they had not come to the place where they were willing to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the reason Paul said in verse one, he says, you ought to give more earnest heed to the things which you've heard. You need to listen. You need to be careful. I've told you the truth. You need to listen and respond to what I have told you. To give them more earnest heed. Deb, you've introduced my servant good. Sometimes we listen, but we don't hear. Am I right? Sometimes we listen, but we really don't hear. Those sound waves hit our ears, but it just doesn't register in our mind. You might have been flying lately. You might have been in a plane lately. OK? One person. The rest of you are scared to fly, right? Flying. One of the first things you do, you get in your seat and you sit in it. One of the first things before you depart, what happens? What? No, no, no. OK, you don't go anywhere. They are required, the attendants, the flight attendants, they don't call them stewards. The flight attendants have to do what? They have to give you all the warning and all the safety precautions before you get off the ground, right? Sometimes it's live, sometimes it's through video. And so the first thing they want to show you, now here are the, what are they showing? The exits. Then they have to do this. They have to get a seat buckle and show you how to buckle your seat belt. I mean, do we really have to be told how to buckle our seatbelt? I get it, I don't know. And so, you buckle your seatbelt, they give you all the emergency things, all the emergency oxygen things you're gonna need, put this on your wall and all this stuff. Have you ever flown over water? There's extra precautions, okay? You know that seatbelt you're sitting on? That's a flotation device. Yeah, that's what I needed to hear, right? Now, the question is, Does everybody stop all that they're doing? They put all their phones down. They stop everything they're doing. They just turn their attention to that flight attendant. Oh, I've got to hear this. I've never heard this before. Do they pay close attention? The answer is what? Most people don't. If you're scared of flying, you probably do. People, they're listening, but they're not really hearing. Same thing happens in a school situation, and I've had this happen. The teacher gives detailed instruction about the homework assignment of the classroom, right? You do it this way, you do it this way, you do this, you fill in this blank, blah, blah, blah, and you turn it the other way. And there's always some student about two-thirds of the way back raises their hand and says what? What did you say? I didn't catch all that. They were hearing. are listening, but they're really not hearing. Why should these Jewish people be so careful in listening to what Paul said? He says this, you see in verse one, lest at any time we, we, we, Paul is referring to himself as part of the Jews, we should let them slip. Know what the word slip means? It means to drift. It means to drift. away from these truths. And verse 2 says, if the words spoken by angels were steadfast, every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense and reward, if everything that the prophets of the Old Testament and the angels, if everything that they said was right, and those who disobeyed God a recompense and a reward, which is a punishment, if that's so, if that's true, then, verse 3, how shall we escape? How shall Jews escape the same kind of punishment if we neglect Do not respond to the message of salvation and get saved. So great a salvation. Is it a so great salvation? It's not just salvation. It's just not great salvation. It's so great salvation. Paul is warning the Jews who are listening, take heed that you respond to the gospel. Do not let those, the truth of God's word slip away from you and ignore it because the consequences are catastrophic. To do that is to end up in eternity, separated from God for eternity. That's his message in this area. Do not let these things slip away from you, or do not slip away yourself away from truth. You got that, St. Jesus? Let's make the application. What is Paul saying? Paul is saying you need to be saved, right? Jewish converts, I've given you truth. Jesus is the Messiah. You need to listen to what I say, take heed, take heed, listen, and respond, and trust Christ. If not, then there is a catastrophic ending. I read an illustration from another pastor in the sermon, a written sermon, and of course, all illustrations the pastors give are absolutely correct. So I'm gonna give him the credit. It's from a pastor, Sandy Little, from Iowa. Tony, you got any people in Iowa? No. OK. Can't blame you. Here's his illustration. He said, two men went out fishing one day on a small river, a river that kind of flowed and so forth, not like a big Tennessee river, but a much smaller river, maybe a large stream. Put their boat in the water, got in the place that they wanted to fish, turned the motor off, And they decided they would just kind of float with the, drift along with the water, fishing at the same time, kind of trolling as they went along. Well, they enjoyed themselves and so forth. They were fishing. I guess they were catching fish. That's what fishing's all about, right? Fishing is supposed to be about catching fish, not just throwing a line out and waiting for two hours. I want to catch fish. Anyway, they enjoyed themselves. They did not realize how far they had drifted. I guess they didn't know the stream or didn't know the river. And they began to hear the roar of rapids. Okay? And so they knew they were getting wrecked. There were some rapids coming up. Whoa, whoa. And so they jumped up, began to try to start the motor. Would you know it? It didn't start initially. It didn't start for a while. They finally, finally got it started. I guess they were pulling water, but they finally got it started, but it was too late. Their boat actually crashed into some rocks in these rapids, the boat turned over, the men were thrown into the water, and both of the men drowned. True story. Lost Mankind is headed for some rapids. Lost Mankind is drifting with the winds of worldliness and sinfulness, And lost men counterheaded for the rapids of condemnation and separation from God for eternity. Cataclysmic, catastrophic judgment of God Almighty. And there are people who will continue drifting down the river of no return. That's a movie I made. And down the river, they're going to spend eternity in hell. Am I right? Amen. It's like a person out here on the drowning They throw a life preserver to this person. The person ignores it, and they drift away. They don't take it. How foolish! But there are people doing that. Or it's like a seriously sick person who is offered a remedy for their disease or their situation and so forth. They have the medicines. They say, no, no, don't want it. And they drift away, and they don't survive. There's a warning here, folks, not just to the Jews. I guess sometimes we assume everybody's safe. There's a warning here, isn't there? Be careful, take heed, don't let the truth of the gospel drift away from you without trusting Christ. Don't drift away from yourself and do your own thing. The consequences are serious, am I right? Be sure you know the word Jesus Christ. There's only one way to repentance and confession of sin and trusting Christ in Christ alone. There's got to be a place, a time, something that you can say, I put my trust in Christ and God did what? God changed my life. That prayer is the beginning of a life if it's sincere from the heart. And the evidence of that is a changed life in fruit, spiritual fruit for the glory of God. Am I clear? You're crystal clear, right? But I want to make an application using the same scenario to the same. I mean, there's a danger for believers to drift away from truth, to drift away from their relationship with the Lord and becoming carnal and fleshly and selfish and more focused on self than focused on the Lord. We don't care about ourselves. We're not selfish, are we? How many are not selfish? I don't see any hands. It's danger, folks. By the way, drifting away from God as a believer is not hard. It doesn't take any effort. It happens with a little bit of glance. little innocent neglect, you neglect the Bible reading, you neglect the church, you neglect this, and before you know it, guess what? You're down and you're drifting away from the Lord. There's some dangers there, we'll get into that just momentarily. Sometimes a believer doesn't even realize they're drifting or have drifted, you know that? Have you changed? You sure? Have you changed outwardly, physically? and all these many, many, many years. Now, we don't detect that change because it's subtle. It's slowly because we look at the mirror every day, right? And we don't detect that change. Let somebody come up that hasn't seen you in several years, they're going, whoa, what happened to you? What I like to hear, oh, you look the same. Look, hey, man, I like you. I put up pictures of our church history in the back and so forth. I got a picture of myself standing, not exactly, but in this area in front of that wooden platform, pulling back there, Tim. Boy, he's a young man. I'm going, whoa, somebody's changed. And we don't realize that. Drifting is not hard to do. It happens. It happens. Let me just challenge you for a moment. Have you drifted? Have you drifted spiritually? Do you love the Lord as much as you did when you first got saved? Are you thrilled about serving God and it just drives your life? Have you changed any doctrines or convictions? Have you moved away from truth? Do you continue to stand against sin? Are you more victorious over sin than you were, or less? Are you experiencing the joy of the Lord, or just reveling in your problems and, oh, woe is me type situation? Are we, it's for myself, are we constantly trusting in God? Are we got the point, are Christians like, hey, I can handle life? You see, sometimes we don't understand that we drift Are we as close to God as we were? You do a reading of the Bible, and you just, oh, I just can't, I can't wait to get my word of God this morning and read and study and pray. Oh, man, no, hey, this is sunny. Let's go to church. And we drifted. Over first Corinthians, Paul says, take heed lest ye fall. Take heed, listen up. Sometimes it's good to examine ourselves, right? We go to the doctor to do that. Some, I don't say some, I hope most of us have some kind of a yearly examination, right? You go to the doctor, oh, I don't think there's anything wrong, but he might find something. He always does, doesn't he? Let me give you some thoughts here, please. There's some dangerous consequences of drifting spiritually. Let me put it in the same scenario, number one, drifting always takes you downstream. Drifting never takes you close to the Lord, always takes you further from the Lord. Drifting from the Lord will always take you further than you want to go. You know that? Ask Samson. Ask demons who love the world. Drifting will take you further and further and the sin, whether you realize it or not, is gonna happen. Hopefully you'll wake up. As the prodigal son, he took his possessions, what he thought was his right, his inheritance, and he kept it drifting and drifting away until he was over here ready to feed himself with a slop that was given to the pigs. And the Bible says he came to himself. Drifting will take you where you don't wanna go, folks. Unless you're the Lord, you'll hurt. You'll hurt. You'll lose your power of the Lord, your compass of the Lord, it'll happen. Drifting is, always goes faster as you get further downstream. Everybody know any rafting? Whitewater rafting? Well, there's a couple of brave souls in here. Whitewater rafting. I've done some tubing. You've done tubing? I did tubing on the Nanta Haley. Where the Nanta Haley at? Cold. That thing is cold, you're right. And you get in that, too, what an uncomfortable position. You sit there, and boy, it's just nice and smooth and so forth. And up here where you put in, it's nice. And then it gets a little faster. Then there's some rocks, and there's some crap in there. The further you go down, the further it gets. See, spiritual drifting, believer starts innocently. I don't have time to read my Bible every day. I read it every other day. Oh, it's okay if I miss a couple of church services, it's okay. If you continue drifting, what happens? Continue drifting and drifting, you say, you neglect God's word altogether. You don't go to church, you don't pray, you don't tithe, you don't serve God, you don't witness. It just gets worse, you understand me? It gets worse. Doesn't get better. It gets worse, spiritually speaking. Drifting affects you personally, and it affects others. You understand that? It's gonna affect you personally, there's no question. It's gonna affect your personal Christian life. It's gonna affect how you live. It's gonna affect how you think. But it's also gonna affect others around you. They're gonna look at your life and say, whoa, what happened here? People see that, people see that, you understand? Sometimes I'm concerned about new believers in Christ. They're excited, aren't they? Can you remember those days? Oh, it's saved, my sins are out of the blood, praise God, I'm a new person, God has changed my heart, it's so great. And then sometimes new believers, you know what they start doing? They start watching other believers. And there's some sullied, sad believer who's walking around as if life is falling apart for them and they're not faithful to God, they're not in service to God, they're not in church serving the Lord. And what does that new young believer think? What a bad testimony, right? God forbid. Drifting is dangerous because some believers don't even know that they've drifted. Even though they've changed their beliefs and doctrines, they justify them and say, hey, I'm okay. They don't even realize it. Some believers know they have drifted. They're not where they used to be. I hear that all the time. How you doing spiritually? Well, I'm not what I ought to be. Then get where you need to be, right? Don't complain about it. Do what you need to do. Some believers have purposefully, for whatever reason, neglected spiritual things, and they allow themselves to do it. It's okay. I'm just gonna drift along. I'm gonna enjoy life and the pleasures of sin and so forth. I'm just gonna enjoy life. God forbid there's some problems coming. You understand the consequences? Boy, the consequences, losing the power of God, the presence of God, the peace of God, the joy of the Lord, all these things. That's what you lose. You don't lose that. You start drifting. Well, let me share with you how to protect ourselves from drifting. What was the last song we sang? Oh, some of you had short term memory loss, right? What was the last song we sang? We have an anchor that does what? I have it right here. Will your anchor hold in the storms of life when the clouds unfold their winds of strife? When the strong tides lift and the cables strain, will your anchor drift or firm remain? The greatest protection against drifting is staying anchored in the word of God. Come on, guys. Anchored in the word of God, those fishermen lost their lives because they did not anchor their boat. Their boat just drifted and drifted and drifted until there was calamity. Believers, you gotta have an understanding of God's word. You gotta have biblical convictions based on those truths of God's word. And you've got to be determined that you're not going to move from that. You've got to have your soul and your mind and your heart anchored. Amen. And we'll share three verses with you. Get your Bibles. Come on. I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians. I'm going to read the verse in 1 Corinthians 15. And then I'm going to Colossians 1 and 2. So you won't have a hard time finding that. So find 1 Corinthians 15. Put your finger there. Find Colossians right after Philippians, put your finger there. Or your pointer if you're using some media. Let me show you something. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the last verse. Paul says, 1558. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye Stand fast. The word means seated. I'm sitting down and I'm not going to move. Be steadfast, unmovable. Unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Believers need to be steadfast, unmovable in the truth of God's Word. If God said it, no questions. Somebody says, I want to debate a particular issue. If God says it, I'm just not going to debate you. Here's what the Word says. Take the Word for what it says, right? Properly interpret it so you can apply it. Take God's Word. Look at Colossians chapter 1. Verse 23, if you continue in the faith, anytime you see the phrase, the faith, that's referring to truth, all of God's truth. Continue, and I'll come back to that word, remember that word, in the faith, grounded, settled, and be not moved. Grounded, firm foundation, settled, That's the idea of not moving, of seated again. And be not moved. No shifting position. Continue in the growth of God's word, grounded and settled, and be not moved. Look at chapter two. If I get excited, you're forgiving me, right? Verse seven. Rooted, three more words, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith. And she had been taught about him there even with Thanksgiving. Rooted, firmly planted, built up. You build on a firm foundation, established there has the idea of firm and secure. We have an anchor that keeps the soul. It's the word of God. You've got to know God's Word. You've got to trust God's Word. You've got to live God's Word. And if it's true conviction, you do not move. Amen? Now it's possible for a new Christian or a mistaught Christian to have some convictions that are not strictly biblical. I understand that. And sometimes those convictions need to change. But there's a conviction that based on a clear understanding of God's Word, And I said, properly interpreted. Okay? The Bible said what? No private interpretation. There's no personal interpretation. Well, I think God's word means this. No, no, no. I don't care what you think and I don't care what I think. What does God's word say? Proper interpretation based on God's word and so forth. then you can make that, then you can develop those proper convictions. There's gotta be those convictions, they gotta be solid, they cannot move. Do you have convictions? Are they based on God's word? We all have convictions, you know? I'll never do this, or I'll do this, or I'll do that. We all have certain convictions, but the convictions I'm talking about, are they based on God's word? It is a firm, firm foundation. The wise fisherman is gonna go out, the first thing he's gonna do when he puts his boat in place to fish, he's gonna drop the anchor to be sure that he can stay where he needs to stay. We are to, the word continue, continue, continue with our anchors firm in God's word, which means we gotta know God's word, we gotta know what we believe and why we believe it. Yes? Thank you for the amen. Secondly, we're believers, okay? The dangers, protection. Secondly is to, we need to maintain faith in the Lord. We hear God's word, and our anger, our faith grabs a hold of that word, and by faith we hold on to it, that's true, and we're not gonna move. When you're fishing on a rushing stream, you put your anchor out, you want the bow of the boat to do what? None of you are naval people, are you? You don't have it on the water? You want the bow to do what? I want my bow to be pointed where? Upstream. I want to throw that anchor out the front, not the back. You understand? I thought I'd disturb what's gonna happen. Both gonna get turned around and get loose and so forth. So I want to point it upstream. We need to keep our lives pointed toward Jesus Christ. He's our focus, right? Looking into Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You see, I think what's gonna happen, happens in armor life. Sometimes on water, the winds pick up instantaneously. Boy, the winds picked up and were blowing me to Jordan. I was fearful, man. We're going to experience some winds of adversity, folks. And they're going to blow. And if a ship either in a stream or on the ocean is not headed into the wind, it's going to lose its anchorage or it's going to capsize. Two years ago, same month, August of 21, Hurricane Ida, I don't think it affected us at all, but it affected the Gulf Coast. It went into Louisiana, and especially around the moorings of that area, 140 mile an hour winds. And on Mississippi River, there was 12 parts of the wind blew so hard that it caused those 22 parts to break loose from their mooring. It cost two ferry boats up on the Mississippi River to break loose. And these 22 barges were just floating, drifting down the Mississippi River, these two ferry boats. And the Coast Guard couldn't do anything because it was raining, it was blowing, it was windy. And they were fearful that these barges would hit some kind of oil refinery or some water intake or hit a levee and flood some area. And they were fearful because it all happened because of the wind. We're going to encounter some winds, folks. There are going to be the winds of adversity, tragedies, heartaches, disappointments, suffering, physical suffering, emotional suffering, winds of persecution and mocking. The world will continue to bombard us with humanistic philosophies and ideas like this is what you've got to, this is what you've got to believe. Do you understand what the world is trying to do? The world is trying to get even believers to live by a worldly morality. So the world is trying to establish a morality, this. Boy, this is pretty loose. You can do a lot of things over here under the world's morality, and it's okay according to the world. They don't want us to live by God's spiritual morality in truth of God's word. That's what the world is doing. It's gonna happen. There's a winds of fleshly temptations. The war against the soul, right? Always there because of our sin nature. A sinful attack. So there's gonna be a lot of wins, and if we don't have enough, if our faith is not strong, it's gonna be challenged. If our faith is not strong, see, Tim talked about faith this morning. Tim said, and I quote, faith demands that we listen to God's words. So we're angry at God's truth because we have faith in what God says, and it's gonna be challenged, but we gotta stay strong and keep trusting God. Amen? Oh, preacher, you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know how hard life is. I do, I do, I do. I may not be in your shoes, but I know the problems of life. I know they're gonna come. They're hard, but we must endure because our anchor is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're looking to Him, we're gonna face to Him, and we're gonna trust Him. Okay? Let me give you another one. The third one, to protect against drifting We need to continue, listen here, living with the Lord day by day in obedience to His every command. So the fishermen, they've anchored their boats, they've put it upstream where the stream is going to pass, and then they're able to do what? Do what? They're going to fish! When our lives when our lives are anchored in God's words When our faith is keeping us pointed upstream and pointed Lord Jesus Christ, they were able to do it new God's business And God's business is living for him God's business is serving Him with all of our heart. God's business is edifying our lives. God's business is sharing the truth. God's business is worshiping. God's business is building. Then we can do God's work. That's what God's work is, right? Well, God's work is work of the victory. Well, no, that's not it. That's your work. God's given you that work, but your work is to serve Him and bring Him glory. I don't care what you're doing, where you're doing it, or how you're doing it. Amen? Amen. Yes. I'm going to get to that in just a moment. I put in your bulletin, don't pull it out, please. Don't touch it. I put a thought in there about, I don't know if you understand this, about compartmentalizing Christianity. You know what that is? You know what that's all about? Tell you what believers are doing. Christianity, for a lot of believers today, has become a part of their life, an important part, but not the only part. Here's their Christianity, here's their family, here's their job, and so forth. And you try to balance all of these. That's compartmentalizing Christianity. That's not Christianity, folks. That's not Christianity. Christianity is not something that we do. Oh, there's things that we do because of it, but it's not doing. Christianity is about a relationship. It's about a life. God says, He is our life. Christianity is something Everything, everything that we do, everything that we say, every place that we go, every thought that comes to our mind, Christianity is living for Christ in every year and bringing glory in whatever we do. We don't put him in a box. Well, I'm going to go to church and we don't talk about God the rest of the week. We don't read our Bible. That's compartmentalizing our Christianity, God forbid. When you go to work, God is supposed to, You go to school, you go with the family, whatever you're doing, am I not right? Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, don't ignore God. Don't compartmentalize. Read the article when you get a chance. Christianity is not about just coming to church and doing our things and being religious and paying people back. I'm here, preacher. I have fulfilled my duty for the week. I'm a Christian today. What are you tomorrow? How about Tuesday? How about in the home? How about on the job? How about in the schoolroom? Did you get that? The protection against drifting spiritually. One more little point of 14 points. What if? What if a believer The Spirit of God says, you drifted. You may have drifted a little bit, or you may have drifted a lot. You're way down the road. You're not way down the road because you're in church this morning, but you drifted. Oh, you come to church and you have drifted, right? See, I'm drifted. I'm drifted. I'm drifted. I'm not where I used to be, and I don't have the joy of the Lord and the peace of God and the power of God on my life. My love of the Lord is not as strong as it was. Oh, God, I'm drifted. I realize it. That came from the Spirit again. What do you do? If the boat is drifting down the stream and you realize you're drifting down the stream, what do you do? Turn around. Thank you. You turn the silly boat around, right? So I can't continue this. I can't continue this. This drifting along, drifting along what? With the tumbling tumbleweed that's in the story. Yeah. That's not the story. Drifting down this path away from God. Oh, I can't continue. It's turning. You've got to turn the boat around. And the word turn is what? is the word what? Repent. If believers repent, all will be better. Oh God, dear Lord in heaven, I've done wrong. I'm down the road of life and I've drifted and I see it now and it's dangerous. Oh God, I'm sorry. I repent in my heart that I've allowed myself to get to this place. Don't blame God for it. Don't blame your circumstances. Don't blame how, oh, life is bad for me. No, no, no, no. God's not unfair. Life is unfair, but God's not. Then what do you do? I turn the boat around. What am I going to do next? You tell me. I've got the boat turned around. Huh? Yeah, get it. If you can't get the motor started, get the paddles. Get the oar paddles. Get the oars out, and then what? Start rowing upstream. Start doing what is right. Get back in the Word of God. Get back in church. Get back to praying. Get back to trusting God. Get back to glorifying God. Get back to every minute, minute, every moment of the day for the glory of God. By the way, it's not easy, is it? You ever try to go upstream? You're trying to paddle upstream in a canoe. Boy, it is work, no? And it's going to be work to get back, but it's worth it, isn't it? And you keep paddling, you continue, you continue. God, I know I've done it wrong. God, help me do it right. Yes, God. And you get back to the place. You get back to the place where you need to be, and you're diligent. You've got to keep it up. You can't quit. You can't keep rowing. You've got to quit. Oh, I'm so tired. I can't row anymore. No, then you can start drifting again. So you turn the boat around, you start rowing, rowing, oaring, whatever you do, paddling or whatever, and you get that boat going, and you do it diligently until you get back where you need to be spiritually. And drop that anchor again. God, thank you. Thank you that you spoke to my heart that I was drifting, and thank you for helping me to turn my boat and my life around. and getting back and doing the things I'm supposed to and restoring that relationship with you and getting back in the Word and getting my anchor re-established in you and trusting you, Lord, and getting back where I need to be so I can love you and live for you and serve you the rest of my life so you can be pleased with me. That's what it's all about. Well, we have an anchor. Are you drifting? Have you drifted? Even if you're anchored in the right place, the wind is still going to blow, right? It's going to blow, and it's going to blow, and it's going to blow. Just hang in there, folks. Hang in there. Anchor's solid. The faith is in the Lord. I'm going to stay right here. I'm not going to move by the grace of God. That's where we need to be. Find yourself drifted. You have drifted or are drifted. Have drifted or are drifting. You gotta get back. Repent, confess any sin. By the way, drifting is a sin. Drifting is a sin. Changing convictions is a sin. Getting away from our relational order is a sin. It's wrong. Oh, God, I'm not where I need to be. Well, I'm still going to heaven. I don't care. You better care! Because God may allow some very severe chastening over here in your life to bring you to your senses. God forbid. Amen. All right, bow with me in prayer, please.