I think my primary beginning place is 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We'll be looking at a portion of verse 3. Second Thessalonians two. Verse three. As always, let us. Ask for help. Eternal and Holy Master. Father. We thank you, Master. For allowing us to join together. Father, I thank you for the tender mercies with which you have dealt with us. I thank you, Father, for having intervened and having changed the course of your children's lives. I thank you, Master, that you let them hear. Naturally, they had no desire. And so now you have brought us to this place, in this hour, this assemblage of living souls. Master, how will you deal with us now? Father, I beseech you to have mercy on these assembled here, not because we are entitled to it, Master, your sons, they're forgiven, Father. They know not what they do. So, Master, if it would please you, and if it would be pleasing to you. I ask you, dear Lord, in this little span of time, to open our ears once more to let this little body know something of the glory of God in this place. Help the Master. So many things tugging at him. We all need your help, Father. It is so important Father, do watch over our dear pastor. Do keep him as he travels. We ask, O Lord, for your mercies on these souls. Help them, Master. Be pleased, O Lord, to open thy Word. Make it real, Father, for us. Make it important, Master. Father in Christ, precious name we plead, O Lord. Thank you. It used to really trouble me that I could not control my emotions better. But when you have seen what I have now seen in my 50 some odd years. And I see what is before me today. How can you not weep? I've had some very good, some very good teachers. in my lifetime, people who urged me to the ways of the scriptures. And for the most part, I ignored it. Until one day, until one day, I heard it differently. And I was not seeking it. And I do not urge that course. I came to fulfill a promise over something material. And the preacher men were stoked. And so now, excuse me, so now when I, when I stand before you and my hands tremble, Be giving thanks. Be giving thanks. I heard Mr. Barnard at some point. They don't ask for the tears to be removed. Because they might just not come back. So I will thank Him for them. I will thank Him for them. All right. This is only a... I say only. It will be a short discourse in course of time, but please, please listen. Do you really believe that the glory of God can fill a place like John talked about? Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that a person can go to a place to feel a promise made to another person just to get them off their back. And their life will be changed forever. Do you really believe that? I'm not talking about, yeah, I hear you, I hear you. No, I'm talking about do you believe it? That's what I'm asking you to get down to, is will you really believe something when it's real to you, brother. That's what I want. I want you to listen. Come on. Come on. It's not going to be long. And I'm probably the worst public speaker that could ever stand before you, but that's all right. You can tolerate it. I believe in you. OK. 2 Thessalonians is where I was brought to. Chapter 2 and verse 3. Let's read that first. Let's read that first part of it. Let no man deceive you by any means. John Chadworth, we've already got the order. We've already got the plan. We've already got our marching orders. We know what to do. All we got to do is do it. Let no man deceive you Some other places want to turn just a little bit. Luke 21. Luke chapter 21. Let's look at verse seven and eight, see what they ask him, say, Master, but when shall these things be and what sign? Will there be when these things shall come to pass? He said, take heed that you be not deceived. Now, if this was only good for that day, there'd be no point in reading. But it's alive and well for right now. Take heed that you be not deceived, for many shall come in my name, saying that I am Christ, and the time draweth near. Go ye not. Therefore, after the. Go. First Corinthians Chapter six. First Corinthians in Chapter six. Verses 9 and 10. Chapter 6. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. sinners. Be not deceived. Be not deceived. Let no man deceive you by any means. Galatians chapter 6, 7 and 8. The glory of God be over the room. In this dark hour. In this dark hour, what a place. What a place to expect the glory of God to fill the room. In this dark hour. Galatians chapter 6, verses 7 and 8. Be not deceived, God is not lost. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Be not deceived. What is the motivation in your heart? be here today. What is it? I mean, really, what is it? Just, you know, you're not going to say anything publicly, but just, just what is it? I mean, just think about it. Be not deceived, the worst, I believe the worst enemy I have, as John mentioned last Sunday, the worst enemy I have is my own self. I have more fight with him than anybody. So what's the motivation in your heart? Don't be deceived now. Be careful. See how dangerous be not deceived is not talking about necessarily some individual making a mockery of the gospel on television or some other area where it's obvious that they have no connection. They have no connection to the Spirit of God. None. But it's not necessarily they. It can be me. It can be me carelessly entering that door back there and quenching the Spirit Sitting right there. And the whole time I think I'm fit to be in here. Be not deceived. See how dangerous a thing? Oh, it's dangerous. It's dangerous, isn't it? That's why all of these things are so important. They all come together and form a perfect thing. And each one is very important. And understanding, for me, understanding what deception is, this thing just keeps, deception in itself, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And the primary culprit, again, is my own self. It's too easy to be hard on that fella, get easy on me. That's what I find. I can see his fault pretty easy, oh yeah. But I'll miss mine. Because I'm deceived at times about my own self. And that's the point I want to try to get across. Do you really believe that the glory of God is a real thing? And that He can fill a room? Do you really believe that? So how does that come to be? Would have to be another question. One thing We can be assured of. It is not going to be filled with a room of people. This thing the whole thing is a warfare. And I have to then therefore fight with myself. I have to watch my own self. Because self The opposing self. He's good. He's very good. We read so many chapters. You read so much. You saw this, you saw that. Warfare don't ever stop. It can't. Because one facet of this thing called deception is always lurking. And it can destroy you. It can destroy this place. It can destroy what we think we have, at least in some small scale, going on. It can wipe out all that. So when I mention the word deception, I'm asking you to dig down, you know, push back, get on down in there. Find out what's real. Is this thing real with me? Or am I just living on deceptions? Be not deceived. Be not deceived, John again says. You got the game plan. Come on. I have an example of one thing that I encountered that might tie into this pretty well. Some time ago, a young man came into the store with his little boy. He was about, at that time, Probably just under two years old. He was just sort of toddling around. Kind of age. And I saw him. I happened to be at the front counter that day. I saw him come in and asked if I could help him and he just wanted to look. Okay, that's fine. No problem, help yourself. So he's over there milling around for a while, and I'm beginning to think, well, it's taking a long time. We're ordinarily not the kind of place where a person comes to shop for two or three hours. That's not us. So when it starts taking a long time, you begin to wonder, what exactly is so fascinating in this environment? So I chatted to him a couple more times. We finally did a little business, and we were I highly suspect something had gone on, but we just couldn't, didn't know for sure what had taken place. But anyway, we have some cameras in there. After he left, and I come to find out I knew him, I knew his parents, I knew his family, a lot of them. And so, he goes home and we go back and we review the tape and yeah, there it is, the whole thing. So what do you do? What do you do? So I thought about it for a day or two and I finally came to the conclusion I couldn't, I wasn't going to involve the law enforcement folks. I just couldn't, I said I just couldn't do it. So I decided I'd call them up and I did. And he answered the phone, and I said, hey, so-and-so, we saw what took place at the store the other day, and I thought I'd better give you a call about it. And so he said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, we saw the things you took and we've got it all on video. He said, well, I didn't get anything. I didn't take anything. I bought some things. I said, yeah, I know what you paid for, but I also know what you took out. And I just called you to get you to consider what you've done. This is all on video. We got the whole thing on a stick here. And I said, you know, there's no point. I mean, it's as clear as television. I mean, I sit here all day and watch you doing it over and over and over. I said, it's not, there's no debate about this product. It's just, you know, we know you have it and all that. But what I want you to do is consider what you did do. And so we talked for a moment and I tried to urge on him to think about not only is he stealing from somebody, which is in itself a thing. I said, now brother, you should see this tape. You're squatted down there taking something and you've got your child right beside you. And he's walking all around you while you do this. I said, I'm not, I don't want your money. I don't want you to ever come back and pay for this. But I want you to think about what you're doing. So he immediately goes to the convicted side. He didn't argue anymore. One of his chiefest excuse was, well, sometimes I see things and I just feel like I need them. How easily, how easily we are deceived. I said, brother, that stuff you took, is of no value to you. You don't have to have that. You know that, don't you? Yes. Your life is not hindered by these things. If you miss them, you wouldn't be punished or your family punished in some great way. No. So I guess my point is that deception can ease itself in. Somehow we feel like we've been slighted in some way or left out or injured or something is just not balanced and so I'll make it balanced. I'll start fixing it. Deception. Be not deceived. Be not deceived. How am I going to do that? Learn this thing. Learn it. Study it with a determination that the glory of God be on this road. I don't want any deception in me. But I have to fight with him every day. I will have to. There's too many references to the apostles writings about being a prisoner or a servant or a fellow servant or some other like descriptive term for me to ever think There's anything easy about this. You can see it. In these things that they write. Not only the physical hardships and miseries that they undertook and went through. We don't have that. But the battle of the mind is a full-fledged, all-out battle right now. It's a battle to the death. The eternal soul hangs in the balance. A little bit, we talked about space and how complex and all those things are. That's just a minor thing. I mean, it's just mind-blowing all the things they keep learning about what's actually going on. And not things they're just making up, but things they can actually prove. And that's just little stuff. It's just little. But there's actually a creator out there who has made all of this. Every stitch of it. And over and over and over again, he's telling me, be not deceived. Be not deceived. Let no man deceive you by any means. Mr. Barnard, you talk about that vital, that vital union, that vital union with Christ. Isn't that it, what it's going to take to preserve us from deception? to be hooked into the true vibe and getting all of our source of information and understanding from him. The straight, the straight stuff. The pure stuff. You can go on and on about how many facets and how many angles Deception plays, or can play, in our life. But one of the main things, I'm coming away from this, and I hope you can, for consideration in time, is to be wary of it. To be wary of it. That it's there, it's looking for an opportunity at all times. Let no man deceive you. Let no man deceive you. And so when you get a group of people who are beginning to grasp those types of things, and they start rooting it out of their own selves, then can we be looking for the glory of God to fill the place. How would that be? Every time you come. Every time you come, you are bent on it. You not only expect it, Not like you deserve it, but you expect it because you're listening to him. And you're following his direction. And you're fighting with yourself when he tries to deceive you. What would that be like? I have great hope that we can someday know. I hope we can. There's a lot of... It's like planting grass, there's a lot of groundwork to be done. There's a lot with me, I'm not talking about you now, I'm talking about me. There's a lot of... A lot of swinging of the sword work will have to be done. A lot of it. It won't be easy. But if it means something to me, if there is something within me that makes it mean something to me, then I will do it. I have faith in Him. To know that He will not, He will not. If we have a true desire, He will not, He will not let us go. But if I am filled with deception, I got no hope. No more sacrifice. I'm just done. Just another mockery. If you will consider Barrett as he travels and whatever remaining functions he may be part of. And I hope this will be some help to you. Next time you're out picking up rocks, I'll give you something to think about. Picking up rocks.