In this sermon, the preacher begins by expressing gratitude for the presence of God and the opportunity to open the Word of God. He focuses on Hebrews 4:12-13, emphasizing the power and significance of the Word of God. The preacher warns against carelessness and highlights the importance of being attentive to God's will. He emphasizes that the Word of God is alive and powerful, capable of discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The sermon concludes with a reminder that we must be willing to allow the Word of God to wound and divide us in order for God to work in our lives.

I'm going to read again from the book of Hebrews chapter 4. Our Father, we thank you again tonight for what our hearts have already felt. We could leave here now and say it is well to have been in the house of God. How good it's been tonight. You've talked to me, Lord. I'm so very grateful. Now as we come to open up the Word of God, open us up to receive it. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Chapter 4, just verses 12 and 13. For the Word of God is quick, that means it's alive. The Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joint and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intent of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and open under the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Think about it. You know, Israel's going into that country, into the promised land, synchronized with the condition in that land. Before they could ever destroy the Amorite nations, that cup of iniquity had to be full. Moses wasn't allowed to destroy them. But Joshua, in his time, king, that cup of iniquity reached that point of no return, and God then allowed him to go in. I believe the exodus of the church is the same. It'll synchronize with the condition in this world, the time when this world's cup of iniquity is full. I sought God about that several years ago. Is there a way? Do we know when that's approaching? How can we know when that cup of iniquity is full? And he gave me the scripture in the Bible that said, men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And then he said to me, on that he made me to understand, as long as that is true in a society, as long as they love darkness and try to hide from God, then there's a reverence for God. No matter how wicked they are, when they want to hide from God in the night, then there's still a reverence for God, and there's still room for God to work in men's hearts. But when they come out of that closet and flaunt that evil before God with no concern for his majesty, then that time has come when the cup of iniquity was full. Now, God, I believe we've reached that point, and it's a long suffering of God that's affording us a moment longer to reach a world for God. But the church itself must be in the position for God to flow through it with a pure spirit in these last and final times. Now, if you read this whole book of Hebrews, you'll find there have been powerful warnings throughout it. God deals with us about his Christ, the high priest, as king, as prophet, with all of Christ, everything there. God is speaking to us in his Son, but God stops all along the way to warn us. He warns us against unbelief twice, three times about disobedience. God deals with us in this book. He deals with us about hardening that heart and departing from the living God, about an erring heart, amen, and coming short of that promised rest. All of that's in this book. God talking to us about the fearful possibilities of carelessness, not going out there and getting drunk, but just becoming careless with your life. Sit right in the middle of the church and become careless and miss the day of God and what he wants to do with it. But now in this lesson, in what we read here tonight, he's warning us by reminding us of the power of the Word of God. He talks about the power of the Word of God and the Word of Him with whom we have to do. The Word of God with whom we have to do before the eyes of whom everything is naked. There's nothing you ever did that was hid from Him. He knows all, confesses all, but yet He constantly admonishes us to judge ourselves. He said if you'll judge yourself, you'll never have to be judged. Examine yourself as to whether or not you're in this faith. It's so easy to become careless and allow our lives to become lax and lukewarm before God. But there must ever be in those altars an allowing the Word of God. God is talking to me all the time. You and I. When the Word of God comes forth, we must be aware that He's talking to us. Let it search us. Is there something trying to come in that would separate me from hearing? Is my ear becoming degenerate so I'm not really hearing? In the 13th chapter of the book of Acts, I believe it is, verse 27, it talks about they never heard the voice of the prophets. They stood for eight hours every Saturday and heard it read, but they never heard the voice in that. They heard words, but they never heard what God is saying. How many people come to church, step through the church, they hear words, but never hear the voice of God in that word to deal with them? Now, this is what God is saying to us here tonight. Now, every serious child of God must make a personal application of these words in the 4th chapter of the book of Hebrews concerning this all-powerful, all-searching Word of God that's able to open up the very thoughts and intent of our heart and to expose to us what we otherwise would never know. You never know the wickedness of that heart. I'm talking about that old man that's supposed to have died, but yet he's there. You never know until God begins to deal with it. We walk with God. We're careful about our life. Just about two years before I moved to Russia, resigned the church. They'd been in that church, an elderly couple. I had two of the worst boys I ever knew in my life. One died of pathophilia. The prisoners killed him. They wouldn't put up with him. Got him in prison. Found him where they were. They found him dead in his cell. The older boy at home killed his father, not with a knife, but the way he lived. Then the mother, he just was terrible. I told her, I said, we'll put him out if you'll let him. But it was her son. One time she went to a hospital. When she'd come back, he'd sold every stick of furniture in that house for drugs. Come back, just a vacant house. Nothing. Had to move away. And so he was stoned on the street. Never heard nothing from him for a month. Then he called me on a Monday night. Called his name. I knew the voice when I heard it. Just like scratching on a blackboard when I heard it. Just that awful, awful feeling. You get, you know. I didn't want to talk to him. He said, Pastor, give me his name. I said, I know who you are, even not very kindly. And he said, you know, he'd disturbed great friends of mine. And he said, I want you to pray for me. I mumbled a little prayer. Well, I went to the prayer meeting on a Tuesday morning, got over in my corner, and I never just started like that, but I said to God, I want to see me like you see me. He said, I'd be happy to. Yeah? Your men think you're smarter than I am. Oh, my. I've never wept so hard in my life. There were about 20 men with me those days coming. They thought something had happened to me physically. They came. What's wrong? I was crying so hard. The sobs. I said, leave me alone, please. And I said to God, I don't understand what you're saying. Why do you say that to me? Had a man called you last night? You decided he couldn't be saved. I didn't know such wickedness is in this heart. You understand? But the Word of God, you've got to be open. You've got to let Him deal. No matter how holy you think you are, there's still some things in there that God wants that room. I said, God wants that room. So the Word of God is a key to all of this. To search the heart. Not to hurt you, but to enlarge you. You see, when I was born again, I got all of Christ. But He wants to get all of me. It isn't a matter of me getting more of Christ. It's a matter now of Christ getting more of you and I. That our whole life coming into subjection and submission to God. Let us take God's Word here and command that we may labor to enter into that rest. Let us completely, tonight, make this decision, I'm going to heal myself to the Word of God without any reservation to search this heart. To try this heart. There's one thing I want to do is please this great God. I want to expose myself. For it will, if you will do that, if you'll open yourself to Him, let yourself know He's talking to me. If you'll do that, I can promise you, let Him search and try us. It will, without fail, do its work in us, prepare us for following the deeper teachings of Christ and becoming everything that God wants us to be. It's not my effort that does that, but it must come with my consent. I must know what's in this heart. I didn't know that was in my heart. I never knew such wickedness was in my heart until in that altar that morning. And we'll yield ourselves. He'll open us up and lead us into fuller fields. For the Word of God is living and active. That's what He said there. It's alive. It's a living thing. There are times when it appears that the Word of God seems to be having very little effect upon our lives. We hear, we go through the motion of it. There appears to be very little effect. And at those times, there are certain things that you have to know. When you feel like that the Word is not being as effective in that life as it ought to be, then there are certain things you have to know at that time if you're going to move on with God. First of all, you've got to know that the Word of God is like a seed. The Bible said we're born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. You've got to know it's like a seed and everything depends upon the treatment of that seed. Everything. See, if I know that, you think it's not having an effect in our lives, but I must know that that Word is not only like a seed, it is a seed, and everything depends upon the treatment that it receives. If it's allowed into that soil, if I'm open to it, not crusted over, not fallow ground, but broken and soft before God, then it can move in my life and work. Now, some probably, most of the people in the church receive that Word with their understanding. It cannot come up there. No, no. With human understanding. That tree of knowledge was eating of a human understanding. Abraham went back to that. You see, and cursed the earth because with his own understanding he tried to fulfill the promise of God instead of an Isaac and come up with an Ishmael. And so most of the church, it's where they are, they'll not wait before God to take root within them, but they'll receive the Word of God with understanding, therefore it cannot be quickened and made alive. It must. Listen, the Word of God is not directed at my brain, but my heart, my will, my affections. It must be there. You can know it. I know people can quote it. They're very clever with it. But you look at their lives. They're still full of themselves. Mostly what comes out is themselves. The Word of God must be submitted to, number one, I must acknowledge God is talking to me and just open myself up without reservation. Whatever you want to do here, I'm open. Whatever. It must be submitted to. It cannot be resisted and you have any fellowship with God or any relationship. But second, it must be lived. It must be lived. It just cannot be acknowledged. I must live this. All of the working of God is to make us the truth. Not just know something, but become the truth. Throughout the Bible you see this. Hosea's wife died with a stroke. I mean by that, just one night she died. She didn't have a cancer, hadn't been sick for months, but just died on him. And God said, now you go in the church and preach. Put on your best suit. That red one now. Look good. Amen. You go in there and preach. But don't you even mention she's dead. Invite nobody to the funeral. Why my Lord? The only reason they kept me is my wife. A man asked me one time, did you ever take a vote of confidence? I said I was born at night, but not last night. No, no. Oh, no, no. There's many a Sunday morning when I got two votes. Amen. They just kept me because she's there. If she had died and hadn't invited them to that funeral, I'd have been in terrible, terrible trouble. But that's what he said to the man. Why would he do that? Because God's wife Israel is dead and don't nobody care. You've got to feel what God feels if you're going to preach what God preaches. Hosea came to the prophet, came to the pulpit at a time that this book said God's wife Israel was a harlot. That's what God said. I didn't say that. God said that. So he made that prophet fall in love with a woman in the red light district, a harlot. Marry her. Bring her into that parsonage. Now, don't you know the board was upset with that? Why couldn't our pastor have found a wife here among these people? There's Holy Ghost filled women here. Why is he down there getting a harlot to bring into this place? Why would he do it? Because God put a love in him for her. He loved her. He married her. Brought her into the house. She bore him children. One day they said, Dear John, I'm going back where I was. I'm going to go back and sell myself again. Me? That's plenty of that. I'll have no more of that. Not him. He went down there, found her, bought her, brought her back to that house. Because God's wife was there. And God time and time again, when she wasn't worthy, if he don't feel that, he's got to become that truth is what I'm telling you. If we're going to be a witness for that truth, if I'm going to preach this truth, I must be what I'm preaching. This is where God... So I must submit to the Word of God. I must live the Word of God. And it must be acted out in my life. This is faith, folks. I said, this is faith. When this is done, I promise you, it will manifest itself in and through us in quickening power. You cannot keep it from working if you cooperate it. It is everything. It's a living thing. It will heal. It will save. It will fill. It will convict sinners. It will put fear in the heart of a nation. If we will allow it to be in us what God intends, there's nothing can keep it from being alive. God never left it to me, though, or to you, to make that Word alive. He just mails me. If you will cooperate with this Word, it will be a living thing. But He never gave me the responsibility of making it alive with my clever anything. It is God. When in faith, the heart yields itself to the power and the life of the Word of God, it will manifest itself as power in life. Hallelujah. You cannot keep it. I don't force it to do that. It is a living thing. But when I yield myself to it as that, whatever you want to do with me, you see something in me, Lord, pointed out. I will repent. I will make it right. Evans Roberts, when the power fell in Wales in 1904, 17 people were in that service. He preached in that night. One of them was, are there any questionable habits in your life? Are you tolerating things that you have questions about? Lay it down. It isn't worth it, the man of God would say. Whether it's right or wrong, if there's a question, lay it down. Is everything right with your brother? Are there sin in your life you haven't confessed? And over and over, are you right with your brother? The Holy Ghost fell on 17 people that night and swept those valleys and in 24 hours, thousands were birthed into the kingdom of God. Oh God, do it again. I was coming on that airplane, half asleep, but I said, Oh God, make that Pentecostal church the upper room of the Republic of Ireland. My God, wind of God, all He needs is somebody to blow through that will yield themselves to the power and the life of this Word and it will reveal itself to be exactly that. Sharper, listen to it, it's sharper than a two-edged sword. My, my. Piercing, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joint and marrow, a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. You know, I've sat there and I thought, that preacher's somewhat been telling about me. I mean, it found me. It just located me out there. Every little infraction. I know one time, I had a $100 bill and I think it was the first one I ever owned in my life. There wasn't somebody waiting on it. So I tucked it away in my billfold and I just kept that. In those days, $100 was worth a little more than it is now. And I kept it. But you know, you can be good, you can walk with God, but you just know there's not that conviction. There's not that drive into that altar. And I said, oh, I'll give this $100 to a man who preached me under conviction. Well, the evangelist came and I'm sitting about where Brother Nick is and he did. He preached me all the way under that chair. Oh, he dealt with this preacher. I said, maybe I'll ask for more than I want here tonight. I mean, he hammered. When he got through, I lay there for about an hour weeping before God. All he did was with the apathy. You never realize. You fall in love like the Ephesian church, more with the work than you are with God. And you find yourself running circles and studying that altar. Having done no sin, the world will say he's a good man. But God said, you're a rebel. I called you to pray and look what you're doing. Well, when he got through and I finally prayed through, I shook hands with him. I left that $100 bill. He said, what's that for? I said, don't ask any questions. Oh, no. Just be happy with my money. Oh, listen, God wants to deal with us, folks. I tell you, God wants to deal with us. The first action of the Word is to wound, to cut, and to divide. Oh, yes. That's the first action of the Word of God. I must be willing for that or God can do nothing with me. If I'm not willing for Him to wound me, cut me, divide. Now listen, in the soul, the natural life, in the soul is where the natural life resides. That's where the soul must be saved. Paul told Timothy, he's a new creature. He's a new creature. But God said, if you'll continue in what I've told you, tell others, you'll save them and your own soul. In other words, you see, when you're born again, that new creature comes into being. But he's hardly able to exert himself. And so, sanctification is growth of that spirit so it can command that animal life to walk with God. The body and the soul must be brought under subjection to God. That is the working of sanctification in that life because the natural life dwells in that soul. But the spiritual life has its seat in the spirit of man. You see, sin has brought confusion and disorder and the spirit is under the mastery of the soul. In the fall, man became an altogether different creature than God's made him. See, that spirit was so violated, it sank down in subjection to the soul. Now he's no longer a spiritual man. Adam wasn't. But a soulish man, living in a world of what he could taste, smell, feel, hear. This was his world. Now that old man died with Christ, but that's got to become a reality in us. But he didn't just take a wrong turn in the road. That's the reason God drove him from his presence. That kind can never come back into the presence of God. But God's Word divides and separates. What it does, it wakens the spirit to a sense of its destiny as a faculty through which the unseen and the eternal comes. That spirit is it. That man, when that spirit loses contact with God, there's no contact. God is a spirit. And only such can worship God because that's what God is. But the whole, see, God's Word divides. It wakens that spirit again to the sense of destiny as a faculty for the unseen and eternal. And it brings the soul to a knowledge of itself as a captive to sin and the devil. The Word of God does that. That soul, you can't lean on that side. The Corinthians did. And there was sin in that church that couldn't even be named among the Gentiles out there because they leaned to that side of their nature. And the Word of God quickens that, brings that back. It awakens that spirit again and says you must be in charge of that soul. But that soul also is brought to a sense that it is a captive to the power of sin. It cuts deep the Word of God. It cuts sure discovering the deep corruption of sin and our own nature. Isaiah, one of the great prophets of the Old Testament, but one day he saw God. And he said, I saw Him high and lifted up. His strength filled the temple. His glory filled the whole earth. But that's not all he saw. Once he saw God, he saw Isaiah. See, you can't see God without seeing yourself. That's the reason the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus. They're holy men. They're walking in their robes. They're everything. They're marxie. So you know that that's a holy man going there. You know, that's a Roman priest. They do that. They want you to know this is a holy man here. And so they walked around the holy man. But he who is holy made a footprint in that city. Their holiness disappeared. When you see Jesus, then the corruption of your own heart is made real. When the Word of God opens us up, and I really see Christ only then, not just preaching of the Word of God, but when it enters and reveals Christ, then we understand not as holy as I thought it was. It was that. They said we can't let Him live. People are not going to think we're holy when they have a look at Him. And so they set out to kill Him. Amen. As a sword of the Spirit, the Word of God cuts even to the dividing of that soul and spirit. Right between them. It discerns. It separates the joint and marrow. There's no part of your inner being that it won't pierce if you're open. And if we truly want to be that vessel of God, we must know that He's always working to remove every shadow. Every shadow. He wants us transparent that that light can shine through us. I'm not talking about heaven and hell. I'm talking about becoming all that I can for God. You see, there is this experience of born again. There is this walk of sanctification. Under no circumstance are you to ever allow God's sanctifying work to cross over and touch that justified work. I was saved by the blood. That blood cleansed me, washed me. But now God is enlarging me. And God deals with me. The accuser of the brethren will come and say, you're not saved. That'd not be there. But I must never allow that to touch. God is simply enlarging this vessel. I belong to God. The blood made me that. But God now wants to possess me. And if there's going to be an increase of Christ, something in you has to become that burnt offering. Something. You have to become. I must decrease, said John, if He is to increase. The Word of God will not allow holiness to become popular. Oh my. I wish we could hear that tonight. It will not allow holiness to become popular. Listen. It cannot be done. There is no holiness apart from Christ in you. Is that right? I am holy in Christ. It doesn't matter what it looks like. God reckons on the finished work of Christ. And when God looks at us in this meeting tonight, He sees nothing but His Son. But all of His working with us is to rid us of everything that's not Christ. That's the working. But when He sees us, He sees us in the finished work of Calvary. That's what gives me faith to keep going. In His sight, I'm perfected. But there's a lot of work to be done. It will be done if I'll yield to Him. Enter that rest. Let the Word of God do its work in my life. I will certainly prove to wake in His likeness. That's the Word of God. Now, there's no holiness apart from Christ in you. And it's impossible to make this Christ popular with this world. They hate that name. You can talk. Pray to God. In our congregation, don't use that name of Jesus. We had in Beaumont, they were going to have a football game. I don't go to those. It wasn't there. They had a young boy to pray. He got up and prayed in the name of Jesus. The next day they headlined. The Jewish rabbis said, we're not going to tolerate that. There were those all around. Even folks claimed to be Christian. Yeah, we ought not to use that name. We pray. We'll offend. Offend nothing but the devil, folks. No matter what kind of religion he is, that's a name that's above every name. There's no way that God would accept that away. But there's a hatred for him. And there's no way you're going to make him popular in this world. That's the reason holiness will never be popular. To sinners, carnal professors, user-friendly, purpose-driven, Christ has always been, always will be, a root out of dry ground, despised, and rejected of men. Never be otherwise, folks. No matter. You preach Christ, you're going to be loved and hated. It has to be so. It can never. Christ in you, the same yesterday, today, and forever. How is that? Hated, reviled, persecuted, crucified. Make him alive, and you'll find. They'll come here to know him, or come here to make sure you don't. One way or the other, if you let him live, you're going to stir up the antagonism of men that won't accept him. So he'll never become popular. The Christ in you, who is the Word of God, goes beyond the surface and discerns the thoughts and the intent of that heart. He discovers deep. He wants that holiness. You see, God began the first time with the body made Adam, then breathed in him. This time he started in here. And the last thing to be redeemed will be this out here. For inside the Holy Ghost and the very attributes of Christ flowing out to every part of this body, bringing everything in subjection to Christ. That's the working of God with us in that. It's especially with the heart that the Word of God deals. Not with the intellect, but the heart. That's the heart of things. We have learned of the hardened heart. We'll learn tomorrow, think about the evil heart of unbelief. We've learned about that heart that's erring. It doesn't go. These Hebrews, they had come to know God, but now they're wanting to add other things to Christ. And the apostle is dealing with them. Also in the Word of God, we find a heart in which God's law has been written. Oh my! That's us born again. See, it's not now something on stone. It's in a heart. And in that heart, that law has been written. A true heart sprinkled with the blood of Christ. A heart that's established by grace. Now, I must come to enter into that and allow that life to be my life. Now, you can't do that overnight, but you can come to see what it is. And as I learn to walk and allow the Word of God to search me, whatever there is in me that will separate me from totally being submitted to that life, let the Word of God deal with it. Open my heart. Great peace have they that love thy law. Nothing offends those people because God's not dealing to hurt me. He deals to bless me, to make me. I'm the only way He must be able to deal with in my life what's not Christ. If I'm going to increase in Christ... You know, we have here then the transition, the whole thing, from one to another. This is the whole of life. God's way of growing anything is a seed with life in it. That's always God's means of being and growing. No matter what it is, it's a seed with life. If it's plant, animal, human, or spiritual, we're born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God that lives and abides forever. But that seed, when it's planted, has everything of that life. The flowers. Amen. The lady said, your mother said to me, I know your favorite flower. It's that gladiola. A red one especially. A blood red gladiola. I've looked at that in almost a week. I'd say, nobody painted that. Nobody. Nobody perfumed it. Nobody had to have a spray it to take care of the wrong odor. That was all in it. Do you understand? It was all in that from the beginning. The possibility of that beautiful thing was there in that ugly bub all the time. All it needed to be planted and somebody care for the thing. Well, that seed of Christ is all of Christ. I don't struggle to be like Christ. Just let that seed develop. All the beauty, all the power, all the glory, all the blessings of God is in there in the beginning, but it must be allowed to develop. God must be allowed. You've got to get them weeds away from it. I'll spade it up. Fertilize it. Water it. It'll come up, get up that high sometime. That beautiful thing. Stan, I'd come to that prayer meeting in the morning and the dew on that. I'd have to go around just to look at it. The beauty of it. And I said, that was the ugliest thing she planted. You know them old bulbs? They're the ugliest thing. But out of that comes the beauty. And so with Christ, that seed planted, everything Christ is, is there. But I must allow Him to dig around me, to fertilize, to water it, take care. The end results will be Christ. The beauty, the power, the glory of Christ will come to the surface. The Bible said there's no creature that's not manifest in His sight. Amen. Here the transition, God's appeal is, today, today, if you'll hear His voice, don't harden your heart. Don't resist that. Let God deal with you. His whole thing is perfection with you. So don't allow anything to interfere. Hear what He says. Amen. You know, I've seen people get around a person, they've been in church, they're good people, but God deal with that heart. And they're in that altar having a real close time with God. And here comes some good intentioned saint and said, now, now, now, the devil's condemning you. You know, this kind of thing. God isn't condemning anybody. God is coming to make room for His Son in your life. What a gracious God that is that will take time to deal with anything in my life. There's no willful sin here, but there's things I don't know about. I'm a little bigger for the Holy Ghost to live in when He dealt with that fact that I thought I was smarter than God. Think about it. I had no idea such was there. But oh my, He found me. I said, He found me. Oh, thank God's appeal. The heart that will yield itself to be searched by God has just opened up. Whatever you see, I don't see. But I'm open to you. That will yield itself to have the secret thoughts, intents, and desires judged. You know, we need to ask our question ourselves. Why do I want what I'm asking Him for? Why do I want a revival? Why do I want God to bless this church? Why do I want to teach a son to sing? Why do I want to lead that singing? Why do I want to play that organ or that piano, whatever we've got here? Amen. Why do I want to play that? The desire, see, let Him search the intent. A great, great friend of mine come to Russia. Now, he sponsored two students, planted two churches. Come back tomorrow, he's going to go home. Going to fly out of there. And he's up in my apartment. We live right there above where the school was those times. And we were there talking. He was saying to me, he said, you know we've been praying, we've been fasting, but as yet we've not seen revival. I just don't understand why that revival hadn't come. And I was no deep theological thinking. We just sat at my table. I said, why do you want a revival? He sat there about five minutes and left. He went over to the apartment. He said, I'd better go get ready to go. Well, he'd come back. I always got up at five. The prayer meeting was six or seven. I got up at five, read the Word of God an hour before I went down to pray. Let Him talk to me. And I'd go down there and talk to Him. Well, I come a knock. There he stood at that door. Eyes red. He said, I want to talk to you. I said, yes, come in. He said, I haven't slept a wink. Been sick? What something? Oh, I've been sick. What is wrong? What you said to me. Oh, I thought, man, I've been there before. What did I say? You said, why do I want a revival? I've never wrestled. I wanted it for all the wrong reasons. It wasn't God's glory. It wasn't a great cry for Jesus to be seen and known. I realized deep in that heart I wanted to be known. There was in that all the wrong intentions. I wanted to have more money here. I said for more missions. But down deep, I wanted this world to know I was a man of God. C.M. Ward said once, the world's in bad trouble when the preacher believes his own propaganda. See, he desires the wrong thing. You've got to be careful. But that word was searched. It'll judge. Why? Why do you want to teach that class? Have you got a burden for them children? What is it? You want to show somebody what you know? You know, I have people call me all the time. You can get a hundred preacher fellas pulpit any Sunday you want to. You know, I could get them. Amen. You know, they'd call. They'd say, now, I'd like to come. I want a first class ticket. And I want this. See, the desire is all the wrong thing. He'd walk there if he really felt he had a message from God. Amen. I told one. I said, look, I'm not here to give you a job. I'll call an evangelist. I want to be able to deal. As a pastor, I had about 600 people. Some of them people had been with me from the day I started. They'd give their life for me. It's impossible for God Almighty to show me anything wrong with them. Isn't that right? To love. They'd stand by the castle. He'd give his life for me. If he had got mixed up in adultery or something, and God had said, I'd say, the devil's accused. No, no. But that evangelist, see, he can be a part. He can come. If he's really a man of God, he'll lay in that altar. What's wrong? If you need a revival in your heart to sin in your life somewhere, you may have committed no crime, but you're neglecting the altar, leaving the Word of God. The Bible becomes an icon. You never read it. You're wrong, see. That's a disregard for God if you disregard that Bible. That is God there. That's the Word of God. If you disregard it, there's got to be a repentance. There's got to come to God with that. But you have to let the Word of God search us and find where we are. There's no creature that's not manifest in His sight. I said, my, my. If He already knows, I might as well tell Him anyway. Why am I trying to keep anything from Him? I might as well lay it out here before Him. You know, He said, everything is naked before Him with whom we have to do. God's Word bears the character of God Himself that God and that God is all-knowing. He knows everything. So there's no use in me trying to hide anything. Nothing can be hid from the judgment of that Word. It will find it. If we'll not have it to judge us, then it will condemn us one day. But if I'll let it talk to me honestly, knowing that what He wants to do is enlarge me. I want more of my Son. And if more of Him is to be there, then there's something of you has to go. And He deals with me in that manner. For all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him. Now this God with whom we have is described as a consuming fire. That's what. And then God says, it's a fearful thing. But I don't have to. Wherever we are, if the Word of God is preached, or if we read it, if we'll give ourselves, even in drought, if there's no church, I don't have to die. I've heard some of the most beautiful testimony. I was just talking to Brother Cassidy and he was telling me, his wife, his dear wife, got saved first. And now she's all wrong. He said, I've got to straighten her out now. He said all his life he believed that the Bible was the Word of God. Even in the Roman church, he believed that Bible was the Word of God. And he said, now if I find that in this Bible, I'll know. I'll absolutely know that she's right, but I know she's wrong. But he said he had that Bible laying in his lap. And God said to him, if you open that Bible, life is going to change. Because you see, the Word of God is quick, sharper than a two-edged sword. And he told him about all how you've been running that business down. That's going to have to change. He said, I'm sweating that sweat coming down. See, the Word of God is quick. It's sharper. He said, I'm very hesitant. It's going to be bad if I open this up. But he opened it. Oh my! Amen. Now, all these years later, the blessings had come. What he thought he was going to lose had become the gain. When Abraham was willing to give Isaac up, he got him back greater than he ever knew what he could have him. You see, when I'm willing to let God search his heart, deal with it in His love, the reason He does, He loves me. This is God we have to do. If there's a secret consciousness that everything's not alright. I mean, if in that heart of mine, or yours, there's some kind of a thought that everything is not alright, then under no circumstance, let that be put away. You see, the devil wouldn't do that. Yourself wouldn't do that. Under no circumstance. If there's some little something you feel, if that peace, you know, if the peace of God is disturbed, then don't put that away. Don't blunt that. Because the consciousness of wrong, no matter how little or how small, is the swelling of the Word of God in you. You see, that's that Word. That's that life. Swelling. There's something in here not like me now, and I want you to get rid of that. That's the love of God, folks. That's not, you know, you can hammer at people, and damn people, but He don't do that. His heart is, I want you to be like me. Amen. I want you to be like me. Mr. Simpson, when he began that great work of the Christian Missionary Alliance, a lot of money those days to do what he was doing. He was very concerned. He was praying to God about that money. And God said to him, Simpson, I'll give you the privilege to write checks on a bank that has hundreds of millions of dollars. Talking about heaven. But He said, I don't want you to ever write that check for more than you need, because I love you. Give me this day, my daily. I want you every day here talking to me about that need. If I give you more than you need, you won't be back till it's up. So I want you to come every day. Oh, I've learned that lesson. I didn't want to learn it, but I've learned that. Give us this day. This day. Lord, we've spent more than we've got. Give us this day. Our daily bread. You see, He loves us. He said to Simpson, I love you too much. I don't want you hanging around out there a month because you've got enough and you don't have to come here. I want you every day to talk to me. I love you. That's the way it is with all of our lives. It is a love of God that causes God to deal with me, the consciousness of some wrong. No matter how little it is, it doesn't matter, but it's a swelling of the Word of God. Don't regard that thought as your own thinking. Don't regard it as somebody preaching the Word as their thinking, but from God. I said from God. Don't take it, this evangelist is talking to me. God's talking to me. Man left the church. Amen. Just up and left it. I never saw him. Finally, I met him in a restaurant. I said, I've been missing you in church. I'm going to another one. I said, why did you leave? He said, I'm tired of you hassling me. I said, did I ever call your name? No, no, no, but I knew you were shooting at me. I said, did you ever maybe think God was trying to bring you in a little? Maybe it was God. It wasn't me. I sure wasn't sorting him out. I just know God is constantly urging me to go on. He brings me here. And He says, there's more if you walk with me. If you're willing to give it all, I'll give you all. But if you want to stop back there, that's as far as you're going to come. I'm not going to go any farther. It is God waking us out of sleep. Your willingness to allow the Word of God to show you what's wrong is the great test of your relationship with this Word. If you won't allow it to touch you, you have no relationship with this Word. And if you don't have a relationship with the Word of God, you have no relationship with God. But it's a test. If I allow Him to deal with me, great peace have they that love thy law. And nothing offends them. And when God takes time to talk to me personally, He loves me. You know, I'd see my children going off. I'd talk to them. I wouldn't mean to them. I'd talk to them. I'd come in and say, Son, that's not the way to go. Amen. That's not the way to go. I know the end results of that now. And I'd talk to them and tell them that you've got something in you there that if you don't deal with it now, it's going to get bigger than you are. And God's love for me. It's His love for me. He said, if there's no chastening, you don't belong to Him anyway. He's not going to come to your house if you don't whip the devil's kids. It's His own. I never spank none of the neighbor's kids. Never. I never talk to them about their life. I let the neighbor do that, but my own. My own. And He wasn't going to spank mine either. If He did, I'm going to be over at his house. You know, I mean, that's the way God is. Your willingness to allow God. Great peace have they. If you're offended by God's dealing with you, it's a sure sign that you have no true relationship with God. If you're offended by Him dealing with your heart, then you've proved to yourself that you don't have any real relationship with God because you're not mine. If you won't allow me. It is the flesh, the enemy of God, that's offended by the Word of God. Now, the Word of God spoken by the Spirit of God will not quench the smoking flax or break the bruised reed of repentance and humility. It will not. It will never, but will pronounce the most terrible judgments against the hypocritical, formless, lukewarm, professor, user-friendly, cross-denying preacher who are friends of the world, consequently enemies of God. Jesus never had a mean word to anybody but the religious. He said to Pharisees, Your father's the devil. I mean, He meant no word about that. A woman taking in adultery. He said, Neither do I condemn. She's calling Him Lord. He said, Neither do I condemn. I don't want to stone you. The death daughter just don't do it no more. She's calling Him Lord. Now He's her Savior. Lord and Savior. So He said, The world does that, but we don't do that here. Just don't do that no more. He never had nothing mean. Religious people want to stone her to death. So He said to religious people, You don't have any trouble at all. You throw the first rock at her. The one without any sin at all. Well, they disappeared, and He had none. But to that religious crowd that professed to be holy, but were rotten to the core, He said, You're a painted sepulcher full of dead men's bones. He had no patience with that. But no matter how wicked that man was, He had all the time in love of God. He never had no condemnation. He told him a way out. That is the gospel of Christ. The gospel preached today, for the most part, is more concerned about offending the terrors of religion than of offending the living God. I saw a church in California wouldn't let you bring a Bible because you'd offend people that didn't bring one. Isn't that something? Can you think of anything any worse than that? I mean, we must not be fearful of the Word of God exposing anything that's within us. In Mark 10, 17, a rich young ruler came to Jesus. Man, what a catch that would have been. He's rich. He's young. He's a ruler. Oh my, if we can get him in here, this is going to be something. Yes, sir. I can tell you, the full gospel businessmen would have followed him all the way to California. But he'd come to Jesus. He'd come to Jesus. He's rich. He's young. He's a catch. Oh man, the girls in the church said, I hope he comes in. He'd come to Jesus, the living Word of God, desiring eternal life. Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? There's none good but one. That's God. And you don't believe I'm God. So why do you call me good? Jesus, not worrying about offending the young man, continued, you know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Defraud not. Honor thy mother and thy father. The young man, in his self-righteousness, answered and said, Master, all these I've kept. You're talking to a man. It's perfect here now. I've done this all of my life. Jesus behold him and loved him, but saw through him and saw the covetousness, the idolatry of that heart. He said, one thing you lack. Go, sell what you have, give it to the poor, and you come with me. Now, give it all. When Jesus, the living Word of God, exposed him to be an idolatry, he went away suffering. He went away. Covetousness is idolatry. And he exposed him. He went away. What that young man did not know, we must know. The light that exposes your sin and corruption will surely lead you out. Whatever it leads, it will lead you out into a greater place, greater victory. You'll walk taller if you let God deal with that heart. This is what he said. God has spoken in the Son. This is the keynote of the message. God has spoken in His Son. Today, if you'll hear His voice, harden not your heart. This is a keynote of this long and solemn warning. The answer to our entering into God's rest, into the fullness of salvation, is hearing and doing the Word of God. I hear it. I do it. As we deal with the Word of God, you deal with God. Nothing else. You deal with God, and so will the living God deal with you. Do not judge your life by what your heart says. No, no. Don't let it condemn you. You know you're right with God. God's enlarging you. Don't judge your life by what your heart says. Don't judge it by what the church says or what the Christian world says, but judge your life by what God says. He said to me there, you know, you're a man who thinks you're smarter than me. Well, here's the revelation to me, but I realize what he said. That man called me desperate. No matter how mean he is, that grace is bigger than that. I wasn't saved out of Sunday school or saved out of a ditch myself. Why am I talking mean to him? Why would I put him away? I said, oh God, let me see me like You see me. He said, I'd be very happy to. Just sit here a minute. I'll let you know why I see you. Now, search the Scriptures, he said, to see what you're hearing. Is it truth or not? Don't be afraid. I wouldn't go hear a man the second time who wouldn't let me question him. Pensacola Revival, the man said, don't question what's going on here. Well, I'd have saturated that with my absence. I just wouldn't have been there. I must. You deal. I'm preaching to you. I'm dealing with your eternity. And you have every right in this world to ask questions. Amen. If you ask a question and I find out I may have been wrong, then both of us are going to be down here together. Amen. Because I want one thing to be right with God. That's the only thing I desire in this world. Because if I'm right with God, I'll be right with everybody else that's right with God. You know, before we got into all these marriage seminars, when a man and his wife were having trouble, we said, now look, if you get right with God, you'll be right with one another. And we never had divorce in the church. Now every other person is getting divorced because we've got a lot of psychology mixed up with it. If I'm right with God, I sure will be right with that pretty lady at home. Oh, yes sir. And if she's right with God, she'll be right with me. So we search the Scriptures. Since all things are naked before Him with whom we have to do, then why don't I just talk to Him about it? Why don't I let Him deal with it? No matter whether you will or you will not, you must let everything open before God with God with whom we have to do. And when you come to hear the Word of God, you know, I hear the Word of God, the man of God is preaching on that tithing. Amen. Hallelujah. I'm not guilty. But He comes down another way. Oh me. You know, He's found me. The thing now to do is for me to come to God and get that thing properly adjusted. Because He never dealt with the thing that He didn't come to cleanse and to purge. And the whole thing was that there'd be a greater expression of His Son. Let us stand. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh, blessed be the name. Blessed be the name. Why don't you just lift your hands to God? Oh, blessed Lord Jesus. Blessed Lord Jesus. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You tonight, Lord. Oh my God. I'm so thankful tonight that You love me enough to watch over my life. If I took a wrong turn, You'll deal with me, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory. Glory. Glory. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh my Father, God, bless us here tonight. Talk with us here tonight. Help us, Lord, to set our heart on just knowing You. In the name of Jesus, to walk with You, Lord. To walk with You in Jesus' wonderful name. Oh, blessed be the name of the Lord. I want nothing between my soul and my Savior. Lord God, touch these young people tonight. Touch all of us in this house. Let there be that declaration, that openness to You, Lord. That You can walk in, deal with whatever You like. Open to the Holy Spirit to search, to deal with His heart. That there be an enlargement of the channel. That there can be more of this river of life. God, we love You. We praise You. We worship You, Lord. Glory be to God. Glory, glory, glory, glory. Oh, for this day, Lord. You've been wonderful to us in this day. Glory, glory, glory. God, oh God. You that search the heart. You that look into our spirits. If we'll just cooperate with You. That's all that You ask. Oh, Father, in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Hallelujah.