In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of being aware of the time we are living in and being spiritually awake. He highlights the choice we have to either continue in sin or avail ourselves of the grace and power of Jesus Christ to transform our lives. The speaker also discusses the need to dress up spiritually, to be prepared and ready for the coming of the bridegroom. He uses the example of Peter falling asleep when he should have been praying, and how this led to Peter denying Jesus. The overall message is to be conscious of the time, clean up our lives, and be spiritually awake and prepared for the return of Christ.

It's a hunter who is out there, you know, in the clearing at least up on a tree and there is a clearing in the forest and all of a sudden into that clearing comes this beautiful, you know, elk or moose or whatever it is you're hunting and you know you have a moment to squeeze that trigger. If that animal keeps going at the pace it's going, you know, you will lose it amongst the trees. That is a kairos moment. It's the person at the auction house that is bidding. Oh, you've got your eye on an item and maybe you get distracted momentarily and all of a sudden you hear the auctioneer saying, going once, you need to indicate your intentions. If you don't, that item is lost forever. That's a kairos moment. We have kairos moments in our lives, maybe the death of a loved one where we remember that particular time when you got the tragic news. We have kairos moments in our nation. We think of 9-11 at least in the United States that changed the course of history. I remember at least, I think I remember where I was at that particular moment. I was somewhere out over the Aleutian Islands flying on a Korean airline jet. My wife had dropped me off the morning of 9-11 at the airport in Dallas, Fort Worth. I boarded that Korean Airlines at 2.30 in the morning on 9-11 and we were well into four or five hours of flying. Everybody was dozing on board that airliner. I still remember I was in seat 55G at the back of that great jumbo jet. The lights were all dimmed and all of a sudden there was an announcement from the cockpit that there had been some sort of crisis in America and all planes were asked to be grounded, diverted, and about an hour later we arrived back in Anchorage, or I should say back, we were not heading to Anchorage. We'd already passed it, but we flew back, landed in Anchorage. The entire airport was full of planes from all over that particular area that had been diverted back. The next two days I spent in a hotel again watching those airlines fly into the Twin Towers. Nobody, of course, knew all the details at that particular time. That was a kairos moment in our nation. I called my wife to let her know I was safe and where I was and so on. She had my telephone number. The next day she called me to inform me my mother had died in Argentina. She was down there with my older brother. And so 9-11 and 9-12 were sort of kairos moments in my life. We have these moments, don't we? Knowing the time. Do you know what time it is? Jesus reprimanded the scribes and the Pharisees for not knowing the season that they were in spiritually. He says you guys could get a job at the Weather Channel, I'm paraphrasing. He says you know how to predict the weather by looking at the clouds, looking at the sky. You know whether it's a good day or a bad day. But he says you don't have a clue as to what is going on spiritually. One of the saddest verses in the Bible, I think, is that verse where it says they missed the day of their visitation. Again, God had come to visit His people and yet they missed the very one that supposedly they were looking for, the Messiah who stood there in front of them. Again, they missed and so we need to know again what time it is. The Bible has a lot to say about time. Paul says here, knowing the time. Because the days are evil, it's already the hour, he says, to awaken out of sleep. The Bible says in the epistle of John, it is the last hour. If that was true 2,000 years ago, goodness knows how it would be written today. The last moments, the last seconds, if you like, of time, if that was the last hour. And so there's much about time, redeeming the time. The Bible talks about the devil. It says the devil has come down knowing his time is short. I don't have my eschatology all figured out, but the devil has his. He knows I have a limited time and he is using every moment of that time to advance his kingdom. Would to God, the church of Jesus Christ realized that this is a time that we have to advance the kingdom of God. And we need to know the time, if you like. The disciples came to Jesus and they said to Him, Listen, give us an idea, some indication of the time of your return. What are some of the things we have to look for? And, of course, we have in Matthew 24 the various signs of the coming of the Lord. We get so familiar with these words. There's going to be wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilence. There's going to be all sorts of false prophets, signs, wonders, miracles as it was in the days of Noah. So shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man. And if you've grown up in church, you've heard those phrases over and over to the point where, after a while, it really doesn't take hold. It really doesn't grip us the way it should. I have compiled here a list of statistics basically built around Matthew 24. Right now, there's 192 nations embroiled in some sort of conflict. Wars and rumors of wars. 150 major wars since World War II. Earthquakes. These are interesting. 21 major earthquakes between 100 and 1,800. In other words, a 1,700-year period of time, almost 2,000 years, 21 major earthquakes. Between 1,800 and 1,900, 18. Between 1,900 and 1,950, 13. Between 1,950 and 1,991, 93 major earthquakes. We have every year one earthquake of a magnitude of 8 or higher. We have 17 of a magnitude of 7 to 7.9. 134 between 6 and 6.9. 1,319 between 5 and 5.9. 13,000 between 4 and 4.9. And 130,000 between 3 and 3.9. Some of those are pretty damaging earthquakes. You know, you get 5 to 6 on the Richter scale, and you have 1,300 every single year. 6 to 7, 134. Then famine. We have about 10 million people that die of famine every single year. Six million children under the age of five will die of famine this year alone. 800 million people suffer from malnutrition. Jesus warned about pestilence. We have 30 previously unknown diseases that have appeared in the last 30 years or so. AIDS now is right on the verge of being about 30 years of age. But there are new diseases coming. Swine flu, obviously, one of those that could mutate and become a major pandemic. But all of these sayings, again, pestilence is going to come along. Persecution, 163,000 people die for the cause of Christ. In other words, martyrs every year. We have more people that have died for their faith since the year 1900 than all the previous years of history. We tend to think, you know, Fox's Book of Martyrs, that's something that happened a couple hundred years ago. But no, these things are still going on. Matthew 24 warns us that we will be hated by all nations. No exception clause there for Canadians. No exception clause there for Americans. All nations, we will be hated. And I believe we're going to see that. Psalm 2, the most repeated psalm in the New Testament from the Old Testament, says that the kings of the earth will take counsel against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, let us tear apart their fetters. We are the last restraining voice of sanity, of godliness, of integrity, of holiness, of righteousness. We speak out against abortion. We speak out against pedophiles. We speak out against, you know, drunkenness and child abuse and all the other abuses. But the world wants to tear apart those fetters, those restraining voices. And the kings of the earth are going to get together. And they are going to come against the church of Jesus Christ. Why? Because they don't like the standards of God's Word. Already in places like Europe, the age of consent between, you know, males is down to something like 14 and so on. Goodness knows where there's a movement even in America to allow sexual activity between men and boys. And you think, you know, 20, 30 years ago that would be undreamed of. And yet today we're seeing that happening more and more. False Christ. And I'm speaking now for America. We have about 2,000 so-called false messiahs in the United States. England has 80,000 practicing witches. We've sold over 60 million Harry Potter books. We have daycare centers now that are teaching children how to practice yoga, go on trips. These are children 3, 4, 5 years of age, how to trip out, how to go on these imaginary journeys, obviously opening themselves to demonic powers. And these demons are taking them on these fantasy trips, so to speak. And it's all under the guise of yoga and so on. We've got drugs. 16 million Americans have been involved in some sort of illicit drug abuse. Revelation 18 talks about the entire world is going to be deceived by her sorceries, talking about Babylon, the whole world system. The word sorcery there is the Greek word pharmakia. It's the word we get the word pharmacy from, obviously. And so drugs is now a major, major problem in the world. We have literally gang warfare coming in now from Mexico and America. These gangs that think nothing of taking human lives, and they've killed literally thousands of people in Mexico, now spreading to America all drug-related programs. Pornography, says in Matthew 24, as it was in the days of Noah, when the thought of man's heart was so evil that God had to destroy the earth. We now have 25 to 250 million pornographic websites. Nobody knows exactly how many because it's almost impossible to keep track of them. We spend $57 billion a year in pornography. This is America. $3 billion alone in child pornography. $4.5 billion in phone sex. $2.5 billion pornographic emails are sent out every single day. 27,000 people visit pornographic websites every single second. 76% of ministers admitted that they had visited a pornographic website. 53% of promise keepers that were surveyed said they had visited a pornographic website as recently as one week ago. 47% of Christians said pornography is a major problem in their life. If this is an average church, and I hope it isn't, this is an average church, and about 50% of the men have a problem with pornography. And ladies, lest you are quick to judge, according to Oprah Winfrey, who is no saint, she says the largest consumers of pornography in America are not men, but women. And by that, she at least has the common sense to say that women have a different type of pornography. They get into the soap operas, they get into the romance novels, but nevertheless it is fantasy, fantasizing, I wish this man was my husband, and so on and so forth. And we are living in a day, again, when the enemy has pulled out all the stops, so to speak, and he is out to bring the people of God into bondage and in captivity. It's no wonder that it's called the World Wide Web, because there's many a fly stuck in it, so to speak. And once you get into that web, it's almost impossible to get out of it. I have a friend who has one of the foremost deliverance ministries. By deliverance, I'm not necessarily meaning casting out demons, although that is possibly involved as well, but dealing with people addicted to pornography. And he says it takes between six and nine months to set one of these captives free. That's how addictive it is, that's how powerful it is. Then we have the problem of human trafficking. The Bible talks about cargos of human slaves in the book of Revelation. I just jotted this down just about three days ago, CNN News. We now have 300,000 young girls, this is in the United States, involved in sex trafficking in America. The average pimp makes over $200,000 from just one of those girls. In the course of their lifetime, sometimes they're destroyed, sometimes they're snuffed out, and so on. They're traded in to other pimps and so on and so forth. But again, it is a nine or ten million dollar industry. I guess that should be billion dollar industry in human trafficking. 27 million sex slaves worldwide. I watched an ABC News commentary, a documentary about a year ago. They followed a reporter from New York City down to Haiti, including his entire trip. Five hours from the moment he left New York City, five hours later he had already purchased a young girl for $150. And by purchasing her, I mean that girl was his property. He could do with her whatever he wanted, abuse her, kill her, get rid of her, discard her. But within five hours of leaving New York City, he had purchased a girl for his own sexual desires and so on. Again, I could go on. Catastrophes. The Bible talks about Luke 21. Perplexity at the roaring of the seas, verse 25. In other words, people will be perplexed. What's going on? What's happening to the oceans? We are seeing major floods now in England. You know, the 1,000-year flood there. But we're seeing things like the tsunamis in Southeast Asia, the Katrinas and so on. All of these things, again, signs that we are living in the last days. Let me ask you one more time. Do you know what time it is? See, knowing the time. Knowing the time then becomes the trigger, if you like, as to whether you take action or not. And so the first thing, it's time to wise up. I don't know how common that expression is anymore. It was popular a number of years ago, at least. Wise up. Get with it. You're out of touch. You don't know what's going on and so on. But the next thing is, it's time to wake up. It's time to wake up. Paul says, it is the hour for you to awaken from sleep. Now, he is not talking here about the natural. God gives his beloved sleep. God is not opposed to sleep, but he is opposed to spiritual sleep. Spiritual apathy. Again, we become lethargic, apathetic, complacent. Lukewarm. You know, just a place of neutrality. A place of slothfulness and sluggishness, sleepiness, if you like. Spiritually speaking, we have our head buried in the sand. We really don't know what's going on. We've allowed the enemy to sort of, you know, just lull us to sleep into a place where we're not active in the things of God. We're just sort of sitting there, spinning our wheels, so to speak. 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 6. I think it's the best verse to clarify what he's talking about. Let us not sleep, he says, as others do, but let us be alert and sober. In other words, the opposite of being asleep is to be alert. It's to be sober. It's to be wide awake. The problem with sleep is that when you're asleep, all sorts of things can take place. And you don't have a clue that they're going on. Your house can burn to the ground. Of course, if you're in it, you'll burn with it. But, I mean, you know, an intruder can come into your house and you can sleep right through it. When you're sleeping, you are not aware of what is going on. I believe the church has been asleep. The world has been awake. The world has, you know, taken advantage. The enemy's certainly taken advantage of these days in which we live. And the church has been sitting there sort of, you know, enjoying just seasons of being together and so on. Nothing wrong with fellowship, but we have failed to really make an impact on the world. And it's time that we woke up, so to speak, time that we began to shake ourselves. The enemy loves a sleeping church. You go into the Word of God and back in the Old Testament, you remember the story of Samson. Samson who was terrorizing the Philistines. Samson who had the power of God, the anointing of the Spirit of God resting upon him. The Philistines could not contain this man. They were terrified of him. And so they set up Delilah as an undercover agent in more than one way. But anyway, she was there to figure out, hey, where is the secret of this man's strength? What is going on? And when he figures out what she is after, he toys with her a little bit at her expense. Well, try this and try that and so on. And all of the things that he tells her, of course, fails. And then she tries tears. Tears never fail with a guy. And so the tears start flowing. The guy softens up a little bit. And he says, well, you know, you got me. You know, the secret of my strength is that I've never cut my hair. That's a vow, a Nazirite vow my parents made even before I was born. God said he was to be a Nazirite from the day of his birth to the day of his death. And I'm a Nazirite. It stands to my separation unto God not to, you know, touch anything unclean and so on and so forth. But if you were to cut my hair and break, symbolically break that vow, then I would lose my strength. And now she has the answer that she's been looking for, the answer she's been paid to get. But she still cannot do anything, even though she has the key, until she makes him sleep. And the Bible says she made him sleep on her knees. And while he was asleep, the enemy moves in and they shave him or cut his hair and he wakes up and his power is gone. You see, it was while he was asleep. Matthew 13 talks about a man who went out into his field and he sowed good seed. And then it says, while men were sleeping, the enemy came and sowed tares amongst the wheat. You see, it's while we're sleeping. Ten virgins, they're out there waiting for the bridegroom to come back. They get drowsy. They begin to sleep. And all of a sudden there is the announcement, the bridegroom cometh. Five of them wake up. They are prepared. They are ready. The other five, they've let their oil drain out. They don't have any light. They have to go back into town. And while the bridegroom comes, they are not prepared. Why? Because they were sleeping when they should have been awake. We have Peter, who Jesus said, along with the other disciples, I'm going a little further into the garden there to pray. Would you pray with me out here? You know, watch and pray. Peter falls asleep. Of course, the others do as well, but he comes back. Peter, watch, lest you enter into temptation. In other words, Peter, the enemy's got you in his sights. He's about to take you out. You need to stay awake now more than the rest of the disciples, if you like. And Peter is targeted. Watch and pray. Watch and pray. But Peter falls asleep. And it's only a few minutes, maybe less than an hour later, where all of a sudden somebody points a finger and says, You're one of his disciples, aren't you? And he denies the Lord three times that night. And so we need to be awake. Let me ask you again. Do you know what time it is, and are you awake? Are you conscious of the day and age in which we live? Do all of you are conscious of what God is wanting to do during this particular season? The third thing, it's time to clean up. Again, the first thing you do, you wake up, or you know the time. You look at the clock, and somebody wakes you up and says, It's such and such a time, then you try and wake up, rub your eyes, get the sleep out of your eyes, and now you're wide awake, but now it's time to clean up. It says, laying aside the deeds of darkness. Any activity involving darkness, anything that is contrary to the Word of God, any disobedience in your life, anything that is not, again, in alignment with the Word of God, we need to get rid of. The message that preceded the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe is going to be the message preceding the second coming, is a message of repentance. I know repentance is not a popular message these days. Everybody wants to be rich and prosperous and so on. I have nothing against that, but you can be the rich fool as well, and do everything right in the natural, and have your house and your mansions and your barns full and loaded, and say, I've got many days to come, many years to come, and so on. And God says, this night your soul is required of you. And what the world considered a genius of a man, a great planner and somebody, God says, you're a fool, because he didn't look after his spiritual condition. And we need above everything else, without holiness, the Bible says, no man will see the Lord. No man. I will never forget during the revival in Pensacola, during those years, and my wife and I were there for 18 months, lived there, had a privilege of traveling with Steve Hill for two years on the Great Awake America Crusades, doing some of the teaching. But I remember one night we had a large altar call. Every night there was 300 or more people that would come to the altar. But this particular night there was an extra large crowd, and they asked the pastors, we were all sitting, many of us at least, sitting in front of the people, and they said, we need some extra counselors, and I just made my way down into the crowd and just randomly walked up to a man. And I said to him, is there any particular way I can pray for you and help you? He says, well, I'm a pastor myself. He says, I preached all over the world the prosperity message. And he said, I believe with all my heart that without faith it's impossible to please God. But he said, God spoke to me tonight very clearly and said, even though you've preached the message of faith, without faith it's impossible to please God. He said, God said to me, without holiness no man will see the Lord. And he said, there are things in my life I need to get right. Thank God for his honesty. You see, faith is wonderful, but holiness is essential. Without holiness no man will see the Lord. And we need to clean up our act, as it were. We need to lay aside those deeds of darkness. Revelation chapter 16, it says that we are to stay awake and we are to keep our garments. Both of those things in one verse there. Stay awake and then keep your garment. This is a day when we need to be alert. We need to keep our garment. Jesus came to the disciples there in John chapter 13. Remember when he took the towel, girded himself about and took a basin, began to wash his disciples' feet. Very humiliating. Here is the Son of God. Here is the one who is the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. And he's washing the disciples' feet. And Peter reacts and he says, you're not going to touch me. Basically, I'm unworthy for you to wash my feet. And Jesus says, Peter, if I don't wash you, you have no part of me. I believe that Jesus Christ is coming to the church today. And he's there and he's saying, listen, I want to wash your feet. And if you react and say, listen, forget it. He says, listen, if I don't wash you, you have no part of me. It is essential that you and I are washed. It's essential that we are clean. It's essential that we stand before Almighty God with our garments again off the deeds of darkness. Those things that are contrary to the Word of God and to the light of God's presence. The Bible closes in Revelation chapter 22, almost one of the last verses, verse 11. Let the one that does wrong still do wrong. Let the one that is filthy still be filthy. Let the one that is righteous still practice righteousness. Let the one that is holy keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly. I mean, here you have right to almost the very closing verses of the Bible. If you're going to be filthy, go ahead and be filthy. If you're going to be righteous, be righteous. If you're going to be holy, be holy. Listen, I am coming quickly. It is a final choice that we have. Am I going to clean up or am I going to continue on in my sin, my rebellion, my disobedience and so on? Or am I going to avail myself of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, of that blood that as we sang about this morning, never loses its power, still has the power to change and transform and renew your life and my life. Thank God for the blood of Jesus Christ. Thank God for the grace of God that we don't have to continue. We can lay aside the deeds of darkness by the grace of God. Then he says it's time, number four, to dress up. Now one of the things that we are spoiled with in America, North America, Canada, is our vast variety of dress. You live in a changing climate up here, where in the winter you put on your down coat and your fur line boots and so on and so forth and you dress appropriately. Summer comes and you put those things back in the closet and bring out short sleeve shirts and so on and so forth. But we have a great variety of dress, don't we? We have our casual clothes. We have our dressy clothes. We have our ultra dressy clothes. If you're going to a ball or something or going to a wedding, you know, your tuxedo or whatever it may be and your dress affects your behavior and your dress also describes the behavior. My immediate neighbor, even though I have not met him, he's right across the road. He's a bit of a recluse in many ways. My wife has met his wife. But he's a dentist. And if I were to see him come out of his house one day and he has got white shorts on and white tennis shoes and a white sweatband and a white T-shirt and he's holding a tennis racket, I know that he's not going to be doing root canals that day. You see, his dress betrays him. He is going to take the day off. He's going to play tennis. On the other hand, if I see him come out of the house one day with a hard hat on, you know, big wool red shirt on, heavy Levi's, steel toed boots and a chainsaw, I know he's not going to be doing root canals either, at least I hope not. He is dressed to do something else. You see, your dress tells you many times what you're going to be doing. Isn't that right? The way we dress. We have ultra casual clothes, you know, our sweats where we want to just be a couch potato for the day and watch some hockey game or whatever it is and turn up the fire and just relax. Then our casual clothes, like I say, all these clothes. Notice what Paul says we are to put on. He says you are to put on the armor of light. I don't know about you, but obviously when a guy comes in dressed in armor, I know he's not going to go scuba diving. He's not about to play tennis. He's going to war. At least if we go back to, you know, the old fashioned armor. We are in a warfare, you and I. We have an adversary, your adversary. He is the devil. He goes around as a roaring lion because he wants to devour, destroy, undermine what God is doing in your life. And the only way we can withstand, again, the attack of the enemy is to put on the armor of light. He has given us weapons. He has given us things to use. We can put on that breastplate of righteousness, that helmet of salvation and so on and so forth. But we are to put on the armor of light. Now, you don't put the armor on over a dirty body. You first of all have to wash. You first of all have to lay aside certain things. I dare say, I think it would be a safe bet that there's not a single lady here with her nightgown still on under her dress or a guy here with his pajamas on under his suit and tie. No, we lay aside one set of clothes. Paul is saying spiritually we are to lay aside the involvement in the world. And then we put on the armor of light. God is not about to cover our sin. He wants to cleanse our sin. It has to be taken off. And so it is time again to dress up. Let's put on the armor. Let's prepare for the day that lies ahead of us, the hour that lies ahead of us. And then number five, it's time to grow up. Let us behave properly. Now, what you put on, like I say, affects your conduct. I have never seen a man with a tuxedo on, playing tennis or just lounging around on a couch and getting that thing all wrinkled. As I travel these days by air, I see a lot of military people either coming or going and some of them in their dress fatigues and they are proud of their uniform, proud that they are part of the Canadian Navy or whatever it is or the American Air Force. And they walk around with those dress fatigues on and there's a certain way in which they walk. Why? Because they've got a certain attire on. They are representing your government or our government, whatever the case may be, and we are to put on, the Bible says, the Lord Jesus Christ. We put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And boy, if we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we better act like it. We are to change our behavior. Paul, Peter talks about that in 1 Peter where he says, let your behavior be excellent amongst the Gentiles. In other words, amongst the unsaved. Your behavior should stand out. We are to be sons of the light. We are not of the darkness. We don't get involved in what the world gets involved in. Our language changes. Our thinking changes. Our behavior changes. They see in us something where we can let our light so shine. You shall be witnesses. And somebody said, and if necessary, use words. We should be a witness. The way we conduct ourselves, the way in which we work, whether we're on time and so on and so forth, all of those things. Paul lists some of the things we're not to do. Not in carousing and drunkenness. William Barclay, I looked up, because he's so good at background knowledge here. He says, this is a word that is used to describe men that are boisterous, that are out of control, loud, obnoxious, drunk, walking through town or a village in the middle of the night, oblivious to the fact that people are sleeping, just loud and boisterous, noisy, rabble-rousers. I hope that doesn't apply to any of you. I trust it doesn't. But then he says, sexual promiscuity. The desire, he says, for the forbidden bed. Having no values regarding sex. No values whatsoever. Boy, if that doesn't describe our generation. Sensuality, having no shame regarding sin. Openly flaunting your sin. Again, the Mardi Gras crowd, the Elton John, the Ellen DeGeneres, the Rosie O'Donnell, the Oprah Winfrey who makes no bones about her living boyfriend, Stedman, and so on and so forth. I mean, it's no longer a shame. They can say it now and it's not even embarrassing. They invented the term a number of years ago. We've come out of the closet. We're no longer ashamed of what we do. And now they are brazen about the fact. Our tabloids are full of Hollywood stars having babies outside of marriage. Jolie and Brad Pitt and so on. One of these days, well, we may get married, we may not. In the meantime, we're living together and having kids like rabbits. Doesn't make any difference. So what? Nobody bats an eye anymore. What's she going to have? Is it going to be twins? You know, this person, maybe they'll get married, maybe they won't. No shame. No shame whatsoever. Strife, the lust after power, position, prestige, wanting to be first, again, pride basically, jealousy. That spirit that is never content with what you have. Always wanting what somebody else has. Consumed again with the wrong things, the wrong desires, if you like. All of those things. Jesus Paul says it's time that our behavior changed. Seek ye first what? The kingdom of God and His righteousness. That's our priority, isn't it? Our priority should be different to the world. Not that we don't need houses and cars and clothes and all of those things. Thank God for them. But they are not to become our priority. They're not to become the obsession of our life. Jesus Christ is to have preeminence in all things. His kingdom is to be sought above everything else. And then finally, it's time to lock up or close up. One of my jobs when I passed it was, after everybody left, I don't know why it fell on my shoulders, but it did for a long time. I had to go through the building, make sure all the lights were off. You know, go in the restrooms, go in all the classrooms and so on, make sure all the electricity was turned off and then out the front door and then I'd lock. Why? Because I didn't want to make provision for somebody else to come in. Somebody else to enter. No doubt every single one of you this morning, when you left your house, your condo, your apartment or whatever, you locked the door. When you go home, you'll open that door, but you locked it so there is no provision. When you make provision for something, you gather what is necessary together in order to achieve your particular goal. If I go to pastor's house and I notice that behind his car there, he's got a, you know, one of these pop-up trailer tent things. And on top of that, there is a canoe and there's a bunch of sleeping bags and I see a primer stove and, you know, some ground cover things, fishing rods and water skis and maybe a boat behind that. You know, he's going on vacation. He's going camping. It's obvious he's going camping. He's made provision to go camping. He's got all the necessary things that are vital to enable you to go camping. And we can make provision for the flesh. We can gather those things together if you like. And the Bible says make no provision. Make sure that computer is out of your teenage boy or girl's room if it doesn't have a filter on it. You know, make sure again that you've got some sort of filter system, some sort of accountability. You know, watch the things that you watch and the things that you listen to and all of those things. You know, Proverbs talks about the young man who gets into the neighborhood of where the prostitute lives. Once he gets into the neighborhood, he takes the path to her house. Once he takes the path to her house, she comes out. The Bible says she is dressed as a harlot. In other words, everything about her is seductive. Everything about her is for one and one purpose in mind and that is to seduce this young man. And with her flattering lips, and everybody likes to be flattered. You know, she seizes him and kisses him and then she says, oh, I've just paid my vows. You know, a little bit of spirituality goes a long way, doesn't it? Oh, yeah, I've just come from church myself. Yeah, I've just, you know. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning. Oh, you don't have to worry about being caught. Oh, the head of the house, he went on a journey. He's not going to be back until the full moon. He's taken a big bag of money with him, you know. You'll be safe. Nobody will find out about it. And the Bible says, he does not know that it will cost him his life. And then it says, many of those would have been slain thereby. But he makes provision. He gets in the region. He gets on the road. Next thing, he's involved with this woman. We can do the same thing. Again, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. You get on that pathway and believe me, many of those would have been slain thereby. There is a broad way that leads to destruction, a narrow way that leads to life. And we have to choose. This is a day and age, I believe, in which it's getting easier to choose because the darkness is increasing. But as the darkness increases, the light is also going to get bright. And that time of, you know, that line of demarcation, if you like, is getting narrower and narrower. Or 20, 30 years ago, you could watch, you know, 90% of the shows on television. Now, boy, you know, they're full of all sorts of filth, witchcraft, medium stuff, and all of that that has come in now. Just the titles alone. You know, listen, I can't take that path. If I do, you know, I'm going to contaminate, if you like, the very spirit of God within me. And so we make no provision for the flesh. And if I could add that last one, number seven, it's time to act up. Do this. Do this. Don't just hear it. Don't be a hearer and deceive yourself, the Bible says. We hear the Word of God and we don't act upon it. We are deceivers. But Paul says, do something about it. Don't just read this. Don't just listen to my exhortation, Paul says. But now that you know, do something. Act up in a good sense. And we need to take action. Again, this is a day when God, I believe, is waking up the church, rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, getting us ready for what lies ahead. I believe these are some of the most frightening days that lie ahead and yet some of the most incredible days spiritually. The Bible talks about the day of the Lord. It says it is a great and terrible day of the Lord. You think, how can a day be great? You know, if I say to you, how was your day? And you say, great and terrible. I'm going to say, well, you mean it was great? No, it was great and terrible. How can a day be great and be terrible? Well, if I'm walking down the street and somebody accosts me and starts beating me up, that's not a very good day for me. In fact, it's a terrible day for me. But then if somebody shouts, the police are coming, that's a great day for me, but it's a terrible day for the guy beating me up. I mean, it's a great and terrible day. The Bible says Babylon is going to collapse. And what happens to the church? Rejoice over her, my people. But for the world, it's a terrible day. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Babylon has fallen. Everything we long for, our whole life is wrapped up in Babylon. That whole world system, all of a sudden it's in tatters. There's not a single thing left. In one hour, Babylon has collapsed. And the entire world is in turmoil. Don't know how to handle it. And the people of God rejoicing. Great day for us. Oh, we are looking for and hastening the coming of the Lord. And we are living in days that are great and terrible. Day of the Lord. But make no provision for flesh. Let's do what the word of God says this morning. Let's stand to our feet. I'm going to turn the meeting back over to pastor as he comes and just closes the meeting this morning. But let's be open and sensitive to what the spirit of God is saying. If you're in a place where there's been compromise, if you've been in a place of indifference and apathy, then this is the time. Again, say, God, wake me up this morning. Give me the grace to clean up and get rid of these bondages, these things in my life. In Jesus' name. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Let's get some background here now.