In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of redeeming the time that God has given us, as we are approaching a period when time will no longer exist. He encourages the audience to take action against the evil in the world and make the most of the time they have. The preacher also mentions a story from the Bible about Samson and the foxes, using it as a metaphor to indirectly address the issue of dealing with obstacles in life. He concludes by emphasizing the need to be open to God's guidance and leading, as great things can happen when we allow Him to work in our lives.

In John 7, verse 38, Christ said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believes on me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. And the question is, why hasn't it happened? Why hasn't it happened? When the average Christian is not committing fornication or adultery, he's not stealing, he's not committing acts of violence, he's not doing any of these, you know, the average one, not the average, but the odd one might, but the average Christian is not doing those things. So we think of the things that hold up revival. So what's the real problem? I have a text in the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, it says, Take us, the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes. It's not the big sins that are doing it, it's the little sins that are doing it. Because, you know, wherever you go, for some reason the ordinary Christian thinks that that promise in John 7 was meant for Christian workers only. There's nothing in the context that even remotely suggests that. But that's how people feel, and so, since it's not happening in their life, they excuse themselves by saying, I'm not a Christian worker, it's not meant for me. For he said, he that believes on him. That's the person to whom the promise is directed. What are the little foxes that spoil the vines? Let's see if we can't find out this afternoon. Here's one, Philippians 2, verse 8. It says this, Let each esteem other better than himself. You do that all the time. But you might say, you may be thinking that, how in the world can I esteem my husband better than myself when I know he isn't? Or he said, how can I esteem my wife better than me when I know she isn't? Or the kids say, how can I esteem my mother and my dad to be better than me when I know them too well? They aren't better than me. This is the response we have in our heart, and so we excuse ourselves by not doing this, by not obeying the Lord in this particular instance. What did he say? Let each esteem other better than himself. When people say, I can't do that, you know what they're really saying? I've never really seen my own heart. You ever get a look at yourself for where you really are before God? You have no problem at all in esteeming other people better than yourself. Your heart and mine is deceitful and desperately incurably wicked. The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. And there are many verses of this kind that show us how evil our hearts are, how evil we are. We might say, well, I have an evil heart, but I'm not evil. It doesn't work that way. That's not what the Bible is saying. God looked down from heaven to see if he could find any that understood, and he found how many? He found none. Twice this is repeated in the psalms. The closer you get to Christ, the more evil you'll see your own heart to be, the less you'll think of yourself. And sometimes people, I remember a fellow in the Maritimes, I had meetings down there not long after the revival in 71, and he told me he heard about revival in western Canada. He read about it and he looked it up his eyes and he said, God, not me. Not me. You know why he said it? Because he knew his own hearts were so evil. He didn't want to mess around with that. It was a lot of stuff he'd have to make right. He didn't want to get involved in that. So he just let it rise. But the Lord got him anyway. Got him in a way, you know, getting people that are running away. I mean, Adam and Eve, they weren't looking for God. He went looking for them. And he found them. He's the one the Bible says, the one with whom we have to do. He's the only one with whom we have to do, really. So, ladies and gentlemen, if you can't do that, and ask God to show you what your heart looks like to him, then you might find it quite easy to do that. That's one thing that many of us are simply not doing. Philippians 2.4 says, Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Do you live that way? Are you always looking to help other people? Do you feel that the things other people are experiencing are more important than what you're experiencing? Are you putting your business world before the kingdom of God? You seek first the kingdom of God. And part of that is looking at other people to see how they're doing. Now, in times of revival, we do that. In normal times, we don't do that. We don't want to get involved. This guy's got problems, I don't want to get involved in that. I've had enough of my own now. Never stopping to think, maybe the reason I have so many problems is because I'm not involved in other people's problems. I'm not looking at other... I'm not concerned that my brother is stumbling and falling. It's not like Delort, the singing postman from St. Louis, who was one of our team. He told me one time he heard about a pastor who had fallen to grievous immorality in another city. He lived in St. Louis. And he said to his wife, You know, honey, I'll bet that man is hurting. I'm going to go and try and help him. He didn't know him, had never met him. He drove to this other city, found out where he lived, rang the doorbell, his wife came, he introduced himself and she said, He doesn't want to see anybody. Well, Bill's a very persuasive person and he managed to persuade her to let him in. She said, He's in that room down the hall, the first door to the right. He didn't even knock at the door, he said, I just walked in. And this guy was kneeling by the bed, weeping his heart out. And Bill knelt beside him and put his arm around him and said, My brother, I love you. He said, And threw his arm around him and cried on his shoulder for ten minutes and he kept saying, I don't think anybody cares. I don't think anybody cares. And things like this happen and we don't want to get involved. It's going to take too much of our time, maybe a little of our money. We're not doing it. It's a little fox that's biting at the vine so that nothing grows on the tree because the juice is not getting there, the foxes are getting there. And that's the problem. Another thing that says, Let no man seek his own, but every man another's welfare. It's kind of related to the one we just looked at, right? First Corinthians 10.24 Let no man seek his own, but every man another's welfare. Does that seem too big, too high, too hard? Listen, if you don't do it, you're grieving the spirit of God. And it's one of the reasons why John 7, 37 and 38, it doesn't work. You can't make it work. When you're allowing the foxes to nibble away at the vine. Paul said, All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ. Oh, he was talking about sinners, right? No, he wasn't. Look at the context. He said, I have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your stay. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ. He was talking about Christians. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's welfare. Go around looking for people you can bless. Go around looking for people you can encourage. Write letters, make phone calls, do things that will help to encourage other people. That's what we're supposed to be doing. I don't know what you're thinking right now. I have an idea what some might be thinking. No, listen, that's crazy. That's far beyond me. I can't do that. Yes, you can. I can do all things through Christ. But you've got to see it. It's the will of God. It's these little things, we call them little, that grieve the Spirit of God. In Proverbs 6, it says that a heart that devises wicked imagination, God hates. It's an abomination to God. But it's a thing that many Christians do, you know. Because nobody else knows. Your wife won't know, your husband won't know. You can sit there and conjure up in your mind all kinds of wicked imagination. In Ecclesiastes 7 it says, the Lord made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. So I looked up this word invention. You know what it means? Mental fabrication. Mental fabrication. It's a lie that you conceive in your mind so you put yourself in bed with some woman that's your wife or some man that's your husband who do something evil along these lines. Mental fabrication. God hates it, people. He absolutely hates it. I'll never forget once counseling with a guy. He was hooked on pornography. He and his wife had been, a month or so before he was in our meetings, they had gone forward in a missionary meeting. There had been a call given for people to be open to going to the missionary field. And they went forward. But he told me about what he said. We can't go. We can't go in the missionary field. We can't go anywhere. I said, why not? He said, pornography. He said, I got hooked on it. I got my wife hooked on it. We're practicing some of these wicked things. I love it. And I said to him, do you want to get out of it? No, he said, I don't. I really don't. I said, then before you go, let me tell you something. Every time you watch and practice that rotten garbage, you're forcing the Jesus Christ to live within you to watch it with you. And do you know what happened? He hit the floor. He fell on his face on the floor. He started screaming to God to forgive him. He said, God, I never knew. I never knew. I never saw. He wept and wept and wept. And he came back to God lying on the floor. And the last I heard, he was in Bible college going to the ministry. God hates the people. It's an abomination to God. You can't prevent the devil. There's an old saying, you can't stop the birds from flying through the air, but you can stop them from building nests in your head. So you can't stop Satan from sometimes projecting. He projects a beautiful woman he might pray for. The devil wants you to pray for anybody. You don't want that. Just stop praying for these people. Stop praying for them. That's one way of handling it. But there's more than that. We have to get to a place where we want to be clean, clean hands and a pure heart. We want that more than anything. And we'll get it from God if we're desperate about it. These little vines, I say. If you're so sparingly, he's talking about giving, you're not sparingly. If you're so bountifully, you reap bountifully. And he goes on to say, For the Lord loves a cheerful giver. The word cheerful there in the Greek means hilarious. Are you a hilarious giver? I mean beyond the time. The time is the Lord. You haven't given Him anything that was His anyway. Beyond the time. Do you give anything beyond the time? Do you ever think about it? Now don't get scared. I'm serious. You know it says in Luke chapter 6, verse 38, Give, and it shall be given at ease. Good measure. Press down, shake them together, and running over it shall men get into your bosom. For it's the same measure that you meet or give withal that shall be measured to your gain. It also says, Whatever good thing any man does, the same shall be received of the Lord whether he be bond or free. Felt Faisal Felt, who was the founder of the Life Action people, he told me something happened. Somebody gave him $25,000 to put into a bank for his retirement. He was only 40 or so at the time. So he stuck it in a bank. He forgot about it. Then a new team came on deck with them and this new team needed a motor unit of some kind and the cost was $35,000. So they were praying about it and the Lord told them, Well, don't pray. Give me a $25,000. That'll help. Give it? Yeah, don't worry. Give it to him. So he did. Two weeks later he got a phone call from New England State. Somebody had left him a property. He went down to the cellar and he got $85,000 for it. He said, I only paid $25,000. I've got $85,000. What does it matter about God's promise? That's what He promised. We're all afraid to try that. We don't want to try that. Oh man, it might not work. That's how we feel, you know. It might not work. Yeah? So... But anyway, God loves a cheerful person. I had an Irish treasurer in one of my churches. He was the greatest guy. He worked for the... He was the... He worked for the railway, you know. And if he happened to get a bonus of some kind, he'd say, How did you get the treasure? You needn't have to afford it. Because you're cheerful. You're a man. Who am I going to give it to? That's the way it is. Who can I bless with this, you know? We've lost that with people. We don't feel that way, you know. We're hanging on to a grubby little dollar, you know. Hoping... You know, some people, four times a day, they check their balance in the bank, you know. It's got to be growing, you know. When they get old, God can't look after them, you know. You get past six, what does God say? He can't help you then, you know. God gave me a message one time. I call it the miracle of a million dreams. He looked after... God looked after a million and a half people, 40 years. There wasn't a drug store. There wasn't a grocery store. There wasn't a clothing store. There was nothing. And God kept carrying them off for 40 years. And you know what happened? The clothes didn't fell. The shoes didn't... And the feet didn't swell. And they can't look after you. You miserable little wretch. I mean you. You sow sparingly. You reap sparingly. It's a joy to give. It's a joy to give largely. And God will lead you. I will therefore let men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and darkness. I will therefore let men pray everywhere. When Christian men meet, they don't pray. They talk. They're like women. They talk. It's not just the women that talk. The men talk too. They talk about different things. When we meet together, why don't we pray? Well, there might be some sinners standing up. That's right. There could be. It might be good for them to see people pray. There's a lady who was a young girl in Wales who found the Wall Street Bible. And she moved to Britain, Manitoba, years ago. Kneeling on the sidewalk, six, eight, ten, twelve men with their arms around each other, praying. And she said, I used to run past them here. And she said, All my life I've known they have suffered. What is it? The Lord Jesus Christ. She had it too then. But those men kneeling on the sidewalk didn't know that young kids that just ran by would become a Christian someday because of them. I know there's a bunch of us flying from Jackson, Toronto and we stopped in Winnipeg for several hours so we had a prayer meeting. It was kind of a really great prayer. People walking by all the time wondering who these coops were, you know. So what? Let them think. You know what's nice about Jesus Christ? He despised the shame. Hanging naked on the cross, covered with blood and sweat, He despised it. And if somebody looks at it sideways, we're offended for a whole week. These are some of the little foxes, you know, that are forming the line of God in our hearts. 1 Peter 1, here's another one. It says, Seeing you have purified yourselves in obeying the truth, it says that you will love one another with a pure heart, fervently. And 1 Peter 4, 8 says, Have fervent love among yourselves, for love shall cover the multitude of sins. Do you love others with a pure heart, fervently? Do you? Or do you tolerate people? I remember in a church one time, it was the Pentecostal church, the pastor told me, this gal wants to confess, she's the best Christian I've got. Do you know what her problem was? She said, I tolerate people. I don't love them. I just love them. Who would like that? Certain people, there was a case, I heard of a true case, this gal was a preacher he was helping build a building, falling off a scaffold, he hit his back, and the doctor finally told him, look, you're going to wind up in a wheelchair than you wind up in bed. He was getting people to pray for him, pray, pray, pray. And people were praying for him, nothing ever happened. And then a guy began attending his church, and he didn't like the stuff. Big mouth, you know, always yacking about nothing, you know. And he didn't like the guy, so he avoided him. The Bible says, Receive one another as Christ also received us through the glory of God. You should be willing to take anybody into your heart no matter how kooky they are. So, one day in a store, a big store, he saw this guy, and he was afraid the guy might see him, so he turned around and the guy came in and he hollered with a big voice, Hey Pastor, I want to pray with you. He stops, you know. This guy comes running over, and people gather around. So he says, Preacher, get on your knees. He's embarrassed to no end, you know. And this kooky guy lays hands on him and prays for him, and he's instantly healed. Listen, if you ask God for a gift, don't tell him how to package it. Because we're so proud of you, you know. We run away from the blessing of God sometimes because it's coming in a package we don't like. Little boxes just spoil the mind of God. Man, listen. In Ephesians 5, three times you are told to love your wife. You're told to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Listen, that'll keep you busy until the end of your days. You're told to love your wife as you love yourself. Then you're told to love your wife as you love your own body. Three times. So, are you doing it? Are you loving your wife this way? Why does it say in Colossians, Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Gordon Bailey said to me one time, You know, my wife gets after me a lot, and I don't like it. He said, Man, the buddy's here, she's always right. And I asked him one time, is he having trouble getting messages? No, he said, I have trouble keeping my heart right. He said, you know, if I have an argument with my wife, and I go out to preach, nothing ever happens. So, I've got to phone my wife, and go home and make things right before I can preach again. Nothing happens until I love my wife as Christ loved the church. That's hard. Maybe. It shouldn't be. Men, we're supposed to be doing that. If we're not doing it, it's another little spot in the middle of a grape of vines, and you're bleeding the juice away, so you won't have any fruit on the branches in your life. John 7, 37, 38, it won't mean anything. Well, then women, you should submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord. If you're not committed to your husband, you're not committed to the Lord. Did you know that? And you know, that really takes a sting on it if there's any sting in it. That takes it out, because when you're submitting to your husband, he may be stupid, he may be doing crazy things, but you're submitting to Christ, regardless of what the husband did. And as God said in Ephesians 5, in everything, in everything, he may think he knows better than you do. The time will prove he doesn't. We'll find out. I mean, God will take care of that, too. But many times, we don't love our wives as we should, and we don't obey our husbands the way that we should, we're not submissive to them. It doesn't cross our little minds that this has something to do with John 7, 37, and 38. In the book of Job, there's a book, a verse there, it talks about the hypocrite, and it says, The joy of a hypocrite is only for a moment. Then it goes on to talk about the hypocrite and his secret sin. And he likens his secret sin to a man having a sweet candy under his tongue. Nobody else knows it's there, he's enjoying it, but nobody else knows it's there, but God. What does it say about him? He will not see the living, the floods of honey and butter. John 7, 37, and 38 will never be realized in his life, because he's enjoying some secret sin or other. That's what it says. When asked where we read this in Job, it says God never takes his eyes off the righteous. That's a comforting thought if you're walking in the right, it's become a distressing thought if you're not. But he never takes his eyes off the righteous, and with kings that are in the throne, he establishes them forever, and they're exalted. Then comes the if. If they be bound in fetters and held in cords of affliction, what then? Then he shows them their worth, he shows them their transgressions they have exceeded, he opens the ear to disciples, he commands that they return to iniquity. That's God. And people say, I've prayed a million times, and God gave me so many. Oh, quit lying. Come on. You know, Vance Hadley, a guy came up to him one time and said, Vance Hadley, I know something's wrong, I don't want to live. So Hadley said, Well, guess at it, Hadley. He says, You know what? He guessed right the first time. He says, What? He shows them their worth, and their transgressions they have exceeded. He does that. We don't want to listen to him, so we shut our ears off. We shut our ears off. The joy of the hip is only for a minute, you know, because when it lasts, you die. We're told we're to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. The Greek word for adorn is the word from which we get the English word for cosmetic. We're to dress it up. We're not to make it different and dress it up in that sense. We're to dress it up by living a godly life, by backing it up. I've heard preachers say, You know, I preach the gospel, and I know my people are not living it, they claim they're saved, they're not living it, I feel helpless. So what's the use of preaching? My people don't adorn it, they don't back it up. Are you adorning the doctrine of God our Savior? Are you watching TV programs you shouldn't be watching just because nobody else is in the room? Am I doing that? Am I cheating God? Robbing God? I heard a funny thing happen one time where I fell in a hole, my wife and I were constantly having different spiritual problems, couldn't seem to get the Bible, and then I said to him, Are you tithing? And he was sitting on a chest up there, and there was a lamp here with a time switch on it, and he said yes and the lamp went out. He looked up at the lamp, well, part of the time, and then he looked back, and he said, okay, five bucks a month, the Lord had that all fixed, we didn't have a lamp, but you can imagine how he felt. And he was cheating God, robbing God, and it was a problem. Another time, the same guy and I went fishing up on the Maiden Lake in Orange, Saskatchewan, and we got out to this thing, and I caught a couple right away, he didn't catch any, and he caught a beautiful pike, about eight or nine pounds, and he got this in the boat, and he had this stick, and he clubbed it to death, you know, and had at least nine, and he says, look at that thing, oh, wait'll the guy see it back, he can't, he put it in the fish tank over the side, and every now and then he pulls it up to look at it, you know, he pulls it up, there's nothing there, it's gone. He jumped in, I said, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, I said, I said, go on, he said, I don't know, don't ask me, what you don't see, I find out about a year later, he came to tell me what was wrong, said I didn't have a fishing license, there was a Christian guy to see, but you can't get away, with what you can't, you can't, I don't care what it is, you're gonna get caught, for your shame, your sin, with what, with IRS. Somewhere, some mends things are up before you, going to form the judgment, some men will follow after, it will get you, either now or then. Somebody was talking to Churchill at the time of the last war, and there were a lot of parsons and what had happened to Hitler, and finally Churchill said, well, this gentleman will turn up either in this world or the next, and in either case the local authorities will take care of you. We're told not to grieve the spirit of things before, and the context tells us some things to grieve the spirit. Putting away a lion, speak every man's truth to his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Do angry and see not, let not the sun go down on your anger, on your wrath. Now the sun can bust into your eyes and take some down there, but you're going to let him? And this thing about, you know, the people, you know, there's an old saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, when it comes to Bible knowledge it's a very dangerous thing too. So somebody tells me, and they have done this, it says in the Bible, that God visits the nicaries of fathers, and what else? Nothing else. Well yes, there's something else, you know. There's another verse that adds a little more to that, and here's what it says. God visits the nicaries of fathers of third and fourth generation, and shows mercy to thousands of those that love me and keep my commandments. It doesn't apply to a person that loves God. But there's all kinds of people laboring under the delusion that God's visiting the nicaries when they love God, and it doesn't apply to them. Don't give any place to devil, he can't take anything from you, I say again, that you don't give him. This creates a spirit, remember, that's part of what it says there in the context. It goes on to say that him that stole, steal no more, but rather than have, have money to invest at eight percent. You read that, didn't you? Isn't that what it says? Well, that's the way we live, isn't it? He may have to give to him to gain, is what it says. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying. There's many Christians, they'll tell a story with two sides to the joke, and they say, keep your big mouth shut. Stay out of trouble. You know, little ears sometimes are listening. I remember getting on a train one time. We're on a train, my wife and I, and my older daughter, Judy, she's about five or six, I think, and we couldn't sit together because two seats, and I had to sit over here, and Judy and my wife were up here, and my wife bought some coke, and she sent Judy down the train with this coke for me, and she comes up, and a great big gush through, and she says, here's your bottle of beer, daddy. What do I do? All I had to look at, you know, it's a bottle of coke. And then one day she came up with an awful string of profanity, and I said, honey, do you know what you just said? Well, I heard a man say it. She had no idea what she did. So little children of two years, you're listening. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. It might be uproariously funny, but if it's dirty, don't do it. Speak words that edify. You know, Harry Ironside, they said, when you visit a god in a conversation about evil things, talk, you do the same thing sometimes, you know. Why are we so afraid to talk about it? I sing the song, my dreams are lovely, I never talk about them, I don't think I love them. Would you guys pray for me? So we had them come in here with the chair, and we knelt with them and prayed with them, and another guy jumped in and said, I'm a school teacher too, and he said, no, I'm the same as him. I sing the song, I don't have to talk about Jesus, I don't think you love him. And a boy jumped up and said, I'm just the same as my husband. So he put two chairs up, and a bunch of people came, guys and gals, and we prayed for these people. And this is what was going on. Why is it that two Christians are talking about the Lord in a Mormon poem, and a sinner walks by, because the shame of Jesus, and can it be a mortal man? We need to be bold, and open, and kind, and loving. We don't worry about them for the little things. Over a period of time, there's more and more foxes nibbling at the vines. If you've been a Christian for 40 years, you've never won a soul to Christ? So they can't remember when God ever answered a prayer for them. Why is that? I met a man in a bush camp back in those days when I preached in a logging camp. He'd been in the ministry for 15 years, and he was cooking in his logging camp. And he said, I quit the ministry because in 15 years, God never once answered a prayer of mine. I couldn't be dishonest anymore in preaching. But God, because George Miller was a man of faith, and a person who was clean, he had a ledger, a prayer ledger. He had one condom of prayer he prayed. The next condom of prayer he prayed. The third condom of prayer he prayed. God answered. He had 35,000 answers to prayer. That's when he was 85. He was, I think, 94. So he probably had 100,000 answers to prayer before he died. Was God playing tables? I didn't find out from this quote what the problem really was. I don't know what it was. But I know it wasn't a God song. But there are many Christians, maybe some of this crowd here, who've been a Christian for years. You can't remember either when God last answered a prayer of yours. You've never won a soul to Christ. And you're quite content to go along this way. There's a verse in the Bible that says, How can I go up to my Father and the Lamb not be with me? Some of us don't even care that our kids are saved or lost. I know three families that have 12 children in them. That's unusual. It doesn't have much anymore now, but this was some years ago. In one family, all the kids but one were Christians. In the second family, half the kids were Christians. In the third family, only one child was a Christian. In the family where only one child was a Christian, the attitude of the parents was, Well, we've let them take them to church. We've talked about the Lord. If they don't get saved, that's their problem, not ours. In the second home, the father was totally, he was a Christian, but totally careless. The wife was concerned. Half the kids were Christians. He was really looking at it. In the other family, Dad and Mom were walking with God. They had one child of 12 not saved, and the father phoned me from Regina to Saskatoon. Can I come down? I want you to pray with me for that kid. And we prayed. This kid was living calm and lost, and so we prayed and wept together. I don't know whether he said it or I said it, but at the end we agreed we're going to believe God. You know how long it took? One month later, the kid phoned and said, Dad, can you come down? We've had a fire. I heard him say it. Here's what happened. He was working. He made his own trail. It was a homemade trail, well-made and all, but he was down on the back end, cleaning with some cleaning fluid, and a gal walked in and lit up a cigarette, and the fuse caught and it exploded. The place was on fire. He couldn't get out. He told us that, he said, Dad, Samson came on the scene. Something happened, and I wasn't able to tear that wall out with my hands. You couldn't do that, he said, but God let me out of there. The girl was blown back and she wasn't hurt. So he flew down there. The two of them got saved, and they married the two of them a few days later, you know. So what was the difference between the two families? Some parents care, many don't care, and other parents don't really care. Let them go. Anyway, receive you one another as Christ also received us through the glory of God. You've got to have an open heart. Paul said, I have you in my heart. He's talking about a whole church. He had a whole church in his heart. We have an open heart, big heart, looking for people we can bless. And they're all around you. I remember reading a story. It happened in Alberta. It was nighttime, a gal was driving home. There's a filling station here, and a house beside it, and all the lights are off, and God told her to knock on the door, you know. She didn't want to. It's a woman, it's night. But it was very insistent, so she went and beat on the door, and a guy came to the door and said, what do you want? And she said, I was driving by, and God told me to knock on the door. And he looked at her. He said, lady, when you knocked at the door, I had a pistol to my head. It was just about to pull the trigger when you rang the doorbell. And she led him to Christ. We have to be open to what God is saying, and let Him guide us. Great things happen. We call this revival. There's some normalness that can be blessed. Alright, there's a verse in Ecclesiastes 10-1. It says, Dead flies, little foxes, dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking smell. So does a little folly, a little foolishness, a person that's known for his honor and wisdom. Dead flies. Little foxes. I remember I preached on that text one time, dead flies. That's not exactly an exciting text, but the Lord gave it to me. And a kid came up to me. He was about six foot two. He looked very unhappy. I said, okay, son, what's the problem? He said, them dead flies. I got all kinds of them, he said. All kinds of them. And so he dealt with it. We had a great time. Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking smell. If I do something foolish, like I read once about a guy who caught syphilis. That's before they had drugs for syphilis. And his friend said, how did this happen? He said, 15 minutes of foolishness with a Mexican woman. Well, it was foolishness. Dead flies cause the ointment to send forth a stink. A life that smelled of Jesus wherever we go to the glory of God. Then one time, York and Saskatchewan had a crusade. One night some people came forward. I dealt with them. Then a guy came down the aisle. He had a cast on one leg. So thump, thump, thump. He got to the front. And he said, I've been a Christian for a long time. I have never, ever had peace with God. And I don't know why. I said, I've had all kinds of counseling. I said, does God keep bringing something to your mind? He said, no. Kindly, but I've talked about this to counselors. Never one of them told me this happened before you were a Christian so you don't have to make things right. I said, who told you that? Zacchaeus made things right that were made wrong before he became a Christian. I heard the guy say, no, no, no. He said, I didn't do that. I said, what happened? He was in the army. He was stationed somewhere at Camp Pimentel. And he got involved in illegal bootlegging liquor to armed services personnel. He was never caught. But one night they were making a liquor drop. He had the liquor. I grabbed him up in the van. They never asked each other's names. They operated by numbers. And so he got in the van. And I don't know to this day what happened. But the counselor told me what happened before I was a Christian so I don't have to make it right. But when I told him what the Bible said, oh, he said, oh, why didn't they tell me the truth? So, he gave himself up to the police the following day. I never heard for some months what happened. He was completely exonerated. I don't know on what grounds. But I'll tell you something else. The very night of the day that he went to the police, he was so full of joy. God, he could jump off the floor six feet or more. Here's what he said. He gave his testimony. He stood there weeping. He was hopeless. He said, God broke my walking heart. He broke my walking heart. He was jumping off the floor. And for twenty years he'd been wimping around. The Christian, no joy, no peace. I heard about a guy who had a cottage built at a lake. You know, plumbing and everything. And then the plumbing didn't work. The water didn't flow. So he was thrown a big fat frog stuck in one of the pipes. And sometimes with a big fat frog that's stuck in the pipe, you know. In God's way so the blessing can't flow. And God is simply calling to us, deal with it, deal with it. Listen, time is not forever. The Bible says in Revelation there'll be time no longer. We're approaching that period when there'll be time no longer. Now we have time. Redeming the time, it says, because the days are evil. It's evil out there. It's time to do something about it. And to make the most of the time that God is giving us. So, in closing, how do you deal with foxes? Do what Samson did. He caught 300 of them and he tied their tails together and he set them on fire and he sent them to the shacks of the Philistines' corn mill and burnt all these seals up. Does that apply? Well, not directly, but indirectly. Don't play around with them, brother. Get ahold of those foxes. Figure it out. And deal with them, one by one. There's no offer, Carl. We just simply said, the prayer room's over there. And 150 people were screaming out to the prayer room. Then I preached for a while and gave an invitation and only 10 people came forward. That's good for your pride, you know. I mean, God had already spoken before I got up here. We don't like that sometimes, you know. I was speaking at a prayer conference in the States and one of the speakers, I'm so glad he cared. Listen carefully. Especially these priests. They've got everybody. He was a pastor and he prepared a fantastic, he said, a fantastic sermon on the Holy Ghost. How to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So he told the guy carrying him in he was coming Sunday morning. Now look, I have this great sermon on the Holy Ghost. I want to have all the time I can, so you'll be through the preliminaries by a quarter past 11. Okay? It's going, it's half past. He's sitting, something's going. It's half past. He's sitting there fuming. What's this crazy stuff? He forgot the stupid thing, you know. He's just fuming over this. My sermon, you know. And then, it gets to be a quarter to 12. Then the guy quits. And he said, as I was walking to the public, he said, the Lord said, Testimonies first. Testimonies? God, what are you doing? What is wrong with you? So he called for testimonies and the lady got up and gave the testimony and the Lord said, that's not the one. So someone else, and he went through 10 testimonies before the Lord said, that's the one. And before he could preach, you know what happened? A man got up at the back and he said, does this church have a program where a sinner can get saved? Yeah, yeah, come on. Another guy got up and said, does this church have a program where two sinners can get saved? Sure, come on. And he gave an invitation and 18 people got saved that day. And a man preached a testimony. You know. When God is in the house, it's different. Things are different. And God is trying to change all of us, myself included. He wants everything, everything. I can do all things through Christ and Christ is asking me to seek first his kingdom, put everything, his business first, on the track for his glory and honor. And the Lord just said, that's enough. Shut up. Okay, let's pray. Father, we've talked about some important things today. There's a little fox in his spotted eyes. You know, Father, sometimes there must be a very busy person running down 300 fox. I don't know how he did it. I believe it happened. He got rid of them all because they burnt up in the field. And I think we can take something from this analogy to God that if we get serious about our little foxes, Lord, you'll take care of them. You'll enable us to get rid of them and to live to the glory of God. It's going to be an awful thing to get to heaven and find out because of a bunch of stupid little foxes we never got anywhere in our Christian life. God couldn't use me because my life wasn't right. Oh, God, help us. Have mercy on us. Have mercy. Remember us. Remember mercy. In Christ's name.