Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the profound calling of walking with God, highlighting that this relationship is rooted in fellowship and communication with the Creator. He reflects on the significance of walking as a spiritual metaphor, contrasting it with the contemporary focus on physical exercise, and stresses that true fulfillment comes from a deep connection with God. The sermon explores the biblical foundation of this calling, beginning with Genesis 3:8, where God seeks fellowship with humanity, and discusses the necessity of spiritual hunger and brokenness to truly desire a relationship with Him. Beach encourages believers to recognize God's pursuit of them and to respond by seeking a deeper communion with Him, especially during times of spiritual dryness or wilderness experiences.

Let's just bow our hearts, if we would, for a moment. Look to the Lord for prayer. Father, how thankful we are for your presence, how thankful we are for who you are, that you have, in your grace, in your mercy, in your loving-kindness, helped us to see a little bit of the glory and the majesty and the all-surpassing greatness of who you are. You are Creator and God. Beside you, there is no other. You are the true and the living God. We acknowledge that. Today we pray, Lord, that you'll give us the Holy Spirit in a special manner, Lord, so that the eyes of our heart will be flooded with light, that we might see, Lord, the wonder and splendor and glory of the calling that we have been called with and to. We commit this time in your Word to you, and pray, God, that it will lead us to you, and that in being led to you we would be changed and transformed by your power. We ask for Jesus' sake, Amen and Amen. The one all-consuming passion of God is that we would know Him. We would walk with Him. We're going to look into the Scriptures at this time and perhaps continue at another time. This could be part one. Regarding walking with God. Walking with God. There is no higher, no greater, no awesome calling known to a human being than to be called by God to walk with God. Frequently, I go out walking. I go to many different places. And I notice that some people like to walk in pairs. Others like to walk alone. I have recently noticed that certain places that moms with children like to walk together pushing their carriages. There's something about walking alone or with others that is intriguing, that creates an interest within the human heart. There's somewhat of a joy that we experience when we go on a walk. There's somewhat of a joy we experience when we're at a picnic or at someone's house and someone says, who would like to go for a walk? And several people say, oh yes, and together there's a walk. Walking is part of what humans have been doing from the very beginning. Unfortunately, in the day that we live in, the idea of walking has been narrowed. The meaning, the significance of walking has been narrowed to, for the most part, a very selfish motive. I'm walking so I can lose weight, so I can get in shape, so my body can look better. Of course, that carries over to running, jogging, biking, and other activities. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to exercise. Paul said that there's a little profit to bodily exercise, but there's great profit to spiritual exercise. And so we're not going to minimize the Word of God. We're not going to annul the Word of God. There's little profit to bodily exercise. But in the day that we live in, bodily exercise is not little, it's much. It's a big thing. It's a huge issue within the contemporary human being, particularly in the West. The inordinate desire to exercise doesn't exist among third world nations where the manner of life has been reduced to the bare essentials of living. Women do not wake up in third world nations and wonder who they're going to meet on the streets while jogging. They don't go to weight rooms and lift weights or enter races. So unfortunately, walking has lost the spiritual significance. God created walking. Did you know that? Everything humans do that is not inordinate and sinful, God created. Walking is part of what humans do. Everything that God created is good, it's beneficial. But it reflects a need that He created within human beings. And this need corresponds to a desire within God's very heart. And so what we want to look at in the Word of God is walking with God as it relates not to an aerobic activity or not as it relates to a means to trim our body, but walking with God as it relates to the desire God has to fellowship, to interact, to communicate, to talk with us. Before anything was created, there was a fellowship. Father, Son, and Spirit. The triune God. One God. Father, Son, and Spirit. Three Persons. Three Entities. One God. And the Scriptures tell us that the Father had eternal joy with the Son, and likewise the Son, eternal joy with the Father. And the Spirit experienced eternal fellowship and unity with the Godhead. And the Father, Son, Son, and Father relationship is the spiritual meaning, reality behind the call of God when He comes from eternity into time and starts calling men to walk with Him. When God calls men, very literally in the Scripture, as we're going to see, to walk with Him, He is creating an opportunity for us to engage with Him in a reality that He has been eternally engaged in with Himself. The fellowship that He has. Father, Son, and Spirit. There's no higher calling, beloved. There's no greater calling than for deity to call humanity into fellowship with Him. I think of the testimony of Colette almost 30 years ago. God says, I called you to the desert. Why does God call us to the desert? He wants to walk with us. He wants to fellowship with us. He wants to talk with us. He wants to delight our heart with Himself. And He wants our hearts to be delighted in Him. So, when we begin to go through the Scriptures and begin to see this amazing call by God to us to walk with Him, we have to understand the origin of come walk with Me, God desiring to walk with man, is before time. It's in eternity. It is the spiritual reality of fellowship. So, if we go back to Genesis 3, we find the first place where walking with God is mentioned. Genesis 3, verse 8. Unfortunately, this is in a time after Adam and Eve's sin. And so we see the negative reaction that man has when God initiates a call to walk with Him. But nevertheless, it's the first place. And we learn much about any topic in the Bible when we go back to the first use of the word or phrase. The first use of the word or phrase tells us a lot about the particular topic. Genesis 3, verse 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So the first place that walking is found in the Bible is in connection to God walking in the midst of the garden in the cool of the day seeking fellowship with Adam and Eve. They heard His voice. And so, the first use, please, pay attention. Listen to the Word of God. Let the Holy Spirit bear witness to this truth. The first use of walking with God is connected to hearing His voice, the objective, the goal, the purpose of communion with God, which figuratively is represented by walking with God is a fellowship with God so that we hear His voice. What a lovely thought to hear the voice of God. When God told backsliding Israel that He was going to chasten them, He said He was going to lead them into the wilderness. What would He do there? He says, there I will speak comfortably or tenderly to you. So when God leads us into the wilderness, it is to eliminate distraction. Not much can distract us in the wilderness, can it? The soul can be so, so enamored and preoccupied with so many things, can it not? And it can become so distracted. But God is so full of love and compassion and mercy, He leads us into the spiritual wilderness, not necessarily Phoenix, Arizona, but there's people who are in wildernesses in the heart of Manhattan where everything is happening from a natural point of view. The wilderness is a place where God takes the soul and through His discipline, His chastening, and His loving grace and kindness, He strips the soul from its inordinate desire for things and breaks it. Not destroys it, but breaks it, so that it realizes that the purpose of why it exists is not for bread alone, not for the natural life, but that you might learn what? God says, to live by every what? Word. The voice of God. See the connection? It is God's infinite passion for every single one of us and all of His children, blood-washed, blood-bought, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. No matter where they are, there's only one body gathering in many different places. But God's highest passion and highest intention through His discipline and through His chastening and through His child-training dealings in our lives is that our souls will be brought to the place where they are weaned from demanding their own way, where they are weaned from wanting to satisfy all of its many desires and all of its many lusts and all of its many wants. The soul is brought to a posture of brokenness before God. A sacrifice well acceptable in the eyes of God. The sacrifice of God is a broken and a contrite heart. God says such a sacrifice I will not despise. I will not pour contempt upon. And such a sacrifice is the sacrifice that God longs to see. The soul is broken. The soul is bowed down. The soul is weaned. The initial stages of this breaking that occurs is the soul begins to despair life. The soul begins to despair. The soul thinks something is wrong. The soul feels lonely. The soul feels forsaken. The soul feels denied. The soul feels punished. The soul sometimes feels like it's in a dry and weary land. And in that state, the soul can begin to complain. The soul can begin to whine. The soul can begin to say, why, God? Why have You done this? Can anybody relate to this process? Why have You done this? What are You doing to me? The things that tasted so wonderfully to the soul begin to lose their flavor, do they not? The things the soul lived for. The things the soul would go to bed at night for, waiting to wake up the next morning so it can indulge in, begin to fade. The taste, the spiritual palate of the soul begins to change. The soul begins to cry out, O God, O God, I am in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. I have feasted on bread from this world and have enjoyed it and have been enriched, but now the bread of sweetness has turned into bitterness and my soul is perplexed. O my God, have mercy, help me. Such confessions can only be wrought by God within the soul. It can only be wrought by God. Only God can bring His soul to that place. It can't be preached into us. It can't be forced into us. It can't be imposed by legalism. It can only come when a loving God says it's time for me to work in your heart a deeper work of grace. And so the soul, when it is being prepared to hear the call of God to walk with me, to fellowship with me, is devastated. God accomplishes this in many ways and through many circumstances by disappointments and pain and sorrow and trials and circumstances. And as the soul cries out to God in this time of testing, in this time of despair, the soul begins to hear the sound that it has not heard or heard faintly only a few times because it's always been so filled with so many other different things. It's been so filled and preoccupied with life. Not Zoe, but Bios. Bios, the soul, can become addicted to Bios, which is the natural life, natural living. The things that are seen with the eye and felt with the hand and heard by the ears and tasted by the senses. But now that soul that is under the hand of God, the discipline of God, not the punishment of God. Punishment was satisfied at Calvary. Don't forget it, dear ones. When someone comes to God in Christ and confesses their sins and becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus, it's not about God punishing us. It's about God chastening child training in order to bring our souls to the posture where they become hungry to walk with God. Hungry for Zoe life. The life that was in God at the beginning. The life that was in the Son from the beginning. The life that was in the Spirit from the beginning. And the life that was made manifested in the man, Jesus Christ. But how can we have such a hunger for this life? Can it be forced into us? How many have found that no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do in your own energy, it doesn't work? You cannot generate by human energy, human fire, human charisma, human activity, even Christian activity. You cannot generate a hunger for this Zoe eternal life. Your soul by nature is hungry for bios life. The things of this world. Even as Christians. But God is in pursuit of us. Aren't you glad that God is in pursuit of us more than we are in pursuit of Him? Aren't you glad that He is a lover? And as a lover, He is pursuing us. Yes, He wants to see in us a pursuit after Him. And there is a place where God says, you draw near to Me and I'll draw near to you. But that drawing near to God is in response. God always initiates. When we were without hope and powerless, what did God do? Wait for us to come to our senses? No. He sent His Son while we were what? Crying out for Him? No. While we were still His enemies. Dead in sins and trespasses. Following after the gods of this earth. Serving our own lusts. Hateful. Full of envy and jealousy and pride. Cursing God and cursing one another. God in His mercy initiated by sending His Son. God always initiated the call to man to walk. And so we see the soul brought into the wilderness not to be destroyed, but to be revived. To relive so that it develops a taste for God. It develops a hunger for God. Blessed is he that what? Hungers and thirsts after righteousness. He shall be filled. This is the introductory thoughts to walking with God. Introductory thoughts. God's passion. I want to walk with You. Man's dilemma. I don't want to walk with You. I want to do my own thing. God's remedy. God's response to man's dilemma. I will call You into the wilderness. Spiritual. And there, your soul will learn that it was not created to live on bread alone. Now, the Word of God does not say that there is no place for natural living in the Christian. There are legitimate natural desires and activities that are acceptable in the eyes of God. This isn't about diminishing or destroying the fact that we are human beings with a soul. I want to make this very, very clear. This is not about the annihilating of the soul so that all we are is spiritual beings with spiritual desires. Absolutely not. It is a holy and a wonderful thing to wake up in the morning and smell the flowers and say, oh God, that's lovely. That's natural, not spiritual. It's a wonderful thing to be hungry, really hungry, and to smell food and say, oh God, that smells good. It's a lovely thing to look with your eyes and see a sunset or a sunrise or the stars in the sky and say, oh God, the heavens declare Your glory. That's all natural. But it's glorious and that's part of the soul and it's acceptable to God. So we are distinguishing between things that differ now. This is not a call from God to destroy our soul, but it is a call by God to sanctify and to save our soul from itself. The saving of the soul. Not the annihilation of the soul, but the saving of the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit and the loving discipline of God so the soul can wake up and have eyes that see clearly and live by the Word of God. Enjoy life, yes. Enjoy lawful pleasures, yes. But not live by them. Not be addicted to them. Not make them God. Because God says, I am the true and living God. Have no other gods before Me. And so the soul learns in the wilderness by God's help and God's grace to pant after God. To pant after God. Psalm 42, As the deer panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. Is that a natural state of a soul? Does that represent the natural condition of our soul? Absolutely not. Our soul does not naturally pant after God. Our soul does not naturally see itself as in a dry and a thirsty land. But our soul is preoccupied with grasping and trying to satisfy all of its many desires. It is clear that Psalm 42, verse 1 is the cry of a soul that has been under the hand of God and under the child training of God and has been led into the wilderness, into the desert. There been weaned from wanting its own desires and having a taste only for the natural. And by the power of the Holy Spirit of God and the transforming power of grace has awakened to why it was created, why it exists. That is to know God. To pant after God. To be filled with God in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah to God! What a blessing! What a blessing to the human beings in the 21st century, the year 2008. A world half gone, half crazy. What a blessing to be alive and to be able to say, Oh God, I'm not perfect. I've got lots of failures and struggles in my life. But my soul is hungry for You. My soul is longing after You. You alone can satisfy me. Can you say that today? Is that ability growing in your life as you are going through tests and trials and God is meeting you? If you can say yes, then you're blessed. You're a blessed man, a blessed woman. You're more blessed than the richest man in the world. Did you know that? If you can say that, you're more blessed than those who own all the oil supply in the world. Recently we read an article that in one of the countries that controls oil, the government has built a ski resort in the middle of the wilderness, in the middle of the desert, that gets 140 degrees. Totally self-sufficient. You go into this ski resort, totally encased, and it's freezing. Pictures of these indigenous folks from that country with winter gloves and winter hat and winter jacket and skis and a ski lift and snow and they had smiles on their face. They were able to maintain the inside of this ski resort cold enough to maintain. Snow. That must take a lot of oil. A lot of electricity. It must have a lot of money. But more blessed are you if you can say before God today as the psalm says, as the deer pants for You, Lord, so my soul is learning to hunger after You. Yes, I've got struggles and failures. That's not the issue now. The issue is I have a hunger for You. That's a work of God. That's a work of grace. And that is the meaning behind being called to walk with God. Did you know that? 1 John, we've laid a foundation, a bit of an introduction. Yes, that was the introduction. When you begin to touch the supremacy and immensity and vastness of God in Christ, you touch a limitless source of life and water and reality. As Colette was saying, this is life. This is reality. What your senses see and feel and smell will pass away. But he that does the will of God shall abide forever, even as God Himself abides forever. This is reality. No, God does not want to take us from being human. It's not God's thought. Don't ever believe a Gospel or a book or a preacher that gets up and starts telling you that God wants you to be so spiritual that you lose touch with your soul and your natural living. Don't believe it. It's a lie from hell. It's a demonic doctrine because Satan hates mankind. And mankind is not a spirit. Mankind is spirit, soul, and body. That's how God created Psalm 8. What is man that thou art mindful of him? Or the Son of Man that thou visiteth Him? God's thought is man. And Satan hates man. And anything he can do to distort the calling of God to be human but redeemed in Christ, he'll do. 1 John 2. Actually, let's go to 2 John. There's three little Johns. 1, 2, and 3 John. Right at the end of your Bible. Walking with God. Now we go from eternity in the heart of God. Now we're into time. We're into time. We're into an epistle. Into a letter that was written by an apostle of Jesus Christ. And he uses phrases that are interesting. We want to look at them. 2 John 2. Let's begin in verse number 1. Now before we read, it's commonly believed that the first verse here is symbolic in order to cover the true meaning of this epistle. In case it got into the hands of enemies. Instead of writing, it says, the elder, who is John, to the elect lady and her children. Instead of actually writing to an actual woman and her physical children. Many theologians believe that John was using figurative language and he was probably talking about a church and the members. We don't know for certain. And it really doesn't change the truth. I just thought I'd throw that out. John says, whom I love in the truth, and not I only, but they also that have known the truth. For the truth's sake which dwells in us and shall be with us forever. Grace be with you. Notice what John is now speaking into their life. It's very important for us to understand because this whole topic of walking with God and hearing God's voice and the soul being brought to an end of its selfish ambitions, all of that is the work of grace be to you. Mercy! Grace and mercy. Not self-effort. Not legalism. Not creating a Christian religion and then rallying people to get involved and get committed to this and that and this and that. And in that manner, by committing to those things, we're going to grow up spiritually? No. No, that is not how it happens. It's grace. It's mercy. Grace and mercy and peace. It is peace. The absence of conflict. Peace. Peace. Peace. Ephesians 2. Peace through what? Through the cross. Peace comes through the cross. John is here saying, I am going to speak to you grace, mercy, and peace. I'm going to affirm that everything I stand for, John is saying, and everything that I want to see in you as my spiritual children and everything our Father wants to see in all of us as His children is the direct result of grace and mercy and peace and truth. And truth is in Jesus Christ. It's all in Him. From God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. Now watch this. Remember walking with God? The call of God to walk? I rejoice greatly that I've found of your children walking in truth as we have received a commandment from the Father. And now I beseech you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto you, but that which we have had from the beginning that we love one another. Listen, and this is love that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. How many times has the word walk been used in these three verses? Huh? At least three? Walking with God. Now notice John did not say I greatly rejoice that I've found your children talking about the truth. He didn't say preaching the truth. He didn't say writing about it. He said walking in the truth. Walking in the truth. God's desire is not simply presentation of facts about the truth, learning facts about the truth, or simply reading about the truth, though there is a place to read and there's a place to speak and there's a place to teach. But it is not an end in itself. It can't be something we gather around. We don't gather around a teaching. We don't gather around a presentation. We don't gather around a book or an author or a pastor. God's object, God's goal, Calvary's goal based on 2 John 3, grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ. The goal has got to be more than deeper teaching, another revelation, another book, another author, deeper life. It's got to go beyond that. It's got to result in the inworking of the reality of the truth which is in Jesus Christ so deeply in our spirit and soul that it causes us to walk in the truth. Walk in the truth. Notice John's heart does not rejoice. Unless his children are walking in the truth. Now, we're going to turn to one more Scripture and we're going to talk about it for a short time and we're going to bring this walking with God part 1 to a close. And then we'll pick it up again at another time when the Lord is pleased to release it. Very quick overview of what we've went over so far. Walking with God. Walking, part of the human thing. We like to do it. But walking represents or has a spiritual counterpart in the heart of God. Walking, when God says, come walk with Me. And next time we get together or the next time after that, we'll see how frequently in the Word of God there's the call of God to walk with Him. But when God says, walk with Me, He's not talking about let's walk together so we can burn calories. Let's walk together so we can make ourselves look better. It's okay to do that. Again, we're not condemning. There's a little profit in bodily exercise. And we'll take the little, but remember, it's a little, not a lot. If bodily exercise is a lot to you, then it is not scriptural anymore and it has become a god. And you don't want to serve that god because that god will not help you when you're in trouble. You can bow down to your bike and bow down to your gym, Gold's gym, and bow down to your Parabody workout program when you're in trouble and your soul is despairing, and it'll just sit there and stare at you and won't say a word. Your muscles will only make your casket heavier. Nothing more. We got the point? I try to get some humor in. My son said, amen, Dad. That's good preaching. Right? It's okay. It's okay. But it's only a little profitable. Don't forget it. Money's okay. But if you love it, it's a curse. This is a different topic. We're not going to get off on it. So walking is a counterpart to God's desire for what? Fellowship. When God says, let's walk together, He's saying, I want to fellowship with you. But remember what the call of fellowship was in Genesis 3.8? It was walking with God and hearing His voice. There is a crisis in Christendom today. There is a voiceless Christianity. Did you know that? There is a commitment to all kinds of activities, but the voice of God is not present anymore. People don't hear His voice. They're not being led by Him. Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice. My sheep hear My voice. God is jealous of a Christian religion that has usurped His place. He's jealous. And He's going to smite the outward system. The only thing that will be left are living stones, walking with God together, hearing His voice, and making much of Jesus Christ. And out of that organic union will flow the works that God ordained in Christ for His glory and honor. Everything else is going to perish. I know that's a horse pill to swallow, but it's the truth. It's the truth. That's the day of visitation, which we've spoken on before. When God visits the church before Christ comes again, He's going to remove everything. And what's going to remain is a living body expressing a living Christ and doing only that which is out of union with that living Christ. That is biblical, isn't it? Of course it is. Okay, so the overview. God's call for communion. God's call for fellowship. But the soul has other plans. The soul has other interests. But God loves us so much that He says, I've called you to the desert. How many feel like you've had in the past or are now, or maybe you're on your way to a spiritual desert? How many know something of a desert? Something. It can be a hard road, huh? It can be difficult, right? But don't forget, God doesn't bring us into the desert to punish us. He's not mad at us. He's not angry at us. He's not doing it because He's seeking revenge. He's doing it because He's setting us up for the greatest blessing we could ever, ever know and that is a soul being awakened in the desert to hunger for God. What a loving God we have. Amen? So, let's go to John 21 and we're going to just see here why we need the desert in order to walk with God. John 21, verse 18. Now remember, we're talking about walking with God. Is the word walk in verse 18 anybody? Is the word walk in verse 18? Yes. But is walk in verse 18 connected to God and hearing His voice? No. What's it connected to? Oh my! You see? John 21, verse 18. It's talking about walking. But it's not the walk that God calls us on because it's a walk that's with my own interests in view. Listening to my own desires. Doing my own thing. See, that's two kinds of walk. That's the walk of the natural man. And let me tell you, brothers and sisters, I hope no one in here is saying, yeah, that's just the way brother so-and-so is. Or sister so-and-so. Or, yeah, that's the way those people are in that church. No. This Scripture represents not only Peter in his natural state, but all men in their natural state. And that includes you and I. And I wish the doctrine of eradication was true, Gary, but I know it's not. He does too. The doctrine of eradication means a false doctrine where when I get saved, I no longer have a natural sinful nature. It's not true. Because if it was true, then I have to conclude I'm not saved. Because I still got one. I only met one man years ago who came into our home with his family and he believed in this doctrine. And I couldn't believe my ears when I heard him talking. He believed in the doctrine of eradication. He believed that there was no sin in him. Then I heard him talk to his wife. And I scratched my head and said, I'm not even going there. And they just left the next morning. So, here's what we're learning. Here's what we're learning. We've just spent an hour talking about walking with God. What is John 21.18 talking about? Walking with who? Let's read it. I wish. 21.18 Verily, verily, or truly, truly, whenever you see verily, verily, or truly, truly, it is Christ wanting to emphasize something. Here's what it is. It's a heavenly exclamation point. Got it? Verily, verily, I say unto you, Listen. When thou wast young. Another translation. Anyone. Just that phrase. When thou wast young. What does it say in another one? When you were younger, the soul in its infancy, spiritual birth, even when we're talking about a Christian because Peter was a believer. Peter was following Christ. And even after Peter was filled with the Spirit, what happened to him? Paul confronted him. He was playing the hypocrite. Galatians 1. This was a Peter, apostle, full of the Holy Ghost, had laid hands on the sick. People were recovered. He was a preacher. He was used by God. He was a leader in the church. And he practiced hypocrisy. And Paul rebuked him before everyone because he was leading not only the brothers away, but he was leading Barnabas astray too. That's a good support for the false doctrine of eradication. So even when Peter was still young in the Christian experience of being full of the Holy Ghost, he was rebuked. Why? Because when the soul is young, when we are not seasoned, now it doesn't necessarily mean years, but it means seasoned through the discipline and dealings and workings of God. When the soul is young and not seasoned, what does it think of? It walks, right? The soul walks, but what does it walk? When thou was young, thou girdest thyself and walkest where you want to go. See? See what the Word of God is saying here? So here's the dilemma. God says, walk with Me. And the young, untried, untested soul says what? I want to walk with Me! Not with you, God. I want to do my thing. Now we can turn that into a Christian context. You know, there's a whole bunch of Christian activity and it's all supposedly for God. But when the veneer is ripped off and we get to the heart of the matter, so much of even Christian activity is in word for God. But in reality, it's for Me. My name. My honor. My glory. You want to clothe yourself. Is that what He said? You girdest thyself. This is so much more than just dressing yourself. You are choosing what to wear. You are choosing what to be. You gird yourself. But what does it say? But when you are what? Go ahead and read it, Ben. But when you are what? Nice and loud. But when you are old, but when your soul is ripened, ripened, in the book of Psalms, the psalmist says that through adversity and through trial and through perplexity, thou hast enlarged Me. And the Hebrew word for enlarged there is to ripen. Ripen. It is a term that can be used for the ripening of wheat. When thou art old, when your soul has been ripened, you will stretch forth your hands. What is He saying? You will let another lead you. You will become the servant of another, not your own self. You will be led by another and you will go in a place where in the natural, you're not going to want to go. But you're no longer living by your natural. You're living to do the will of God. And so this proves that the will of God is not always palatable to our natural desires. That's another false doctrine that is hitting the Christian world with a big boom. And that is this. Whatever is in your heart, God will give you. Just delight yourself in God. And then we're led to believe that the way to know the will of God is just discover what's in your heart. Just go to your heart. Brothers and sisters, beware. It is a false doctrine. We don't go to our own heart to learn the will of God. We go to the Word of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to learn the will of God. And sometimes the will of God is contrary to what we want. It is not always a shout and a dance and a hallelujah. I just can't wait. What about when the will of God is leading you into a Roman arena where hungry lions are about to feast on your internal organs? Is that something you're going to naturally get excited about? No, of course not. Now, I know the Bible says delight yourself in the Lord and He'll give you the desires of your heart. But in context, it doesn't mean that whatever you want, God will give you. In context, it means this. Delight yourself in God and as a result, He'll put in your heart what He wants you to do. And then, many times, you're going to have to say to your own desires, no, because God has shown me what He wants and I'm going to do that. Alright? And so, with this Scripture, beloved, in John 21.18, we see the walk of the natural man is bent on going its own way, but God in His mercy, God in His grace, will bring the necessary work in our life so that as a result, we will begin to desire to walk with God, hear His voice, live by His Word, and then next time we get together, we'll let the Word of God unfold before our eyes what that will look like. What will it look like to walk with God? Well, we've got a whole huge list of wonderful Scriptures that define what it looks like to walk with God in very practical, real ways. So that's what we'll look to in the time to come. So let's just bow our hearts in a word of prayer.