In this sermon, the speaker discusses the motives behind preaching and serving God. He criticizes the desire for recognition and fame among preachers and emphasizes the importance of focusing on Christ rather than personal glory. The speaker encourages young men to pray for God to use others instead of themselves and to trust in God's provision rather than seeking support from men. He also highlights the need for humility and warns against serving both God and wealth. The sermon references Matthew 7:7 and Ezekiel in the Bible to support these teachings.

You can trust God. If God has called you to do something, why run to men? Why tell them? Why raise support from them? Why speak great things about yourself so that they might give? If God has called you, He will provide every one of your needs according to His riches in glory. And if, as we hear these evangelists on television, if you don't support our ministry, we're going down. Then go down. If God's in it, He will hold you up. I want to speak for a moment about Matthew chapter 7. It says, Ask, verse 7, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks it will be opened. So many young people and so many older people come to me discouraged about this verse. It just doesn't work. I pray and I ask and God doesn't answer. Surely this can't mean what it says. And then all the theologians come and say, well, of course, it means exactly what it says, but only in regard to God's will. And of course, we know God doesn't will anything for anybody nowadays. This is a promise and it is true. You must understand the context, but it is true. This promise is not for those who seek to promote, advance or preserve self. This promise is not for those who seek to promote or advance or even preserve. You understand what I mean by that? God, if you can get glory for yourself, then I'd be destroyed. It is not about self-preservation. It is not about the promotion of self. This promise is for those who seek God's glory and God's will above all other things. This promise is for those who recognize their utter weakness to attain such a heavenly ambition. And this promise is those who by faith lay hold of the promises of God and persevere until God comes down. The promises belong to those with the right passion. Let me give you a few verses. Matthew 6, 9. Pray then in this way. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done. You see all these silly little things being said about prosperity today. God wants to prosper you and He wants to give you a Mercedes and a nice home. God wants you to go out there and name it and claim it and blab it and grab it and get it all for yourself. Let me tell you how it really works. Everything in our life as a Christian is within the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God's dear Son. The mentality of those who pray correctly is this. God, if you can get glory for yourself and you can advance your kingdom through prospering me in any measure, in any way, then so be it. But dear God, if your kingdom will advance and your name will be glorified through me being ground to powder, then so be it. This is not a prayer for you. It is a prayer for Him. It's asking about Him and asking about the advancement of His kingdom. It's another passage. It says, Matthew 6, 21 through 24. For where your treasure is, there is your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. You cannot serve God and anything else. The problem is with the eye. Because the eye reveals the passion of the heart, the treasure of the heart. I don't need to read your heart. I only need to look at your eye. To what is your eye gazing? What is the goal of your life? And I want you to know something, that even the greatest goals of life can be nothing more than idolatry. Nothing more than idolatry. Ministry is one of the greatest idols in Christianity. Becoming a success in ministry is a putrid, horrid, abominable idol. To become a big person, an important person, one who speaks at a conference. The Charismatics, they have their heroes. They're guys who can shake out their coat and make people fall down. Southern Baptists, they have their heroes. You're a success in the ministry. How? Because you've got the biggest number of people and the biggest budget and the most baptisms. And then the Reformed guys, they have their heroes. They all have really big heads with really big brains. That know a lot of things. Everyone seems to be trying to be a hero. Or to get into the inner circle. The eye is focused on one thing. I loved Whitfield. No movement began with Whitfield. Because when he was dying, he said, Let me die and let my name die with me. Just Christ. You've got to judge your motives. You've got to look at those motives and ask yourself, Why are you doing this? Most men study the Bible to get a good sermon. And get a good sermon so that they can get an open door. Study the Bible and know God. You pray that God's kingdom might be advanced. Some of you young men, you've been praying, Oh God, use me. God, use me. What you ought to be praying is, Oh God, use my roommate. Let me carry his bags all the days of my life. God will give anything to those who ask Him. If their heart is set on this view. Matthew 6.33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, And all these things will be added to you. Go on to 1 Corinthians. Whatever you do, whether the most menial task of eating and drinking, Do it all for the glory of God. And the whole idea is this. The full thrust of your life is to be only one thing. That God be glorified. That the kingdom of Christ advance. Once you step into that realm. If your heart is truly there to seek first only the kingdom. Then anything you ask with that passion and that direction, He will give it to you. Anything that is necessary for the name of God to be glorified. Anything that is necessary for the kingdom of God to advance is yours. Absolutely everything and anything. The promise belongs to those with the right passion. And the promise belongs to the weak. The promise belongs to the weak. Young men, you will heartily agree that you can do nothing of yourself. You don't know at all what that means. It's going to take so many decades of all your strength being destroyed. You have no idea what it means. Even those of us who are older and even those who have been in the ministry longer than I've been alive. It's a process of learning. What does God do? God does such a work of destruction in our lives. He says, I will cleanse you in Ezekiel in the new covenant. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols. He will break apart all those cisterns that you make that can't hold water. He will smash them and smash them and smash them until you're left utterly destitute of everything. But God, that is, of course, if you're God's man. If you're not God's man, He'll give you the desires of your heart. And that's the most terrifying thing you could ever imagine. The Pharisees, they wanted to receive glory from men. Jesus said that God gave them their reward in full. And then they went to hell.