In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of worshiping the Lord in various ways, such as through song, thanksgiving, blessing, and praising His name. He challenges the listeners to examine their faith walk and evaluate how much time they spend on worldly distractions versus time spent in the Word of God and prayer. The preacher highlights the danger of permissible things that can rob one's spiritual growth. He encourages the audience to seek victory and the fear of God by cleansing their ways according to the Word of God and seeking His presence in their lives.

Amen, Father. You are worthy of all of our praise, all of our heart's devotion, all of our love, all of our strength, all of our being. Father, we ask now that You would have Your way, minister to every heart, every soul, every person here today by the Holy Ghost of God, by the living Word of God. In Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. I walked into a little old coffee shop and got my coffee and was ready to head out the door and I get a text message from a young man who said, you know, you really ought to come over to the other side of the room and have a little chat. That was a real blessing because this young man attends church here and I as his elder came walking in in a hurry across that porch and into the little coffee shop and got my coffee and I was ready to go and he said, hey, wait a minute. I could have walked out of there without him ever even... I would have never noticed him. He said, why don't you come over and have a little chat? That's a real blessing. I love to sit down and chat with young people. I had the privilege of having eight young people in my home. My sons and my daughters. And what a joy to spend time together and share together with my youth. Sometimes a little challenging, stretching, but it's all good. I was delighted. And as we were sharing together, I was just asking him different questions and saying, you know, teach me. I'm getting older and sometimes I'm not sure how to relate to this younger generation and how to really connect hearts. Help me. I need your help. And so we were just having great conversation. Somehow in the conversation we got on the subject of overcoming, winning strategies. How to overcome in this age that we live in? You see, when I was young, his age, I didn't have one of these. A cell phone or a smart phone, which makes dumb people, by the way. Or it can. It doesn't have to, but it can. How are we going to be overcomers? Like it speaks there in Revelation. And they overcame Him. And they overcame Him. Repeatedly, no matter what the situation of the church, no matter what the condition of their community, they overcame Him. The devil, that old serpent, they overcame Him. It tells us there in Revelation later that they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives even unto the death. How are we going to overcome? How are we going to win this flood of iniquity? Well, you can say you're not allowed to have one of these. Might be wisdom. Certain cases, absolutely. I believe God has given us winning strategy in His Word. Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name. The upright shall dwell in thy presence. Ah, the upright shall dwell in thy presence. The godly will live in your presence. And we're not talking about living in the presence of the Lord. Every moment, 24-7, living in the presence of the Lord. Living in the conscious reality of God with me. You think that will make a difference? Absolutely! Absolutely! Glory to God! David said, I made a decision. Psalm 16.8 I have set the Lord always before me and because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. I have set the Lord always before me. I have placed the Lord strategically before me. I have positioned the Lord before me. I live in conscious reality that I am in the presence of God. And my God the Almighty is before me. Oh, what a comfort! What a consolation! No demon, no devil, no deceiver can take us away from our position in Christ Jesus. Ah, no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper. When the flood of iniquity comes in, the Spirit of the Lord will raise a standard against Him. Do you have that standard in your heart today? It's Christ in you! That's the standard! I have set the Lord before me. He is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Am I living in the conscious reality of God with me always? You see, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. You see, the Lord is watching everywhere. God doesn't miss a thing. You might have thought you hid it, but God doesn't miss a thing. The eyes of the Lord are where? Oh, come on, we need a better answer than that. The eyes of the Lord are where? In every place. The eyes of who are where? The Lord. Let this settle down deep into the core of my worldview of what I believe. Why, my son, why, my son, will you be enticed with a strange woman? Why will you embrace a bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord. For the Lord sees clearly what a man does. Mark well, God doesn't miss a move you make. He's aware of every step you take. And you say, well, I'm not tempted with women. Well, okay. Let's just say that that woman is a depiction of sin. Enticement to sin. In Ezekiel 8, we have the Lord speaking to His prophet as he sits in his house. And he beheld in low alikenesses an appearance of fire, an appearance from the loins downward fire. And his loins upward appeared as brightness and the color of amber. And he put forth the form of a hand and took me by the lock of my head. And the Spirit lifted me up between heaven and earth and brought me into the vision of the God of Jerusalem to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north and was the seat of the image of jealousy which provoketh to jealousy. And behold, the glory of God of Israel was there according to the vision that I saw. But then God began to speak to the prophet. He said, what do you see there? He said, I see great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here. He brought me to the door of the court and I looked and there's a hole in the wall and I he said, dig in there son of man and dig in the wall. And when I dug in there and behold a door and he said, go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do there. So I went in and I beheld every form of creeping thing, abominable beasts and the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall. He said unto me, son of man, hast thou seen what the agents of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, what do you think they're saying? They say, the Lord seeth us not. The Lord has forsaken the earth. The Lord seeth us not. The fear of God was diminishing and departing among the people of God and among the agents. This message is for me as well as for you. I need to be stirred up by the spirit of God. I need to be convicted by the spirit of God lest I fall into the trap of lukewarmness and apathy and just ease and taking it easy and living a good life. You see we have a pretty ease in America, don't we? Lest I become lax and lukewarm and indifferent and not sharp to what the spirit of God is saying. They say, the Lord seeth us not. I have a question for you. Are you living in the light of His countenance under His eye? His eye of love? His eye of grace? His eye of protection and being there? The Lord seeth us not. In fact, they tell themselves, they persuade themselves, they deceive themselves into saying, God doesn't see. You know, a good way to examine our own hearts, if my friends were at my house, would I speak that way to my wife if the phone was on speaker phone and everybody could hear? Would I respond that way? The man said, I said at the brother's meeting, the man said, you know, I just can't control my anger. I have an anger problem. And I get angry with my children. I get angry with my wife. I get upset and sometimes I speak harshly and in anger. I just can't control it. But you know what? As soon as there's that knock on the door and the neighbor walks in or a brother or sister walks in from the church, guess what? He can control his anger. Oh, hi, brother. Oh, it's so good to see you. You know, so really what we're saying is, I am more concerned about my image of what people think of me than I am about what God thinks of me. I have fear of man and when man shows up, I can control my anger. When man shows up, I can control what I view on my smartphone. Because I don't want them to know. I don't want them to see there's a disconnect. And we deceive our own hearts and say, you know, the Lord's not here. When I close that door, when I'm in private, I'm in private. And we deceive our own heart and say the Lord doesn't see. We need the fear of God in our hearts, in our lives. The conscious reality that I'm in the presence of the Lord as Brother Robert likes to say 24-7. God is with me. Joseph down there in Egypt had the world at its fingertips. He had position. He had power. He had wealth. He had everything that an Egyptian could desire and want. But he had something else too. His master's wife said, you're a fine young man. I like you. Let's have some fellowship together. He said, no, that's not right. You belong to your husband. How could I do this great wickedness? Ah, there was something he had. How could I do this in sin against God? It wasn't just sinning against the woman. It was sinning against God. You see, young men, he was in a far country, away from Mom and Dad. He was prospering. He was lifted up into position. He had training and everything. But he had something else to keep him from evil and that was the conscious reality that my life is before God. I live before God. And how could I sin and do this great wickedness and sin against God? I want to encourage us today. I want to encourage us today. There's a way to victory. And how do we get the fear of God in our hearts? How do we get that reality of the conscious reality of God with me? This was the question of the young man as we were discussing. He said, I like what you're saying, Aaron, but how can that become real in my life? That I'm so aware of the presence of God with me. I appreciated what was shared this morning in the testimonies and also in Brother Lester sharing in the devotional. You know, faith comes by the hearing of the Word of God. And so, brothers and sisters, Psalm 119. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wonder from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. Now those are so familiar verses that we can just pass over them and not really grasp the depth of the truth that is being spoken there. Young men, older men, women, young girls, ladies. How shall a young man, how shall a young woman cleanse her way? How shall an old man cleanse his way? It's not just young people that have difficulties or temptations to sin. How shall the old men, the young men, how shall the young women cleanse their way? By taking heed according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Isaiah shared a testimony in our brother's meeting that was such an encouragement. He said, when I was really hooked on this thing, on the social media and on watching the movies and the entertainment and all this stuff, I would rush through my devotions so I could have had my devotions. And then I'd delve into what I really delighted in that captivated my heart. And when I made a conscious decision to put that thing down and in its rightful place and put God first in my life, everything changed. Now I delight in the Lord and my heart is pursuing after God. Oh, praise God. Thank you, brother, for that testimony. May you ever grow in your love and your hunger and thirst for God, with your whole heart pursuing the Lord, with your whole heart seeking God. He's delighted in the law of the Lord and in His law does He meditate day and night. Oh, yes. And He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters that bringeth forth His fruit in His season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever He doeth shall prosper. Oh, listen to this, young men. I have written unto you, young men, 1 John 2.14b. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong. And how is it that ye are strong? Ah, because the Word of God abideth in you. And because the Word of God abideth in you, ye have overcome the wicked one. Glory to God! I want to really encourage us today. I want to exhort us that we must, we must be in the Word of God and the Word of God in us. It was shared in our discipleship class that the more we get to know the Word of God and the more we study Brother Elmer, where are you? You're here somewhere. The more we study to show ourselves approved unto God, then we don't need to be ashamed. Don't need to be ashamed. And the more we know the Word of God, then it connects. Oh, this Scripture connects with this one. And the Word of God just becomes richer and richer. And we see the beautiful connection of how God has woven His Word together from Genesis to Revelation. And it becomes so enriching and enlivening to us. I want to exhort us to essential spiritual disciplines in our age. To prayer. To fasting. Oh, yes, fasting. Jesus said, when ye fast. He didn't say if you fast. I want to encourage us, young men, young women, you can do it. You can fast. And some of you know what that's like. I want to exhort us to be in the Word and the Word in us. I want to encourage us to be students of the Word. There are some good books that are worthy of reading. But I have a burden and I have a passion that we be in the Word of God. And I don't mean a study Bible that has one-fourth of the Holy Scriptures and three-fourths of commentary according to Schofield or whoever you want to put in there. Brother, sister, the Holy Ghost shall teach you. And when we take the shortcut and go through the drive-through for the fast food and we want a revelation and we want an explanation of what this Scripture means right now. So I'll look up what Matthew Henry says. I'll look up what the Brown's Driver Dictionary says. I'll look up these other things. Now I'm not opposed to all those things, but they must be kept in their rightful place. And I have a burden here today for the Word of God to be what we're feeding on. Because if you read the first section and then you go to your commentary, guess what? They'll tell you how to think about what the Bible is teaching you. They'll explain it for you so you don't have to get on your knees and do any hard work. And beg God for revelation. And compare Scripture with Scripture. And trust the Holy Spirit of God to bring you revelation. Did I lose you? Am I boring you? Are you with me? Because the Word of God is alive. The Word of God is truth. And the Word of truth will sanctify our hearts. And there are many deceivers going out into the world. And they're saying, no, it doesn't mean that. Meditation on the Word. We shared that also in our discipleship class. Meditation. You know, these beeps and these buzzes and these vibrations can be a huge destruction to meditation. I urge you when you go in your closet and shut the door, leave this thing outside. Please. If you have no time where you put this thing aside for an hour or however much time. I want to be careful about that. We're not under law. But we're under the grace of God. But I want to tell you, if you have no time where you put this thing away. This thing buzzed at me even this morning in the church service. I chose not to look at it. But sometimes I do look because I have an aunt that's very ill and she's in the nursing home. And we got a call this morning from the nursing home. I don't know if the buzz was something about that or not, but I have a message to preach to a living people. And I want to preach that message undistracted. I want to encourage us brothers and sisters. We need solitude. We need time alone with God undistracted. Oh, we need to worship the Lord in song, thanksgiving, blessing and praising His name and being thankful. I'm going to leave us with a test. A challenge. How about I give you an assignment? Is it okay for the preacher to give you an assignment? Yeah, yeah. I exhort you. I urge you. Examine yourself. How's your faith walk? Where are you at? How much time on the phone and the computer? How much time on the social media and on the movies and the entertainment and all these other things of folly? How much of this time has just robbed your spiritual man? And how much time in the Word of God and in meditation and prayer? You know, I think it's the permissible things that are probably our greatest danger. We all know that porn is sinful and wicked and will take you to hell. Porn is adultery. When you look at porn, you're committing adultery. When you look at a woman to lust, you're committing adultery. An adulterer shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. When a man commits adultery, he's sinning against his own body. He's sinning against God. He's sinning against his wife. He's sinning against the Lord. Oh, but our society says, oh, no, no, not so harsh. That sounds too strong. Ah, he's just having an affair. Water it down. Make it a little more palatable, a little more acceptable. Assignment. Keep track for a week. Keep track for a month on how much time you spend on your entertainment, the news, the sports, whatever it is, the movies, other things. I don't mean conferring with our missionaries on the foreign field or conferring with your relatives in another state. I'm not talking about that. But I'm talking about these other things that may be permissible, but they are robbing us of the best. So your assignment, keep track for a week, for a month and get desperately honest, brutally honest with yourself and don't fudge the numbers. Don't know because I'm keeping track now that I'm going to change it. Maybe you should rather go back and do a history review. How was it last week or the month before? And if you're really serious about getting some mileage out of it, share it with a brother or a sister. Share it with a brother or a sister. Say, you know, I'm sorry to have to tell you, but my prayer life is about this much. My time of devouring the Scripture. Oh, I hunger and thirst for the Bible. I love the Word of God, brother Elmer shared with us this morning in class. Oh, I just love the Word of God. Oh, I love it all. I love it more than food. It's more necessary, Joel said, than the necessary food. I just delight in your law. It's like finding great treasure. Or maybe you have to humbly bow your head and say, you know what, I'm not doing very well. But I don't want to stay here. Memorize Scripture. Renew your mind with the living Word of God. Because it's the way to overcome the devil. Jesus used the Word of God to overcome the devil. And brother, sister, if we use the Word of God, we also shall overcome the enemy. The Word of God is the sword of the Lord. It's the sword whereby we slay those lies of the devil. But if you don't know the Word, you're at a huge disadvantage. So living in conscious reality of the presence of God and girt with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and we shall overcome. I leave you with that today. It's what's been burning on my heart. It's not enough to just say, no, you can't do this. No, you can't do that. We must have Christ within and the reality of Christ within. And how do I answer that question for this young man? How do I get to live in the light of the conscious reality of God? Memorize the Scriptures that speak of the truth of the Word of God. Psalm 139, it'd be a very good chapter to memorize. I was contemplating asking how many will take up the challenge with me to remember Psalm 139, the first 18 verses. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but I urge you. It tells you who you are and it tells you who God is and it tells you the plans God has for your life. Psalm 139. I urge you. Hide the Word of God in your heart that you may not sin against God. God bless you. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Brother Aaron, for that admonishment, warning, and exhortation. Amen. I had to think as I was sitting there, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. I was just thinking of the warning and admonishment Aaron was giving on the opposite side. As we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we can be filled. What does that feeling look like? I mean, I think of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans, it says, how does it say in Romans? So much that ye may abound in hope through the... Let me just turn there to chapter 15 briefly. Blessed verse on the Holy Spirit in our lives as believers. Let's find it here. I'm not sure if I... Oh, yes. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. I love that verse for us as believers. Amen. Well, I'm going to open it up here. If you have something on your heart you'd like to share, raise your hand and a microphone will be gotten to you. By way of confession or testimony, testimony of how what it means, the experience you've had in overcoming sin and temptation. And that was a real blessing the other night, the testament of our young brother and brother's meeting. So we can edify each other together. Is there someone you'd like to share? Go ahead, brother. Thank you, Brother Ann, for that message. I think we all have room for improvement in that area. Yeah, I agree with a lot of things you shared there. I was just thinking last while how the cell phone, the smart phone, how it's making inroads into people's lives. And I've talked to people, I've seen a lot of destruction, so called, in people's lives through the overuse or misuse of it. I was driving home last evening and I tuned into NPR and I just thought I'd share this with you. I wouldn't recommend listening to that station. It's a very liberal news, public radio station, but they had an interview with a man that many of you might remember hitting the name, Edward Snowden. And I often wonder what happened to him by now. He's over in Moscow and lives in an apartment there. They went over and sent somebody over to interview him. Now he said some people think I'm living in a bunker hiding out somewhere. I'm not sure what happened with that mic. Anyway, he escaped out of this country because some people accused him of being a whistleblower. And he was saying how he has no regrets to share what he learned about some things behind the scenes that's going on. And he said since he don't feel he did anything wrong. And since 1987 he was saying there's been surveillance via phones, yeah, especially cell phones that everything, all the emails and texts and phone calls are recorded. And he had a big issue with this. And he started, he was talented in using the internet and at a young age he contacted the U.S. nuclear facility and said he's learning some things about their facility because he found a way to get in. And they really should fix some things. And that's kind of how this started and they started really being aware wondering who he is. But I had to think you know, and some time ago I was at a service where the minister was preaching about the subject on the misuse of the cell phone. And the thing about selfies and sending pictures and you know, if that's all recorded, you know, is there a caution with that? This minister went on to say it would be very comfortable having our daughter's poster every other phone call along the way. And things like that. But yeah, it's all there in place and it's kind of you know, to be cautious about things like that. Or should somebody feel left out if they don't use WhatsApp on what's going on in the community or church community. So yeah, thank you for that message and you know, it is a useful tool but I do agree we have to be very careful. Yes, thank you Brother Aaron, I really appreciate that speaking on the subject, it's something I ask that question too often being a young man, like how does that, you know, how do I realize that God is always seeing me? And it's something that I'm growing in. And I've come to the place, especially the last couple weeks, I don't know why but I've been thinking about it a lot that how do we live in that reality that God is there when something's tempting me, not just on technology or whatever, lots of different things. How do I decide to choose to realize God? And it's been a big part of it you know, God's Word and God's Spirit in us through His Word is something that I've seen as being such a huge part of keeping me, of keeping me from going after what the world says is valuable, what the world says is what I need as a young man. So thank you, I really think we need to hear a lot more of that because it's a huge question that a lot of us are asking, but what about the times that I don't feel like God is seeing me because it seems like how I feel most of the time. But it doesn't need to be that way. God's Spirit in us keeps us in that realization. God has really given me a desire for His Word in the last while and I've really seen how immersing myself in the truth of His Word is very powerful in renewing my mind and filling my mind with His truth and I'm just really grateful for that and I want to keep growing in that. I want to end this on a positive note. In the presence of the Lord is fullness of joy and the power to overcome sin is realizing I'm in the presence of the Lord. The Lord is with me and He's my strength. He's my deliverer. He's my high tower. He's my salvation. He's everything I need and He's the light and the glory and so this darkness has to flee away as we worship the Lord Jesus and we bask in His presence. God bless you. It is so powerful.