In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of always being alert and on guard, drawing parallels to the behavior of a sentinel during war. He shares personal experiences from his time in the Marine Corps, highlighting the need for constant vigilance. The speaker also discusses the concept of divine love, stating that human love is merely a shadow of God's love. He encourages listeners to prioritize prayer and reorganize their lives to make time for spiritual practices, rather than being consumed by worldly distractions.

Well, I ask the Lord to help us. Lord, as we come unto you tonight, Lord, we are very appreciative for all the things that you have done, Lord. We appreciate it so much. Your attention to the details of our lives, your faithfulness to answer prayer. We really appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Lord, we do come unto you tonight for Michelle, Lord. This young lady is going through a terrible, terrible situation. Worried about her children, I'm sure, and her husband worried, and then having her gallbladder removed, and now having problems with her pancreas, and pneumonia, and it sounds like she's pretty well bought the ranch here, Lord. We know she's in a terrible trauma. Terrible, terrible trauma, nightmare of hospitalization. So, Lord, we don't know her, we don't know her circumstances, but Lord, we do pray on her behalf, Lord, and her husband, and her children, that you'll reach down and make a way for her, Lord. Make a way. Hear her cry unto you. Help Jeannie to do what she can to minister life in your salvation, Lord, for this soul that is in such distress. I just ask your help, Lord. Just ask your help, Lord, to be there in by her bedside, Lord, that there may be the comfort of God, that she may know, Lord, that there is a God, and that he cares that she is suffering in this way. Jesus, help. Help, Lord. We come unto you for the families that are represented here, Lord. We ask that you give peace and the solution to problems, and just your blessing on each household, Lord. We pray as we proceed tonight that you will help us, Lord, to say and perceive that which the Holy Spirit has in mind tonight for us in the Tape Land. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. How many were not here Sunday morning? Were not here Sunday morning? Bill, April, Sandy, you weren't here. Jeannie wasn't here. Regina, you weren't here. And Colleen, you weren't here either? Oh, how dreadful. Anyone else? You weren't here either? I thought you were here. You were here Sunday night, though. Yeah. Okay. Well, put the big model on the board, would you? That's very much on my mind tonight. And this is the model that we use Sunday, and I beg the patience of those who were here, but we'll try to add some stuff to it tonight. I just, as I prayed tonight, I felt continue with this, and I guess part of the reason is because some of us weren't here, but in any case, we'll try to add something so that nobody will say, same old, same old. Okay. Okay. Now, I do have, but I don't have enough for everybody. Okay. Now, this is the... Okay, señor. I just need one. Now, let me see the hands again. Larry, make one for everybody. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yeah, do about ten, I guess. Because I know Ed Ayala wants a couple. But I don't see them here. Ed, get with it. Alright. This is something the Lord laid on my heart. I've been feeling that we're going to... I don't know what kind of judgment is going to hit America, but the Lord has talked to me a lot about it. And I don't want to depress you with a lot of grimness in the future. But the Bible commands us, in Ephesians 6, I think it's around verse 11, to put on the whole armor of God that you may stand in the evil day. Now, that was written back in the first century, and there's been a lot of evil days since that time. So, and maybe we'll start with that tonight, but first I would like you to, those that were not here, to realize that this was preached on Sunday morning, touched on Sunday night, and this model or diagram or outline, however you would refer to it, is Larry will bring you one so that you'll have a copy of this. You won't have to worry about it. But it goes along with Sunday morning's tape. Now, spiritual survival. There's a lot of talk today about physical survival because of the computer. Actually, I think wars and terrorism are far more danger to us at this time than the computer, but that being as it may, the spiritual survival, if you get that right, I think the physical will largely take care of itself. But if you don't get the spiritual right, then the physical isn't going to help much. So, these are ten in number. There's probably a lot more, but as I prayed, these were the ten that came to me to set a time and while I'm writing on this now, and it'll be longer than most of the recent booklets, and so I made some little changes. Not too much though, but the first item, I had set aside a time for prayer each day, which as you hear in the Sunday morning tape, if you weren't here, as you know, I'm very much into this, and I've added place, so now it will read in the book that I'm making, the booklet, it will read, set aside a place and time for prayer each day. And you have to, in your mind, otherwise it slips along, I'm going to pray one of these days, but you've got to establish, and I'm a stage character, and I know how busy we are, I understand all of that. I've already had one anxiety breakdown from having several jobs at once, and dieting at the same time, and a heart attack, so I've been there, I know what it is to work under stress, and I've got a type A personality. But, none of these ten is dispensable if you're going to survive. You have to set a time, and if you pray, God will give you a place and time. You have to set aside a time, the Lord doesn't want to get the dregs of your life, what's left over after you do everything else. The best time, if you can swing it, is in the morning. I will awaken the dawn. But, if that's not possible, then ask God. When I was in the Marine Corps, you couldn't do much praying in the barracks, so I would get in the cab of a truck in the motor pool, and then there was a buddy of mine, a Nazarene by the way, a good buddy, and we used to get up around four o'clock. Whoever woke up the other one would be the first, whoever woke up first would go and wake up the other one, and then we'd go to the bleachers in Pearl Harbor. There's a baseball field there, and there were bleachers. No, it wasn't the bleachers either, it was kind of like a press box is what it was, but it wasn't a fancy one. It was shaped up in a way, and we'd get in there and pray, pray up the sun. This guy named Jack was a member of the Nazarene Church in Pasadena, as I remember. So, Jack and I would get up and we would, what I'm pointing out to you is you can pray in the cab of a truck if you ask the Lord, He'll give you a place, and man, God answered prayer. We'd keep it right down in a little notepad what we had prayed about it. I mean, just like this, those prayers were answered, which was very reinforcing as you can imagine. But, if you don't, you'll find you open yourself up to deception because Satan plays with your mind and you're not refreshing it. You get burnout from what you're doing because you're not, because television won't refresh you. It's not a genuine relaxer. It just fries your brain. Prayer will relax you and help you sleep better and alert you if you're in deception, keep you from burnout so that you keep being renewed like the burning bush and not to mention the answers that you get. So, it's not something you can do without, but in America it's so hard because of the materialism of our culture. It's so hard to tear away from the television and all the media and all the other things and take the time. If you have time to watch the television, you have time to pray. And all I insist on is a half hour a day. Now, that's an absolute minimum. A half hour set aside for the Lord to talk to him. And as you know, there's a thing about prayer. It says praying always in the spirit. Where is that? Praying in the spirit. Is that Luke 18.1? He said, men ought always to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5.17. Pray without ceasing. There's one, I think it's Ephesians 6.18. Check that one out. Ephesians 6.18, I think. That's it. Oh yeah, that's the tail end of the armor of God. That's where it is. Ephesians 6.18. That's alright. We got all eternity. You don't get it all in this life, you know. We did, boys. Bad news went out. Pray in the spirit. Notice it says be alert and keep on praying for the saints. When you do that, you won't gossip and slander and criticize other Christians, by the way. But I just threw that in free. It says pray in the spirit. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean just pray in tongues. It doesn't necessarily mean that. It's in contrast to just praying from your fleshly mind. Now, if you have not had the experience of praying enough to know what it's like to get involved with God in prayer, you have a treat coming. Because just praying in your own human personality can be very boring. It's a regiment that you do, and you go through your regiment, and you pray faithfully for all your relatives, and you know, it's psychologically painful. It's not the best part of the day. But when you battle through where you keep up your regiment until God says, well, he's going to keep at it, then God comes down, like he did to Jacob, and you get into a where you and God are kind of praying together. And the best prayer you'll ever have is when God tells you to pray for something. Like in the second psalm, ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance. See, that's where God invited Christ to pray. And when you get into becoming a person of prayer, you'll have all kinds of adventures with God, just depending on what kind of person you are. You'll have all kinds of adventures with God. And there's no telling what you'll discover in the spirit realm. Walk on the water with Christ at midnight. He may give you visions. He gives you a sense of where the buzz is, you know, so you're not just praying without knowing what you're praying for. Sometimes you'll get gifts of the Spirit by praying and find yourself praying in tongues or prophecy. But none of these things happen if you don't set aside a time for prayer. Now, when you get into the ministry, it becomes very important. And I remember when Audrey and I were sent here by the Lord, and God, we ended up in that old sanctuary over there, and it was not holy. It was not holy in there, and I found out many years later why it wasn't. But it was a nest of demons over there. A nest of demons. They were so real that I could not my physical ear, but spiritually I could hear them screaming. Now, I did not know the background of what had gone on in that church until years later. But it was a nest of vipers in there. Just an adult. Spirits do reside in, they fasten themselves to places. Well, I prayed hour after hour every morning. I had five days a week. I was over there. I wasn't working. The Lord told me, don't go back to work. I'll supply your needs, which I had worked all my life up until that time. And so I spent my time praying over in that building until things began to change. And I remember after we'd been there a couple years that a visiting minister said, boy, somebody's praying in here. It makes a difference in the building itself and in the whole climate. So you can't just give a 15 minute prayer before you decide to preach. I mean, when you start a work or whatever, there has to be a lot of prayer goes in. And I was challenged by a spirit when I had been there for a couple of months. I was sitting in there praying. I was challenged. What are you doing here? So things are very real in the spirit realm and more real to some people than others I guess depending on the kinds of gifts and personality that they have. But nonetheless, no Christian is going to survive in the days to come if that person does not have a place and time to pray. I remember reading about an Orthodox Jew, and he would put us all to shame. I don't know, Myron, whether you gave me the book or not, but he was in the Gulag in Russia. Did you give me that book? He was an Orthodox Jew. How he ever did it, I don't know, but he managed to keep all the feast days. But he was in the most impossible places and hard on him. They weren't taking care of him medically. He got a bad case of hemorrhoids from the course, whatever they had in the prison fair. It was too hard for his system. He was bleeding all over the place. But this guy was, I mean, he'd come to the day he'd find a place somewhere in the Gulag, in his cell or out where he was working, or whatever. In the most unlikely places he'd keep the day of atonement, and he'd get the Passover. Well, I'm not saying we're to regiment ourselves like that, but he'd put us all to shame. Because all I'm suggesting is that you find some place, maybe you get to work early and pray in your car, whatever. In the lunch break or if you can make it up in the morning, that's the best time to hit the Lord in the morning and carry yourself out of the sack. Which means you have to go to bed early. You can't stay up till 11 o'clock at night watching the TV and expect to serve the Lord. It isn't going to happen. It ain't going to happen. Oh, get used to the fact that you are not an average person. They'll all be screaming and frantic and killing each other when enough trouble comes. Whether it's an earthquake, tornado, war, or whatever famine or whatever it is. They can't get their money and their routine is upset and they can't get their bulk and they're going to go absolutely nuts. Because they're not prepared. They're not prepared. Americans are not prepared for trouble. And you have got to be because you have a kind of a Joseph mission. Joseph saved his family, he saved Egypt and the other nations because he was hearing from God and he knew to store up grain. But if he hadn't have done that, they'd have been wasting it all over the place because they didn't know seven years of famine was coming. So thanks to Joseph, his family was saved. Egypt was saved. Now right now, the Lord has given us grain by hands full, spiritually. The heavens are open, it's there if you go for it. But there's coming darkness and it won't be like that. And if you haven't laid it up for yourself, you're not going to have anything for yourself, your family or anybody else. Because you've wasted the time we have now when the heavens are open and God is revealing his word. So, you can't, you cannot survive as a Christian, watch television until 11 o'clock, stagger out of bed at 6 o'clock, drink your coffee, a couple of pieces of toast and go to work. It isn't going to function for you. You have got to reorganize your life and go to bed early enough that you can get up early. You won't miss a thing by not watching the television. You won't miss anything. But if you don't pray, you will miss something. Now, watching the television may be fun, and it is, but praying in the spirit is more fun, I'm here to tell you. Now, dry fleshly prayer out of your human personality is not fun. That's a regimen. But when you learn to take up your parable in prayer, begin to touch God, and he begins to pray along with you and gives you the burden and gives you insight and everything. You'll be hooked on prayer. Huh? Ed, I promised you one of these for you and Beth. Okay. So, you come to it, I guess, by practice. Well, I don't want to ask you personal questions, but I'll just ask a rhetorical question that you don't have to answer. You might be in a position to pray an hour a day. And if you are, I would suggest that you do it, because eventually you'll break through. There's no formula. It's just you're just talking to your Father. Yeah, you start in the flesh. Everything in the Christian life, you have to start in the flesh. We obey the commandments in the flesh. And then God meets us. One of the great mistakes that is being preached today is that Jesus will do it for you. He will not do it for you. That's not scriptural. It's the sword of the Lord and Gideon. You have to do what the Lord said. If you love me, keep my commandments. And then he will help you. But if you wait for the Lord to do it, you'll still be waiting when you are in a nursing home, probably with Alzheimer's. You'll still be waiting for Christ to do it. He won't do it, because it doesn't work that way. Because there's things the apostles gave us, commandment after commandment after commandment, and they're things we are to do. And God doesn't do them for us. But when we pray, he helps us. He sends grace from the throne and makes it a delight. That's what they didn't have under the Old Covenant was that comfort that we have from the Holy Spirit. You know, a good way to think of it is like power steering. You may have the newest and best power steering in the world. If Larry's here, he'd probably say it's in the Mercury. I don't know. But the best power steering in the world. But if you don't turn the wheel, nothing's going to happen. It doesn't know whether to go right, left, or straight ahead. And that's the way it is in the spirit realm. The power is there. But until you turn the wheel, it doesn't kick in. So yes, Larry will be there when you go out. He can give you a copy of that. How many did you run off? Oh, way more than enough. So we're still working on the first one. Because the first one, I quit first. Yeah, why don't you do that? Just slip up your hand if you don't have one. We've got Ed fixed up back there. And I see Brian Childers came staggering in, so he needs one. How's it going? Where's Brooke? Oh, maybe you better give Brian one if you've got enough. One for Brooke, one for him, and one for Brooke. I have one here. That'll help. And then Brian will need two, and Malcolm needs one. So you need three more. How many you got? Bill? I'm really getting past the sense that it's just me and my fleshly effort trying to do something. It doesn't work. And therefore, it doesn't work for me. And therefore, there's never any time in which they penetrate that barrier to reach God on the other side. It's because they don't stay at it long enough. And you see, God is looking to see if you mean business. When you make a decision for the Lord, you have to be in there for the duration. You have to make up your mind, like you say, I heard Brother Thompson say that you can break through to God to where prayer is a delight. You say, I'm going to keep at it, Lord, for the rest of my life. Because God wants to know, how sincere are you? Yes? You see, your body needs that sleep. Especially as hard as Tony works, and some of you work. You see, you need that sleep. So you just have to say, okay, unto your wife, we're going to change our routine here. We're going to go to bed at 8 o'clock. You know, there's no law against going to bed at 8 o'clock. There is absolutely no law against it. And you won't miss a thing. Yes? Bounds, that's a famous, a classic, B-O-U-N-D-S on prayer. And how many of you have ever read the story of praying Hyde? H-Y-D-E. Is that still available in bookstores? Praying Hyde? You might ask. Because once you read that, you'll be changed. I mean, what can happen when God gives a man a spirit of prayer? I mean, it's so moved that where he was near a port, and the people on the ships coming into the port could feel the power of God. Pentecostal experience at the turn of this century occurred as a black man by the name of Seymour, who was a dishwasher, became burdened in prayer. And he was, you know, he'd do his work and then come home and pray. Evidently he wasn't married. I never heard Brother Seymour was married. And so he had free time. He'd come home and pray two or three hours a day, just praying for God. He was a Nazarene. And then he got a burden for, he felt God was telling him that he wanted to restore tongues to the church. So he upped that to several hours a day. And he kept that up for a year or two, and the power of God fell on Los Angeles, and that revival went on for about three years. Night and day. Oh, history is replete with this kind of thing. David Brainerd, who ministered to the Indians, is another one that God gave him phenomenal power. Now, not everyone can do this. I'm not trying to burden you, say, you've got to pray that many hours. I said a half hour a day. But you may find that some of you have a ministry of prayer, and you didn't know it. And it'll begin to pick up and pick up. Now, there was an Assembly of God pastor of the Assembly of God Church in National City that used to pray six hours a day. And he said, I can't do it. If I don't get my six hours in, I can't function. Now, you know, that's like a teenager starting off to lift weights and trying to clean and jerk 300 pounds. I mean, it isn't going to happen. So, you have to build up to that. And it's not for everybody to be a praying hyde or an E.M. Bounds. But you'll never know whether it's for you until you begin to discipline yourself to pray every day. And if God has more for you along that line, He'll begin to entice you into it. And pretty soon, you can't wait to get to pray. And you're asking God to wake you up in the morning, and He does. He does. And the first thing you know, you're praying two hours a day, and it goes too quickly. Now, when I was praying every morning over there in the church, that was no drag. That was no tour de force on my part. I was enjoying it thoroughly. So, but I've been praying and making it a point of prayer since I was in Bible school. When I was teaching Sunday school in the Assemblies of God on Sunday morning, I used to get there at 6.30 in the morning and pray until it was time for Sunday school. And that's really, I know, it was that kind of prayer that eventually landed me down here. It was because I was enjoying the prayer, and God was meeting me, and the class was blessed, and I got to where there wasn't even room down where I was teaching, and some of the people were around the corner and just hearing it on the microphone. So, you can't tell what God will do. So, I'm giving you here a minimum. I'm telling you, you won't survive, much less find out if you've got a gift of praying, if you don't set aside a place and a time. You have to resolve to do this because our culture is killing us. It's killing us. The big corporations want your soul. They just don't want you to work eight hours a day. They want your soul. They're calling for your soul. Nowhere is this more true than in the computer industry. I mean, the competition is so intense. You have to give yourself to it body, soul, and spirit. The same thing is true working in Washington, D.C. If you're a part of one of the president's cabinets or something, they want your soul. And to say a half hour a day to pray, at first blush, it seems that's impossible to me. You don't know. I'm having two jobs. My employer wants me there 12 hours a day. I understand. But it's survival. And if you go to God and say, Lord, I want a place and time to pray and I mean business, God will hear your prayer. And he'll do that. God may meet you the first time you hit your knees. Or you may be six months plowing through the brambles. And so when you set yourself to something like this, you have to say, Lord, you're going to be hearing from me every morning as long as I live so you might as well meet me now. It won't be too long. You know, you remember there's a parable about that where Jesus said about this person wanted the Holy Spirit to minister to his friends. And my friends come. I have no bread. And so he asked the good man of the house for bread. He said, I'm in bed with my kids. What's the put down? He blew it off. The guy blew it off. And the guy kept it up and kept it up. And what did the good man of the house say? He said, I'm not going to get no sleep around here. This guy's not going to leave me alone. He's throwing stones in the window. So he gets up and gives him the bread that he asked for for his friends. Not because he wanted to, or because he was compassionate, but because he couldn't get any sleep. And then he gave us another story about this unjust judge. And the widow kept coming and said, avenge me on my adversary. Avenge me on my adversary. And Jesus said, this judge didn't fear God or man, but the woman wore him up. Just wore him up. And so Jesus said, ask and ye shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open. Which is a lesson in what's called importunity. That is, you don't quit asking until you receive. You don't quit seeking until you find. You don't quit knocking until it's open. It may not happen the first time. It may not happen for a year. I think Brother Seymour was at it for two or three years, praying seven hours a day. But you see, by that time, the spirit was taking over and giving him the burden that God wanted to restore to him. It was not a dry prayer in which he came home from washing dishes and then regimented himself to pray seven hours a day. That was not the case. By this time, he had entered into the spirit of prayer. And people that do that, like E.M. Bonds or Frank Hyde or David Brainerd or any of the other famous prayer warriors of history, the pastor at National City, he wasn't dreading getting up in the morning. Oh, Lord, what will I do? I've got to pray six hours and I'd rather be going around with my bag lunch to the re-club and to the hospital and everything else. Instead, I've got to pray. That was the best part of his day. So, realize that we're not talking about that some dry practice that's the worst time of your day that you force yourself to get down and stare at the wall and pray for your Aunt Minnie. We're not talking about that. We're talking about learning to pray in the spirit. And it goes along. See, the preceding verses to the one you're looking at, have to do with putting on the armor of God. Yes? I was reading today about Sarah and how often my husband was dealing with me that day. It's supposed to be that way. But anyway, he said, you know, come to me. I'm being held accountable in that way. I think he rather delights that his children believe him enough to take the time to pray. But you see, if God did not answer, he would break his own word. Because he said, if you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. Now, if God didn't do it, he would break his word. Now, and I remind God of that, especially when I'm praying as I do every day, to be kept from deception. And I say, now, Lord, I'm asking you today, I want you to take out of my mind and heart everything that is not of you. And every once in a while I say, now remember the covenant. The covenant is, if you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. I say, Father, remember the covenant. This is what you said, and this is what I'm asking. And there's nothing wrong with that. Now, when you say, but I asked something and I didn't get the answer. When Jesus said, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it, he didn't say how soon. And that's critically important. Because sometimes you ask for things that are not really what you want. You're asking for a metaphor instead of the real thing. You're asking for something that you think will give you what you want, but God reads what you really want, and he knows he's asking for the wrong thing. So, as you keep on praying and believing God, you don't pray once for something. Every day, with praise and thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. So, you keep reminding him. And God, the minute you prayed the first time, the machinery went into motion because otherwise his word would be breaking his word, and John 3.16 wouldn't be true. The whole thing is true. So, when you ask anything in his name, God said, in Jesus' name, he will do it. So, we prayed once, the machinery is going. So, you don't forget that. You don't let God forget that. I've asked that, but God is working on that, and if it's a wrong prayer, over a period of time, God will show you. This is not really a better way. You're not asking for the right thing. Now, I suppose you could pester God to the place where he gave it to you, knowing it was not good for you, to just let you learn by experience, not to force the issue. Trust God, that when you pray, God reads your heart, and he gives you the answer that is the answer. Now, sometimes you pray, and you get the answer that week. And other times, it may be 30 years later. But, that doesn't cut any ice. Let's stop and say 30 years later. You know what's going on in that time? God is preparing you to receive your answer without it destroying you and being able to keep it. And that 30 years was necessary for that to be true. And you don't want an answer before you're able to handle it appropriately, and maintain it. You don't want that. You don't really want that, unless you're some kind of a schlamiel, you know, you don't care what happens to you, just as long as your flesh is pampered. But if you really want something good from God that is enduring, God has to answer the prayer. This is what He said in the Word, and He doesn't lie. You will get it. So, you never give up on your dreams. I think God spoke something to me a couple of days ago that was marvelous, and it's really a help when you get too determined to have your own way. And this is what came to me. There is nothing in the creation that is truly desirable, unless God makes it desirable. I may be a little bit profound, but what it's saying is, there is nothing in the creation, whether it's relationships, things, or circumstances, that is inherently desirable to you. Now, you may want it, because your flesh is involved, or something else is involved that's causing you to desperately desire something that is not really desirable. It's not truly desirable, but you don't know that. The only thing in the creation, as far as you're concerned, and I'm concerned, that is truly desirable, is that which God makes desirable to us. And when God makes something desirable to us, He always gives it to us, because His Word says, He opens His hand, and satisfies the desire of every living creature. And again, He says, delight yourself in the Lord, and I will give you the desires of your heart. But you see, we have, it's like the little boy, who's a born poet, but when he's five years old, he wants to be a fireman, because he saw a red truck and heard the siren. The worst thing in the world, I want to go, oh dad, get me a firetruck, I want to be a fireman. He doesn't want to be a fireman. See, his desires are superficial. Are you following me? Now, when you ask for something, God determines whether you're someone with a real gift for poetry, that's asking you to be a fireman. And He knows that will never fulfill you. He knows your motivation is superficial, it's because you saw the red truck and heard the siren. And all the kids running down the street, and this is the old days, you don't remember any of that. Anyway, all the kids running down the street, that's the fire engine. Alright. So, that's why God and His love doesn't give us what we want so bad we could nearly kill for it. Because, and then we say, but Lord, you said delighting yourself, and then you've got the desires of your heart, and I'm delighting, I'm delighting already, give me the desires of my heart. But God said the desires of your heart, and see what you may be wanting so terribly that you think of the desires of your heart are not really what you want, because what you want, first of all, is love, joy, and peace. I mean, every healthy person, those are the three big ones. And God knows how that's going to come to you, and how that's going to come to you in an eternal fashion with Him so it can always be yours. Because once a thing dies, and God gives it back to you, it's yours forever. But in the meanwhile, God is working, and you're willing to do of His good pleasure. So, a very great part of the rest of God, are you listening I'm fixing to say something, a very great part of the rest of God, which is our goal out there, is to enter into His rest, is holding steady while the bonfires of desire burn down to hot coals. And you're in control of them so you can cook potatoes on them without getting burned. And as you do that, you become aware of what your true desires are. And then you have rest in God because they don't dominate you. They don't drive you. They don't control you. You're not in the place of If I don't have this, I'll die! That's no way to live. That's prison. You don't have any peace. You don't have any joy when you want something and you can't have it, and you want it so bad you can't stand it. There's no joy there. It's a bonfire. But if you've got enough of what it takes to pray and stand in God, so you can't cook any potatoes on a bonfire, which is a metaphorical way of saying you can't get anything done that's worthwhile with a bonfire other than to look at it. You've got to wait until it burns down and comes under your control. God doesn't want anything, anything in your personality that is not absolutely under your control so you can take it or leave it. Now you say, well you whacked out all my joy like C.S. Lewis says in A Grief Observed. He said, I want porridge. I want porridge. God waits until I don't want it anymore and then he gives it to me. Something to this effect. No! We know that isn't true. How? By the word, people! In thy right hand there is fullness of joy. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forever. Now, you can't have fullness of joy or pleasure if God has given you something you don't care whether you have it or not. See? There's no fullness of joy there. Oh, God gave me, I don't care whether I have it or not. So what fullness of joy? See? No. The Bible says God works in you both to will and to do according to his pleasure. So the trick is keeping yourself in control and disciplined in God, not by your own strength, but with God's help until you're getting God's desires until his desires and your desires become identical. That's the rest of God. When that happens then God will give you desires that are his and he delights to fulfill them and then you are a happy camper and you're not in bondage. Because when it's not your time to have it, God withdraws the desire and you're cool. No problem. I can live without it. He can give you a tremendous desire for something if you're in his rest and you want it and then he takes it away and you don't care whether you have it or not. It's the truth. I tell you, I bear witness of it. He does like this. Now you don't get there overnight. It takes a lifetime of trusting in God and having these bonfires of the flesh and soul burn down and standing steady while they do and not breaking out of God's prisons that he has you in. Because if you do, you'll never know the joy of having God really give you something that you delight in and God wants you to have. So you've got peace all along the trail. God wants you to have it. You know he wants you to have it. He's given you a desire. Now most of the things, I won't say most, but very often the things that drive us most intensely is love. And let me tell you something. I'm going to say something. Human love at it's most intense is but a flickering shadow of divine love. Human love at it's most intense is but a flickering shadow of divine love. You can read that in the last chapter of the Song of Solomon. If a man gives all his possession for love it would be despised. It's talking there about Christ's love for his church. He's saying if I were to give 10,000 heavens for my bride it would be despicable in my sight. Because of what that 8th chapter calls the fire of Yah. The love that created all things from people to puppy dogs. And that love when who was the fellow that wrote systematic theology? Who was the famous preacher that wrote systematic theology? The big revival in New York what was his name? Who? Finney. Finney. God poured out his love on Finney until Finney said stop. I can't take it anymore. Can't take it anymore. We don't know what love is. And if we sell our soul in order to gratify some intense soulish or physical or combination of soulish and physical love that we have whether it's romantic love or whether it's beastly lust or something in between whether it's in the heights of Wagner or rolling in the gutter or somewhere in between and we have that burning passion and we yield to it out of God's will then we'll never know the real thing. And the real thing is the love that we experience on earth raised to the thousandth power to where you can't contain it like Finney and you have to say God I can't hold this anymore. So there's a lot more out there that comes as we learn to pray and experience God and God then gives us the stamina to let the bonfires burn down without reacting to them until they're useful coals that we can control. Yes? Bonfires letting them burn down, is that because we're no longer stoking them? It's because we didn't yield to them. You see you can have you've got some raging lust toward a member of the opposite sex or something if you don't indulge it after six months what did I ever see in her? You're not feeding. That's right. What did I ever see in her? There's another one just got off the bus. And you all probably have experienced that if you were able to hold steady until the bonfire died down. And you know that's really something to understand when you get married. That's something to understand. That that attraction that you feel you may work it out in all kinds of euphemisms and fancy terms of high and lofty terms but basically those desires are very basic. But after you're married for six years six months or a year or so, some of these begin to abate. And then character has to take over. And if character doesn't take over eventually you'll get a divorce. Because you're not feeling the same attraction anymore. And you can see all the other person's faults and they irritate you. And that's when you say to yourself, look I made a vow at the altar of God and this was it. And now I don't feel the same as I did but that doesn't have anything to do with anything. This is what I said. Nobody made me do it. In the old days they used to with a shotgun. Now they don't. Nobody made me do it. I got myself into this. I got someone now who's dependent on me. And I've got children who depend on the stability of the home. And it doesn't matter what the attraction is. And then the attraction changes into more like respect and friendships and other things that are enduring. That are enduring and much more pleasant. And not so fiery and binding. And that's, if you're a person of integrity, you move past after you're married for a while, you move past and say, you know, I committed this woman or this man and I'm not changing. God honors that. That's called integrity. I'm not quitting. I gave my word and my word's as good as my bond and I'm here for the duration. And then God will build something that's really worthwhile and not just the enticements that he uses to keep the population increasing. Oh yeah, that's God's trick on mankind. Oh God does such wonderful things. But he can make marriage a wonderful thing if we've got character and don't have to be stimulated all the time with our feelings. You're not making me feel good anymore. I guess I don't love you anymore. This kind of American stuff. I don't love you anymore. What's the matter with you? You know, I guess we're incompatible. I've come to the conclusion all married couples are incompatible. I've seen very few that I would call compatible. Most of them are very incompatible. We seem to love to marry the opposite for some reason. And another name for that is incompatibility. And every time they zig, you zag. But when the burning desires wear off, you know, that gets old after a while. There's got to be something beyond that. So, it's like prayer. You keep at it, you keep at it, you keep at it, pretty soon you begin to get the good stuff out of it. You all know that's true. Alright, so, while we're on that, let's go back now to Ephesians 6, and let's start at verse 10. I'd like to, this has been on my mind, I'd like to belabor this a little bit. Okay. And that praying of the Spirit comes at the end of this because it's kind of part of our armor. Okay. Ephesians 6.10. There's a lot here. Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Now, we're going to need that when things come. And we learn of God's strength by being made weak. And Paul found that out in 2 Corinthians 11. Being older and feeble like myself is a big help because you have to lean on the Lord. You don't have your youthful energies by which you can run around and get into mischief. You just have the Lord's strength. But God has given us His strength when we need it. Remember that. Be strong in the Lord. When you're young, you don't feel that you need it so much, but you do. And now like the lady that Jeannie was telling us about. See, she needs God's strength now. She needs God's strength. And so the thing to do is to ask God for it each day and be aware of it each day. Father, I need your strength today, even though you don't feel it. It might come in handy. Because His strength is galactic. There's no end to it. He's got enough strength for your needs and everybody else's. It's galactic in power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. You see, if the devil would just work with strength it would be easier. He doesn't. He works with cunning. Why is that? Because he doesn't have power to hurt you if you are a Christian. He doesn't have that. God is your fortress. 18th Psalm. God is your fortress. You're on the rock Christ. And He can't hurt you, so He plays with your mind. Now, in 1 John, there's a verse that's quoted a great deal. You've heard it. Everyone in this room has heard it, I'm sure. But we usually apply it incorrectly. And it's this. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. How many have heard that? And we get the feeling, boy, Christ in me is stronger than the devil. But if you read the context, it isn't talking about strength. It's talking about truth. It's talking about truth against truth. And the battle today is not a battle for strength. Christ has all the power. It's a battle for truth. And because of the proliferation of communication media, especially in electronic mode, truth is one of the primary issues of our day because we're being bombarded through many media with lies that distort our thinking. We have wrong values because of it. I was glad to see that in the ball game a couple of weeks ago, when the manager fell and it fit on the ground, I heard that he recovered. But the players stopped what they were doing, gathered around him and prayed on their knees. The astros. And they called the game. And the announcer said, it reminds us that baseball is after all only a game. It was more important. So they called the game because they're afraid for the life of the manager out of respect. They all loved him. They wanted to show their respect. We're not going to go ahead with the game. We don't know whether this guy's going to recover or not. So because of the pressure of the newspaper, they get the feeling that professional sports are really significant. They're really important in our life. We lose perspective because it's not truth. Now Antichrist is a master of the lie. And so in 1 John he's saying, He that is in you is greater. There's truth there that is within us. When Christ is in us and when we're carrying our cross, that overcomes the lie that's in the world. And we can see clearly. Otherwise we get blinded to the truth. Okay? The devil plays with your mind. He has had 6,000 years to study the human personality. He has got your personality mapped. He knows your weak points. He knows your strong points. And you can bet that right now he's setting a trap for you. You can just lay your money on that, that right now he is studying you and setting a trap for you of circumstances that will cause you to act in an undesirable way. He's doing that right now. He does it constantly. He's got enough demons to take care of everybody. Okay? Now when you don't pray, you don't gather with the saints, you don't put on the whole armor of God, the first thing you know you've stepped in a snare and your feet are over your head and you're just hanging there on a tree. He snared you. He's a fowler. That means someone that catches rabbits and other things with snares. Satan is a fowler and he lays traps and Christians are careless, they go, I'm so glad I'm saved, the devil's deserted since I've been converted. And they've done something that set them back five years. And that's why you watch in prayer, watch in prayer, watch in prayer. And the officer with his men that is far from the battle, the night is cold and the night is rainy and he takes pity on his men and doesn't post a guard outside the tent. He'll find in the morning that his scalp is on somebody's war belt. You never, never, how do they stress that today in the military, Bill? Always post a guard. I don't care whether you go to a party, I don't care how wild and abandoned the situation you're in, you never let down your guard. You always keep alert, alert, alert, alert. Because just the time you don't think the enemy's around, he's hiding close to you and bingo. It's so important. Being in the Marine Corps, I used to guard duty in a lot of weird places. I'll tell you that. In the hold of an LSD when all I was watching was trucks that were chained down to the deck by myself down there trying to stay awake at 4 o'clock in the morning. 8 on, 4 off, 8 on, 4 off, 8 on, 24 off, 8 on. That's the Marine Corps. That's right. So there's always somebody sitting in front of the radar screen all night. I sat there too watching the radar screen. Always somebody on guard duty. Always. And Christians have to learn that. Oh, everybody here loves God and everything. We're having a good time. Post a guard. Stay alert in prayer. That's just the time you'll do some foolish thing that you'll be a long time getting over. We're in a battle people. And Satan is cunning. He knows when to move and he knows what button to push. Right. Okay. Yeah, I sat in front of a radar screen with a convoy that was going across. Alright. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Now, this is a tremendous error being made today, I think. Now, I don't say that Christians should not go into politics. If God has led you that way, then my blessing is on you. But we make a mistake when we think we're going to correct the situation in the United States by politics because it isn't going to happen. Because the source is not people, even if they're wildly liberal or even evil. That's not the problem. The problem is spiritual. And it cannot be accomplished by voting or by getting mad and declaring that all the liberals deserve to drown or whatever. It doesn't work that way. They're people. They're people. All these lesbians and gays and all this are people. And when they repent and get saved, and you see, one of the best songs we sing in here, I forget the name of it, but it was written by Jernigan, and Jernigan's the one, he's a converted What's the song? Jernigan's song that we sing it all the time. Huh? Yeah, but the one we like so well is in the two parts. The kids sang it the other night. It's tremendous. This guy used to be a homosexual. And God has blessed him super. Why that song? He had the kids sing it all the time. Brian, you know it. Larry knows it. All I can remember is da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da They sing it in two parts. There's a disc in it. So, we're not against people. And that's an important thing to remember. The spiritual climate in the United States is the problem. And we will not have a decent government or a decent country until the Christians learn righteousness have holy personalities and serve God without reference to their life. See, we overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb the word of our testimony that the Bible is true and conform our lives to it and give a true Bible testimony and by loving not our life to the death and that's the only way that the spiritual climate of the United States will be changed. You can't chip at it by voting or anything else. And I'm not saying don't vote. I'm not saying don't be active in politics. I'm telling you that the root of the problem is not people. It's satanic. And it's come upon us because the American Christians are not serving God. We are in a state of apostasy. And that's why the doors are open to the demons. And the only thing that will save America is a return to righteousness on the part of the Christians. And even that has to be wrought in prayer. It has to be people pray. Oh God. My people who call my name will humble themselves and pray. Pray. Turn from your wicked ways. My people. Not the politicians. My people. Our war is not against people. Flesh and blood is a generic term for people. Okay. Is that right, Andrew? Alright. Against the rulers, against the authorities, the powers of this dark world, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. These are the Greek is archon. It means these were lords back before the earth was created. They ruled in the heavens with God. Satan was one of the two guardian cherubs around the throne of God. And these are not the demons. These are the lords. The fallen rebellious lords that you remember in the book of Daniel how they came to fight against the prince of Persia and all this. And I told you when I was in France, I could feel that the whoever was controlling well at least Calais, that's where we were, did not like the fact that Audrey and I were there. And I could feel that. And I've never felt that in a country or a city before. I've never felt that. But for some reason he did not want us there. But he would have hurt us if we had not been there in the Lord's will. I'm as certain as I'm standing here. So there are spiritual authorities over the whole country of America over the states, over every level of government, there are these lords. And you can't fight them with votes. You have to fight them with prayer. And then you can't do that unless you are lifting up holy hands. And so the first thing we do for our country is cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. And if we're going to stand in the days to come and we see this evil and everybody is railing at the president who leads the country into destruction, which I think he's doing, and it dawns on the American population, they're going to be ready to kill everybody in sight and we'll accomplish anything. And we have not, we are not to be part of that. I've heard, I remember one man who was very prominent in California in the political movement for Christians and everything and he came and talked to some pastors and such and his attitude was, and pardon the expression, we're going to kick butt around here. That's what a Christian, that's what he's going to do in sacramental. He's going to show them the Christians really amount to something. That is, can you imagine Jesus saying anything like that? Can you imagine the Lord Jesus this is, you get Christians in high gear and they get their righteous dandruff up and they're ready to do these kinds of things. They're no different from the world. Don't lick the devil that way. You go fighting the devil with fire, he's the master of fire. All you do is get yourself burned. You fight the devil by cleansing yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and praying, lifting up holy hands to God without wrath or doubting and keeping the peace of God in your heart. You'll do more than you ever will by going out and trying to scare the officials in California with threats of filibusters or political moves of some kind. And that was purely a religious thing because you see, in his day there were Jewish movements against Rome and they were called the Zealots and Jesus never participated in that. Oh yeah, there were political movements in Israel because they didn't like the Roman rulership and there were Jews who were anxious to do something about it. Jesus never touched that. And they came and tried to make him a king. They tried to drag him off and make him the king of Judea. What did Jesus say? My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight. Yes, Larry? Didn't Jesus say when he went in there, don't you know my Father's house is a house of prayer? Yes, yes. And Brother Gentile said that God was going to make this place a house of prayer too. That was a religious thing. That was not a political thing at all. That was Jesus, the Son of God, who had given the Levitical laws on Sinai coming down to where they were profiteering by selling money changing when the peasants came in with their animals and so on and overcharged them and God knows what. And Jesus was cleaning up the house of God, not the secular society. Alright? So, our fight is not against the Democrats, the liberals, the gays, or the lesbians. They're just people that need to be saved. They need Jesus. And they're blind. They're more to be pitied than anything else. It's the devil that has them deceived is the problem. Therefore, put on the full armor of God. And by the way, people said the devil is down on earth today. This is a current teaching now. I don't believe it's happened yet. Maybe soon though. But I don't believe he's here yet. They're still in the heavenlies. They have not been removed from the heavenlies yet. But they shall be and Revelation 12 tells us they shall be. And that's where it says rejoice ye heavens because the overcomers threw him to the ground, gave Michael the power by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony. And that's going on today. That's why God is looking for people who will love not their life to the death so that he can make an end to this wrestling match. And then the heavens will rejoice. I mean, tough beans for us. But the heavens are having a gala time because the accusers cast down. But he's still up there. Alright. Therefore, put on put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground. Now, the teaching of the pre-tribulation rapture has removed that verse because it says there will be no evil day for us. And that's the damage that it does. It's not just wrong eschatology. It is wrong in its effect on people in that you talk to people about preparing and they say, don't worry honey, I won't be here. This really happens. I'm not going to be here. But you want to remember that this talk about the evil day was written in the first century. And there's been a lot of evil days since then. And the Christians had to stand. They weren't removed. Yes? I want to talk about that. Good. You're right there tracking along. All of this is defensive. Even the sword is defensive. See, a sword can be an offense or a defensive weapon. But we're only called to stand. Now, that makes it difficult for people who are in the flesh because they want to go out and attack the devil. And we hear a lot of that today. But the Lord hasn't blown the trumpet. And by doing that, you only end up as part of the false prophet. When you go out and try to attack the devil, and there's a lot of that today, you run outside of God. You know, I say often in here that our problem is not with God who is the devil, but with God. You want a classic case? This is Job. Now, it was the devil who had afflicted Job. But Job doesn't make one mention in the entire book of the devil. His whole traffic is with God. Because, see, God had the control over the devil. Job didn't say, you know, Eliphaz and the rest of them, get with me, we're going to pray against the devil because he's afflicting me. He didn't give the devil any credit at all. Job knew his struggle was with God. And the same way with the apostle Paul. He was a messenger of Satan, but Paul didn't rebuke the devil. So, all this rebuking of the devil that we do, you know, all he wants us to say that in the Bible to my knowledge, and that's in Zechariah, where it says the Lord rebuked the, this is a brand plucked from the fire, but there is no advice in the New Testament that we should mount an attack against the devil. It isn't there. That's our religious doing. And we don't know what we're doing. We don't have any idea. I rebuke you, Satan. I rebuke you. And he's accepting it as worship. Larry? Yeah, it says you're attacking dignitaries. You don't know what in the world you're doing. And when people go on to this, all the Satan does is laugh, and then he gets into them and deceives them. Because our struggle is not with Satan. It's with God. Like Paul's struggle. And God didn't answer that and say, Paul, I'm not lifting in this. Because I'm using this to keep you down so that you'll be able to bring forth the word of God. So to speak. But Paul says, Satan, I rebuke you. Or in any of his epistles, did he say rebuke the devil? But look how much of this is going on today. People are rebuking the devil all over the place. They're not getting any place. The way that you rebuke the devil is by resisting him. You resist the temptation to do evil. And you draw near to God. And resist the devil. And what will he do? You don't confront Satan. You confront yourself. When there's a temptation, you don't say, Satan, get out of here. You say, self, obey the Lord. And resist the devil. And the devil is terribly afraid of righteousness. It frightens him to death. Rebuking him doesn't scare him at all. He just thinks this is cute. It's giving him attention. It's giving him attention, which he desperately desires. Because he wants to be God. And he wants to be worshipped. And he wants your attention, your allegiance. And every time you go rebuking him and everything, you kind of insult the king. Because the king is in control. Not Satan. So the church gets misled because they look at this and to them it is signifying that we're supposed to attack. It says that you may stand. We will not be on the attack until when? The Lord returns and blows the trumpet. That sounds the attack of Armageddon. I'm just about the end of my tether. I want to give you one more thought for the day that you can take home with you. Notice the flaming arrows. Where's the shield of faith? Sixteen. Now notice it says extinguish the flaming arrows. Now this is not talking about a small buckler but a big Roman shield. And these things were as big as a door. They were around five foot tall and about two and a half feet wide. You've probably seen the Romans when they get down in their phalanx. You can't even see them. The shields are over them and in front of them and they move like a tank. You can't shoot them with arrows. These are big shields is what they are. But you don't think of them extinguishing a flaming arrow but of turning it aside. Is that correct? Notice it says extinguish. It doesn't say turn it aside. Well I think the reason for that is this. I don't think the Romans shot these at people. They were cane. These arrows were cane and they had a tip in them that had flammable material and they were lighted. But they didn't shoot them at people. They shot them at like storage wagons, tents, anything that was wood. So the idea is not that it gets into you and it's burning because the idea of you can think of the word to deflect. So the flaming arrow is coming against your carnal nature like someone acts mean to you in church or insults you or something else and you can see that flaming thing coming right at you. Now if it gets into your heart you're in big problems. So the shield of faith the minute that starts at you, you hold up that tremendously big shield and it deflects that thing and it goes out before it gets in your heart and sets your personality on fire. And a good shield on that is the last part of Isaiah 54 where it says no weapon that is formed against you will prosper. See I'm the one that makes the weapons God says at the end of Isaiah 64. And I will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. So as soon as someone shoots something at you and it's going to hurt you and you know that, if it gets passed into your heart it's going to set your personality on fire, you bring up the shield of faith and you intercept it. You intercept that. I noticed in reading in the commentary that they talk about intercepting you. Intercept you're intercepting that arrow before it strikes your heart and sets your carnal nature on fire. It is the word of God. So you see you've got to be always alert because you never know when somebody will insult you. Or even in church. Or your wife or husband will say something that irritates you beyond measure. You see that coming? Shield of faith. No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper. So that's your thought for the day. Okay? Any questions? Shall we stand? You've been very good. Everybody got eight plus. Father we do praise you and thank you that you ever called us out of this world because we can see it's in chaos. It is absolutely in spiritual chaos and Satan is destroying human beings on the right hand and on the left. But Father you have called us out to be a soldier of Christ. You've called us out to endure hardness. To learn of God. To put on the whole armor of God. To put our trust in you. And no longer Lord are we civilians. We are not civilians anymore. We simply are not civilians anymore. So we've got to snap out of our civilian noise here and start getting with the program Lord. We've got to learn lightning war. We've got to learn how to use the shield of faith. We've got to learn how to yield to the Spirit so He can wield the sword of the Spirit, the word of God and not try to do it ourselves. We've got so much to learn. So we need strength. We need because the battle is being joined and the world is ignorant and we have the answer in Jesus. So Lord we want to be soldiers. We are enlisting right now tonight if we haven't done so before Lord and we know it's for the duration. We are enlisting for the duration Lord until the kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. So Lord make us warriors. Make us warriors. Make us warriors Lord. Not worriers but warriors. And make us weary so that we can overcome the schemes and the cunning of Satan who would attack our mind. That we can put on the helmet of salvation so our mind cannot be penetrated with his lies. Lord help us in this time of computers and the internet and the newspaper and everything else Lord. We need to know your truth and that the Spirit of God will wield it through us and we ourselves will pay attention to righteousness, holiness and stern obedience to the Father. And then Lord you can use us to stand and to help others to stand in the age of moral horrors that is approaching Lord. Oh Hallelujah. Hallelujah Lord. Clothe us tonight Lord with every bit of this equipment and teach us to pray Lord. Teach us to pray. Make it fun Lord. Make it desirable. Make it a joy. Lord reveal yourself to us and join our prayers that we can pray in the Spirit without anything but pure joy and pure enjoyment in you Lord. Praise your Holy Name. You're so great Lord and your ways are so right. So right. Help us to stand so that the people we meet every day can see there's something more than this crazy situation we're in in this country Lord. Help us Lord. Help us Lord. Now I pray your richest blessing on each one and his or her home Lord that you resolve all difficulties provide all needs, give health and safety for all our loved ones. We ask you and thank you for the answer. Keep us safe on the highway going home in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.