In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the impact of media and entertainment on our ability to appreciate the wonders of God's creation. He uses the example of watching a fast-paced action movie like Spider-Man three and how it can desensitize us to the awe-inspiring beauty of natural wonders like the Grand Canyon. The speaker also discusses how our constant consumption of things that are not real, like soda pop instead of water, can hinder our ability to truly enjoy and appreciate the simple pleasures in life. He emphasizes the importance of prioritizing our spiritual growth and service to God over worldly distractions and desires.

Romans chapter 12, book of Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I come before you in the name of your son. It is in his name and by his grace, Lord, that I stand before you and intercede the great burden on my heart. There are those here, Lord, that we know that we would hope would be saved. There are those who we do not know, but we hope will be saved. There are those of us who know you that we would hope to enter in to a deeper obedience, to be more pleasing before you, to be more prepared to serve you, more given over to the things of God, to not waste our lives, but they would count for eternity and for your glory. That we would not be ashamed on that great day that our heads would be lifted up. Oh, dear God, you have given us the grace to want more than we presently have or see. To be more like Christ for your people, Lord, for your people. To be a greater and greater joy for you, for we have no greater joy to know that your people are walking in the truth. Oh, Lord, take this ship called Zion and make her sail, blow up on her, give her life to cut through even the greatest, most perilous waves of this world. In Jesus name, amen. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. Paul is doing almost the unspeakable here. He's not asking something of a man. He is asking all of everyone who hears or reads what he has written. He is calling upon men who claim to know Christ to give absolutely everything over to him, to submit to his lordship absolutely, to count absolutely everything lost for the sake of Christ, to take up crosses and follow him. Now, he starts off by saying something very important. He says, I urge you, brethren, I want you to look at something for a moment. There are so many men out there that are preaching and their God is their stomach. They feed off the people to whom they are preaching or they are building great empires on the bones of unconverted church members. But what I want you to see is that a true man of God, no matter how brilliant or how he lacks brilliance, no matter how eloquent he may be or he may be a person who can barely speak, but a true man of God with a true oracle and a true burden is going to be a broken man. And why is he broken? He is broken out of love for God's people and even those who are not God's people. It pains him. It hurts him. And so the one thing that you may find about a man of God that may seem quite annoying to you is that he is always coming to you urging. He is always coming to you pleading. He is always coming to you with exhortation. Why? Because he cares for your soul. If he has been called of God, he has been given a burden, not just a word. Not just to speak, to hear himself speak, but he's been given a word that men might be changed, that they might be transformed and ultimately that they might be saved. If all we're talking about here, as I've said before, is you getting your best life now, it would be better that I go back to the farm. This is not just about you getting your best life now. This is the difference between life, death, heaven and hell. Either what I am doing here tonight and other men do behind pulpits is absolutely ludicrous. Or it is absolutely everything. It's one thing I cannot stand, especially when I speak near campuses or on campuses. I will tell students everywhere, young man, curse me if you will. Mock me if you feel the strength, but don't patronize me. Either what I am doing is true and right, or I and everyone else who calls upon the name of Christ are of all men most miserable. Either Christ is God and Lord and everything in life and eternity hinges upon him or he's a blasphemer and there is no salvation for man. And so Paul comes to the church like he comes to everyone everywhere with this burden. He was a man who had eternity marked on his eyelids. He preached not as someone just simply trifling with words. He preached as a dying man to dying men, preaching as though he should never preach again. He was urging people, urging his brothers and sisters in Christ to go on, to press in, to go higher, because everything is at stake here. Absolutely everything. Do you think that I'm ignorant of the fact that I am looking at faces tonight, some of which will spend an eternity in hell? Do you know how hard that is when the reality of that sets in on a man? I am looking at men and women and children tonight, some of whom will one day be so gloriously transformed and conformed to the image of Christ that if they were to see themselves right now at this moment as they will be one day, we would be drawn to almost worship them in their glory. But I'm also looking at faces that will one day be cast in hell and removed from all common grace and they will become so twisted and horrid and vile that the last thing they'll hear when they take their first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because God's rid the earth of them. That's why preachers urge, because this is about eternity. He says, I urge you, brethren. I urge you, brethren. One of the things my wife is actually a nationality. She's from Spain. She's lived in many different countries in South America. When she moved here, one of the things that she most noted about Christianity is she said this. Christians in America are so thin skinned. She said in South America, we don't even feel like the preachers preach unless he's told us something we're doing wrong. We feel like it's his job to correct and rebuke and urge and push and lead and all sorts of things like that. She goes, but here, it's like everyone puts up a flag that says, don't tread on me. Don't tell me anything about me. Don't urge me. Don't push me. Don't exhort me. But we see here that Paul is not urging lost men. He's not urging pagans or idolaters. He is urging brethren. We have such a need to be urged. It's like I said, it's not difficult following Jesus Christ in the middle of the jungle because there's nothing competing. It's just you and Christ and preaching and that's it. It's when you come back to the United States and you seem to almost be engulfed in a fog of confusion about what's really true. What you should really be doing. Priorities begin to change. There begins to enter in competing loyalties. And I have discovered that it's no matter how much you read the Scripture and it's no matter how much you pray, you cannot live this Christian life following God on fire by yourself. You must have other believers that you have bonded together with them that they might sharpen you. Iron sharpening iron. But you know, we've come upon a pitiful day, haven't we? It's the same day that John and Charles Wesley had to deal with. Whitfield had to deal with. What was it? Because preaching was so low with regard to the gospel and everyone could enter in, feel comfortable because there was no preaching and because church discipline is no longer practiced in churches. Then what happens? Churches are primarily filled up with carnal people. And so what happens? The godly people in the midst of them almost have to form societies within the church and groups within the church in order to find some godly conversation, because they're not going to find it on Wednesday or Sunday fellowships. That's what happened with John and Charles Wesley and George Whitfield there at the university. They formed what was called the Holy Club. Other students, other Christian ministerial students mock them. Other church men mock them. But the only thing those young men wanted was to find a place where they could band together with some other believers like minded who said, no, we don't want this world. We don't want to live halfway. We want to be with a group of people who are going to encourage us to press in and press on. It's hard. You'd be hard pressed to find that in a church today, because everyone in America is looking for their best life now. We should have our eye on eternity. And the only way to escape the coils of the venomous snake of this world is to band together in biblical churches in which we open our lives to the brotherhood. We open our lives to elders. We open our lives to other Christians. And we say, watch me. If you see any wicked way in me that I do not see, please tell me. Sharpen me. Help me. Pray for me. Encourage me. Exhort me. Urge me. Plead with me. I can assume that the only comparable burden I can think about is with my own children. Both of my children are still too young to show rebellion against their parents, rebellion against what they would know. They're too young to break away and escape from the house. They're just little boys. But I can only think, as I've counseled parents, and I know possibly one day I'll have to deal with the same issue. You see your child. And if you don't have a child, you can't understand this. I just tell you, you can't. It's just like if you're not born again, you can't understand what it means to be born again. If you don't have children, you can't understand what it means. When you look at that child and they're born, you literally realize that you would die 10,000 deaths for that child. You would suffer whatever you have to suffer. And I can only imagine one day with the love I have for my children, one of them departing, just saying, Dad, don't want your God. Or not even saying that. Be worse. Not actually coming out and saying it. Just living like it. And to sit down with tears in my eyes pleading, Oh, son! Oh, daughter! You think you're so wise. You think you know so much. You know nothing. If you saw a fourth of the evil that I have seen, you would be so terrified you wouldn't be able to move to the right or the left. You have no idea what is hanging in the balance. And I can imagine doing that with my child and tears running down my face. And that's the same way the preacher feels when he looks at a congregation of people. He says, Oh, don't you know? Don't you know? This is about death. It's about life. I remember a few months ago, I was preaching in a church. Pastor came. It's very unusual. Pastor came to me and he says, Paul, leaders want you to meet with a couple and their daughter. I said, well, okay, but why? Well, we think she's demon possessed. Very unusual. Happens more out in the jungle than it does manifest itself here. But I said, okay, I'll meet with her. Walked in. Began to talk to her, her mother, father there. They're just totally distressed. She's there doing all sorts of stuff. And I was praying. I said, young lady, you do not have a demon problem. You have a sin problem. It was so obvious. I said, young lady, you are a master manipulator. You are role playing. You are doing all sorts of things. And you need to repent because life is at stake here. And I said, and don't be surprised if this role playing you're doing one day actually does take over your life because sin will do that. It is standing at the door and its desire is to have you. Now, when I left, her parents came out a bit later and they said, you know, our daughter's very angry at what you told her because she says she's demon possessed. I said, well, that's very convenient. She can blame everything on the devil. And she said, well, she says she thought you were a man of God, but now she knows you're not a man of God. And I said, why? She said, because she says she said that the whole time you were talking, there was a demon standing right over your shoulder as you were seated there in the chair. I said, OK, fine. Let's go back and have another meeting. We went back in there and I said, young man, young woman, I understand that I am not a man of God. She said, that's right. And I understand you've come to that conclusion because while I was speaking with you, you were looking at a demon standing right behind me. She said, that's right. Young lady, you are a liar. You little 14 year old girl, you're telling me that the whole time I was speaking, you saw standing behind me a demon set on fire by hell. Young lady, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. If you caught one glimpse of something like that, it would have so terrified you, you would have run straight through the wall. You saw nothing. Now, what is the point I'm trying to make? So many people, and I know we're not going far on this text yet. So many people think that all this stuff that we preachers do, it's almost like it's entertainment. They don't have a clue what it's really about. This is not about devils with pitchforks. This is not about things that look like some Hollywood reenactment. Even here tonight, there is a battle for the souls of men and women and children. And if you could catch a glimpse of the reality that is really out there, some of you, you would run mad straight through a wall. No idea what's going on. And then most ministers today trying to heal this wound with silly things like church growth programs and lives are hanging in the balance. You're going to hell. And the only thing that can save you is a God, a real God. Oh, that you would know that. That's why I urge you, brethren. I urge you, brethren, to look for a moment. This is not about some spring revival. There's no revival here. This is not about a spring meeting. This is about a preacher preaching truth. And either he's cotton picking out of his mind or this is a reality that there is a God. There are men. They are fallen. They will die. They will go to hell unless God moves here tonight. And for those of you who are brethren, you need to be awakened from your sleep. You go to church. It is a fine thing you do. But you only go to church to feed on the Word, to worship collectively, to fellowship with one another and to learn how you might live this life out every moment of every hour of every day of every year until you're called home to glory. Everything is about the kingdom of Christ. Everything is about what Christ is doing. Everything is about the will of God. And so Paul looks at this church in Rome and he says, I urge you to do what? I urge you to literally give your life over to Christ. From head to toe, fingertip to fingertip, to give your life to Christ. I urge you, brethren, to offer your lives up to God as a sacrifice. Now, ask a man to give you his car. That is a great thing. Ask a man to give away his lands. That's another great thing. But the devil had it right with regard to Job. Touch his body. And that's a whole other issue. Because the greatest thing a man has is his body, who he is. God's not asking you just to give your car away. God's not asking you just to give away lands. God's not asking you something detached from you. God is asking you for you. Offer your life up as a living sacrifice to God. Now, what on earth could be a motivation for such a thing? How can we motivate men to do this? I mean, how can we motivate men to do the greatest of all things to give their life away? Paul tells us. He says, therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God. What should motivate us as Christians to give our life away? Well, let me tell you what should not motivate us. Self-preservation. The greatest idol in America. How many times I hear preachers preaching, you need to get saved. You don't want to go to that old nasty old hell, do you? I said this, I think, so far this week once. But in South America and Asia and the other jungles I've been in, when they burn off a rice field, you do not want to be standing there. First of all, it's very hot. Second of all, every venomous snake in that entire rice field is going to be running out. And in Peru, we have a snake called the shishupi. It's a two-stepper. It bites you, you take two steps, you die. You do not want to be standing there when they catch those fields on fire, because every poisonous snake flees for its life. But it's still a poisonous snake when it escapes. This is not about self-preservation. You don't offer your life to God to get some reward. There is a greater motivation behind serving the Lord and giving your life away for Him. And he says it is the mercies of God. Now, what does he mean? What do the mercies of God refer to? The mercies of God refer to the first 11 chapters of this book. In the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans, Paul sets out for us in almost systematic fashion the mercies of God. He spends the first three chapters of the book of Romans doing one thing that most preachers don't want to do anymore. Paul works with all his intellectual might under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for three chapters to do only one thing, condemn absolutely every human being on the face of the earth. And not only condemn them, but lock them so deep down in the dungeon, they realize there is absolutely no way out. Let me share with you something. These preachers today, so we don't talk about sin in our church. Well, I can guarantee you the Holy Spirit's not there. And you say, why? Because one of the principal ministries of the Holy Spirit in the world today, according to Jesus Christ, is to convict men of sin. So if you're going to start your little seeker friendly church, growthy church and decide you're going to downplay sin, go right ahead. But don't expect the Holy Spirit to be ministering among you. Because that's one of his primary ministries. When he comes, he will convict the world of sin. Paul spends his first three chapters just literally doing everything in his power to shut men up, to lay them low on the ground with their hand over their mouth without one excuse or one argument as to why they're righteous enough to stand before God. And why does he do that? He does it so that men will turn to Christ. Before men will turn to Christ, you have to shut them up and cut them off from every other possibility. Men will do everything in their power to save themselves. And it is only until with Scripture you have shut them away so that they realize there's nothing they can do that they turn to Christ. So he shuts men all up under condemnation of sin. And then he begins revealing the plan of God. Jesus Christ and his propitiation, his sacrifice on that tree. In chapters 4, 5, he begins to talk about salvation, not through the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became incarnate, born, conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. God and man, fully God, fully man, who walked upon this earth for 30 years as a man and lived a perfect life under the law of God. And every time he looked up to heaven, he heard, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He did what no man ever did. I was listening today. I try to read several chapters a day in Scripture. And then I also listen to Scripture. And I was listening through the book of Matthew today when Jesus tells Satan to go. Do you realize something? No one ever did that. No one. That was the first. I mean, that's the first time in all of Scripture. Adam didn't say, Satan, go. You have all these centuries and centuries of the devil's dealing with men. And then all of a sudden, here's the incarnate God. And he comes to him and says, I'll give you everything. Just worship me. And he says, go, man. And he always told him, go. He triumphs over him. Tempted and tested in all ways, but without sin. The magnificent man of God. There in reality, folks, let me share with you this. There's only been one man of God. His name is Jesus Christ. There's only ever been one Jehovah witness. And it's Jesus Christ. This is my son. Listen to him. And that son, according to the preordained, predestined, decreed plan of God, he went to a tree. And on that tree. He was nailed to that tree. Oh, folks, if you're saved here today, you are not saved because the Romans beat up Jesus and nailed him to a cross. You're saved here today. You're saved because when he was nailed to that cross, he bore the sins of his people. He became a curse. He became sin. He bore our guilt. And then the holy and righteous God crushed him under the full force of his wrath. Because God is just. And if God is just, he cannot forgive the wicked unless his justice is satisfied and wrath is appeased. He must pour out his wrath. And he did so upon the Christ. I was sharing with some young men last night. I said, most of you hear the story of Abraham and he's got Isaac there and he lays his hand on the head of Isaac and he grabs that knife and he's bringing it down to slaughter his son. And God stays his hand. And you think, oh, what a wonderful ending to the story. It's not the ending. It's the intermission. Because thousands of years later, God the Father laid his hand on the brow of his only begotten son and brought the full force of the knife of his wrath down upon him and slaughtered his only begotten. Someone had to die under the wrath of God so that wicked men could be spared and God could be just and at the same time justify wicked men. And that's what Paul sets before us. And then he begins to deal in six and seven with the problem of sin and the believer's life and gets over to eight. How there is victory through the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of regeneration and the continuing work of the Spirit. Then he gets into nine, ten and eleven. He talks about the covenant faithfulness of God and his absolute sovereignty in his dealings with men. And in all of this, he then stops and says, therefore, how then shall we live? Now, preachers have a terrible malady in that they're always telling people what to do and rarely do they tell them how. I remember one time it was actually in where was it? It was here in Fort Worth. I went to hear somebody preach. He preached a magnificent sermon on how we ought to be walking in the Spirit. I mean, it's beautiful how we ought to walk in the Spirit. And I was just dumb enough to go up to him after the thing and say, sir, that was a marvelous sermon. But I'm confused. I know I should walk in the Spirit. I just don't know what it means. He got very angry with me and turned around and walked away. And I was convinced, well, he doesn't know either. We're always telling people what to do. We just don't tell them how to do it because probably we don't know either. But let me share with you something. Have you ever had someone preach to you and tell you you need to love God more? Every time a preacher looks at me and says that, I just go, duh, what do you want me to say? I mean, that's exactly what I know. I'm miserable about it. I stay up at night. Thank you very much. You need to love God. This is as funny as I get, OK? Yes, sir, I need to love God. I'm going to tell you how. How can you love God more? Can a leopard change his spots? How can you love God more? Well, first of all, if you've been born again, he has changed your heart, given you a heart with the capacity to love him. But there you are sitting there with that heart that has the capacity to love him. And yet you're still convicted that you ought to love him more. Should you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps? Possibly that's something you could try. I mean, how do you make yourself love him more? This is where theology comes in. I, uh, I love my wife. I loved her when I married her. We've been married 14 years. I love her more now so that I basically realized that when I married her, I didn't even know what love was. OK, now, why do I love her more? I mean, I don't tell her I said this. She's a little more pudgy than she was when we got married. And and she's a little bit older. And and she would be sitting there right now going, you too, you too. I mean, how is it that we love each other more? Do you know why I love her more? Because I know more about her. I see more virtue now than I saw then. Now, if I can say that about my wife, who is imperfect, because the more I know about her, I also see more flaws, but I see more virtue and I see more character which draws out of me a greater love. How do you love God more? You need something that no one's giving anybody today. When was the last time you even heard of a conference in churches on this thing? The attributes of God. The reason why most people don't love God as they ought to is they really don't even have a clue who he is. Do you want to love God more than study who he is? Meditate upon who learn all the fabulous things that Scripture says about him, all the things that come forth from his word by the power of the spirit. You're meditating and reading and truly want to know him. Rich men should not boast in wealth. Strong men should not boast in strength. Wise men should not boast in wisdom. But let him boast, boast in this, that he knows me. He knows me. You see, he is perfect. He is all lovely and all beautiful. So the more you do know about him, the more you will love him. If your heart has truly been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. If not, if you're just a carnal lost church member, the more you know about him, the more you'll hate him. You see, so this is what we need to understand. You need to love God more. You need motivation. Find out who he is. Just I'll give you one. Just study the doctrine of the beauty of God. That he is so beautiful that unless you were supernaturally strengthened, if you caught one glimpse of him, you would go mad. That he is so beautiful that it is an act of grace or condescension for him to even turn his eyes off of himself for a second to look on any other thing. You need to love God more. Find out who he is and you will. You need motivation. To lay your life down. To offer it up as a sacrifice. Then start on that magnificent journey of discovering everything you can about the mercies of God in the person of Jesus Christ. I don't like going to conferences. I don't like teaching in conferences that talk about come and get what you need. Or you're going to get fired up. Or you're going to acquire the fire or this or that or everything else. I don't like them at all. And I'll tell you why. Everybody gets psyched up for about two weeks and then they go back to normal. What you need in order to motivate you in the Christian life is truth about God. The greatest motivation in the Christian life is the cross of Jesus Christ. What he did for you on that tree. As I said last night, Christian stands between two days. The day that Christ hung before all men and the day when all men will stand before Christ. Those two great days ought to control you. They ought to be the very thing that mesmerize you. They ought to be your magnificent obsession. People ask me a lot about eschatology and I just don't have a lot to say, except that just about everybody I've ever read is wrong. No, it's just it's beyond me. I don't know. And someone says, well, you know, you've been preaching for years. What have you been doing? I thought you said you study the Bible. Why don't you understand eschatology? Well, because I've spent about the last 15 years of my life studying only one thing. What does it mean that Jesus died? I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. You have been bought with a price. You have been bought with a price. You are not your own. And you were not bought with trinkets and coins or religious deeds or anything of the such. You were bought with the precious blood of the Lamb of God. What more motivation do you need? Look at him. That's one of the problems with evangelism today. Everybody in the world is doing what? Because of the hour of decision and make your decision and you need to make a decision for Christ. I want to tell you something. You make a decision for Christ all day long and be lost. If you're looking back to a decision you made one time as the assurance of your salvation, you're in trouble because what you ought to say when someone says, Are you saved? You shouldn't say, I made my decision. You should say, I'm looking unto Christ. The problem is that's what the whole Christian life is. I am looking unto Christ. What will we be doing throughout all of eternity? We will be searching out the unsearchable riches of Christ. Why will heaven not be boring? Not because of streets of gold and gates of pearl. I mean, you can only swing on those things so long. The reason why is this. Because of the infinite beauty and glory of God throughout all of eternity, 10,000 eternities, we will still be tracking out how big this God is and we will not even have begun to understand it. And this is what motivates us to give our lives. Not, oh, you just need to have... You know, I'm so sick and tired of hearing these so-called preachers preaching to yuppies and saying things like this. You've got a wonderful life. You've got a beautiful wife. You've got beautiful kids. You've got a great home in the suburbs. Man, you just, you know, you got it all. You just lack one thing. You need Jesus. That's blasphemy. The real saying is this. You have nothing. All that you have amassed is of the flesh and it will burn. Every success you have ever gained, you have denied God in all of it and become His enemy. Your life is wasted and it is all rot and will be eaten by moth and carried away by thieves. And in the end, your own soul will be lost. You need Christ. He isn't the cherry on the top of your ice cream. He's everything. He's not one little accessory like a belt or a buckle on a shoe. That's why Jesus said, unless you drink my blood and eat my flesh, I may part with me. What was He saying? Unless I'm the very sustenance of your life. You're lost. And for some of you, maybe young preachers, let me tell you something. Don't buy into the divine lie that preachers are practicing today. What do I mean by that? There was a thing, cults used to practice what was called the divine lie. When they would first come up to someone, a possible convert, they would just tell them a few little tiny things and then gradually pull them in more and more and more. And then one day, lay the whole thing on them. That's what most preachers are doing in America. Yeah, just, well, you know, just soft sell Jesus. And then maybe little by little, we'll turn these people into disciples. Jesus didn't do that. Study Jesus. Not Manhattan. Not Wall Street. Jesus. We're not selling anything. We are proclaiming truth. And if no one buys it, that's OK. The motivation of this life, this Christian life is Christ. Why do we give our life away? And that is the call. I remember Leonard Ravenhill. He used to say his invitations were quite unique. He would promise you two things. He'd say, God's promised you two things. If you come to him tonight, God's promised you two things. Eternal life and a cross. Eternal life and a cross. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies. To present your bodies. Now, obviously, we're not going to get through this text tonight. We'll begin tomorrow. But let's touch on this to present your bodies. Why does he use the word body? There was a reason in the first century context. But this is one of these places in Scripture where I literally just want to fall down and worship the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. It's as though he looked forward 2,000 years to our culture and its superficial cliches and decided he was going to just shoot the whole mess right in the bucket and put an end to all of it. And what is that superficial cliche? I've given Jesus my heart. I'm not really sure he ever asked you for that. I've given Jesus my heart. And you can't tell whether I gave him my heart because you can't read my heart. You can't look inside me and know whether or not I gave Jesus my heart. I gave Jesus my heart. I love him with all my heart. I know I live like the devil, but I love him with all my heart. And if you say anything else, I'll tell you this. Judge not, lest ye be judged. And I'll tell you this. Twist not Scripture, lest ye be like Satan. Because that's exactly what you're doing. You see, give him your heart. There is a sense in which he ought to have our heart. If you're talking about he has the very control center of everything that we are. He has the very core of our very being. He owns us down to the most basic fiber of our existence. If you want to look at it that way, fine. But you don't give him your heart without the body following. And I can tell if you have given him your heart by what you do with your mouth. And what you do with your eyes. And what you do with your ears. And what you do with your hands. And what you do with your feet. And what you do with everything. The old saying, you can't judge a book by its cover. Jesus didn't say that. He said just the opposite. You will know them by their fruits. And that happens to be in the very same chapter where he says, judge not lest you be judged. Folks, we almost have this silly Greek departmental view of man. That the man is segregated into a bunch of parts. And we can sort of give Jesus part of us. The spiritual part of us. Or the heart of us. It sounds almost Gnostic. The Hebrew idea is not that. The Hebrew idea is the whole man. When he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. He's not breaking the human psyche down. Or human existence down into different compartments. He is heaping one term upon another simply to say this. You need to love God with everything you are. Well, let's talk about that for a moment. Love God with my mind. Love God with my mind. Now, the Bible talks about a hostile mind that's carnal. It's at enmity with God. I'm to love God with my mind. It means my thoughts are to be thoughts that are pleasing to God. My thought life ought to please God. Now, here's something I want you to understand. A pleasing thought life is not just that there's no negative things in there. That's not necessarily a mind pleasing to God. A mind that just, well, it just, you know, I don't I don't do. I don't think certain thoughts and I don't have problems with bad thoughts. So my mind must be pleasing to God and given over to God. Not necessarily. Because it's not just not thinking bad things. It's thinking about him. Let me ask you a question. If we were to record your thought life 16 hours a day for a week. Where would God rank in your thoughts? You do know, don't you? You know, we can always discover what our idols are, who our God is by just asking ourselves, what do we think about most? Bang. What do you dwell on with your mind? Now, we just automatically we know, but we're going to get to that later. We get to this idea that we shouldn't think about that bad things. And that is true. But what you need to understand is that we are to be very, very careful. And that our mind is to be given over to him to think about him. Losing your first love. One of the greatest indications of that is you stop thinking about him all the time. You remember when you were first born again? When you were first saved, you could not not think about him. You thought about him all the time. You remember the first time you met your wife? You thought, this is the girl that I'm going to pursue. This is the one I'm going to marry. I mean, literally, did you think about anything else? I just thought about her all the time. I mean, I almost had car wrecks. I almost walked out in front of charging bulls. I did all sorts of things. Almost fell down a manhole one time. I mean, you can't imagine. All I could think about was the girl. But I remember when I was first saved. All I could think about was Christ. I mean, I walked around the University of Texas like a zombie. I fit right in, actually, like a zombie. All I could think about was Christ. Everywhere I looked, it was Christ. I couldn't concentrate in my class. I couldn't do anything. It was just Christ. Christ. What God had done for me. Frank Lombok. Have any of you ever heard of him? Frank Lombok. If you go to the Philippines, they still talk about him. Even though he's been dead for years and years and years. He was a missionary. And he did one of the greatest services to any country. He taught people how to read for one purpose. So that they could read the Bible. And I mean, that man is, I mean, just, he's known all over the Philippines. Because of what he did in service for Christ. He taught people to read so that they could read the Bible. But I was fortunate to get his diary, a publication of his diary. It's not been in print for years and years. I'd always heard about it. I found it. Do you know what the greatest goal in that man's life was? This is not kidding. This was his, this was his goal. Not, it wasn't teaching people how to read. That wasn't his main goal. This was his main goal. That he strove for and worked at. To live one day. One day. In continual, unbroken fellowship with God in his thought life. That was his goal. You ever hear people say, well, you're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good. Leonard Ravenhill used to say, you're so earthly minded, you're no heavenly good. Now here was a very heavenly minded man. And he taught most of the nation of the Philippines to read. So I think being heavenly minded, you can get accomplished quite a bit. To love God with his mind. Now, how do you do that? We're going to talk about that tomorrow. Now, in this world that literally bombards you, bombards you with noise, there's only one way to begin to train your mind in such a way, and that is to renew it with the Word of God. And we're going to talk about that. But your mind... Now let's talk for a moment about your ears. I'm sorry, there are simply things you cannot listen to. You cannot listen to because it is secular and worldly and anti-biblical. It's not true. It's not. A lot of Christian music you cannot listen to. It's not true. It's not right. It's just goofy. It's got a good rhythm to it. It's clicheic, but it has nothing to tell us about God. Garbage in, garbage out. The mind, it begins in the mind. People come to me, young people, and they say, I have trouble with my thought life. The first thing I ask them, what are you listening to and what are you watching? Men have trouble and they tell me, you know, my marriage isn't what it ought to be. Women, my marriage isn't what it ought to be. This and that. And I say, well, what are you pumping your mind full of? They're watching television and they're looking at relationships of people on television, which is a total distortion of reality. And they're basing their marriage and everything on a Hollywood view of love and relationship and companionship. And it's all a lie. It's like if I asked you to paint for me pictures of the Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille would have more influence on your painting than the book of Exodus. And if I asked you, close your eyes and think about an image of Jesus, which I do not believe in. I do not like films with Jesus in them because it's not Jesus and he cannot be represented and should not be represented. And no, I don't agree with the Jesus film. But if I told you to close your eyes and picture Jesus, most of you would have a 15th century Catholic view of a man that looked very effeminate in a white flimsy robe. Because our view of even biblical things are not based on Scripture, they're based on Hollywood and on ungodly artists and people who try to do things well in the name of Christ, but with no biblical basis whatsoever. I'll never forget the story I heard in India, this man was handing out tracks, this big kind of meeting, he's handing out tracks and on the back of it, there was an artist rendition of Jesus kind of smiling there in the track. He handed out track and this one little girl took it. She was so happy to receive it. She said, I'm a believer. I just become a believer. It was out in a small village out in India and she was so happy with the track and she said she went off and then she came back in a few minutes and she was weeping almost hysterically. The missionary said, well, what? She turned the thing around and showed the picture that the artist had put there and she said, oh, sir, oh, I thought he was so much more glorious than this. You said, well, it's just a rendition. It's not supposed to be. Now you understand why I preach in a lot of places once. Did you ever wonder why Jesus is not described in the New Testament? Maybe that's a clue. Yeah, but he's so lovely. I just love this picture of him. You know why? You're making a God in your own image. You're putting up a Jesus up there that you just like to see because he looks so much like you. Most people, when they worship God on Sunday, it's the greatest hour of idolatry in the week. Why? Because they're not worshiping the God of the Bible. They are worshiping a God they made with their own mind. And I can prove it. If I were to go in these churches and hand out sheets of paper and say, OK, write out for me biblical verses on the attributes of God, describe for me biblically who God is, they wouldn't be able to do it. And that's why if I go to a church and they ask me, preach on the attributes of God, I always warn the pastor, it'll probably split your church. And he says, why? I said, because when I begin to preach a biblical view of God, according to Orthodox historical Christianity, some of your oldest and most faithful members are going to jump up in that church and say, my God's not like that. I could never love a God like that because the God they're loving is not the God of the Bible. It's a God they made with their own mind and their own image. And they love the God they made. So the mind, what we hear, what we see, it is so important. At one of the I heard this story, this father, he his boys came to him and rather submissive boys, but they came to him, said, Dad, all the all the young people are going to go see this movie. Can we go see it? And he said, well, let's let's go on the Internet and look it up and see what it you know, there's a places where you can see what they got, you know, the rating and all such and so forth. And he noticed that there was some things in it. He said, well, son, there's there's just a few of these things here. And they go with that. It's just a few things. He said, well, it's enough. You can't go. Well, they obeyed, but they were pretty downcast about it, moping around all day. And so the dad was pretty famous for his brownies in the world, he said they were this world famous brownies. And so he told his son sons to cheer you up. I'm going to make him a world famous brownies. So he got in their kitchen, labored and labored, labored, came out a few hours later, world famous brownies. They said, thanks, daddy goes, you know, I'm going to get that one film about those missionaries. We'll just sit down here and we'll watch this and enjoy ourself and eat these brownies. OK, dad, that's great. Give me a brownie. OK, here's your brownie. Oh, well, just stop just a second before you eat that. I just want, you know, I put the best flour available in those brownies. Well, thanks, dad. We really appreciate. Give me the brownie. Well, before you eat, I just want, you know, I use the best chocolate. I even went to a special place and bought the best chocolate that I could possibly buy for these brownies. Well, thanks, dad. That's that's wonderful. And I want, you know, send the cream, the cream just I had to search high and low for it, but I finally found it. It's the best cream has brought it in from Switzerland. Well, that's great, dad, but give us the brownies. OK, here they are. Oh, one other thing, the litter box, the cat. I threw just a pinch of that in there along with it. They went, oh, God, dad, he goes, but just a little bit, just a tiny bit. How tiny does it have to be before clean water becomes polluted water? How many drops of sewer are you willing to bear? How much can you suck down before you say, no, this is not for me. And isn't it amazing that when you put dirty stuff in clean water, the dirty stuff doesn't get cleaner, it's just the water gets dirtier. And it is a battle of the mind, please understand that it is a battle, you know, folks, I could we could preach on all sorts of stuff and get all of you so riled up and everyone just fired up for Jesus and everything else. But, folks, when that wears off, you need something more. You need to realize an enduring revival, enduring renewal is going to require absolute and drastic, radical changes in your lifestyle. Everybody's going, we just want a touch of the Spirit. Is it going to be over before Grey's Anatomy starts? I want to tell you something, you watch Grey's Anatomy, there's no way you're filled with the Holy Spirit. You see, now he's stopped preaching and he's gone to meddling, hasn't he? You want the Holy Spirit and yet watch people do, you know, it says in the book of Romans, not only do they practice such things, but they give hearty approval to those who practice such things. You say, I would never commit adultery on my wife or my husband. Man, that homosexuality, that's a sin. And man, lying and stealing and all that is horrible. And the stuff in the world that is so immoral, I would never participate in that. What's on television tonight? Maybe you wouldn't do it, but you give hearty approval to those who do. And then you wonder why you can't grow in Christ. Do you want to grow? Yes. My little boy, when this is how you teach little boys to walk. You set loose the Rottweiler on them. No, that's not how you do it. I'll get a call from social services tomorrow. Here's how I taught my little boys to walk. They pulled himself up on a table. You know, they just kind of get up leaning on the couch or something. They're standing there and they're pretty, pretty excited about it. And I come in and I stand just at arm's length from them and I say, come. Their first serious philosophical problem they have to solve. The philosophical problem of you can't have your cake and eat it, too. They enjoy the stability of this table. But there's someone out here that they desperately want who's just out of reach. Now, they've got a dilemma. They've either not got to get that, they're either not coming to their dad. Or they've got to let go of the table. They can't have both. You can't have both. You can't have all the things of this world and have the power of God resting upon your life. I'm sorry. There are choices that have to be made and you would do well to make them as soon as possible. And especially for you gentlemen who have children. You'll not only suck yourself down the tube. You're going to take your children with you. It's a battle of the mind, of what we hear, of what we see. Of what we see. Oh, my gosh. I mean, living in this culture, we're literally bombarded by these things. They're coming at us everywhere. I mean, it is amazing. I remember the last time I had to I lost my wedding ring, so I had to go get one. And I got one, but I couldn't find one at first. So I ended up having to go to probably the most demonic pit of hell on the face of the earth. A North American mall. I'm serious. I'm serious. I'll tell you what, I'll give you a test. Go to the mission field for about three years and then let them fly you blindfolded back to the States and take that blindfold off in a mall. You'll throw up. And I'm literally going, I pray, you know, God, I have to go to the mall. They said they've got a jewelry shop there that have, you know, ring wedding rings for under one hundred dollars. So let's go. And so, well, I've got to pray. All right, got to go in there. I got to be careful now. Why? Just the things that they put on the glass is enough to take a man of God and wound him severely. We're living behind enemy lines. One of the greatest problems with men and passion for their wives is this. Remember, I was in the airport or somewhere and what was her name? She was a famous model. I forget her name. But she said this. She was on like the CNN or something. And she said. I don't even look like me. And what she was saying is after they take my picture and they move it around and do everything, stretch my legs and make my waist smaller. I don't even look like me. Hollywood has given you a lie about what a woman is supposed to look like. And then you judge your wife by a lie. No wonder there's no passion. Do you say you think you've escaped culture just because you wear a radical T-shirt that says Jesus freak on it? You have no clue how sucked into culture you are. What you've got to realize is we've got to realize that this is deadly. It's deadly. And we need to avoid it at all costs, not in the name of super spirituality, but in the name of saving marriages and families and love lives and children and picnics and play and wrestling and all the good things that God's given us in order to save that we must separate ourselves from the very things that contaminate. Let me get let me give you an example. I had guys tell me something very strange a while back. And I thought, well, that's strange. And I began to think about it and I began to think about other things and I realized that's not so strange. He said, you know why you can't enjoy a glass of water? Do you know why Americans cannot enjoy a glass of water? Because they're always drinking soda pop. So you can't enjoy a glass of water anymore. And I began to think about that. I went to a friend of mine who's a big film guy and he does all kinds of he's worked for big film companies. And I'm in his office and he says, you've got to see this. And I'm always talking to him about how this stuff get him. But he says, you got to see this. I said, what? Spider-Man three. I'm not watching Spider-Man three. He said, no, watch the trailer. It's 45 seconds. Just watch. I mean, it's just unbelievable. OK, Spider-Man three. Hit the button. He hits it. I mean, literally it the thing was moving so fast and there was so much action and so much power and all these terrific things going on and special effects that when it was done, my head was just going like this. It was just wow, just every every fiber of my body's tingling. That was amazing. Then I realized something. A child raised on that. Could I actually take them to the Grand Canyon? And would they stand in all of it? We have so see what we do with media and entertainment and all the things around us is we have so desensitized ourself by bombarding ourself with things that aren't real. So when we look at the real things that God has made, they do nothing for us. They do nothing for us. And we spend our lives in a fantasy world, dreaming about things that don't exist. In playing Xbox and PlayStation and all these other things, because we're no longer content with the world God made. Our mind. We can't simply enjoy a sunset anymore. You see, when I talk about separation, I'm not talking about some monkish idea of separating yourself from everything that is good so you can just sit there and mope about how spiritual you are. I'm talking about separating yourself from all these lies and perversions and everything so that you can enjoy absolutely everything that God is and all that he's rightfully given you. Your hands and your feet, your feet to God. What does that mean? The direction of your life, the direction of your life, what direction is your life heading in? Remember what we learned last night. Discipline yourself for the purpose. The word in Greek is pros. Discipline yourself toward godliness. It's going toward it. Discipline yourself to get closer and closer to the goal that is conformity to Jesus Christ. Live moving toward something. Don't you realize you're moving toward something? And I can tell you exactly what you're moving toward. You're moving toward the day when, like myself, you will stand before Christ. You're moving towards that. His opponent unto man wants to die. And after that, the judgment. We shall all stand before the judgment throne of Christ. You are moving towards that day. All of history is moving towards that day. It says in the first John that the world is passing away. It can be interpreted this way. Not that it's passing away, but that it's being pushed out. God is moving like with a great bulldozer through history. And he's pushing out the temporal. And the true light is shining. And his kingdom is advancing. And one day, the only thing that will be, will be the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And some of you will stand before the throne of that kingdom. And you will hear this, the most terrifying words ever written in the Bible. And there was no place found for them. Live your life. For a temporal world, you have a temporal life. I'm talking about eternity, eternity, eternity. What are you headed towards? How are you living? How are these feet moving? How are they moving? Do you really need a house that big so that you're so tied up in debt that you've got to work all the time and you can't play with your kids? Do you really need cars like that? Do you really need all that stuff? Do your children really need 15 gifts at Christmas? Are you putting them in the same bondage that you're in? You see, these are things. What are you moving towards? When someone watches your life, do they see that? Can they see a person who they say, man, I don't agree with that person, but I'll tell you what. You can tell they're really about what they say they're about. They're living like this world is only passing. They're living like this world is only passing. Are you living that way? Are you? What's the direction of your feet? If someone were to look at your feet, what would be the direction? I'm going to read you a passage from the book of Matthew, Brother Matt gave me a passage last night. It's amazing, it says this, but this I say, brother, and the time has been shortened so that from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep and those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice and those who buy as though they did not possess and those who use the world as though they did not make use of it for the form of this world is passing away. It doesn't mean neglect your wife or neglect your family, because one of the greatest responsibilities you have in the kingdom of Christ, if you are a man, is to love your wife and then your children. But what it's saying is, look, this world is passing away. Did any of you see every once in a while? It's important to see a film that may be even very harsh, see Schindler's List about that German man who saved so many Jews from the concentration camps. And it is amazing at the end of the film, he's standing there and and all these Jews who had been saved because of him and what he did. He literally took his business, made money and bought Jews from the Nazis and ushered them out, saved their lives. And he's standing there right there and they're all around him. But he was a snappy dresser and he did kind of live the high life. And as he's looking in the face of all those Jews that he saved, all of a sudden he went, he broke down almost hysterically. And he goes, that car, that car, I could have bought five people with that car, the suit. I could have bought two people with this pen. I could have bought a person with this pen. Is an application needed on the Day of Judgment? When it's all burning, didn't have to burn, it could have been invested in the kingdom. World is passing away. What direction do your feet go? You know, I have seen men just literally be consumed for six months over a new hunting bow that came out. I mean, just literally studying about it, reading it, looking at it. My wife says sometimes, how often can you guys go to a sporting goods store and look at these things? And I mean, just be sick with wanting something like that, just consuming their life. And then they get it. And then next year, this old bow is slow. We get it and it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It doesn't make us feel the way it's supposed to make us feel. It's all a lie. We didn't really need it. You see, what direction are your feet going and your hands? And that's where we're going to finish these hands. Service, service unto your God. Practical service, practical. Can I use you as an example? Oh, great. Stand right there. Now, for those of you who aren't those of you who aren't Pentecostal, don't get afraid. See that lady sitting back there and see the wall right beside her? I want you to run there as fast as you can and then run back. I hope a Rottweiler never chases you. You're going to be in trouble. All right. All right. That's good. You did really well. You faster than the preacher. OK, now I want you to grab I want you to grab one foot and pull it up there. Just one. There you go. Now run back there. OK, turn around, come back. I just do this so that when I go the next church, I can say revival broke out. They were running and jumping all over the place. Now, grab ahold of your bottom foot there. Just pull it up again, just like you did. Now, now do the other one. You can't. OK, sit down. We smarter than the college student I had a couple of months ago. We actually tried to do it. I took away two members. Of his body, and he could no longer function. Now, let me share with you something I'm old school. I believe only I believe that God's only got one organization. It's called a church. And I believe you want to do something for God, you need to get you need to get tied in to a local church where your covenant there with them. You are binding together with them to serve Jesus Christ in a real local church. OK, preachers, the pastors always say, yeah, man, all these people running around in their ministries and doing all their ministry, you better get in a church and serve in a church. And in a church, I find very little. Well, this is what I find the same thing you find in insurance companies, insurance companies tell me that 80 percent of the people do 20 percent of the work and 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. It's the same way in a church. Well, bless God, I come to church. Well, congratulations. So does the devil. The question is, what do you do when you get here? And what do you do when you leave here? Because this Sunday morning and Wednesday, that's about praising God collectively, having some wonderful fellowship, and it's about receiving the word. But it's nothing about service.