This sermon emphasizes the importance of going to the tower, symbolizing meeting with God in prayer and seeking His guidance. It highlights the story of Habakkuk standing upon his watchtower to hear from God, encouraging listeners to write down the vision God gives, run with it, and live by faith. The sermon stresses the need to avoid living loose, in a fog, without love, worship, or discouragement by consistently going to the tower to seek God's presence and direction.

Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 1. I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the Lord answered me and said, write the vision, make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. Let's pray. Now Father, in these final minutes now, I think you have been more than gracious to use such a weak, poor instrument as myself. And one more time I plead for the mercy of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of God upon our meeting. Our minds to understand, our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our hearts to just love you. And for any that might not know Christ, for the Holy Spirit to work and draw them with your loving power to yourself, that they would repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that they might be saved. Our wonderful Savior, you came, you were born, you lived, you died on the cross for our sins, you were buried and you rose again the third day. All of that for us. Now as we close up, Lord, may we be blessed one more time with your word and teach us about going to the tower. In Jesus' name, Amen. The title of this message is Going to the Tower. You can sit down if you want to, stand if you want to, I don't care. Going to the Tower is not original. I listened to a preacher friend who's from Rochester, New York, one time preached this. And so it's not original, but it fits in really good for what I'm going to share with you. The background of this, Habakkuk has, as most prophets, a hard occupation. It's not easy, sort of like being a wife and a mother. Some things are hard, but his name means embracer, maybe even wrestler. And God is fixing to turn the Chaldeans loose on the Hebrews. And Habakkuk's not excited about that, and he's going to talk to God. He has some questions, actually, if you go back to chapter 1 and verse 3. He said, Why dost thou show me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there are that rise up, raise up strife and contention. He had all these bad things going around him. They didn't like the prophet, and they were ungodly people, and in idolatry and everything. Just a hard job. And then God comes along and says he's going to turn the Chaldeans loose on them. And so he asked another question there, and he just kept asking God questions. And three, he said, Why? And he just wanted to know why God's going to do this, because God told him these Chaldeans are terrible. And six, he said he'd raise up the Chaldeans. And seven, he said they are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity, they shall proceed themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and they're more fierce than the evening wolves. And nine, they shall come for all for violence are just really bad, and Habakkuk answers back to God. And he said, Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord? And verse 12, Mine holy one, we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment. O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Thirteen, Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cast not look on iniquity. Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? And so he's really not understanding the ways of God here. And so here's what he decides to do. In verse 1, he said, I'm going to stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower. He's going to go to the tower, and he will watch to see what he will say, what God's going to say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And then the Lord answered him. In verse 2 of chapter 2, and here's what God said. Write the vision, make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. Many times there were double things in the area of prophecy. A present thing, then also a future prophecy of things. So we won't get into future prophecy, because we want to learn a practical thing to take home with us after all this stuff that we've heard this weekend. In verse 4, we read the last thing God said is that the just shall live by his faith. The just shall live, and this is quoted four times in the New Testament. It's quoted in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, three times maybe, that the just shall live by faith. And Romans, the justification by faith, we talked there who is justified by faith is to live by faith. We got all kinds of principles from this. Now, in verse 2, he talks about vision. What is vision? We need to have vision. We're going to talk about that a little bit and actually this may be the thing I'm going to be challenging. To go to the vision, go to the tower and meet with God and see. You see, our vision determines our destiny. It determines our goals. It determines our priorities. It determines actually eternity. If we see Jesus as our Savior, it determines the direction that we go in life. So you need to see. And if you can't see and you're blind physically or whatever, don't drive. You know, we need to see. It's very important, even with our spirit. And God will give you wisdom in certain situations. I heard a story, I read a story, I actually got it, and somehow or another I picked it up, and it's even covered with a plastic, about Finney. He was in one of the meetings and preaching, and he heard about a lady that was very faithful and going to the Baptist church there in town, and known for her confidence in her own piety, her own godliness, but she's failing and she's fixing to die. And Finney went to visit her, because he found out about her. And so he had a long conversation with her, and asked her of her confidence, and she told him that she'd had a dream in which she, when she was a little girl, which made her think that her sins were all forgiven. Because of this dream, she thought her sins were all forgiven. And then she had settled upon that. That was her salvation, in that dream. Well, Finney tried to explain to her that, no, she had to come to faith in Christ for her sins to be forgiven. She'd never done that. And so he tried to dissuade her of her false hope, and it wasn't going too good. She got upset with him, and said it wasn't nice for him to be doing this to a dying lady, and that he was cruel to tell her, and tried to take her hope away from her, and all these kind of things. Just stressed her, and just couldn't get it done. A little bit after that, she died. But just before she died, and the story went like this, that was related. She died not long afterwards, but her death, in thinking of it, has often reminded me of Dr. Nelson's book called The Cause and Cure of Infidelity. When this woman came to be actually dying, her eyes were open, and before she left the world, she seemed to have such a glimpse of the character of God, and of what heaven was, and of the holiness required to dwell there, that she shrieked with agony, and exclaimed that she was going to hell. And Finney says, in this state, he was informed that she died. It's a serious thing to reject a gift that's offered to you by God of eternal life. Once God offers a gift, you know, if he offers a gift, somebody offers you a gift, and if you don't take it, what have you done? You've refused it. And so, let's look at some things here, and see, and close them up, if we can learn some things about going to the tower. God will give you wisdom on how to work with people. There was an old Scottish pastor, one time, there was one place he'd go off once a year, it'd take him about a couple of days to get up there, and there was an inn he would stop in, and spend the night on the way to Scotland. Beautiful place. And he was there, what, in 08, and didn't go everywhere, but we had a conference there, an amazing conference. But, so he stopped at this inn, and there was a bright lassie there, bubbling around and serving the tables, and so he asked her about her soul, and she wasn't saved, and she wasn't interested, she didn't want to, she was doing fine, and whatever. And then, and so, as he left, he said, well, let me challenge you to do this. Would you please pray every day that God would show you yourself? And she said, sure, I'll pray that. And so the next year, he came back to the inn, he stayed there, and there was this lassie, not bouncing around, and not bubbly and everything, but very sad, and very dejected, and very down. And so he asked her what was going on. Well, God had showed her herself, and it wasn't so good looking. And so he tried to lead her to the Lord, and she didn't want Christ, and so he said, just before he left, okay, well, this time, would you pray every day for God to show you Jesus? She said, okay, I'll do that. And so the next year, he comes back, and she prayed every day, and he came back, and she's just all bubbly again, and bouncing around, and so happy and joyful. What happened? Well, God showed me Jesus Christ, he's my savior. I accepted him and saved. Sometimes you need to see yourself before you really see Jesus, and that's hard to get people to see themselves and face up to the fact that they are a sinner, and the wages of sin is death. So vision is seeing. God can give you vision for whatever you need, and it's also seeing what God wants to done, and seeing what God wants you to do. I'm going to cover about nine areas, and hopefully go through these quickly. We're going to talk about standing and watching. Standing is being still. Watching is the term actually for guarding, and we're going to talk about sitting, getting yourself stationed in place, and upon the tower is a, could be an enclosure, or whatever, could be a prison, and whatever. When we went to a place here a few weeks ago, we went to the tower. We went down to the lake, to the house, and then watching, you will watch, he will watch, that is expecting, to look out for what's going to do, to see, that's perception, to see what he's going to learn, and what he will say, and that is going to, he's going to receive what God is going to give to him, and then the eighth thing is unto me, and what I shall answer. That means, so what's he going to turn back, how is he going to respond to God, and then the ninth thing is, when I am reproved, and so verse 1, what I shall answer when I am reproved. That's to be corrected. Okay, God's answer to him was to write the vision, make it plain upon tablets, that he may run, and then that read it then. All right, let's just jump into this. Before we do, I want to ask you a question. What is your vision? What has God showed you? Live by faith. What is your vision for your children? And you say, well, my vision is that you'll make this through here and be sane. I don't go crazy, you know. Raising these little guys, they just stress you. We have them come over to our house every week. Now, I'm getting old, I'm 70 years old, and the noise sometimes, my wife says, you better go hide. You know, get on your nerves and things they do, but they're fun. They're fun. We're on a 20-acre farm, and we're trying to find another place to live, because our house is pretty bad shape there. But it drives you, it consumes you, whatever your vision. After Paul met Jesus on the dimension, he was a driven man before, but now he's driven by another power, and that is the Lord. Somebody, Sammy Tippett got this, he's evangelist, goes to Africa, sees great things happen, but this came from somebody else, they can't remember what it is, but a doctor friend of mine in Louisiana sent this to me, and I said, wow, that is powerful. Because sometimes we can just sort of, our vision can sort of get blurry, you know, just like you get cataracts, you get very, I got them coming in both eyes. Listened to a preacher years ago, I heard him up in Vancouver when I was in a conference back in 2010, and I identified with what he said. He said we sort of, we get older, we just sort of die piece by piece. The older you get, the eyes get dimmed, and knees don't work, and feet hurt, and teeth fall out, and all this stuff. So he said, if you have more memories than vision, then you're writing your final chapter. He who walks with God, walks with God alone, and we're going to have to keep walking with vision, we're going to have to walk, keep walking by faith. Whatever we do, we got to keep looking ahead and believe in God to do things. Otherwise, we're on our last chapter. Vision is the the art or the power of sensing with eyes, or anticipating that which will come. It's a mental sight, it's a dream, it's a revelation, a revelation. It's something that we, God gets us that we see. When I first went to my first church in Wyoming in 1975, just 29 years old, we had a little three-month-old baby that we took out there, and I went into town, there wasn't a preacher in town, just the devil in me. All right, we know where we're at, but the enemy got busy and got the priest back in there. They had a church, and that guy was an amazing guy. He'd spent years in North Carolina, and he'd show me hate letters from the bishop, and I listened to him preach a funeral message one time. For two hours, he sounded like a Baptist preacher, chewing these people out, just chewing them out, amen, amen. I don't know if he's really saved, but the higher-ups hated him, and he put up a chicken coop out inside of his brand-new $70,000 home. He said, this thing's a shame, and that was back, what, 40-something years ago. It'd be a $200,000 or $300,000 home now, but when I went there, God gave me vision for Wyoming, to reach Wyoming for Christ, and I didn't do it, but I did, I believe, see God do some things in our area, and he had warfare all the time. It was just really great, and I shared some things with you, but it's a mental side of what God wants. Let me give you these nine tidbits of wisdom from the old embracer, Habakkuk. He loved God. He embraced God. God is just not good down here, and now you're fixing to turn these Chaldeans loose. We need to have a talk, you know. I know we're not really, we're really bad. There's strife and all this stuff, and they don't like me, but the Chaldeans are terrible people, and that's what God does when he's disciplined. So, standing, you think about that. Moses, he stood there at the burning bush. I don't know if it was a mountain, but after that, he stood on Mount Sinai, and he stood on Mount Nebo, and he finally ended up and stood on the Mount Transfiguration. He was a mountain climber. He walked with God, and a man with vision, with the vision of God, is not devoted to a cause. He's devoted to God. So many are devoted to their doctrine, their cause, their church, or whatever this, but a man with vision is going to be devoted to God, and also, I got four things to share. Two, he's not easily deterred, because he's standing on the rock. He's seen what God said. You see what God said. You see what God wants you to do, and then two, he lives by the inspiration of his vision, because the Spirit of God has spoke to him from the Word. He's heard God. He got a message or whatever, and he's going to move on it, and the fourth thing, he's going to be just like us. Some of the things, he's not going to understand what God is doing. The old embracer didn't understand why God would take these terrible, horrible Chaldeans and turn them loose. They were awful, awful people, but he's going to stand, and God says, go to the tower. Go to the tower. When you go to the tower, he says, you write. You write the vision. You make it plain up on tables that he may run and read it to you. So what God wants you to do sometimes is go to the tower. You go to that tower, and then he said, watching. The second thing out of these nine things is you go to the tower and you watch. Oswald Chambers said, if we have the inspiration of other visions of God, beware of the danger of relaxing spiritually. When God gives you a vision, we got to watch that we don't relax. David relaxed too much, and there was one young prophet one time to go do a chore, deliver a message. He did, and then the old prophet diverted him, and he got ate up by a lion. Wow. Just amazing things. Not to get diverted. Isaiah talked in Isaiah 22, 1 through 6, the valley of vision. So go to the tower. You stand there, and you watch, and you see what God is going to speak to you. Then there's sitting. You go to the tower to sit, and you just kind of sit there and be still. Chambers said, if we are born again, we all have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. We have visions of what's wrong and right, but many times we won't take time to be still before God, and so we need to go to the tower and sit there with him, and be surrendered to him. And don't waste your sorrows, sulking about this and that. Just go to the tower and meet with God. The Christian life is a warfare. I remember one time there's battles, and the Lord, the scripture's there, you should not fight in this battle. And also the scripture says the battle is the Lord's, and so don't waste your sorrows, your trials, and your broken dreams, and just stay in contact with God. Go to the tower. Go to the tower. Those Moravians, they're really inspiring, aren't they? There's one story about them. They were on a ship, and the ship, they were going to St. Thomas to preach, and they were on their way from London, and they were on the ship Britannica, and they're on their way, and then some pirates come. These terrible pirates. And they come in there, and they come up, and they're going to take over this ship, because that's, and so they come up beside there, and they're going to throw their grappling hooks over there, and just before they did, God drew a gust of wind and blew them back. They didn't hit. And then they tried again, and every time there'd be this amazing gust of wind, and blow them back, and their hooks couldn't hit. And they try again, and they couldn't do it. Then finally, okay, the captain said, well, get the cannons, blow them to pieces. And so they shot at them, and the wind blew them back, and all their cannonballs dropped short, and they had all this smoke, and they had to shoot again, and they kept getting blowed back, and they kept, they shoot, and they couldn't see all the smoke and everything, and pretty soon the smoke cleared, and the Britannica was way down the road, or the sea. They were traveling on. What happened? All of those Moravians went to the tower. They were down in the hole praying, go to the tower, go to the tower. But that's not the end of the story. Five years later, these Moravian missionaries were on that island, they'd been preaching, and they were in, I think, a restaurant or something like that. Maybe you heard this story. And a man came in there asking for them, and he found them, and he stood there, and he had these questions for them. He said, first answer me one question. Are you the men who came to this island five years ago in the English ship Britannica? And they said, we are. And then he said, and were you attacked upon the sea by pirates? And they said, yes. And he said, I am the captain of that pirate ship. And what I experienced there was so unusual and staggering, I figured out that God must have been doing that. And after that, I gave my life to Christ, I got saved. Go to the tower. You don't understand, we don't understand what kind of side benefits there may be. Go into the tower and sit there before God, and let him fight the battles up there on the deck. And so that's the third one. We go sitting, and so we have these visions. God can get you out. Look, there's Paul and Silas. They're in the jail, in the prison, and what do they do? They turn that place into a tower, a tower of prayer and praise, pray themselves out. All kinds of things happen. Go to the tower. It's amazing. And the devil wants to get you sidestepped, but there's all kinds of places that can be your tower. So the fourth thing, he said, upon the tower, he said, you go to the tower, that's the place. Go back to that again, verse 1. He said, I will stand upon my watch, and will set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And of course, the Lord said, write the vision, make it plain upon the tables. God will give you vision. He'll show you what he wants you to see, but you've got to go to the tower, and you've got to be there. But let me tell you something. The greater the work that God's going to do through you, the greater the opposition there's going to be. Just don't think you're going to walk into something and do some great thing of God, and the devil's going to say, oh, just come on in. I've been waiting for you to do this. No, he's going to oppose you all the way. And so, go to your tower. Upon the tower, that's the place. James said, draw night to God, and he will draw night to you. Go to the tower. Again, Oswald Chambers said, when God gives a vision to a saint, he puts him, as it were, in the shadow of his hand, and the saint's duty is to be still and listen. So, go to the tower. I think we're too prone to just sort of worry and fret about these things, instead of just going and getting with God till we get the victory. So, when God gives a vision, and darkness follows, wake, and God will make you in accordance with the vision. There was a man that went to the Lai Tzu tribe in southwest China. I think it was Hudson Taylor who told him he would have to go forward on his knees in that area. Here's something he wrote, and I read years ago something on his biography or something. I should do it again. But, here's what he wrote. He was a pioneer missionary to the Lai Tzu tribe, southwest China, with the China Inland Mission, and he experienced intense wrestling with the powers of darkness. He said, before the strong man is finally forced to yield up his prey, and here's an account of how bad it got with him. He said, strange, and this was recorded by Ms. Taylor, Ms. Howard Taylor, in Behind the Ranges. Maybe you read that book. And he said, strange uncertainty began to shadow his inward life. All he had believed and rejoiced in became unreal, and even his prayers seemed to mock him as the answers faded into nothing. These demonic powers just pounding on him and attacking him. And here's the lessons from this. Satan's tactics seem to be as follows. He will first of all oppose our breaking through to the place of a real living faith. So, we go to the tower, and we break through until we've got faith. By all means, and then he says, the devil, the enemy detests the prayer of faith. So, you go to the tower, and you go to the battle against whatever God's got you to fight. Here's why the enemy detests the prayer of faith. Because, he says, it's an authoritative notice to quit to the enemy. And we're going to break through. We're going to the tower, and we're going to get the victory, and we're not going to give up until we've got the victory. So, you might as well leave. And he's not going to like it, but he was defeated at Calvary, praise the Lord. And so, it's a notice to quit when you go to the tower, and you're fighting that battle for a lost loved one who needs to be saved or an issue of whatever God gives you. And so, he said, we often have to strive and wrestle in prayer before we attain this quite restful faith. And until we break right through and join hands with God, we have not attained to real faith at all. However, once we attain to a real faith, all the forces of hell are impotent to annul it. The real battle begins when the prayer of faith has been offered, and we go to the tower. So, go to the tower, and you get there with God. There's a place near to the heart of God. It's your tower. You know, when Taylor went to England for five years, that was his tower. And he worked it out, he walked it out, he prayed it out until God gave him China. And God gave him the missionaries, and God gave him the vision to do it by faith. Walk away from this mission agency that wants to bind you with their rules and their regulations, and walk with God. Go to the tower, though, and he'll meet you. Joseph's tower started with a pit. 17 years there. Five listening, listening. He says, I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me. And so, you've got to listen. Isaiah 54 and 5 says, The Lord God had given me the tongue of the learned, that I might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakened it morning by morning. He wakened my ear to hear his learned. And I was not rebellious. He didn't turn back. It's actually a prophecy about Christ. But he goes to the tower, and morning by morning, he waits to hear what God has to say to him. Sometimes we just live in defeat because we won't take time to go there and get with God and listen to God. And Terry, the man or woman who will wait on the Lord, will see the vision and mount up. He'll mount up with wings as eagles. Hath thou not heard? Have you known that the Lord, the everlasting God, Isaiah said, he doesn't get weary, he doesn't get tired. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. You've been fainting? I shared that verse for 10 years on a radio broadcast in Joplin, Missouri. You ever heard of that place? Hip-hop got wiped off the map. I couldn't even find my account. I couldn't even locate the note in the neighborhood where he was. It was so wiped off the map. He had a new building. Nothing was there. But God did something in those 10 years. And because when I went there, I'd gone through Revival and I went there and I had a vision from God to reach pastors. And I told you about that. There was a low aim, 50. Now I don't know how many. Probably bunches and bunches, maybe several hundred. But it started there. So you get with God. Just learn to see. You know, Moses endured because he had a vision from God. I mean, to stay with all of these crybabies for all these years and take them out in the desert, you got to let all the unbelievers die off for 40 years. Then you go into the promised land. Then he lost it and blew it, you know. Here now, you rebels. You know why it was so serious that God wouldn't let him in? Because the first time he was supposed to smite the rock and the water came out, speaking of the crucifixion of Christ. And I believe when he struck the rock the second time, that opened up for the doctrine of the re-crucifixion of Christ, which is done by the Catholic Church, several thousands times a day. He was supposed to speak to the rock. Christ is only crucified once. After that, then he had spoken to and he blew the type. It was a serious, serious offense. So God couldn't let him in. So we have to watch our temper because we are human. And then after listening to the Lord, and by the way, it sometimes can be crucial for the life of others, for us to listen. Years ago, there was a man by the name of John, John Barry. He was a poor man. He lived up in the mountains of, I think it was Oregon, Washington, Washington Mountain. And he made coal, he made charcoal. He was a poor man or whatever. And one winter, he didn't get down to get his groceries in time because he was sick. And he didn't have enough food. And about December, he's running out of food. And because they only started off the winter about a bushel of potatoes, and they had some salt and different things like that. But it was 1874. And it was a bad winter, a lot of snow and drifts like that. There's no way they could get down off the mountain to go get some food. And his family consisted of him and his wife. And so they said, let's go to the tower. So they went to praying, and they prayed, and they were praying that God would help them. Meanwhile, down in the valley, down below, there was a fairly wealthy farmer. And he went to bed one night, and all of a sudden, he thought he heard somebody say, send food to John. And the story is a little bit humorous because then he told his wife, did you hear that? And wife, he'd wake her up. No, you're just hearing things. Go back to sleep. So he went back to sleep. A few minutes later, he pops up, send food to John, wakes her up. Do you hear that? No, I didn't hear anything. Maybe he ate something wrong or whatever. Go back to sleep. And so the next time he goes back to sleep and he hears this in his spirit, send food to John. And here's how the story goes. At that point, he's seeing and sensing that maybe he said, wife, do we know anybody named John? And she said, well, there's an old guy up in the mountain that does it. Oh yeah, I know him, John Barry. Wife, I wonder if God's saying he needs some food. Send food to John. And so they went on back to sleep. Next morning, they woke up really early, went to his son. I think his son is 19 years old. He said, you feed the horses real good and then get them hooked up to the sleigh. We're going to get all the food we can in the baskets and we're going to go up on the mountain. They started off at five and it took them, I think it over five hours to get up there through the snow drifts and everything. And they got up there and he went to the door and before he knocked, he heard they were in there at the tower praying for God to send them some food. Here's your prayer. They're going to the tower. So it works together. When you go to the tower, you're going to hook together to help somebody else out. And so listening, that was listening. Then the next one is write the vision. Go to the tower and then you write down what God is saying to you. You should take notes unless you've got a good memory, but take notes. Let's see if there's anything in here. Writing helps the memory. I wrote out the memory of what God wants. Oswald Chambers said the memory of what God wants. Even John, when God called him, God said, write, write the vision, write it. Where would we be if it was just passed down? But it's given to us. Boy, praise the Lord for the word of God. And so here's the old embracer and God is speaking to him about vision. Another thing I was going through, what did Oswald Chambers say about vision? Here's something else he said. My vision of God depends upon the state of my character, which determines the revelation. In other words, I'm going to get from God as good a shape as I am to receive from God. So then it comes back to being right. And we keep praying. We just keep praying for the Lord. You know what? No matter who you are, no matter what kind of shape you're in, no matter how many talents you have or don't have or whatever, God can use you. Corrie Ten Boom shared a story about when she went to Russia, she found a lady that was all twisted up with multiple sclerosis or something like that, and all she could do is just use one figure. But what she did every day, her husband would get her propped up in front of a typewriter, and this was years ago when Corrie was alive, and she would translate into Russian Bible verses and chapters out of the Bible and Christian books and things on a piece of paper. Sometimes it'd take her all day to do a page, all day to do two pages. And here's the thing, while she's doing that, she's also praying. And here's something she said. I wrote this down, I marked it, this old woman. Corrie said her attitude was extraordinary, and God was using her in Russia. All she has is one index finger. Might do better at a computer nowadays. But here's what this old lady said, that she saw her sickness as a prerequisite, not a detriment for the work that she did. To be crippled up, to have a handicap, the lame take the play, the prey. I think it was Jeremiah that said that, wasn't it? It was Ezekiel. Wake up! You say, I can't do anything for God? God said, you're perfectly qualified. Because when it gets done, everybody knows that I did it, and not you. Don't try to take the credit. So that's an amazing thing. So write the vision. You go to the tower, and you write the vision of what God is speaking to you. And the visions, you know, Isaiah, he had the vision. And God says in verse 9 of Isaiah 6, he said, go tell this people. And so you write the vision, and then you go tell it. Pay the price, whatever it costs. The next one, run with it. Run with it. You go to the tower. And then when God shows you what's going on, then you run with it. Acts 26, 19, Paul said, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. I wasn't disobedient. The only way to be obedient to the heavenly vision is to give our utmost for God's highest. Who do you think said that? Oswald Chambers, of course, he had that book his wife put together, My Utmost for His Highest. This can only be done by continually and resolutely recalling the vision. So go to the tower. You need to go to the tower. In the mornings, I'm getting up, and I'll go out. I've got a chair that belonged to my mom, and I'm sitting there. I used to sit at another spot, but lately, I just sit there, and this is my tower. And I get my Bible, and I pray. And then I get on my knees, too, and pray also. But just go to the tower. We could lose our vision. Thou hast left thy first love to the Ephesian church. And boy, they had a testimony, all these things that they were doing, whatever, but they lost their vision of God. And God has come along. Thou hast left your first love. You're doing all these things. It's all right, but it doesn't matter if you don't love me. Do you love God enough to go to the tower and spend time with him? What will it cost you? Maybe everything. How bad do you want to walk with God? You know, when Moses saw God at the burning bush, he entered into the resurrection life. He was drawn out of the desert. He died out there, 40 years in the palace, 40 years in the desert, and 40 years with some more crybabies and everything, getting them out. I wouldn't have wanted his job for anything. He didn't want it either, but God had raised him up for that. And he should get somebody else. And God riled him up. We better not rile God up. You know, Moody was preaching one time in, I guess it was Chicago where he preached. And there were, there was a lot of ladies there. And the ladies decided that they would pray. There were 1,500 of them, he said. And one lady said, would you pray for my two boys? And so 1,500 of them poured it. These kids didn't have a chance. They didn't have a chance. And the story went like that. That day, these two brothers had planned to meet at the corner of the street where our meetings were being held. They were going to spend the night in debauchery and sin. And about seven o'clock, the first one came to the appointed place. He saw the people going into the meeting. As it was a stormy night, he thought he would just go in for a little while. He went in and the word of God reached him. And he went to the inquiry room and he gave his heart to the Savior. So he's in there. Meanwhile, his other brother comes because they're supposed to meet. His brother's on the corner. He sees a bunch of young men going over to this other place where they can have another meeting. He said, well, I'll just go over here and see what's going on. He walks in there. Here's the word of God. Because these 1,500 mothers had went to the tower, bam, he just got saved. In the meantime, the first one went to find his mom to tell her, you know, he got saved. And then the other one come, go to the tower. Let's go to the tower and run with it. Run with it. That's number seven. Number eight. Number eight, seven, nine. I can't count. They let me out of school anyway. Tired of me. All right. Here's five dangers of living outside our vision. One, we can live loose. We can just live to lose. And it's a dangerous thing to live loose. We lose things. Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision, the people perish. To live loose is to lose the restraint or hold that God has on us. When we go to the tower, we're an embracer. We're going there with God. Second thing, we can live in a fog. Think about this. Here's the hefty, great, mighty disciples of Christ. They've just watched him do this miracle of feeding this multitude with these seven loaves. Afterwards, they hop on a ship and they get out there and they forgot to take bread. And they're arguing about this, that they forgot to bring some bread. And then Jesus rebukes him. He's basically, didn't you guys get it? I just fed all these thousands of people. And you're arguing because you didn't bring a loaf of bread. Get it. I can take care of it. Don't worry about it. Go to the tower. Lord, we forgot to bring a loaf of bread. Oh, look in the back again. Oh man, there's a whole pile of bread back here. Go to the tower. Quit wrestling with the flesh. They are living in a fog and we can too. How is it you do not understand? He said. Great, famous disciples. You can live without love. That's the next thing, which is a very sad thing to do. And he came along to the Jews there and he said, if God were your father, you would love me. They're doing all these things, but they're not really going to the tower and meeting with God because they didn't love Jesus, showing they didn't love God. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. Okay. D, A, B, C, D, live without worship. And I already talked to you about that. The Australian, the army guy. To live without worship means you're not going to the tower. We go to the tower and we meet with God and we pray and we tell him all our problems. We tell him all the problems of the world. We tell him how bad we are and all this. And, but then after we're all done a little bit, we're worshiping God and we met with God and we move on. Well, I will stand upon my watch and will set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the Lord answered me and said, write the vision, make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. And the last thing, but the just shall live by his faith. We don't go to the tower, then we're not living by faith. Your view of God and our vision of God. Someone said, actually Tozer said this, the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, what comes to your mind when you think about God? We might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. The man or the woman, the boy or the girl that's used to going to the tower and meeting with God can give you an answer. Oh, what's God like? Oh, he's wonderful. Let me tell you what I've learned about him. The last thing I want to share with you in closing up is that in living these dangers that we can have, living loose, living in a fog, living without love, living without worship. The fifth thing and the last thing is that we can live in discouragement and that might happen if we don't go to the tower. He shall not fail nor be discouraged. Isaiah 42.4. You know, think about this. Peter, James, and John are up on the Mount Trinity. They're just seeing this wonderful stuff. Peter opens his mouth as usual and says the wrong thing and the fog comes in and the voice comes out. This is my loved son or something like that. Hear ye him. And he said, we'd make three booths equating Jesus on the same level with Moses and Elijah. But anyway, they want to stay on the mountain. And the Lord said we need to go back down to the valley. The valley was the valley of humiliation. Walking through the valley of humiliation, whatever trial or whatever you might have, is going to be nothing to you because you're crucified with Christ. It doesn't matter. You're meeting with God in the tower and you're walking in power. You're walking in the spirit. You're walking by faith and there's nothing that will stop you. But if we lose our habit of going to the tower now. I want to close with this story. Last thing. Remember the Chinaman? I sort of baited you, remember? I didn't tell you about that. I just said there's a Chinaman. His name was Don. Brother Don. D-U-A-N. And he was a house church leader in China and was always threatened to get thrown in jail. And the reason for that is the main Chinese communist leader there was a classmate of his. They went to school together and they kept threatening him, accusing him of political stuff because he wouldn't join the three people church or whatever they call that over there. And their lives were in danger all the time. And so God spoke to him and his wife that they should give their son. They'd been waiting a long time. Like, you know, Abraham and Isaac, they didn't wait that long, but they waited a long time for a son. And then they finally had one. And God says, give your son to Wu. Wow. Am I hearing right? Give your son to Wu. And boy, that was not going over too good with him and his wife. But they decided this is what God wanted them to do. So they gave their little baby boy to this communist leader. The communist leader and his wife couldn't have any children. And then after that, Don got put into prison. He was in prison many years. And when he come out, he didn't, he found out his wife, there had been a terrible earthquake and his wife had got killed. I think, I can't remember if it was a car accident or something. He got killed. And he thought that because that earthquake was where Wu was, his boy, he thought his boy got killed. And he didn't know where they were. But he just kept on trucking, being a preacher, a house church, he'd go around. At one time, he was on his way to a certain providence that's written in the stories somewhere. I can't remember what it was called. But he was on the way to help in a church dispute down in some place. And on the way there, it's very cold, it's winter and everything, the bus broke down. And he started to discourage. He's 77 years old at this time. And he sure misses his wife. And he, you know, he's just getting down a bit. And he goes walking across the field. He decided he'd walk. It wasn't going to, anything going to happen there for a while, at the bus. And he walks over to a village. He walks in the village and he knocks on the door. He noticed there's a little sign of a cross. Knocks on the door and he says, is there anybody here that loves Jesus? Oh, yeah. And so they welcomed him in. And they talked and everything. And they were all excited. They were fixing to go to a meeting, a church meeting. He said, oh, they invited him to come. He said, okay, yeah, I can go. I'm not going anywhere out here. And so he went to the meeting. And when he went into the meeting, and the place was just packed with people in this house. And so they had a special evangelist there. And when he heard the evangelist start to preach, he said, wow, this guy set up just like me. And he went tearing through the crowd, breaking through the crowd. He said, I had to see this. And he broke into the presence of this evangelist and everybody was shocked. They looked like each other. Wow. Guess what? You'll never guess. It was his son. It had been 42 years. 42 years. There's more details than that. But they had a great reunion and hugging and hollering and shouting and praising God. Those years in the prison was his tower. And there was power put out. He didn't even know it. He thought, you know, and actually he thought God had judged him for giving up his son. He had it all wrong. Let's go to prayer. Oh Father, if we don't learn anything on this weekend, at least help us not to forget to have a habit of going to the tower and meeting with God. We've got plenty of things to go there and talk about. You know, I've come in there a lot and tell you what a raunchy guy I am and everything. And that's just the way we are inside. There's nothing good in this whole man. But you don't want us to get stuck on ourself. You want us to go into the tower and get away from that and get our eyes focused on Jesus and how wonderful you are and how powerful you are that there's nothing too hard for you. And you say the just shall live by his faith. So I pray for your blessing upon us. I pray for your blessing on everyone that's come to these meetings that we would go back encouraged, raising these little ones up. Some of them are quite a challenge to us. And so I just pray for your double anointing of blessing on each home that's represented here, each life, many single people here. Bless them and encourage them. Some of these things are hard in our life, but may we be encouraged and not be down in the dumps and getting focused on all the negative things like Brother Don. You'll bring us out. Help us not to lose our vision of what you want in our lives. Now to him that's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask of him. That's you because you were power in the church. You were power in our lives. Thank you, Father, for these meetings we had in Jesus' name. God's people said, Amen.