Understanding; Word of God

Very happy to be here today and we trust that the little that the Lord has given to me that he can multiply it and make it benefit to you. I'm happy that the Lord doesn't leave his work up to the intelligence of men for if it was I would be lost. It is the Holy Spirit and we trust that the Holy Spirit will give a little help today.

Psalm 119, that's the longest psalm that is in the Bible. But I'm not going to read it all and I'm not going to tell it all to you, okay? Don't get excited. Psalm 119 and we're going to read eight verses.

First of all is verse number 34. I really have one word on my mind and we trust that the Lord will give a little help to speak on that word. Psalm 119 and verse number 34.

Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law, yea, I will observe it with my whole heart. Now it's down to chapter two, verse number 73. 73.

Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments. Now number 99, verse number 99.

I have more understanding than all my teachers. I can't say that. The man who wrote that probably could be able to say it.

I have more understanding than my teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation. 104, verse 104. Through thy precepts I get understanding.

Therefore I hate every false way. 125. I am thy servant.

Give me understanding that I may know thy testimonies. And 130. The entrance of thy word giveth light.

It giveth an understanding unto the simple. 144. The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting.

Give me understanding and I shall live. Now the last one is 169. Let my cry come nearer before thee, O Lord, give me understanding according to thy word.

Now God can add a blessing to the reading of his word and give a little help as we speak from the words that we've read today. I want to speak to you about understanding. What understanding do you have of the truth today? When it comes to salvation, what understanding do you have? Very important is our understanding.

The Proverbs speaks about understanding and it mentions it some 57 times and no doubt writing the writer of the Proverbs wanted to have an understanding. And I'm sure all of us today would like to have a greater understanding on many subjects and of the Word of God. And there's really only one place that you can find it and we'll speak about that is in the sanctuary of the Lord.

But before we go into that, let us just look at the Psalm 119 just for a little tiny bit here. We can learn something from it. Every verse in the Psalm speaks about the Word of the Lord in some way except five verses.

So it's a lot of times in the Psalm that it speaks about the Word of God. The writer of Psalm 119 certainly loved the Word of God and he was one who realized that the Word of God is very important. You love the Word of God today.

What importance do you put on the Word of God? Very important to think about. The Psalm itself here is broke up into 22 sections. It really starts as 22 sections and eight verses in each one.

So it is divided up very nicely. The beginning of each one of the sections starts with an alphabet of the Hebrew language which gives the person who wrote it, you know, a unique way of going down and putting it together and being able to memorize it. I don't know if anybody ever memorized Psalm 119, whether it's in the Hebrew or what it's in the English, but it was a nice way of following down.

They said the first eight lines and then they knew that they had the next word to start with the alphabet and all the way down through. It's nice to be an orderly. I'm up to the mercy of those that are in order or are orderly, you know, and it's nice to have things done decently and in order.

We're not belong to an organization, but it's nice that even in our gospel work that we would be organized. Nothing worse than going out to do a gospel work or do any work and have no organization at all, no, nothing. And it's very important.

When it comes to determination, and I'm just following through what our brothers should hear, I agree with them, and yet when it comes to determination, it's not that you be determined. Our brethren in Newfoundland taught us, you know, you don't come to the worship meeting determined that you're going to worship, or don't come to the ministry meeting determined that you're going to beat the other man ahead of you, but come exercise. You got to have a determination, and anybody that don't have any determination is not going to get very far, any more than anybody that don't have any organization is not going to get very far.

It's organized here. The psalmist writing here understood the value of the word, reading the word. We can't stress the importance.

I said it to the young children today in the first few rows here, you know, it's nice that your mom read the word, it's nice your dad read the word, but you need to learn to read the word yourself, and you can't be too young. A little nine-year-old girl came to me one day in New Brunswick at a conference. She says, Uncle Lyric, I've been listening to you.

She says, I know I'm saved. I read, try to read my Bible every day. Can you help me have some way of reading that I might come to a better understanding of what I am reading? You know, that's what they taught us in literature.

You read a poem, and you try to comprehend, write down, write down what you, what you read, and you know, it's amazing sometimes what the teacher had to read of our comprehension of some of the poems that we read. Understanding, and it's important, reading the Word of God, but then knowing God's Word. You read it to learn it.

You need to read it and then to know God's Word, know what it says, and not just to know it, but then to show. You learn, and you show it. That's the, one of the best ways of learning is practice.

You know, that's what they taught us, at least in Canada, your writing. You never know that now, but some of my writing, but when writing, you form your letters, and you practice your A, and your A, and your A, and you do all the ways, all the pages, be all full of A's, and then the next one was B. Well, practice. Practice makes nearly perfect, and it's important to practice, to show what you, what you learn from the Word of God.

Live it. Live it out, and even in preaching it, never, never, never preach anything you don't live. Live it first and preach it after.

It has more vibrance to it, more life to it, when you live it, and you know it's real, and you know it works, and you put it into practice, and there it goes. It's out there, and it's very important, and then you, you grow. You grow in the Word of God.

Allow the Word of God to have a whole of you, not just getting a whole of the Word of God, but allowing the Word of God to get a whole of you. How much of you do the Word of God hold today? How much of the Word of, how much of you that the Word of God got a hold of? You got any parts that he, you don't want the Word of God to get into, little columns that you don't want the Word of God to let the light in, to show what's really in there, or what? It's important to learn the Word of God and to live the Word of God. Now, 42 times the word, word is mentioned, the Word of God is mentioned, and that's very important.

It's mentioned in different forms, like law, God's law, and that's, that's important, the Word of God, God's law. God's saying what God says. You understand what God, and you remember this, whatever the Lord says, the laws that he made is not going to change.

His law, his word is not going to change. His sayings is not going to change. Sometimes we change our sayings, and you know, the sayings of the day wasn't the same as the sayings of the day when we was a boy, and that's not very long ago.

The statues, and the ways, the commandments, these are words that are used. I want you to just to think about them, and as you read Psalm 119 even later, just to comprehend, just to get a little better understanding of the man who's writing this lovely psalm and of the depths of the Word of God. The Lord of God is not shallow, has no depth to it.

If you want to understand it, you've got to spend time at it. It's unique in its way, its commandments, its path, its testimonies, its precepts, and its judgment. These are words that this psalm is used as expressing what the Word of God is, and they have depth to it.

Spend a little time studying it. Just add some meat to the bones as we give them to you. But then there's word pictures that is in this lovely psalm that can no doubt speak to us and help us.

There are word pictures, there are words that have pictures, like the Word of God is the water. You know, I heard the story of the man who, you know, didn't understand. He read the Word of God and may not just get a full comprehension of it, and he didn't think he was getting anything out of it.

And the story is told about this man taking a basket and going to the river to try to bring water home. So he takes his basket, goes to the river, fills it up, brings it back. When he gets home, it's empty.

He goes back to the river again, fills it up, and when he gets home, it's empty. He did that all day. He never brought any water home, but at the end of the day, the basket was clean.

And that's important. That's important. We may not get much, we may not retain much in our mind from the Word of God, but if we put it in there, it will keep our mind clean.

That's one good way to keep the mind occupied, and a one good way to keep other things out of the mind is fill it with the Word of God, and it will keep you clean, the water, and it will keep you clean. It's a treasure. Some girls like to have, you know, these treasure chests.

They'd save up things for when, you know, the young prince comes along, that they'll have things prepared for him, and they'll be able to have treasure chests. Well, you know, treasures. There's only one way to get a treasure.

Treasures not usually wait out in the open. You can see it. Treasures usually hid away, and you got to dig for it, and it's nice to dig into the Word of God, and there's treasures in it.

Oh, there it is. There's real little treasures there that maybe nobody else ever, ever come up with, but they're treasures. You can enjoy them, and oftentimes, Mr. Albert Ramsey, evangelist from Prince Edward Island, says that even oftentimes when you enjoy it, there's always somebody that will.

Not everybody will, but there's always somebody that will enjoy the same little nuggets that you get, and your treasures, and pass them along. But then there's also, you know, there's a picture here of a companion and a counselor. Nobody wants to be absent without a companion.

Some young women and men here are probably looking for companions in the conference. My daughter left Newfoundland and went to British Columbia. Couldn't go farther west than what she went, and, you know, she found a young man that she married.

He came from Central Ontario and had gone to the same conference. He didn't intend to go, but God brought him there, and he brought both of them together, and they found, you know, their companion. It's nice to find your companion at a conference.

I didn't find my companion at a conference. I found my companion in a hospital. Well, that's a good place too, you know.

Sure it is. A companion, and the Word of God can be our companion and our counselor. I am happy that I had good counselors in my day as a young man, counseling me.

Young, older ones that guided and counseled me, and some not always men. Some of the best counsel I ever got from was some of our older sisters that, you know, as well as I do, never preached on the platform. You never heard them publicly, but I want to tell you, they could be a counsel to you, and they counseled me many, many times.

When I nine years slept, somehow or another they knew that when you were almost to the pinnacle, I was almost there, almost slipped over many times, when I was rescued by a godly sister who just counseled me in the right way, saved me from the day of slipping and losing my life and plundering into a slide that probably I would have been still sliding today. Oh, it's nice to have a companion and a counselor. You know, oftentimes my wife is my companion and she is also my counselor.

Oh, I want to tell you, many times it was counseled by that lady, too. Not just a companion, but a good counselor. Times she kept me back when I tried to go ahead, and the times when I tried to, you know, to stay back, she just gave me that little extra push that I needed.

Nice to have a good companion, and that's why it's important just not to take any companion for a counselor, not to take any person that just comes along, not because they're just gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, that that might be the right one for you. Oh, it's important to get the right one. Pray about it.

If you don't pray before, you'll pray after. Oh, I want to tell you it's important, very important, a companion and a counselor. A song, the Word of God is a song.

Oftentimes when the song was gone, ever have your song gone? I can't sing any here. I wouldn't want you to ask me to sing a solo here. You know, you'd be running for the door and slamming it behind you as fast as you could get there.

But listen, did you ever lose your spiritual song? Ever lose that little song that you had? You just appreciated the Savior? You just was bubbling over with joy that you was going to heaven? You just skipped along the road? I remember the first morning after I got saved, my feet were so light. I was so happy that I knew I'd never be in hell. But listen, along the pathway of life, sometimes the circumstances and storms that come into your life just takes away that little song.

The Word of God can bring it back. Oh, it's food to give you that vibrance that will lift you over that martyr clay as it was and put your feet up on a different pathway and send you away with a song, a new song. Oh, I want to tell you, the Word of God can just tune up that little fiddle the way that it needs to be tuned, that it might be able to make that little light just vibrant for the work of God.

Who knows where God is calling you? As a boy, I read stories about Russia. Never thought I would ever walk on the streets, never. I heard a man get up and many times the older men get up and pray for Russia and Lansalut, some of these older men that's now in heaven.

I never knew that I was going to use his same shoes as some of these men to walk on the streets of Russia to give out New Testaments. I did. One of the oversight men that was in heaven, his wife phoned me up one day.

She says, I got a nice pair of shoes here. Uncle Pierce just used them a few times. Would you like to wear them? I'd love to take them.

Used these same shoes to walk on the streets that he prayed for that I'd never ever seen. Give out Bibles, hundreds and thousands of them on the street. Oh, I want to tell you, it's nice to have the right song to be taken up and to have a song in our hearts.

Then there's honey. It's nice. You ever call your wife honey? Yeah.

When is the last time you called your wife honey? You need to ... The word of God is honey. It's sweet, isn't it? It's nice to, you know, we sat down for dinner and Mr. Jennings was there. You know, we had our dinner and he wanted something sweet.

It's nice to have something sweet. Most of us got something sweet, sweet to us. You know, the word of God is honey.

The word of God is precious. It's a real thing, too. It's not just the made-up stuff, you know, the drinks and the made-up things that taste sweet.

You know, it really is. No, it's the real sweetness and the word of God is really sweet and you can enjoy it and you can certainly enjoy it. It's light.

I told the boys and girls and I tell this so often that we were in a meeting one night in a large building and the lights goes out nine o'clock in the night, no windows, no light, and I was so thankful for a little tiny pin light. It was only so long. Reached out and switched on that little pin light standing in the platform because I realized that I've been answering questions, oh, a lot of questions about the devil and four women that, you know, look like witches and they probably was indulging in the things they shouldn't be and, you know, in the presence of four witches and my hands were trembling.

I had never had that experience before. I was trembling like a leaf in the wind. Oh, I want to tell you, it's nice to have a little light and the word of God is light to you.

Just turn it on, just open it up, open up its pages and let its light shine into your soul. Read it, my friend, tonight. Spend a little time at it and if you haven't got light about certain subjects or certain truth or certain thing, open up the Word of God and God will shine his own light right onto the light that you need.

He will. It's a light unto your feet and a lamp unto your path. It will guide you.

Oh, it's nice to have it, my friend, tonight. And you need to open it up. You know, the light is no good unless you switch it on.

These lights here, it's operated by a switch and, you know, you can have your Bible. I remember going into a home in Russia and a young man was an interpreter and Jesse Fitch was with me and when we got into his home, he knew the young man. I didn't know him that much and he looked at a Bible on the table and he said, something's wrong with the Bible.

Young man said, no, there's nothing wrong with the Bible, Jesse. Oh, yes, something's wrong with the Bible. And the man was very, you know, very stubborn.

No, no, no, Jesse, you know it's nothing wrong with the Bible. It's what you gave me, the Word you gave me, so you know it's nothing wrong. I gave it to you.

I know I gave it to you, but it's still something wrong with it. Young man says, no, Jesse, it's a new Bible. Nothing is wrong with it.

That's what's wrong. You've had it for two years and it's still new. You had your Bible for two years and it's still new? I was pulled at a line one time in Toronto coming down on the Kansas City Conference one year.

I don't know exactly when it was. Pulled at a line and, you know, got brought in the back office and they asked me what I was going to be doing down in the U.S. I told them, what proof you got that you're a preacher or a minister? I says, well, I have no proof except from my Bible and the joy of the Lord in my heart. Which one do you want to see? So he says, well, show me your Bible because, he says, I don't know how you're going to show me the joy of your heart.

I says, well, I'll show you the Bible first and after I'll tell you and you'll know that there's joy in my heart too. So I open up the Bible and shove it across the table to him. He says, wow, it's well written.

I says, yeah, it's not a Bible that I just carry, it's a Bible I use. You carry your Bible or you use your Bible. How's important that you read it? How's the light, isn't it? And you got to switch it on, you got to open it up.

And the young man says, well, I don't know much about my Bible. I'm a Roman Catholic man. I'm married to a Baptist girl.

Well, I says, the Baptist girl don't think much about you if she haven't told you some truth. I says, I don't know really much about it. Well, that's what I'm gonna be preaching.

Where's your servants? Well, I says, there they are, written down. He looked in the sidelines and wanted to read them. Sure, go ahead.

Ah, listen, light. Open up your Bible and read it. It'll guide your footpaths and all the angles that God, whatever God would ever called you.

Whatever pathway He will call you, He will give you the light for. That's right, He will enable you. He will guide you with His Word.

He promises to do that. And it's the Word of God is our light. But it's our inheritance.

It's in our inheritance. My father never left this inheritance to me. Oh, I love my father and mother.

But this is not an inheritance that they left to me. But some of you here can look back in generations and, you know, not just your father, your grandfather, your grandmother. Go back many generations at this.

This is your inheritance. This is the Word of God. Got an understanding of it? Oh, listen, your grandfather had a great understanding of it.

Your grandmother had a great understanding. Your father and mother did too. But what about you? You'll never get an understanding if you're not willing to listen to it.

And if you're not willing to open it up and read it, you'll never get an understanding. How can you understand something that you've never read? And it's one thing to hear somebody on it too. One thing to hear good men.

You've had good men down to Iowa and your teachers appreciate these men. But listen, it's another thing to open it up yourself and find it. This is really what it teaches.

A young lady says, I really think I've found the truth. One time preaching in Siberia, she says, I really think I've found the truth. How can I be sure? Open up the Word and let her read it in her own Russian language.

And has she read Isaiah 53? He was wounded for my transgression in her own language. She says, oh, I found the truth. He was wounded for me.

Listen, you'll find the truth, man, young woman, if you open up this book. It's an inheritance, the greatest inheritance that you could ever leave your children. Sometimes people fight over inheritance.

You got something to give away, give it away before you die. Don't let them fight over it. That's right.

I've seen that too many times. Even with Christians, they hold fast to it as though, you know, they have the whole fast to it. And when they're gone, their families, they, you know, fight over it.

Have you got something to give an inheritance to give? Give it when they're alive. And this is one of the inheritance that you can give to them when they're alive. You can teach this book to your grandchildren as well as you taught it to your children.

What a privilege. Sit down with our little girl, our little granddaughter, and open up the word of God. And, you know, she memorizes verses that I, some of the verses I can't even read, and she's memorized them already.

Amazing. Understanding the word of God, inheritance, and it's very important. And we read here four verses, four words about understanding.

And you know, there's, when it comes to your understanding, you know, there can be a lot of things, infections. We have infections today. And infections sets in on our understanding, just like on, you know, our minds.

And spiritual infections. Have any of them here in the United States? Some, you know, and even up in Canada, they could leak across the border, you know, if you allow them. Oh yeah, you can bring them across the border, the infections, spiritual infections that flood and swamp and warp your understanding.

That's right. And it can happen. And then the deficiencies, vitamin deficiencies, coming up more and more all the time.

You got to take vitamin C instead of getting it from the food. They rob it now. And, you know, and it's the same thing spiritually.

You got to get into the word of God. These viruses and infections and deficiencies affect our understanding. You got the same understanding, young man, that your father had of gathering to the name of the Lord Jesus.

Or you're questioning everything. You're even questioning the word of God. And you have no answers.

And when the young man sometimes and the young women do find the answers, they run. They don't want really want the answers. They just want the disturbance made over the questions that has been asked.

That's all they want. They're like Pilate. What is truth? And he turned around and walked out before he found really what is truth.

And what is truth is standing right in front of him. Infections. And, you know, when it comes to this psalm here, the psalmist was loving the word of God.

He loved the word of God more than food. He loved the word of God more than sleep. He loved the word of God more than money.

And that's three of the greatest temptations of all the world. Everybody loves to eat. And you know that by the fast foods that we have.

People are making millionaires being millionaires over our eating wrong. And when it comes to sleep, you know, they're making up more beds now, the beautiful beds that you don't even want to get out of in the morning. They're so comfortable.

And sleep is something that we want. And when it comes to money, well, all of us, you know, the love of money is the root of all evil. And yet the psalmist here, he would give anything.

He would sacrifice all of these to make sure that he had the word of God. Now, there's only one way of getting a true understanding. I don't know when I'll stop.

I don't know when to stop because I don't know when I'll start it. But we'll stop here in a few minutes. In the sanctuary is a place where you're going to get your understanding.

Alone with God. Moses learned it in the backside of a desert. Nobody wants to be alone, but nobody really learns God.

You know, you can have a nice sing song and there's nothing wrong with it. And it's beautiful. But listen, that's not where you're going to learn God.

You're going to learn God in the back part of the sanctuary, alone with God, with the scriptures open. Ask me in Russia where I learned, you know, where I went to school and learned to be a minister, a preacher. And I pulled a little chair, set the Bible on the chair and knelt down before it.

This is where I found it. Alone with God. You know, some of the times it wasn't on a chair.

My father, when I got saved the first year, took me home. I got saved in March. He took me home for all summer.

And I was house arrest, not by the police, but by him. And I wasn't allowed out of the town. And you know, some of the places that I found alone with God and the little rocks along the seashore and the little rocks in the hillsides and little swamps area and sat under a tree.

Alone with the master, the book. Asking God for direction and guidance, preservation and care. You got to learn it in the sanctuary.

Your salvation. Yes, I had doubts after I got saved. Didn't know a verse in the Bible when I got it.

I had little doubts and, you know, trembled under it and wondered if I had it. And the only place I got security, the only place I really found I was saved is in the book. God said it.

I believe it. It settles it. Nice to have the assurance from the word of God.

Salvation. You can study it and that's where you find the assurance. But then there's not only salvation, there's sanctification.

God sets it apart for his own. Preserves us. Young man, God is preserving you for something more than just making a million dollars and having a millionaire with us in Canadian funds or American.

Don't really matter. Oh, God is setting you apart for something more precious. To carry the word and to tell others about the story of the cross.

From Mexico to the Arctic Circle. There are millions in between it. And you'll learn it alone with God in the sanctuary, with the open book.

You'll enjoy your salvation and you'll understand the calling. God has set me apart. Daniel learned that.

He knew he was special. I had a children's, three series of children's meetings this year and the team that I use is you are very special to God. Daniel was, Moses was, all these young men down, Paul was.

He saved us and he set us apart for himself. He wants you for himself. That's right.

He wants you for his glory, for his honor. I didn't marry the young woman that I married. Bring her home.

I had brothers. I didn't marry my wife and bring her home for my brothers. Marry my wife.

She was for me. I wanted her. She was mine.

God has saved you and you are his. He wants you for his own and he wants you to enjoy it. Our safety and our security will be found in the word of God.

David had good horses, I am sure, good chariots and men who could ride these chariots. He wore warfare. They were special.

They were trained special. Men of power, men of might. But listen, even David had to say, safety is not in the strength of the horse.

Safety is in the Lord. A missionary was asked about, you know, being safe and dangerous and sometimes, you know, people ask you too, you're afraid in Russia and the dangers that you're into. You know, safety is not in the absent.

Safety is not in the absent of danger. Safety is in the presence of the Lord. Oh, it's nice to know that when you're riding some of these cars and you're, you know, along with some of these mafia men, when you're in places that you normally just wouldn't ask to be, then you know that the Lord is dear.

Presence of the Lord, the power of God, the almighty omnipotent hand. He is dear and he's counting you and he'll guide you. He'll guide you to the right friend, right friends.

He'll take care of you all the way to life, your family. He will, he will preserve your family and he's the one who will counsel you and guide you. And that's very important to understand that, you know, the Christian and his friends, Christian and his finances, Christian and, you know, his faithfulness, even Christians in our failure.

Listen, remember of anybody in the present meeting tonight and you have failed God and you know that you failed God, miserably failed him. And you know, but maybe even now in your heart, you're away from God. Listen, failure is not final.

Our God is a God of restoration. Open up the light and he'll show you where you are and where you're to go. And that's what restoration is, lost, right? And the book will show you where you are.

It will locate you and it will give you the point to go and you will find it. And it's very, very important, ultimate important. But then, you know, it's not only sanctification, but it's separation.

God wanted the people of Israel out of Egypt and he wanted them separated from Egypt in order to worship him. Separation is important. You learn the truth of separation, got an understanding of it.

The only place you'll truly understand it is to let the Spirit of God open it up to you. Let the pages unfold and show you the truth. That's right.

The Spirit of... Nice to have good counselors for man, but still the best counselor of all is the Spirit of God that will show you truth from the book. Study the book, man. Young woman, study the book.

I am glad that my wife knows more than me because, you know, questions I came up with in the family, in my family, anyhow, the difficulties that we ran into, you know, I didn't know the answer. I always turned to her and she would always point me to a verse. Very important.

Separation. And, you know, in separation, you have to be very careful as we learn the Word of God that viruses don't sit in to affect our thinking and affect our will. Oh, yeah, viruses can sit in to attack the will, you know.

Somebody was saying that there's not as much honey anymore because there's a virus that attacked the little bees. Well, viruses attacks everybody. That's why, you know, we need to be very vigilant and we need to be sober.

You get these bees in Peter, isn't it? The last book of Peter, be vigilant, be sober because the adversary, the devil. Oh, yes, viruses that will affect your thinking, your will, your conscience. Very important.

And, you know, you got to, your understanding will be affected. You won't have the same calculation. You won't be able to calculate things right.

You won't have the same consecration either. And consecration just means your hands full. No need of having nothing in our hands.

There's so much work to be done. Everywhere, man, wherever you move, all over the world, there's a work to be done. Fill your hands with the work and let the scriptures show you and direct you and have a good calculation and keep your good conscience.

Conscience is a viable fence towards God and man. Deep convictions, understanding, hand is very, very important. But then the last one I was thinking about is self-control, understanding to have self-control.

Our world is gone out of control. You know that. Nothing is in control.

The dollar goes down and everything is out of control. The banks are out of control, everything. It's a day and age.

The viruses have hit our world so fast and humanity is flying. They can't keep up. The medicine, the study of medicine can't keep up with it in order to take care of the viruses.

Oh, that's why we need godly men into the book. Not into just books. Nice to have a good library.

But into the book alone with God that knows their God and God has already showed them that the virus is coming and a touchstone to the temperature of what's happening amongst the young and amongst the old. Because you know, sometimes the viruses is caught. The young people catch it and they caught it from the old and the old didn't know they had it.

Need to be very careful. Self-control. Joseph had self-control in the face of immorality.

Why was he in control? Why did he leave his coat behind and not in control? Because he knew the book. He knew his God and he had self-control in the midst of immorality and we have it in our world and it can come right into the assembly of God. It's not just the teenagers.

It's not just the young people on the street that have immoral deeds. It can be found right in the assembly of God and hid right in the right in their own corners. Oh yes, but Joseph had control in the midst of it.

Daniel had control as he faced social corruption. Total social corruption and yet he had control. Everything was in place.

He was able to pray just as he always did, as many times as he did. You know, don't let the things just haywire and blow you away. No, have control with all the social and it can, the social life as well as the immoral life can leak right into the assembly of God and some of the younger ones and some of the older ones can have it, but Daniel had that self-control in the midst of social corruption.

He knew when to pray and how to pray. He knew when to read and when not to read and nothing socially. Listen, the social activity didn't take him away from a place where he spent alone with God.

No social activity should take you away from meetings. It's nice to have times to gather. It's nice to go into the woods and light a fire if you could.

Nice to go hunting on the hillside. Nice to have an outing. Nice to do some of these things a bit with that thing, but listen, don't let any social activity ever take you away from the time alone with God or with God's people.

Understand that Moses had self-control in the midst of prosperity and place and promotion. Listen, don't let your promotion take you away from the meetings. Don't let your prosperity, no matter how big the farm grows or how many chickens you might get or how many turkeys might fall apply or how big the corn might grow, don't let that take you out of self-control and not turn up to the meetings or to the conferences.

What does it really mean if you add a million dollars to what you have and that the stock market goes down and you lose everything? God can do it. He can take it every way from you or he can give it to you. Listen, self-control is the thing.

We'll finish. Samson had self-control or Samuel had self-control in the midst of religious corruption and that's what's out there and that corruption is seeking right into the assemblies of God. The same viruses amongst the religious world is seeking to come right in amongst the people of God.

We need older men that have self-control and older women that have self-control, know how to handle the young, know how to handle what's coming in, know how to put the brakes on and not, you know, no not insult everybody and drive them away. Have self-control and to do it in the right way in the right manner that the assemblies of God and the truth might be preserved. Samuel had that in the midst of it when Eli's sons and all was doing whatever they were doing in the temple.

Oh, he had control and that's very important. Job had control in the midst of satanic attacks and our families are under satanic attacks and the assemblies are too and you need to have control, self-control. Where are you going to find it? Alone with God with the open book.

You can't miss meetings. Elders can't miss meetings. Elders can't afford to take holidays months after time down on the beaches of Florida or some other place and forgetting the little assemblies of God.

No, it can't be done, my friend. The sheep will stray, the chute will fly out the door and everything will come to crumbles. It must be controlled by the scripture and by the sanctuary.

You know, Mary had control. That's why she could bring forth the Lord Jesus, a virgin. Very important.

Control of her body as well as control of her mind for the time when God will work. Luke had control too of her person. Esther had control.

She was queen next to the king. Could have given everything away, deserted the nation, forgot the truth. No, she had control.

She was controlled by the book. An understanding of the book is very important. Oh, it's ultimately important to know what God teaches.

Know what God wants you to understand to get an understanding of what God wants you to understand. And listen, you can't do it just randomly. You have to spend time alone with God.

It's a sacrifice. It's a price. But oh, to have a better understanding.

Wouldn't you like to be Daniel? Have an understanding of interpreting dreams and writing prophecy? Well, listen, Daniel never got it top of his head. He paid a price for it. And anything that you get and have a good understanding of from the book, you'll have to pay a price with it.

May we have self-control and may this book control us in the midst of darkness. God bless his word.