 Well, I wasn't kidding Romans chapter 13 I'll be sharing out of that the same passage. So I'll read it once again and off we go Romans 13 Beginning at verse 11 again do this knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believe the night is far spent the day is at hand therefore Let us cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light Let us walk properly as in the day not in revelry and drunkenness not in licentiousness and lewdness not in strife And envy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts So even as we begin this particular session I did ask each speaker to share on what was pressing on their hearts And this is the message that the Lord placed on mine and so that's why I'm going to share it Regardless of the fact that Pastor Chuck felt the same impression. That's simply just a witness of two The Holy Spirit is just saying this is what I want the men to hear I'm going to begin by referring to a parable Jesus gave in Matthew chapter 13. It's called the parable of the wheat and tears Now we are all familiar with that particular parable in that parable Jesus spoke concerning the kingdom of heaven He stated that it was like a man sowing good seeds in his field But when men were sleeping his enemy came sowed tears amongst the wheat the tears are actually called Darnell Darnell looks like wheat until it's fully matured and then it's found to be a weed in that parable Jesus speaks of how over time the seeds sprouted and produced the fruit the tears at that point are discovered and The question is asked. What should we do? Should we should we uproot the tears? Well, the answer is no, you can't do that because in doing so you're going to harm the genuine wheat So the answer is let them grow together until harvest at the end of the age Jesus said at that time the angels will reap them and they'll be judged Well, the question has to be asked as we begin this particular Session the the question has to be asked. How could something like that happen? How is it possible for non-christians to ever be comfortable in worship services? How could the sons of wicked and that's what Jesus refers to them as he says they're the sons of the wicked ones How can the sons of the wicked ones ever pass off themselves as sons of the kingdom? How is it possible for a person who doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ to feel comfortable in a church? Because if the message of the gospel is being preached Then the conviction of the Holy Spirit will accompany the preaching of the word and a Non-believer is not going to be comfortable week in and week out Sitting in a church service where the word is rightly divided They are not going to feel comfortable remaining there because the conviction will be so severe That either they will come to faith in Christ or reject him altogether How is it possible that somebody can go to church? weekly regularly and Still remain unsaved and be defined as Jesus did as one Who is a son of the wicked one? They're comfortable. They pass themselves off as Christians Because there is little difference between their lives and those who are going to church That's how a non-believer can feel comfortable in a church. It's because Sadly, they're amongst people who act just like they do There's little difference if any at all and therefore they can be comfortable being seated there amongst those who profess to know the Lord Jesus Christ You see Jesus made it clear. He said while men slept his enemy came in and so it tears So it's going to happen This is going to happen because in the last days the church will be asleep the church over time ceases being on guard the church ceases defending the truth of the gospel The seat the church actually begins to be ignorant of the word of God and They cease living out the passage that they've studied that morning in This particular scripture Paul is calling the Roman church to awaken out of sleep That's because they become unresponsive. They're inactive. They're apathetic towards God These are believers who have grown lazy. They've lost their fire. They've lost their zeal And so with that in mind Paul begins with a word of exhortation Paul says to them awaken out of sleep. He says it's time. It's high time to awake the night is far spent The day is at hand cast off works of darkness He says walk properly and so what he's saying here is Intended to express the urgency of the moment. He's saying time is limited He's saying we must cease being indifferent. We need to be on the alert. Why because the days are an active opposition to us We must be awake. We must be alert in Matthew rather mark 1335 through 37 We read Jesus saying watch therefore you do not know when the master the house is coming in the evening At midnight at the crowing of the rooster or in the morning less coming suddenly he finds you sleeping and what I say to you I say to all watch Now as pastor already mentioned he's speaking here in verse 11 of those knowing the time the word knowing needs to understand or perceive In other words, they have been taught the word of God, but they have become callous to what they know Hebrews 5 11 speaks of believers who have become dull of hearing When he says they have become dull of hearing that word dull is speaking of a person who walks heavily makes little speed and in that passage it is applied to those who are called to the Christian race They have the road laid down plain before them They know how to proceed and the blessings that can be obtained have been enumerated and yet There are no exertions to walk on that road They know but they do not do they hear but they do not listen Their hearts become callous and hardened to the exhortation because they've caught themselves up with the affairs of this day They're not applying what they know and because you don't apply what you know You can become callous to those things that God is speaking to our hearts And so we're living in the last days. We haven't a lot of time to serve and so we must be wise We must make the most of our time because as he's saying the time is short Ephesians 5 16 says redeeming the time because the days are evil when he says the days are evil in that passage He said they are actively in opposition to you You would have to be completely asleep to not notice that this world is a hundred percent In opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ That that that the powers that be do not have a respect for your faith and your beliefs So that major governmental agencies can actually begin to investigate you for being a Christian and For believing in the things of the Spirit of God We're living in troubled times and I think that the church needs to wake up We need to be aware that each moment that God has given to us is a gift We have to live redeeming those moments We don't have that much time and there is none to waste on things that don't matter Even as we heard a moment ago Jesus said do not worry saying what shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear for after all these things the Gentiles seek your heavenly father knows that you need all these things But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness these things shall be added to you Do you believe that? Do you believe that a lot don't a lot don't a lot of men don't I am telling you know this I'm not knocking my brothers. I love them But they don't We say we do even as pastor said we say we do But what I am speaks louder than what I say The way I live speaks louder as a sermon than the message I preach People watch the way I live before they'll listen to what I say And so I can say all kinds of things. Yes, Jesus is coming. Yes, I believe he'll provide for me Yes, but do I really act as if I honestly believe that? The fact is much of the time many do not The Bible makes it very clear that we are to wake up to wake up from spiritual sleep Why because he says the night is far spent the day is at hand Jesus is returning at any moment. We are to be busy until he returns in Ephesians 5 13 and 14 all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light for whatever gives Whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore. He says awake you who sleep arise from the dead. Christ will give you light Jesus is returning soon Now my faith is not based on speculation. My faith in his return is not based on sensationalism It's not based on end-time books or anti movies or anything like that My faith that Jesus is returning is based on a promise that he gave Jesus said he's going to return and he doesn't lie. He said let not your heart be troubled You believe in God believe also in me and my father's house are many mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go and prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again receive you into myself that where I am there. You may be also I will come again. I will receive you unto myself And so I believe that do you I believe that he's going to take us to be with him and this knowledge this knowledge that Jesus Christ is Returning is intended to provide a motivation for a believer It's intended to provoke us to patiently live a godly life as we're awaiting Jesus's soon return That's what the Apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 4 7. He said the end of all things is at hand Therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers Be serious and watchful in your prayers without any condemnation. Forgive me if it comes off this way fellas because This doesn't apply to all of us, but it will apply to some National Day of Prayer Churches represented here There's a variety of churches here. They're listening right now via the internet. This is going worldwide National Day of Prayer Churches that have seven eight nine thousand members thousands of people who come on a Sunday Day of Prayer and where do you have your prayer meetings in a small chapel is a small chapel full? No Do you even have a tithe of the members there? 700 out of a seven thousand member church. No, what do you have? You have a handful of people who actually believe that prayer is answered by God. That's what you have That's what you have. You have people staying at home saying well, I can pray at home If you don't pray in church, I doubt if you're praying at home. I doubt it No, that's just easy. That's like saying whatever my mom or dad can be profited by it's actually dedicated to God And Jesus said that's hypocrisy But you have people on the other hand guys, you've seen this I see this who have a faith that they want to destroy you They want your faith destroyed and if you're a friend of Israel, they want you destroyed. It's the faith of Islam and Their devotees pray five times a day If they're in a shopping mall, I have seen them on their knees Facing Mecca with Americans walking by and we Americans will say things like oh, they're part of a false religious system Wait a minute when you have an opportunity to be in your fellowship when you have an opportunity to serve when you have an opportunity to support When you have an opportunity to pray when you have an opportunity to be involved the question is are you we? Need to awake. We need to wake up because they're not sleeping We need to wake up. I'm telling you. I'm telling you They're not converting by the sword here yet They are showing their devotion which a lot of Americans see and are impressed by Well, the church is busy arguing about whether it's legalism And I'm telling you the younger people that I speak to and have spoken to oh Don't be preaching legalism if I want to go in club. I can if I want to go and drink I can you know, I'm saved by the grace of God Jesus did not die on the cross so you could party and pick up a chick at some club, okay? He didn't die for that You didn't give you permission to do that What he said is I'm gonna take you out of the cesspool that you're living in and I'm gonna put your feet on a solid rock And it's time for you to act as a man. God has called us to stand up as meant for Jesus Christ. That's what he's called That's what Christianity is. It's not half-hearted. Just talking the Lord Jesus Christ taught us to do that and the Bible says in First John 3 2 and 3 beloved now we are children of God It has not yet been revealed what we shall be but but we know that when he's revealed We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself Just as he is pure this hope of Christ's return isn't given me permission to go out and continue in sin God forbid that I should do so. It's a set me free from its bondage that I might live for him and drop people to the faith of Christ with my life He's given me only a certain amount of time and I have made a promise to God. I will go out in a blaze of glory I'm gonna follow you until you return I'm gonna do so with all of my heart and I'm challenging you men to do the same to do the same Stand up and say yes, Jesus. I will follow you. I will follow you That's what God has called us to you ought to all be cheering because it's what God has called us to do You know, I said speak what's on your heart fellas. It comes off angry. It's not his passion It's passion. They said that's super little Mexicans mad. No, he's not I'm not. I'm just impassioned by this We have to wake up We have to wake up if I was standing next to a burning house and I was kind of whispering into the house You know, you really ought to come out. It's burning And I'm standing on the sidewalk just smiling drinking my iced tea. You know, you really ought to come out. It's burning. I Don't think you'd respond But if I start raising my voice and banging on that door and say get out of there now while you can live You might listen and I think some messages need to be spoken with passion and this is one of those messages We need to wake up. God wants us to wake up What are we to do? Well, he says in verse 12 cast off works of darkness put on the armor of light So we put off those things what he refers to as works of darkness in other words renounce the old way of life Colossians 3 8 and 9 tells us put off these anger wrath malice blasphemy Filthy language out of your mouth, you know, there are preachers standing up in pulpits like this on a Sunday swearing like sailors They're swearing because they think they're connecting and they're profaning the word of God He says put away filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds You see before Christ many of us were into the parties. We're into the drinking the sexual sin the gambling violence the stealing the lying Those are what we call the good old days. No, those were the old miserable days before we came to Jesus. Those days are gone The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 4 3 we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles We walked in lewdness and lust and drunkenness reveries. We walked in drinking parties and abominable Idolatry that was the old way that isn't the new way as Recipients of God's grace we're learning to pursue the Lord with all of our hearts and the grace of God and the hope that God gives to us To be with Jesus Christ motivates us to live and tied us to 11 through 14 It says the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared all men Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly loss. We should live soberly Righteously and godly in the present age looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people zealous for good works Look for the blessed hope the glory glorious appearing of our great God and our savior Jesus Christ my life and my associations are To enable me to do so unhindered. I have to break away from that which holds me down Ephesians 5 11 says have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness Rather expose them We have to cast these things off They need to be taken off like filthy clothing and we need to put on the new man that new clothing that righteousness that we have in Jesus Christ We're to put on God's armor. We're to put on God's truth The certainty that the word of God is true Because the Bible tells us in Psalm 119 160 the entirety of your word is true We're to put on the breastplate of righteousness Where we rest in the standing that we have with God Even as the scripture says he's made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God In him our feet are to be shod with preparation of the gospel of peace You need to protect our walk because the enemy is on the prowl Therefore we need to be in a state of constant alert and prepared We need to have the shield of faith because we can quench the enemy's attacks by the shield of faith We can apply quickly everything that we believe about God We need to put on the helmet Because it protects us because Satan constantly attacks our minds. He encourages us to doubt our salvation He discourages our walks with Jesus Christ So we dwell on the reality of our salvation and God's faithfulness and we need the sword of the Spirit Which is the word of God The sword is to be wielded skillfully precisely for individual battles You need to know God's word fellas You need to get up in the morning first thing You need to read the word Even if it's a chapter You need to read every day Do not let the only time you open your Bible Do not let it be only when you're in church and the pastor says if he even says this let's open our Bibles too You need to know where that is sometimes here I know when I have young believers or people weren't reading their book because I'll say well We're gonna look at and then I wait for a couple minutes for them to find it Because they don't even know where it is There was a time when I was given a Bible study and I asked somebody could you look up the book of Hezekiah? We're gonna be looking at chapter 1 verse 5 and I waited and waited as they went fumbling through their Bible. There's no book of Hezekiah. Some of you didn't know that mmm. Shame on you Hezekiah and the whole Bible said he waited for them And I finally said you know there is no book of Hezekiah so you ought to start reading Well, you know what I? Could probably say that today and a lot of people would look for the book of Hezekiah Because we know the sports page Better than we do the Word of God My mom my mom went home to be with the Lord last week after 58 years of pain That she began enduring as a 24 year old young woman For 58 years my mom was in pain from epilepsy to lupus rheumatoid arthritis Broken bones in her back broken ribs Minor strokes minor heart attack bedridden for the last year my mom and you you know This church I was mentioning just this last week this church building and this church fellowship actually exist Because of the grace and mercy of God who used my dad and my mom in my life Mama didn't know Jesus. Mama had a hunger to know who God was if you will, but she didn't know Jesus Mama had a husband my daddy who? Didn't want the Bible in the house Because the only person my dad ever knew who read the Bible was crazy So he had this belief that the Bible drives you crazy But mama had hidden the Bible in the house one thing. I know she disobeyed my father about she had a Bible And my bought my mom would read it on occasion But she didn't have anybody to explain to her the meaning of the words We were raised in a church that did not teach the word of God Like many of you came from church backgrounds. My background was the Catholic Church There was no teaching of the word of God in the Sunday masses that I attended Well mama came from that background too and so she didn't really know God's word never had been emphasized We were taught when I was growing up by by the catechism teacher that only priests could interpret scripture That people couldn't read it only the priests could and they explained it to us And so I never thought that I should pick up a Bible or read it Well, my mom is hungry for it, but didn't understand it and Was that way all of my young life until I was 20 years old? and when I became 20 that's when I I Went to Calvary Chapel for the first time And that's when I went to a Maranatha concert That's when I heard the gospel proclaimed clearly and that's when I gave my heart to Jesus and so I Came home December 27th 1970 and I Shared with the neighbors across the street that I had been born again I came into the den and I spoke to my my mom and my dad and my two sisters and I said mom dad Becky Madeline I love you praise the Lord and and I walked out of the room and My sisters came running follow me and asked me what happened to you and and I said I've been born again God changed my life today. My mom went to her room and did a rosary because she was sure that I had gone off the deep end I had gone crazy Three weeks later as I've shared before I I was reading Revelation 9 About women's men with women's hair iron teeth scorpion stings wanted to die and all of this and I brought that Bible into the Into the kitchen and mom and dad were there seated at that chair in the kitchen and and I said at the chairs and I said Mom dad, this is the Word of God listen to what God says and I read Revelation 9 and I gave my first exposition of Scripture I said I don't know what this means, but I do know this it doesn't apply to me It's applying to you and I looked at my dad and I said dad You're a good man. I said you're the best man. I'll ever know but you will be the best men in hell If you don't give your heart to Jesus Christ I said I love you daddy and I don't want to go to heaven without you bow your head You're receiving Christ right now and my mom and my dad both bowed their heads that day both of them received the Lord And they became the third second and third converts of my ministry the Word of God The Word of God I don't want to go to heaven without you two years later In 1973 I Started a home Bible study And my first Bible students were my mom and my dad and my two sisters My sister Rebecca never had come to true faith in Christ and entered into a lesbian lifestyle that lasted for 28 years 28 years of being in lesbianism my brother Frankie gave his heart to the Lord in 1974 Young woman came to my Bible study named Marie who gave to her heart her heart to Christ in 1974 She needed discipling so I married her. She's doing fine My mom was what you had called one of the first members as a matter of fact She was the first members of she and my dad were first members of this church in our first Sunday morning in July of 1981 Mama was here every Bible study. She could be as sick as she was My mom would come to Bible study Rain or shine She would sit in the same place with my dad rain or shine Every Sunday every Sunday night every Wednesday night And you want to hear something my sister called me and spoke to me and we were sharing My mama was going home to be with the Lord last week and Becky communicated to me you see I forgot to mention this After 28 years of Becky walking as a lesbian in 1998 Becky got saved and it's following Jesus and was caring for my mom Don't tell me that God can't transform a homosexual's life. God can And she'd been caring for my mom faithfully for 12 years And so Becky says David I have to tell you something She wrote this to me I have to tell you She says you come on the radio here in Albuquerque at 1130 our time She said mama was in a semi-comatose state Mama had lost her hearing pretty much all of it almost all of it and mama's eyes were glazed and were begun She had become blind She said we put the computer near mama. We put the earphones on her Your program came on at 1130 You played it loudly Mama opened her eyes when she heard your voice. My sister said she was looking around the room for her baby and She listened to your message from 1130 till noon and at 1216 passed into the arms of Jesus While my sister held her in her arms My mom went from glory to glory in a heartbeat But the last thing she was listening to one of the last things was a Bible study from her son Who had brought her to faith in Jesus Christ my mom? My mama my mama would have been in every Bible study. She could have been in fellas Are you like that? Or have you gotten cold? When you were young and saved were you the guy who was there on Wednesday there on Sunday? They're serving What happened? Did you fall asleep? Do you have other people doing your job because you won't do it other people should usher Other people should serve in children's ministry Other people should greet at doors and work in parking lots so that you can come to church, right? That's how it works here, right? No, that's not how it works Do you want to be strong in the Lord? Take what God gives to you and use it Use it. You don't have that much time I have never and I've officiated many funerals and I've gone to a lot of visitations in hospitals I have never met anybody who's laying on their bed before they die who's ever said to me man I wish I'd have worked more over time Man, I wish I'd have gotten that other car Man, I wish I'd have been able to buy those shoes. I have never had anybody they always say the same thing I didn't give to the Lord as much as I could have They always regret it. I made up my mind. I'm not going to I'm not gonna regret it When I go to be with the Lord, I want to hear these words well done my good my faithful servant That's what I want