 So, this is a very famous portion of Scripture again, and all these things and events, emotions, feeling, laughter, mourning, so forth. It says in the first verse that there's a time to every one of these purposes under the Heaven. So, there's a time in each of our lives where we're going to experience something like this, or one of these events, obviously we're being born, a time to die, so forth. And what I want to talk about is time management. God made time, right? Genesis 1-1 says in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. In the beginning, the beginning of what? The beginning of the world, the beginning of life, the beginning of time, the beginning of space. God is outside of time and space, right? He created and started time. Genesis 8, 22 says, While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. So, we know that everything that's written in this book has to come to pass before the world will end. Everything at the end of Revelation, which we haven't gotten to yet, so we can make, we can have confidence that the world will continue until all these things have come to pass. Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, these will not cease until that point. And when God made the world and us, specifically Adam and Eve, He made man to live forever. But when sin entered the world, that changed, right? Satan said, you shall not surely die. And of course, the Spirit died that day and the body began to die, the process of dying. But men did live a very long time at the beginning of history. In Genesis 5, 27, the oldest living man in the Bible was, and all the days of Methuselah, this is Noah's grandfather, were 960 and nine years, and he died. That's quite the lifetime, right? And we see up to the flood that people were living this 700, 800, 900 years old. After the flood, there was a portion of time where people were still living. Turn, if you went to Genesis chapter 6, Genesis chapter 6, people were still living a long time after the flood, but that had a sharp decline again after the flood. We no longer see the 600, 800, 900 years. It starts getting into the 300s and 400s. And pretty soon, by the time of Abraham and so on, it's down in the 200s and 100s. Genesis chapter 6 and verse 3, if you're there, it says, And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be in 120 years. There's some debate on this passage, whether this is prophesying the future flood that was coming in about 120 years, or if this is kind of the upper limit placed on man's life expectancy of 120 years. But we do see that. I mean, people live to be 100, 105. We hear of people getting quite old. But the average life expectancy here in the United States is about 70 to 80 years, depending on male or female. Psalm 90 verses 10 says, The days of our years are three score years and 10, 70 years. And if, by reason of strength, they be four score years, 80 years, yet as their strength, labor and sorrow, for as soon cut off and we fly away. The point I want to make is that time is a finite resource. We only have so long here on this earth. We need to make sure that we're using this time wisely. Later in the book of Ecclesiastes, it talks about that we will return to dust, right? The beast is no different than man in this regard, that we will live and we will die, and our bodies will turn to dust. Obviously, we have an eternal soul that will live on. But the point is here on this earth, we only have so much time. James chapter 4, if you would turn to Luke chapter 12, please. Luke chapter 12. James chapter 4 also describes our life as, it is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away, right? It's like fog. In the morning it's there, it's gone quickly when the sun burns off. Luke chapter 12, it's kind of another instance to this. A parable that Jesus spoke to the disciples and the crowds. Luke 12 and verse 16, it says, And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man bought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do. I'll pull down my barns and build a grater. And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, So thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, This night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall these things be? Those things be, which thou hast provided. Now the problem wasn't necessarily that he had all these goods and stored up houses for him and was squandering him, but it says in verse 21 what the problem was. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. That was his issue. He didn't value the time that he had to do the things of God and to focus on what God wanted him to be doing for his life. So again, time is precious. Time is fragile. We've all known people that have died very young, kids, teenagers, 20-somethings. Time is precious. What should we do with our time here on earth? I think we could very easily boil this down to just two things. Salvation being number one. If somebody's not saved, they need to get saved. I'm assuming this is not a sermon on salvation to the people here in this room, but that's the number one thing that people need to do in their life is to get saved. Once we die, there is no coming back. There's no do-overs. It's not a video game. You don't get another life. It's none of that. Once we die, it's eternity. And obviously we know that people can cross that line before death, but the number one thing people need to do is to get saved. Trust just on Jesus Christ for their salvation. After salvation, though, obviously to a church, what should we do with our time on earth? Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And I think we could encompass everything in our lives that we should be doing based on loving Jesus, keeping his commandments. The first commandment in chronological order in the Bible that was given to both Adam and Eve was to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth, right? We should be pursuing relationships, having kids. We should be growing. We should be learning. The Bible teaches us how to have good marriages, how to be as single people, how to be as kids, obedient to our parents. Turn to Psalms chapter 12, please. Psalms chapter 12. Everything that we need to know for life here on this earth is in the Bible for us to know. It deals with salvation. It deals with how to live our lives, how to serve in a church, how to be employees, employeers, how to be mothers, how to be fathered, how to be children, obedient. It gives us all the answers we need in our life. And we can trust every single word in this book. Psalm 12 and verse 6, the words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. God Himself, God Almighty Himself in verse 7 says, He is the one that's responsible for preserving these words. We don't have to go to new archaeological finds that find something that has been dug up like the new translations use. This Bible uses that Greek manuscript that was passed down generationally, generationally. That's why we're King James only. Isaiah 59, 21, I'll just read for you. It says, As for me, this is my covenant with them, sayeth the Lord, my spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, seed, sayeth the Lord, from henceforth and forever. So we see that, yes, we know that God inspired the Bible, the originals that were written down, but we know that God will be responsible for preserving those copies generationally. It's a passing down, and those are the manuscript families that the King James has translated from. And that's why we can trust every single word that, yes, it was inspired, but it's also passed down preserved. So we can trust every single word. So when the Bible tells us how to be his husbands or how to be his wives, or how to be his fathers or mothers, or wherever, at any point in our life, we can trust what it says, and we can take it that that is exactly what God wanted us to read. That's exactly what he meant. So what to do with our time on the earth, number one, salvation, but number two, we ought to live how the Bible tells us to live. Now there are some time wasters, things that we can drag us down, that can make us waste time, right? Time is easily wasted. We know this, especially in the electronic age, right? It's very easy to be distracted in things. TV is one huge distraction. It might not affect everybody in this room for sure, but 95% of Americans watch TV daily. And that's an average person in America watches TV over five hours per day. That's 15 years an entire lifetime. That's a lot of television. That's a lot of distraction. Social media is next on the list. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, whatever. The North American average for this is over two hours per day. That's a lot of time. These distractions will keep us from being productive, keep us from doing things that we should do, keep us from doing things that we want to do, just by distracting. Laziness is another one that we should be aware of, and maybe it's not something that, you know, some of these things are maybe not things that we're struggling with at the moment, but I think these are things that we can all benefit from hearing and keeping reminding ourselves because they can sneak up on us. Proverbs chapter six, if you would turn there please. Proverbs chapter six. So laziness is one that is spoken of often in the Bible. The Bible talks a lot about the slothful, the person that is slothful, slow to work, and so forth. Procrastination could kind of be something in the same boat. When we know we need to do something, it's often best to do it as quickly as we can to just, you know, rip the Band-Aid off, right? Proverbs six and verse six. And I want as an armed man. The Bible doesn't often talk very highly of a lot of sleep. And there's portions in the Bible where, you know, yes, we need to take care of our bodies and we need to make sure we get adequate amount of sleep, but oftentimes that tiredness and sleepiness that can be, you know, if we oversleep a lot, that can perpetuate into more laziness and tiredness and that tired feeling and a lack of motivation. And the Bible warns against that a lot. Consider the ant. That's a great lesson that we can have. Another one would be busy work or multitasking. Pastor talked about multitasking a couple sermons ago. It's impossible to do. If we're trying to do two different tasks at the same time, we're going to do each of them poorly and it's going to take us twice as long as it should to do each task separately. Busy works the same thing, something that we're going to do throughout the day just to keep us busy, to keep us from doing the thing that we know we have to do, to keep procrastinating. Colossians three, 23, and says, And whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. We shouldn't do things halfway. We shouldn't do half this and half this. No, we should focus exactly on what we're supposed to do. One more thing that, well, another thing that we can waste time on, if you would turn to Exodus chapter 18, Exodus chapter 18, is not delegating tasks or maybe taking on too many commitments on ourselves. We can get overloaded easily and maybe oftentimes these are things that aren't important or aren't things that we would actually go out and seek that we would want to do, but things that can get in the way and bog us down and get us over-committed. Exodus 18 is a great example of this. In verse 13, And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this to the people? Why sitest thou thyself alone? And all the people stand by thee from morning unto evening. Moses said unto his father-in-law, because the people come unto me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come unto me, and I judge between one and another. And I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. And I don't think Moses was meaning this in a way that he was puffed up. The Bible tells us that Moses was one of the most meek men that lived, but I think sometimes we can get that idea and the idea of micromanaging. We're constantly trying to do everything at once. When we should, as Moses' father-in-law says here, we should delegate to other people. Certain tasks, we need to make sure that there are responsible people that we can delegate tasks to, especially if somebody owns a business or is in charge of other people at work, or maybe they're supervising, or something like that. It says in Moses' father-in-law said in him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and these people that is with thee. For this thing is too heavy for thee, and thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. We can get overburden with things, say if we commit to too many things, or if we're trying to be pulled in multiple different directions, or if we're trying to micromanage all the things that are in our control, rather than delegating those tasks to other people who are responsible. The passage goes on to say, Moses and his father-in-law, they set people in charge that were over small groups, larger groups, big groups, and then they judge the smaller matters and they bring the difficult ones to Moses. So it's a way of delegating tasks. Another way that can lose time or waste time would be being indecisive. First Kings chapter 18, this is kind of out of context, but the point still solds true. This is Elijah talking between the prophets of Baal, and Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long hault ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him out of word. Many times I've seen this, especially in, you know, you have a meeting. You have some meeting at a business or something like that, and you have 15 people in the room and you're sitting there for two hours talking about nothing that pertains to what needs to be done, and you're just wasting time. It's like, How long hault ye between two opinions? You know, if it's, we need to make sure that we get all the facts and wise decision and make a prudent decision, but we shouldn't be indecisive about things. Indecisiveness, waste, time. A decision to sleep on a, you know, make not a decision to make a decision tomorrow, that's still a decision. You're putting it off for a certain amount of time or a certain number of days, but to constantly go back and forth and second get yourself him in and haunt, that's a great way to waste a lot of time. So some of these things are ways that we can get bogged down, that can cause us to lose time or cause us to not use our time effectively. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter five, please, chapter five. So those things can cause us to waste time. There are quite a few to where we can save time or make the best use of time that we have. Remember, life is precious. Life happens, it can happen in an instant. We say this all the time out so often, right? We don't know, you're not guaranteed tomorrow. You're not promised tomorrow. You don't know when you're going to die. You could be a young man, you could be a young woman, but we don't know when that time will come. We want to make most of the time we have here. Ephesians chapter five, look down at verse 14. Wherefore, he saith, Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil, redeeming the time. For those of us that got saved later in life or didn't come to the decision that we wanted to apply the Bible to our lives until later in life, until recently, the time that we had before when we weren't doing what God wanted us to be doing, we cannot get that time back. But from this point on, from today on or from tomorrow on, we can make changes to where we are using time correctly. Redeeming the time in the future. Why? Because the days are evil. It says in the verse 15, Walk circumspectly. That means looking around you. Walk paying attention, paying attention to what's out there, not as fools but as wise. Seventeen, wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. That's the purpose of our lives, right? We want to understand what the will of the Lord is and do it. So some things that we can use to help make the most of the time that we have. The first one that I would say, and these can apply to maybe our daily life. I got to get the groceries. I got home for the kids. I got whatever the duties are or the work and the things that you do throughout work during the day. But these can also apply to our own lives, our spiritual lives, our physical lives, maybe financially, your marriage, your family life, etc. The first thing that we should do is make sure that we establish goals. There was a guy named Zig Ziggler many years ago. He said, If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. If we don't have any goals, if we don't have any aiming point, we're just going to be going willy-nilly throughout life. And at the end of life, we won't have accomplished anything. Sometimes we say this, soul-winning, you don't want to waste your life, do you? If somebody gets saved, well, how can you not waste your life? Use it to further God's kingdom. Use it to follow what the Bible tells us to do. That's how we can ensure that we're not wasting our life. So establish goals. And again, these can be daily goals. I want to get some time to read the Bible. I want to get some time to pray. I want to get some time to do an exercise or I need to go to work at this time. I need to sleep for this amount of time, right? Establish goals. These can be daily goals. These can be goals for your spouse, goals for your kids. Hey, and where do I want to be in a month? Where do I want to be in 20 years? Where do I want to be in 30 years? Make sure that we have goals. Make sure that those goals are based again on what the Bible teaches. Have goals that are carnal. Obviously, it's good to be healthy. Obviously, it's good to be, you know, strengthened and strong. The Bible teaches a lot about that, but we don't want to be carnally minded in these. We want to make sure that our goals match with what the Bible says. Write them down. Make sure we write down the goals. In Deuteronomy 17 and 18, it's talking about the king of Israel. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that, which is before the priests of the Levites. The new kings of Israel, they were to write down their own copy of the Bible. Why were they supposed to write it down? The Bible, God, knows that we remember things better when we write them out. It's, it's, none of our mind, it's a great way to learn. It helps us to memorize things. And it was a great way for the kings to get a detailed understanding of the Bible, as they wrote their copy of the law. And it was, again, for them to read and meditate in daily. So goals, establish goals, make sure they're biblical, use a long term, not just a day-to-day, but use a long term goal 20 years from now. Where do I want to be? Where do I want my kids to be? Where do I want my spouse to be? Spiritually, where do I want them to be? You know, whatever relationship between kids and family members and so forth. We want to make sure, again, with these goals, that they are specific and measurable. A very terrible goal would be, I want to grow spiritually. There's no definition, there's no time frame, there's nothing like that. We will automatically procrastinate to the last minute to get anything done, right? If you have a report due in school or something due at business, and it's due on the 15th of May. Well, you'll probably wait until the 12th of May to start doing it. You know, there's just human nature that we want to do that. So make sure that there's a deadline. Say, grow spiritually. What about, I want to memorize the book of Jude by July 1st. That's a good goal. We have a time frame, we have a distinct, a very specific goal in mind, and there's a time frame to it. I want to be healthy. That's not a great goal. I want to lose 15 pounds in the next three months. That's a good goal, okay? There's a specific, measurable, you know, we can see if we passed or failed on that result. So once we get a goal, and once we have them written down and they're specific and they're biblical, we should prioritize those goals. Nehemiah is a great example of a man that did this. He's a great example of a planner and somebody who is diligent in forming a plan and attacking a situation. The first three chapters, he sees that there's a problem, right? He sees that the walls will be rebuilt. He prays about it. He prays earnestly about it, and he asks the king who's in charge of him and able to give him leave if he can have an opportunity to go and rebuild the walls. And when he's given that opportunity, he's ready to go with a plan. He knows, okay, I need these many people. I need this resources, and he goes. Once he's there, he surveys the broken down wall, and he decides how he's going to put it back together, who he's going to put where, and then the trouble comes in from the two, the second ballot, and the other guy, I forget his name right now, but they attack his plan, but he still keeps focused on his plan. He keeps marching forward and attacking his plan. It's a great example to us in the Bible of somebody that formulated a plan, prayed, asked God for help, and when he had an opportunity, he was ready to pull the trigger. So we should do that. Prioritize. What's the most important thing to do first? Attack them in that order. Thing with goals, it's this thing called the Eisenhower principle. Eisenhower, obviously, in the 50s, he had this statement, everything that he does is either important or urgent. And people have taken that and used it into quadrants. We have like four, so things that we do are important and urgent. This would be like your car broke down on the side of a busy freeway. Like it's very important that we get it fixed and it's also urgent. We could be dangerous if we don't get it fixed. Important but not urgent. This could be rotating your tires on your car. You could put that off a couple of weeks. You could put off change in the oil, but it is important that it gets done. Others would be non-important but urgent. Oftentimes these are when people come at you with things that they need help with, but they're not important to you necessarily. Somebody else didn't, they forgot to do something, or somebody else has a problem that they're asking you to help solve for them. They're not necessarily important for you, but it is urgent. They're asking you for help. The other things would be the unimportant, un-urgent things. So these are things like the time wasters, TV, Facebook, the things that we don't need to be wasting our time with. So we want to try and focus and keep all of our time spent on things that are important. Important and urgent and important and but we don't want to get into the unimportant categories. It was kind of a good breakdown to look through your tasks on a day-to-day basis and what category would they fall into. Lastly, as a way to use these goals would be something to have some sort of routine to where you can build a routine into your life. You know cows, it's kind of interesting, obviously the dairymen, okay. Cows, they're what's called allelomimetric and I've been accused of comparing cows to people so pray for me on that, you know, confess your faults one to another. But cows are allelomimetric and what that means is very simple. They like to do the same thing, the same every single day. The exact same thing, the exact same time, every single day. We feed all the cows at the same time every day. We milk the cows twice a day at the same time every day. The same people interact with the cows in the same time every day and they're very content with that. If you change the order around like it, for example, if the milk barn, if something happens in the milk barn and we're 20 minutes late or half hour late and they're all standing at the gate, hey, you know, bellerin at you because they know they're off for their time. And humans, we are kind of the same way in that regard. We like our schedules, we like our routine and so we can use that to help us meet our goals and get that plan in motion. Turn with me to Genesis 22, Genesis 22. Part of a good routine and there's much to be, there's a lot of this, there's been a lot of studies that talk about this as well. Part of a good routine is a good morning routine. You see this time and time throughout the Bible, many of the characters in the Bible. We'll just read this one here for example, Genesis 22 and verse 3, it says, in Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and claved the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went under the place which God had told him. Now this is Isaac going to sacrifice his son but he still got up early in the morning and started taking care of this plan that was before him. He didn't know that God was going to tell him to stop. He was going to sacrifice his son, something that was emotionally I'm sure very difficult for him yet he still rose up early in the morning and was going to follow God in that manner. David, King David, Abraham, Moses, many of the men Joshua in the Bible, you see time and time again it says they rose up be times. They rose up early. Early in the morning they rose and this is one thing that does and there's a lot of psychology on this too that the world has noticed that starting early in the morning starting fresh in the morning getting a jump start on the day is something that does help us be more productive throughout the day and I like to hit this news as much as anybody. It's a you know sometimes it's a thing that we have to train ourselves and discipline ourselves but part of a good morning routine is a good bedtime routine right. We do need a certain amount of sleep anywhere from seven to nine hours they recommend right. So make sure that we get enough sleep so that we can get started and get a good day good jump on the morning and with a routine that we have day to day right. If you want to get exercise in if you want to read your Bible early in the morning if you want to do your prayer time in the morning or just prepare for the day ahead with business. One tip that we can do with those routines is not make them so rigid that we'll not be able to do to meet them. Oftentimes I know myself I've done this in the past where I'm going to start a new workout routine I'm going to work out 90 minutes a day for three days a week and then it's like you get three days in and this is bogus I can't do this you know. So make them not so rigid that you'll lose your lose your path through them. Exercise and diet is a great example of this sometimes people can go way too crazy with excessive calorie counting or different things are over exercising to where they burn out on it. We need to make sure that we enjoy the gifts of God that He gives us. We should have we should work hard but we should also enjoy the fruits of those labors and we can use that in our routine as well. Ecclesiastes 519 I'll just read for you says every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth and have given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor this is the gift of God. So we want to work hard but we also want to be able to reward ourselves in that routine not make it so stressful you know give yourself a break give yourself time to do something schedule in a vacation with your family schedule in free time in the day to where you can read a magazine or something interesting or you know whatever but schedule in the important things that need to get done as well. Lastly, turn to Joshua 22 Joshua 22 Lastly is to be diligent to follow our routine or our plan our goals that we set. We want to be diligent to follow these you know it's it's we're human right we're we're gonna fall short here now miss the boat or have something happen or we're gonna get sick or something happens right but we want to try and continue to improve if we if we fall short one day the next day and that's not and scrap the whole idea no keep moving forward keep moving forward right it's the Christian lifestyle if it's a it's a marathon it's not a sprint so in the in the goals of raising kids to be soul winners when they're 20 and have marriages that are with soul winners when they're 20 or whatever you know as they grow older and have grandkids that are raised in church those goals take time they're not done in two weeks they're not done in five years those are long-term goals and there's gonna be ups and downs but as long as we're coming to trend upward that's the that's the goal that's how we're gonna meet these goals Joshua 20 to five but take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you to love the Lord God and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cleave unto him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul so again we need to be diligent diligent is hard work over time consistency over time right it takes a long time to see some of these goals through but we can also take the little victories of getting the day-to-day tasks done and that'll motivate us to get the long-term test done turn math tune turn with me excuse me to Matthew chapter 25 Matthew chapter 25 so some thoughts on these things to keep us motivated as we're trying not to waste time as we're trying to make the most time is money Matthew 25 this is the parable of the talents Matthew 25 and 16 this is the man that received five talents the five talents were given out the two talents were given out and then one talent it says in verse 16 then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents and so and how did he do it says in verse 20 if we'll skip down the received five talents came and brought the other five talents saying Lord thou deliverest unto me five talents behold I have gained them beside them five talents more his Lord said unto him well done thou good and faithful servant thou has been faithful over a few things I will make the ruler over many things enter thou into the joy of the Lord the guy that did the two talents he also received the same accommodation right well done now good and faithful servants he had two talents he gained two more and he got the same commendation what about the guy that only had the one talent we see there between the five and the two that it's not so much how much you have it's what you do with what we have now the guy that had five did well the guy that only had two he also did well the Lord was pleased with him in that regard what about the guy that had one what did he do says in verse 18 but earth and hid hid the Lord's money verse 24 we see how this was received then he which had had then he which had received the one talent came and said Lord I knew that I knew thee that thou art and hard man reaping where the house not sown and gathering where their house not strawed and I was afraid and I went and hid thy talent in the earth lo there thou hast that is thine he didn't he didn't waste it he still had the talent right he didn't waste the talent or spend it he still had the talent that was given him but he didn't use it wisely he didn't gain anything with it he didn't use it in a profitable manner thou wick his Lord answered and sent it to him thou wicked and slothful servant talents in this parable is talking about money it's something of monetary and we should be profitable with the things that God has blessed us with but if time is money how much more should we be profitable with the time that we're given right if we're sitting in this church we could think of these as time you could think of these as opportunities in life if you have an opportunity in life you know often times in the media today they're talking about you know a disadvantaged group a disadvantaged this when you have an opportunity presented to you you should make the most of that opportunity whatever that starting point is everybody's starting point is not equal but it's what you do from start to finish that's what's important if you you know and in this parable not everybody was starting equal one had five one had two one had one but it was what they did with what they had that was what it was important think about it anybody sitting in this church right we have we have the five talents we are not the people with no talents or the people with one talent that don't know the number one aren't saved but number two don't know the things of god they don't know what the bible says about their life about what god wants us to do with our life we should use the time that we have the knowledge the opportunity that we have here at this church at a bible preaching church where we are soul winning where we're doing the things that god wants us to do we should understand the value that that opportunity is most people don't have that opportunity like the man that had the five talents or the two talents anybody sitting in this church we're the five talent people let's make sure we use it wisely Psalm 90 in verse 9 says for all our days are passed away in thy wrath we spend our years as a tale that is told a tale that is told Dale and I have a story time with our kids before bed and we read a bible passage and then we read some bedtime stories and some of those stories take a couple minutes they're not very long right and our life is that way too it's a tale that is told how will our tales be told what will they say of us after we're gone what will they say of us 20 years 30 years before our grandkids say of us after we're gone we spend our years as a tale that is told what shall our tale be says later in verse number 12 so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom I think we should meditate on this and think of this daily that look our life is fragile we should remind ourselves of that daily we don't know when that ticket's gonna come up right we don't know we say this all the time about soul winning we could die on a car accident tomorrow right but let's make sure that we're making the most of the time that we have think about if I wasn't here right to live is Christ to die his gain but there are certain things that we can't do once we get to heaven we can't teach our kids what it means to be a father what it means to be a mother what it means to be a husband what it means to be a wife we can't knock one more door to go soul winning we won't be able to do that in heaven right Luke chapter 16 we can't help one more person get saved once we're in heaven again Luke chapter 16 Lazarus and the beggar so we need to make sure that when we're on this earth we don't take things for granted right we can hug our spouse we can hug our kids and teach them the things of the bible and be there for them and yes to live is Christ to die his gain but we ought to appreciate opportunities we have here on the earth Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might it's something that we should once appreciating that time we should do it with all our might turn once more to Mark chapter 13 we'll end here Mark chapter 13 again this is a finite resource and if we're not using it in an efficient manner if we're taking for granted maybe the opportunities we have here at this church at a church like ours where we're able to go soul winning where we're able to reach people with the gospel many other churches and they meet saved people all the time right we meet saved people out on the street that are going to some other church and they're saved and that's great for them but are they doing what the bible's telling them to do will the kids be saved will they be able to get other people saved most likely not if they're not you know how shall they go except they be sent we have soul winning time so that's why we go because we have soul winning times I'm sure we've all been in churches before where there was no soul winning ministry and if we try to do it by ourselves then you go a couple weeks and it's just defeating and defeating and defeating and we should appreciate the opportunities we have here at this church Mark chapter 13 look down at verse 34 please says for the son of man is as a man taking a far journey this is the parallel passage with Matthew 24 talking about the end times the antichrist and so on but I think the parallel here works for this purpose it says in verse 34 for the son of man is as a man taking a far journey who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to every man his work and commanded the porter to watch watch ye therefore for ye know not when the master of the house cometh we don't know how long we have we know that all the things in the bible have to come to pass before the world will end but we don't know what time we specifically have here on this earth and we pray this prayer often that we would have more time we see how wicked America and California is getting and it's just snowballing it seems it's snowballing bigger and more and more atrocities with the abortion and there was that 115 aborted babies that were found in Washington DC at the end of last month I mean the atrocities just keep piling on top of each other and we we think that how can God not just bring the hammer down on this country yet but we keep praying for more time right that we can reach more people with the gospel that we could maybe turn the tide or that we could at least stem the the the destruction and get as many people saved as we could watch ye therefore for ye know not when the master of the house cometh at even or at midnight or at the cock crowing or in the morning lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping let's not be taking what we have as people in this church is with five talents let's not take that for granted let's not be caught sleeping let's use the time that we have wisely let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer