2024-02-11AM- The Heart

The speaker is grateful to be at church and thankful to the pastor for allowing him to preach. He emphasizes the importance of prayer and learning from the Word of God. He shares personal experiences of learning the hard way and the significance of having a personal relationship with God. He highlights the joy of leading others to God and the need for a strong foundation in faith. The speaker encourages everyone to pay attention to God's words and keep them in their hearts for guidance and strength. I'm happy to be here this morning for church. Thank the Lord for our pastor allowing me to come to preach and to speak what God has laid on my heart. I think that the more that we get into prayer, the more things God begins to speak to us about things not only in our own life, but maybe for our brothers and sisters too. I want to do more. Like Sunday School, brother, there's things I haven't seen. Sometimes you can take an object and you only see one thing in front of you, but sometimes you've got to take a three-dimensional, turn around and see the other parts of it as well to get a better understanding. That's what me on Sunday School, I like to learn. And not only just to get my learning of it, but I want to take it and use it as something to help me along the way. You know, my years have gone before I used to be in woodworking. I used to do woodworking for about 25 years. I didn't know anything about woodworking when I got in there, so as I went, I started from ground on up and started learning. I had a willingness to learn, to know what I needed to know in order to advance in the field I was in. I tell people, I can't even draw a good stick man on a piece of paper, he looks really ugly. But when I got into woodworking and learning things, I found out that I could cut patterns off of a blueprint that was given to me and off of a table saw and other equipment that made sense and made things. So the Word of God is like that to us. We begin to learn things and it teaches us, and I want to be pliable to God's Word. I want to know what He has in intentions for me. Yes, there's things that I had to learn hard ways, things I had to learn how to, my dad told me one time, he said, Ron, you'll learn things the hard way, you're hard-headed. That's what my dad told me. I didn't think I was, but that's what he told me. My dad was a man of very few words, but I mean, he was that. And there were some things in life that I've learned the hard way, and I've never forgot them either. But, you know, I'm thankful for God's Word that He teaches us things to help us to avoid situations down the road. As a brother and sister in the Lord, and I got saved, I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I got saved. And I thank God that, I mean, I got saved and feel the presence of the Lord and all that sister Carrie, but there was a lot of things I didn't know anything about God's Word at all, Brother Tim. I didn't know some things, and I had to be taught, Brother Mike, about things, and preachers had to preach. But some of the things that I had to learn is when I went home and I had to begin to pray and talk to the Father about my situations in my life, personally. One thing I learned early on was I had to have a personal relationship with God. I had to have that. Sister, I had to have that personal relationship. If I don't have a personal relationship, then what do I have? Something superficial. I don't want to have a personal, you know, just a superficial. I don't want to say I go to church every time the door is open, but I want to know why I go to church. I want to testify to people, tell people about why do I go to church. And I'm not going to say no song. I appreciate that. I forgot to tell you, I'm not going to say. I'm going to spend more time into the Word of God this morning, what God has laid on my heart on this. So and what I'm saying today is this, that God loves that one-on-one, father, daughter, daughter, son, you know, situation. I wish I had spent more time with my children one-on-one than more than I had, you know, over the years. It would have helped them to avoid some situations in life, things that I have made failures about. But let me tell you something, God's Word is here for us to learn and to give us instructions to show us the path of righteousness. The Bible is also to give us things to show us how to avoid things in this life. God, everything that comes and advertises to you is right. But if you don't know that it's not right, you'll take breath for anything that comes and goes. That's like when I was a little boy at home, I remember the Jehovah's Witnesses coming to my mom and dad's house. Everybody knew what the Jehovah's Witnesses are. I wouldn't give them a time of day to come in my house, you know, in my house. But my mom would let them come in, talk to them and all this. But not knowing the depth of the deceptions of things, we've got to understand things. We've got to understand what it means to be set apart as God's people, living for Him and doing the things for the Lord. One of the greatest things that I love as a minister is to win somebody to the Lord. It's just a totally different thing, Brother Joe. When you had a part in somebody finding the Lord as their Savior, I may mention some of them here. A sister, I can't remember her name over at the nursing home, Sister Nellie, yes, ninety-some years old, gave her heart and life to the Lord, lived for six months. But just, you know, after that. And then there's a little lady that came down the hallway, Sister Milby was with us at the time at the nursing home. It was on the day before Christmas. And I remember her coming down. And normally she'd walk with a walker and she was humped over on her back. And she wore glasses. But she came down that day, holding on to the rails of the hallway, came right straight up to me and said, Preacher, I don't think I'm justified. I don't think I'm clear. I don't think I'm safe. And she was way up in her eighties. And out there I had the privilege, they gave us chairs to sit there in that hallway, in that foyer there, and people coming and going. And I took her hand and I prayed with her and helped her pray the sinner's prayer, what the Bible says, like over in Romans, you know, it talks about, you know, confession and everything. And she had her eyes closed. And when she got to the place, she said, Jesus, will you forgive me of my sin? And then she said, will you come into my heart? She opened up her eyes and she said, I never knew that it would feel this good. I had the privilege. And them are things that stand out to me. I've had it numerous times now since I've been doing nursing homes and jail ministries and stuff. But this is just one thing that I think is so, it's an impact on me that keeps me want to keep going more in my later years as I go. I'm not retiring. Praise the Lord. I might get slow, but I'm not retiring. Praise the Lord. I want to reach people. Praise God for the Lord. Even though the time we're living in is getting dark and perverseness on every hand and technology is running everywhere and people are being distracted. I don't want to get distracted out of God's Word. We need God's Word to help us to be stable. The Bible, my wife and I was talking about, in order to have a house, you've got to build that house upon a rock. And on the way to church, her and I were talking, I said, when do you start building a house? You don't wait until there's a storm. You don't wait to start building a house when there's a storm coming. You start preparing ahead of time. You start building upon the rock. And Jesus said, upon this rock I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus is that rock. We dig deep. He said, dig deep. Build your foundation on that rock. And He said, when the storms come, you'll be able to stand against the storms that come to beat against it. So we need a good foundation. I want to read this morning out of Proverbs chapter 4. This has been on my heart and in my prayer. Out of Proverbs chapter 4. And this is going to be a topic that I want to expound on. But I think this is for every one of us, because we all go through things in life, don't we? We face things differently. When you come into church, all I see is you. I can't see in your heart. I can't see in your soul. Sister Carrie, I don't know what ups and downs, the storms you're going through, or things you've battled. But I don't see them things. I just see you come to church. It comes back my way. Brother Tim, same way. The other night, Friday night, I was at the ER. And I got a call from my doctor. Told me to get to the ER about my heart. My tachy was way up. And it could cause a heart attack or cardiac arrest, I think what they were telling me. Told me to get to the ER. So having Brother Nathan was at the house at the time, and he took me over there. And they hooked me up with all them little sticker things on your chest and all that. They had to monitor. And I noticed everybody in the ER room was looking at the monitor. I couldn't see it behind my head and everything. You know, they could start detecting things. You know, they did an EKG on you. You know, they could see if there was anything abnormal out of the way. They was looking for things. You know, they could see it by the way. But they couldn't see down in my heart. Brother Tim, they can't see it, the situations you battle, the ups and downs, the things that really direct us. There's things in our lives that direct us. It's like a steering wheel in a vehicle. That car or that vehicle out there, it don't go anywhere unless you turn it. The direction you want it to go. If you want to go down 224 and hit WK and go somewhere just west or east or however you go, you go that way because it comes from you, your mind and your heart. You've got determination. You don't go out to Culver's to get a hamburger, brother. You know, you've got determination. You've got to know how to get there, right? That vehicle won't know how to get out there unless you get in and take it. That's the same way about us in our life. We've got to be prepared how to go to walk for the Lord in our life. Over in Proverbs 4, verse 20, it says, My son, attend to my words, incline thy ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes. Keep them in the midst of thy heart. For they are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh. And keep thy heart with all diligence. For out of it are the issues of life. You can be seated. Praise the Lord. Instructions. Remember what I was talking about instructions. We all need instructions. I need instructions. I don't want to forget the instructions that God gives me to help me, to better me, help me to be a better light, brother Mike, for somebody. I was telling some brothers the other night. I said, sometimes you might be the only Bible that people see. It's how you live, how you act. You don't always have a Bible to read out of. And they may not understand that and grasp it. But what they can see is your actions and how you live and portray your life in God. Let me tell you something. There are people out there who know if you're genuine or not. They know. They are the detectors if you're fake or not, brother Camden. They know. Praise the Lord. I've been around some people. I've had them to mock me. They make fun of me as a child of God. And ridicule me and all that. But when it got right down to the nitty-gritty, brother Tim, I've had them come to me and say, will you pray for me? Am I right, brother Nathan? It comes right down to it. Even though they might not like the way you live, may not like the way you present yourself, but brother Quentin, they're looking at you. We're looking. So our heart has to be where God wants our heart to be. And when I say our heart, I ain't talking about this pump here. I'm talking about our inside. And I want to read something that I had printed out. The definition of the heart is this. Contemporary people generally consider the head, which is the brain, to be the center and director of human activity. However, the Bible speaks of the heart as the center, or out of it are the issues of life. When the Bible speaks of the heart, it is not referring to a physical organ that pumps blood throughout the body. Rather, it says here, rather the heart as it is used in the Bible is spiritual language that encompasses the total one's intellect, emotion, or violation. And it says, sometimes it seems almost to be a synonym of a human spirit. It's just what we all are. You know, it's not, when we talk about our heart, sometimes we forget about, we take it for granted, we think about this, or I've heard people think that, or maybe they misunderstand. So when we're talking about it, we're talking about, like Brother Sam was talking about the heart just before this, talking about how God looks beyond, you know, the feature of a person. You know, you can smile and be in trouble and don't even want to know about it. That's right. How many of you have ever been there? How many times have you ever been in a dark place or had depression hit you and you didn't know how to pull out of it, but yet you come to church and you've got a smile on your face and maybe you've got a song, or maybe you get up and you testify, but no one can see down and deep inside of that soul of you of the conflict. So it is important for us to understand the heart. It's vitally important. God thought it was important. On the day when Adam sinned, and I was telling the pastor of the night when he was at the hospital with me, I said, it's something how that God could start it all over again if He wanted to. He could have at His discretion, but He didn't. He took what was something that was broken and fixed it, or gave a remedy for what needed to be fixed. Human man, the Bible said, all have sin and come short of the glory of God. Isn't that what it says? We all have. We've all had to go down that road. We was born into sin. Not that it's my choosing. Not that I wanted to be that, but I was like Sister Carrie. I didn't know there was another avenue until the Lord began to deal with my heart. I remember the night when God began to deal with me as a little boy way before I ever got saved. I've got recollections in my soul when God began to deal with me as a little boy. And I remember other people that God put in my path to propel me in the right direction. Let's put that away. But when it comes right down to the offer of prayer, it was me and God one-on-one. Isn't that the way it goes? It's important to know the Lord. But also it's important for us to know our heart, where our standing is. God wants us to say, my son, attend to my words. Incline thy ear unto my sayings, unto my instructions. In verse 10 it says, hear my son, and receive my sayings, and the ears of wise shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom. I have led thee in the right path. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straightened. And when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. And then it says, in verse 13, it says, take fast hold of instruction. Let her not go. Keep her, for she is thy life, instruction. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not into the way of evil men. The Bible says in verse 15, it says, avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. And pass away from it. One thing I've learned as a Christian is that we need... There are some things, just because it is presented to you, does it mean that you have to go down that road, or that path, or make that decision. My wife and I, for years, we've had this token that over... These are the smallest things. Let's go home, let's pray about it. You know, over a washer and dryer, or a car. And I write, honey, that's what we did. Not that I did it all the time. There are some things I wanted to... And I had to have it, and I made the mistake. I remember buying an old overbill one time from a friend of mine, because we needed transportation, and we needed something right away. So I bought it without thinking, without her and I going home and praying about it. And I was the leader of my home. I got a piece of junk. That's what I got, and it was broken on the side of the road. Let me tell you something. As I got older in the Lord, as I learned to take instructions from the Word, as our pastor gets up here, and he preaches what God lays in the heart, or any of these ministers gets up here, or if we have a visitor minister, or maybe a testimony, somebody's got an experience to try to help you avoid situations in life. Important, Brother Mike, to sit down with your family and talk with them, isn't it? You'll save them from a lot of heartache if they'll listen to you. I want to listen to God. I want to listen to what He says to me about me, praise the Lord, because He knows my heart. I know my children. Every one of them is different. They've got different characteristics about them. And if you've got children, you can tell the difference in their likes and dislikes. You can tell them some of that, you know. But you can't look into their heart. But God can look down into that heart, into that soul, into that person. It says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. It's important, ain't it, Daniel? Yes, sir. That little girl of yours, Kimber, she's looking to you. She may not say it to you, but she's looking to you. These little ones here, Brother Joel, are for our mom and daddy. And if you err off from the truth, you know what happens? They'll think, like Brother Tim said about a little child in an abusive home. That's the only thing they know. My, I want to be led by God, don't you? I feel it this morning, because I want to know what my heart is. I want to know if it's right and it's ticking right in my soul, and I'm living right, praise the Lord, and I'm doing everything in my ability and my heart to live for God the way He wants me to live. So it means I have to take instruction. Sometimes instruction is sometimes hard. That's right. Correction sometimes comes, don't it? In my lifetime as a Christian and as a minister, I've had to take instructions and I've had to take corrections. And I still, to this day, I'm not too old enough to take instructions for the candidate or correction. I want that in my life to make heaven my home. I don't want anything to interfere. And the same holds true with us, each one of us, no matter our age. Listen, from little Molly's age on up, we've got to teach them the things about God, about His Spirit. A little jotty one. Sister, when you taught Sunday school, there was something that opened his heart up. What did he say? I'm not saved. I'm lost. And it was what, that night after service at home, he prayed and got saved. But there was something there that helped. And us today, in our life, we influence somebody in our life, either to the good or to the bad. But what it is, it's in our heart that leads us and directs us. It steers our life and the way we should go. There will be a lot of things, I said a minute ago, that will try to influence you away from the Word of God. One thing I've learned a long time ago is this. If it don't line up with the Word of God, leave it alone. That's right. Our pastor preached years ago at the other church when we was over there. He said, if you can put a name on something, you know how to handle it. I never forgot that. How many times have you went through some things, you don't know exactly what you're going through, and the troubles and everything? That's the time you get down and you begin to talk to God and say, Lord, what am I supposed to do about this? And this is the situation that keeps on coming up over and over. The same situation. And how do I overcome this? See, when you have a heart-to-heart talk, I call it, with the Lord, He'll let you know what you need to do. And there is a remedy for it. And there is victory over the situations that you're going through. Choose you this day whom you're going to serve. There's only two. The devil or the Lord. Which one do you want? The choice is yours, absolutely. But God knows your heart. He knows the deftness of it. He knows the very secrets of things that lay down deep inside that maybe we don't want none of to get out. We don't want to speak about. Sometimes we're maybe ashamed of it. Is it all right if I just speak the way I feel like the Lord wants me to live? Because this is where our... I'm going to say it, though, just the old lame way. The nitty-gritty of things are in our lives. The things that really turn us towards God or not. The winds may blow. The storms may come. But is your house founded upon the rock? It matters. Amen, brother. Let me get back to this reading here. The heart is a knowledge faculty. People know things in their heart. We all know it. Deuteronomy 8.5. Pray in their heart. Meditate in their heart. Hide God's Word in their heart. Devise plans in their heart. Keep words within their heart. Think in their heart. Doubt in their heart. Ponder in their heart. Believe in their heart. Sing in their heart. And I've got Scriptures here. Time will not allow me to read each Scripture here. But if you want it, I've got it here. I can give it to you. It says sing in your heart. All of these actions of the heart are primarily issues involving the inner knowing in us. The things. I think one of the simplest things that I find if I keep my heart pure with God and don't let anything taint it, let nothing come in into my soul through our eyes, through our hearing, through things that will cause me to be persuaded. We can be persuaded. We can. I can take you all the way back to the book of Genesis and tell you that, that they were persuaded, brother. That's right. We can be persuaded by things on the outward things. That's the way the devil works on things. He works on billboards. You go by the street down the road there and they'll have billboards trying to get you to advertise something to you. Make it sound like it's so great and it's nothing. They don't tell you the back door of the situation. That's like years ago. I don't think they have it now. We live in a society where they don't believe in smoking anymore. They go to all their stuff. But when I was a younger man, I used to have a guy riding on a horse with a cigarette in his mouth, and then he was riding out in the country, and then he was the most pleasant thing you could do. But down at the bottom there, the Surgeon General said it causes cancer, and it was in fine print. Everybody remember that? They don't tell you everything, do you? That's like you want to be careful when you're sat on the dotted line. Ain't that right, Brother Quinn? That's rather than the real estate. I remember when we bought our first house. We had been married 15 years, my wife and I had. And I went and bought our first house, her and I did. And we went there to do the closing. There was loggers and all that stuff. And it looked like it had a stack of papers, that much. There. And you would sign your name on this and this. And I told the logger, I said, man, I feel like I'm signing my life away. He said, you are about 30 years of it. And I didn't grasp it, you know, the whole legal part of it and everything. Sometimes we don't grasp the things that will give us complications down the road. Boy, sometimes the Bible says to be still and know that I'm God. Sometimes to ponder the path before us. Turn not to the right or to the left, but look straight on. Oh my, thank You, Lord. The heart is also a center of feelings. The Bible speaks about the glad heart, the loving heart, the fearful heart, the courageous heart, the pretentious heart, the anxious heart, the angry heart, the revived heart, the anguished heart, the delighted heart, the grieving heart, the humble heart, and the excited, burning heart, and the troubled heart. All of these actions are the part primarily involved in the inner feeling of us. All of us. And it says, finally, the heart is the center of the volitation, which means the power of choosing or will. It says we read in Scripture about the hardened heart that refuses to do what God commands. The Bible gives us great examples of people that harden their hearts. It does. It says the heart that is yielded to God. The heart that intends to do something. The heart that is devoted to seeking the Lord. The heart that decides. The heart that desires to receive from the Lord. The heart that is turned towards God. And the heart that wants to do something. And all these activities take place within the human will, within us. That's what turns us. That's the steering wheel of our life. My brother, you steer right towards the Lord because you want to know more. I want to stay close to the Lord. How can you ask me this? How can you know what God is saying to you if you don't have an open ear to hear Him? If you don't stay close to Him. It's important, ain't it? It's important to stay close to the Lord. And when I say a hardened heart, sometimes hardness pulls us away from God. That's right. Refused instructions. I remember as a dad, when my kids would live, I would buy them presents and stuff. And Sister Carrie, I thought I knew pretty well by just looking at it how to put something together. How many of you have ever done that? You get there and you look down here and you have a few extra parts laying around. I said, where did them go? How many of you have ever done that? I had to get the book out, the manual out, and look at it and say, wow, I forgot that part. It's important to read instructions, isn't it? God's Word is instructions to us that we learn, praise God, from Him. His instructions helped us to avoid problems down the road. I had to tear apart toys that time and put it back together, right, for my children to have something that functioned right. Just the other day I bought a stand for my phone. And I got it at Dollar Tree. You get five bucks for that thing. Brought it home and it was one of them scope things. You could pull it up and do the damn whatever to help the phone. You know, I didn't have to hold the phone or something. Well, I took it apart and one of the parts was gone out of it. I didn't get all the parts. I had the instructions, but I didn't get all the parts. Let me tell you something. I want to get every part that I need of God in my life that I may live for Him to the fullness of His Word, praise God. His Word means something to us. It's not just the letter, but it is life. It nourishes my inner man, praise God. Listen here, the nature of the heart apart from God, when Adam and Eve chose to follow the serpent's temptations to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their decision basically affected the human heart. Did it not? It affected them. And guess who paid the price? His offsprings. We're His offsprings. All that sin that comes short of the glory of God, is that not until we come to the knowledge and come to understanding what God's grace is? It says that they yielded to the temptation to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Their decision drastically, it says, affected the human heart. It did. I mean, we could look down today, and you don't have to believe me, but if you look around today, you can see how it has affected the human heart or the spirit of an individual. Have you ever been across people that speak nice at one moment and then almost in the same breath they can cuss you out in the same? I've been around that. I have. They'll say, oh, I love Jesus, and then they'll cuss you out with the next breath right behind them. They hardly take a breath, I don't think. That's right. But it's in the heart. The heart really tells the tale upon each one of us who we are. I believe in simplicity. I believe in what you see is what you get in the Lord. I can't be something I'm not able to be. I don't know if I told you that. We talked a lot over at the ER that night, didn't we? I was not of the caliber to be a preacher to get a fifth-lift trailer and a truck and travel around the country. I just was not that in that calibration. There are people that do that, and they're good at it. But this old preacher was not like that. And there's preachers that can preach a lot better than me in a lot of things. Lola, you can say amen with me on that. Praise the Lord. And there's brothers here that preach better than I. And I thank God for that. I want you to. Because you may have to step up one of these days and take a position even more than what you're doing, praise God. That's right. I thank God. Let our heart be where it ought to be with God. Let our soul, let it be nourished by God's Spirit that He nourishes us and nurtures us in the way that we should go because we don't want a hardened heart. God gave us some examples of a hardened heart. He gave one about when Adam and Eve ate the tree of good and knowledge and their heart was drastically changed. The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Who can know it? I mean, the Bible talks about that. I mean, I can't see in your heart, brother. I was thinking about this maybe. How many of you have ever heard of a serial killer? I've heard them. I've heard some of their testimonies before they did interviews with them. To look at them, you look like they look normal people. You never think anything about it, but it's their heart, brother. Inside him, look at the two brothers Esau. Not Esau. Adam's sons. Cain and Gable, yeah. How that one God fell down in their heart because one had anger in his heart because his sacrifice wasn't acceptable to God like his brothers was. He fell down deep into that, didn't he, brother? That's how somebody propels up to some success in life that we don't get jealous about it. God sees a jealous heart. God sees things that come in our life. He knows what's down deep inside us that you can hide that no one else can see. That's right. I've learned a lot in my lifetime of wanting to know more about my Lord. My dad-in-law had a testimony that, brother Tim, he didn't want nothing to distract him from the love of God. I remember my wife only described it this way. He put like blinders on. And he didn't look to the right or the left or anything trying to sway him from God's other people. He had other people come. He lived with us after my mother-in-law passed away. We had people come to our house that would come visit him. And they would just air out their laundry to him about it. And my father-in-law, he was just a pretty cut one way, and that was it. I'm right. That's the way your daddy was, wasn't he? And you know what? When they would say something about somebody, he didn't make no mention about them. He didn't let it be a distraction to him. I will tell you this. Weigh up what people say to you. I've had that happen to me years back of a man telling me about situations of some people in a church. And I stopped him and said, I don't want to hear about this no more because every time I see them, I'm going to think of what you told me. So we can be influenced. And I don't want that. It comes to your heart. Persuasion sometimes. They talked about it last week in Sunday school in church. I think it was about persuasion. I don't want to be persuaded in the wrong direction. So I have a tendency that we're easy to be persuaded if not careful. Our pastors talk about us to up our prayer time and our Bible reading. There's a reason why God put that on His heart to tell us that because of the time, not only the time that we're living in, but the devil comes to seek and to steal and to kill and destroy and destroy your testimony that you may have within you. There may be some here this morning that may be your own offense situation deal. You don't know. Or maybe you've heard this person say this or this person say this. But what did God say? I mean, don't it have some weight in it? Don't God's Word have weight in our lives? Does it have us where it persuades us to live for Him godly? There's a lot of things out in the world today. There's a lot of opinions. I've heard people say, everybody's got an opinion. It ain't worth sometimes two cents. That's what some people say. God's Word is an opinion. It's a fact. His Word, He gave us to teach us His ways. And it says, when Adam and Eve chose to follow, see, there's a choice, to follow the serpent's temptation to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their decision drastically affected the human heart. It became tainted with evil. At present, therefore, according to Jeremiah's testimony, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I can't see it, but God sees it. Jesus confirmed Jeremiah's diagnosis when He said that what makes a man unclean before God is not the failure to follow some commercial, ceremonial law, but the willingness to listen to wicked inclinations lodged in one's heart such as evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murders, thefts, covenants, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blaspheme, pride, foolishness. And that's in Mark 7, verses 21-23. Jesus taught about the seriousness of sin in the heart and He said that the sin of anger is tantamount to murder. That's why it's so important to keep our heart, our soul right. Brother Tim, we don't have that. Look, we're going to face people that don't think like you do. We're going to face people that you think they think like you do and they really don't think like you do. But how do you stand? Look, God wants to know how you're built. And He also wants to understand your heart, where your heart is. Praise God. Pharaoh's heart was hardened. God told Moses and them, He said, when you go over there to tell them to let My people go, He said, he'll harden his heart. He knows Pharaoh's heart. He knows the sinner person's heart out here. I've gone over to the jails, preached over them numerous times now over the years and I can look at the effects of what sin has done to people. I've seen it. I've seen the road of destruction on these guys, on their lives and how it has impaled their lives in such a dramatic way. There was one guy that had been on drugs for such a long time that even when he got sober, he still had the residue of that impediment, of that drug still in his spirit, that it damaged his spirit. But he had enough in him to come to offer a prayer to pray. Look, what we take in sometimes, it may not, oh, it's a little of this, just like the serpent told Adam and Eve, or the serpent told Eve, oh, He said, God said that your eyes will be opened and you'll be as God. That ain't what He said. But come Friday, He didn't tell them the whole truth that it will separate them from God. Yes, decisions that we have to make in our life on how we live and how we talk, how we walk, how we conduct ourselves, Brother Jameson, Brother Camden, I mean, when you're at the college, you're a light over there. Brother Mike, you're a light. Brother Joe, you're a light to them men over there where you work at. I'm a light at the jails and at the nursing home. Brother Tim, you work in a public view there and there's people you come across that you don't even know, but yet you're still that testimony that people see. Brother Austin, same with you. All of us, we come in contact with public people here, and we all, we meet people. Brother Quinn, I know you're in the real estate business. You meet people there that are not like you on things. Maybe you don't think. Their processing is totally different than yours. I mean, I wonder sometimes, where did they get wired at? You ever been around people that way? Where are they getting their two and two at? You know, but God is not that way. He knows what's in our heart and how we live. Praise God. I thank God for the Word of God. I wanted to share this with you today, that God says in Deuteronomy 4, 29, but if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. You can find him in Deuteronomy 4, 29. Now listen about the regenerated heart. God's answer to the sinfulness of the human heart is regeneration, which come to all who repent of their sins, turn to God, and place a personal faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Regeneration is a matter of the heart, isn't it? It's a heart problem. He knows exactly. When you go to a doctor, they try to tell you. I was at the ER. They were pushing on my stuff. Does that hurt? No. Does this hurt? No. You know, told me to stick my tongue out. Yeah, you're dehydrated. You need a little bit more water or a lot more water. That's what they told me on that. But they were just trying to figure out what was wrong. But I tell you, a person's life, down deep in their heart, into their soul, they have a problem with their soul, their heart. They need to be regenerated in their life. Regeneration, which come to all who repent of their sins and turn to God, and place a personal faith in Jesus as the Lord and Savior. Regeneration is a matter of the heart. Those who repent from their heart. It says here, all sin, a heart from God. It says, those who repent from their heart, all the sin is confessed in their heart, that Jesus is Lord, Romans 10 and 9, are born again and receive a new heart from God. Within the heart of those who experience spiritual birth, God creates a desire to love Him and to obey Him. But like I say, I loved Him and I wanted to follow Him. It brings me back to the blind barmaid on the side of the road. He cried out to the Lord, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And the crowd wanted to calm him down. They didn't see in his heart what he was having trouble with, Brother Joe. And he didn't know if Jesus was going to pass by that way again. But you know what happened? He cried out again, because in desperation, and Jesus stood still. And he brought it to him. He cast off his beggar's coat, all that up, and he went up to him. He said, what do you want me to do? He said, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And when he said that, the Lord healed him. And it didn't stop there from then on. But what happened after that was this. He said he followed the Lord. So it has to be a change of heart, isn't it? Change from blindness. And from darkness to light. Think about Brother Paul in the Bible, the book of Acts. The Lord struck him down on the road to Damascus. But then he struck him down to change his life. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? He said, who are you? He said, I'm the Lord Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Sometimes we need a Damascus experience, don't we? Yes, we need that, praise the Lord, to turn our direction from us. How many times has God tried to do that for you? To change your direction. Change your heart. How many times? Brother, you had your ups and downs. You make testament I'm not implying anything. I hope you know that. But you've had it. I've had it. My ups and downs and things that I wanted to do and couldn't get there. Maybe I feel bad. I've been at the altar at times and I've seen people over here get blessed and people over here get blessed. And I say, why don't they just think about me sometimes? One of those preachers, the Lord lay on his heart to come and pray for me. How many times have you ever thought about that? Huh? I've done that. But then really, the preacher's okay to have if God lays on his heart to pray for you. But really, it's a change of heart. It's a change that we need in ourselves. It's so important. It's right before us. We get so busy in this life. Sometimes we need just to settle down, slow down for a moment and say, Lord, I need You. I need to talk about some things. Ain't that right, Brother Nathaniel? You have to talk to the Lord to get things kind of straight. Sometimes you've got to talk to Him. It's like the brother told me one time. He said, when I started praying about my things, I thought I was doing more complaining than I was praying about the situation until after you got into it, right? Change of heart. A regeneration of our heart. You'll never get changed until you're willing to turn yourself over to God. You'll never make progress until you say, Lord, I'll give it all to You and I'll live for You and I'll walk with You and be like Brother Paul in the Bible. I count all things as lost that I might win Christ. To give it all. It's a heart problem. It's our heart problem. When things are going wrong, you wonder, what did I do wrong? Sometimes we do go through tribulations. He told us we would. But He said, be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. So it tells me I've got to keep my eyes on the Lord that I don't turn to the right or to the left, but I've got to keep myself. He said, diligently keep your heart. Isn't that what He said? He says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. To keep us. Brothers and sisters, I'm saying this this morning to you is because we will face things out there and we'll have to make decisions in our life about what we want to do, where we're going to do. And we are steering our lives in either to the right or to the left when God says for us to keep straight going. And what we do with that. Look, I see you here at church. Our pastor sees you at church, but we're not around you 24-7. Daddy and Mom ain't around you 24-7 either. Am I right, Brother Mike? My children are grown now. I've got one living in California, one in Indiana, and one just moved to Hodgenville. When they were little, I directed their paths. But when they got grown and got on their own, I can't make that decision for them anymore. And Joshua says, choose you this day whom you'll serve. Are we choosing to serve God? Are we willing to lay it down before God? Because sin, after a while, it says, for a heart that are committed to doing evil run the grave risk of becoming hardened. Those who persistently refuse to listen to God's Word, to obey what His commands, and instead follow the wicked desires of their heart will find that God will eventually harden their heart so that they lose all sensitivity to the Word and to the desires of the Holy Spirit. Never want to get to the place that we get callous of listening to the Word of God. Listen. When God speaks to your heart that you need to make things right. I don't ask for a hands up and say, I've got a problem here and there. God knows what's in you. But the opportunity is that you can pray. You can talk to God. And he understands you. Hannah prayed for a desire for a child. And her prayer was mocked because there was no words coming out of her mouth. And the old prophet over them marked her as somebody drunk. She was in the deepness of her heart, of her soul. She was praying God for a man child. And she told the man of God then afterward what she prayed. And a year later she had Samuel. And she lent him all the days of her life to the Lord. Commitment, brothers and sisters, is what we've got, young and old, all of us. We commit ourselves to the Lord. And don't say, well, I don't think I ought to do this or that. You follow the Word of God. And He'll teach you always the right way. God bless, brothers. I would like to, okay, I'll give you all an opportunity, brothers and sisters, to come around the altars this morning. And I want you to talk to the Lord. I want you to say, Lord, there are things in my life that ain't where I ought to be. If I'm not living at the full capacity of what You want me to be, not what my opinion is or what other people's opinion is, but if I'm not living where I ought to be, if I've not laid down things that You've talked to me about before, if I've not laid them down, I need to lay them down. When I say lay them down, I want to crucify them once and for all. That thing that bothers you over and over like a vicious cycle, you can get rid of it today. And God can take care of it. There's a remedy for it. There is a remedy for it. There is a solution. God gave us a solution. And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Praise God. Hallelujah. I love this praise of the Lord to walk this straight way. Praise God. I don't do it because my pastor tells me to do it. I don't do it because I go to a Pentecostal church. I do it because I love the Lord, praise of God. Hallelujah. Do you love the Lord that much this morning? Oh, don't stand in your seat and say, well, I'll come up another time. You may not have another time. Oh, give it all to the Lord. I'm preaching to you this morning because God knows your heart. He knows your intellect. He knows that there's a hardness going on in your soul, praise God. We're in bad times, brothers and sisters. We're in dark times, perilous times. But I'm going to tell you something this morning, this here. As it gets darker, the light shines a little bit brighter for us. Praise God. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth. That's right. I am the door, the Daniel, the truth. God bless you guys. You know that, praise the Lord. You've come down some hard paths. You know what it's going to take, praise God. Why put brakes on? Don't put the emergency brake on. Come on in and let God use you, praise the Lord, in your life, praise the Lord. And the picture is this. I'll tell you what. I told my wife, I told somebody the other day, I said, When I got saved, I never knew the path that I was going to walk. I didn't know I was going to be behind a pulpit preaching. I didn't know I was going to preach at the jails and the nursing homes and churches and stuff. I didn't have that inkling at the time when I got saved. Oh, I knew as I got saved that Jesus saved me and washed me clean. But I didn't know that He was going to call me into the ministry or whatever other work that He may have. He's got something for your life. You're important to Him. Drew, you're important to Him, my friend. He loves you. Jesus loves you. When you feel like there ain't nobody out there, God says, I'll be with you. That's right. I want to ask you all, everybody, if you would come in and have prayer. Lay your burdens down to the Lord for He cares for you, praise God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. All on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. All on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Trusting only in thy merit, would I see thy face. Heal my wounded, broken spirit. Save me by thy grace. Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. All on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. The heart, the heart, the heart. He read it there in Deuteronomy chapter 4. How shall we seek for God? With a whole heart. How shall we love God? The whole heart. You'll find that if you're going to serve the devil, he don't care how many different things you do. You want to be an adulterer? Go ahead. You want to be a blasphemer? You can say, I hate the devil. He don't care. He'll be all right. You've been an idolater? You can serve a million gods if you want to. The devil doesn't care nothing about it. But if we're going to serve God, he will accept no rivals. I think about a marriage when the ceremony goes forth. One of the things that will be said is, you promise to cleave to this one, forsaking all others. Marriage doesn't work very well if the husband comes home and he's a husband in the evening, but when he goes on trips or when he goes to work, he's completely separated from his wife. That marriage won't work. My wife is my wife all day long. And I'm ten hours at work all day long. She's my wife. There is no other beside her. And when people feel like, you know, well, church time, that's God's time. And the rest of it I get to divide up how I see fit. God doesn't accept that. And I'm glad to serve a God that I can give my all. I'd hate for Him to have just a portion of my heart because then there's the rest of it that's just going to get all in a big mess. So I'm glad to give Him all of me. He gave me all of Him. I pray for the Word today. Keep thy heart with all diligence. Keep it. Keep it. Keep it. Solomon told his son, My son, give me thine heart. Because he knew if he had his heart, we got this covered. We got this covered. So make sure that God has all of you. And if He doesn't, and He knows it, you probably know it too, whether He has all of you or not, make up your mind. Get it fixed. Long before I ever asked God to search my heart, He'd already searched it. Long before I told Him, know my thoughts, He knew my thoughts. He's just waiting for me to give it all up. Praise the Lord. Remember, service here tonight, 6 o'clock Eastern Time. I look forward to what God has for us. Let's come tonight being prepared to worship. Let's not forget this afternoon to pray for this service. Pray also, I'm sure, Jameson will be preaching over there in Owensboro tonight. God will bless them. And whatever happened there this morning, that God will continue the work to be done there. Pray for the edifying of the church. I'm glad. Glad we've got preachers. Glad we've got teachers here that are willing to work together for our edification. My heart has been edified today and I appreciate the Lord. Let's stand together. We'll be dismissed with a word of prayer. Lord, thank You so much for Your visitation today. Thank You that You're willing to take these hearts. Thank You, God, You're willing to take our entire lives and do something with us. And I pray You search us all. And whenever You find that there's not a part, there's a part that is not surrendered, I pray God, put Your finger on it. Bring conviction to us. Show us the way. Lead us, I pray, into life. And bring us back together tonight. And I pray Thy visitation be among us tonight. In Jesus' name, amen.