Daily

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Pastor Scott

March 26, 2000 Sun AM

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The book of Hebrews chapter 10. We want to take a look at one of the great admonitions to us in preparation for the Lord's coming. Do you believe the Lord's coming back real soon? Not everybody believes that anymore. It's something that as fundamentalists over the years, you know, whether they be Presbyterians, Baptists, people that are independent charismatic fellowships like ourselves, a people that had in common one thing. We disagree on a lot of doctrine, but one of the things among that segment of professed Christendom that was held in common was the belief that the Lord Jesus was coming back imminently. That's going away at a rapid pace, there's a lot of people who used to believe that Jesus was coming back. that have gotten caught up in the earth-dwelling process, and really don't have the same fervency or expectation of Jesus' soon return. The reason being, of course, is that a lot of people don't want to deal with the consequences of His coming back, because when the Lord returns it's going to bring with it a time of judgment. A lot of people just frankly are not wanting to leave the ambitions, the goals, or the treasure that they've accumulated already in this life; and how foolish that is, knowing that everything that we have here is just a shadow of what is to come. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and it hasn't entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love Him, it's exceeding abundant above anything we could ask or even think. Aren't you looking forward to the Lord's soon coming?

Now in the process, He says there's something that we're responsible to do. Hebrews chapter 10, and we talked about this a little bit at our men's breakfast yesterday. The responsibility that we have, then, of in expectation, a continual drawing near into the Lord's presence. Verse 22, chapter 10, " Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." AND SO MUCH THE MORE, AS YE SEE THE DAY APPROACHING. And so, we realize that if we are a people that believe that the Lord is coming back real soon, there's a phrase here that has to become a reality in our lives; and that's, MUCH THE MORE, AS YE SEE THE DAY APPROACHING. Now what's this speaking to here, what's the context? The context is the coming together of the church. I'd like to propose something this morning to us that I think in this fellowship will be much more readily accepted than it would in a lot of fellowships, but I want to propose something to you, and that's the fact that the church of Jesus Christ to be able to be conformed into the image of Jesus must gather daily, okay? Now some of us seem to think, and we're coming into spring, that as American Christians it is sufficient to gather annually, like on Easter. How many of you have relatives that the only time they go to church is Easter? We've seen this over the years; and we were driving by a church the other day, it was a Methodist church and it said, "We're in Lent." So I checked my navel and.... And since we're in Lent, then, we're to begin to seek God because it's "Lent". Well, let me share something with you. Lent is not the time to be seeking God; He's to be sought daily, amen?

Once we begin to understand what the requirements of God's word are, and what Father is expecting of you and I in this process of being conformed into the image of Jesus, we need to understand that unless we do it God's way, it's not going to be achieved. You're never going to achieve the full stature of Jesus Christ, that maturity that Ephesians requires of us, without the methodology that God's word has spoken; and that is an endeavor to meet daily and much more if necessary. Now, that's interesting. The church met daily, and then look what he says here. Look what the writer of Hebrews tells us. Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. When did they assemble? Daily. Don't forsake the daily assembling, as some of you are beginning to do, but exhort one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching. More than daily? How often are we to get together? How much are we to put into the exhorting of the brethren to be prepared for the coming of Jesus? Let me tell you how much: Whatever is necessary to deal with the hour of vexation, the hour of oppression that is in the world. Let me ask you a question. Are things socially getting better or worse? Then much the more! Is Christianity getting more lukewarm as it is dealing with the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of other things? Is Christianity, as a religion, becoming now more amalgamated into the other religions? How about the Pope going over and meeting with Arafat? Now personally, I know the Pope is not a Christian; but most of the world sees him as "the" Christian. He is the representation, he is the vicar, he is on Peter's throne, he is the visible representation of Christ in the eyes of most of the world. And so what most of the world is seeing is Christianity trying to embrace the other religions of the world, when Jesus said specifically, "…I am the way, the truth, and the life:" and no one can come to the Father but by... If the Pope was the representation of the church, he has no business going and apologizing to everybody, he needs to be standing up before the world and saying, "You're wrong. Repent!" Now don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not supporting the Pope; I'm supporting truth, and if he were the representative of the truth, then you don't apologize for the truth, and that it may offend others. Now I'm not going to get off all the political aspects of the Catholic church and what it should or should not have done during the Holocaust and all of that. That's irrelevant to what we're talking about.

The world's perception of Christianity is pretty much Catholicism. Catholicism's expression of Christianity is hypocrisy. The acceptance of the great false prophet of the book of Revelation that's going to usher Antichrist into his seat of prominence is going to be the unifying of all religions; and so you're going to see a political, economical, religious unity, a coming together of worldwide cooperation, to continue to feed our lusts and our materialistic views and our humanistic perceptions. Last night on the Learning Channel they had a thing on the universe, and they were explaining how the universe came into being, and this one particle, smaller than an atom, exploded fifteen billion years ago; and after that explosion, all of these galaxies, and the universe begins to expand and.... They've got a problem, though. In dating the universe based upon the speed of light and all of the different things that they used, and the brightness of stars and the consumption through all of the hydrogen that's burning, they now, through the Hubbel Telescope, have been able to look further out, make a few other discernments of the galaxies and how they are manifesting the heat, and now being able to perceive light, that it appears bright or white as it's coming to you, but red as light is going away from you; and they are saying now that they have a discrepancy in the age of the universe. They are saying there are stars and galaxies out there that are older than the universe. How many of you know that it's hard for the child to be older than the parent? And so they've got a problem. I'm saying all that to say this is where man is. Man, who is boasting in his ability to control his own fate; man, who is boasting that there is no God; man, who sees himself as the accidental expression of evolution from some slime¾ and a lot of them are slime¾ but that's not where we came from, okay? Now, these people who say there is no God, humanists, those who worship the intellect, these who are going to be involved in the last days in genetic engineering and all these things, these people who are going to take it upon themselves to say who can live and should die, and "this person isn’t going to be perfectly whole and they are not going to be at the top of the gene pool intellectually, so they ought to just be aborted and killed. Why even let them be born? There's not enough room on the planet, let's just leave it to us, the superior race." If that were the fact, then most of us wouldn't even be here today, because a lot of us didn't even have water in our genetic pool. Because most of our gene pools, the families we came from, the water's not in the pool, and the tile’s falling off the wall. All of these people¾ listen to me¾ these are the people who are going to make the decisions as to whether what you believe is acceptable or not. Because if it's not politically acceptable, if it's not a politically acceptable religion, it will not be tolerated in these last days. Now, that's a long way to go about saying this: things are going to get tougher; are you getting tougher? Are you preparing yourself daily for the opposition that we're going to receive in the hour to come? When you and I begin to experience the warfare of the spirit of Antichrist that the scripture speaks of in these last days? What are you doing to prepare for that day? The Bible says that in the last days the love of many shall wax cold. That's what the word of God says. It's talking about professed Christians. What do we know, then? One fact we know: if this is the last day, if Jesus is coming back, then the one thing we know is that a big part of Christianity is going to grow cold. Can I ask you a question this morning? Are you getting hotter or colder? We all know the consequence of lukewarmness don't we? What did Jesus say would happen to the lukewarm? What did He say? I'll spew them out of my mouth.

You see, the mentality of today is "how little can I do and get by? What's the least I can do and still have it be acceptable?" The biblical standard however, is excellence, perfection. I press on toward the mark, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The apostle said I'm fully extending myself, I'm leaving no energy left, that I might obtain Christ. Is that the kind of pursuit that you and I are demonstrating in our daily walk? I'm not talking about little bursts periodically based upon adversity, trials, tribulations, where we make this little surge just to be able to get over the hump so we can coast again. I'm talking about what is your daily attitude toward preparation to stand in this last hour? Because the Scripture says having done all to stand,¾ what?¾ stand! But before you can stand, you have to do all to stand. Having done all in preparation to be able to stand, then stand. Let's say it another way. If you haven't done everything in preparation to stand, you won't stand. You'll be overcome by trials, you'll be seduced by the wisdom of this world. You'll be confused by the boasting that's being done in the scientific world of their ability to either create life, prolong life¾ as they find the aging gene now. We're coming into a great age, a time that man has never experienced! Think about this, man. We're coming into an age where they can clone! That's exciting stuff! Their ability to create and prolong life and all of these things. We are seeing the culmination of the tower of Babel, that that God brought upon man to confuse him, because when man was unified, God said¾ not man, God said¾ if We don't confuse them, nothing will be impossible with them. So what has man done? He has found a way to deal with the confounding; and man could not converse, and now we can converse universally, just sit down at the computer and type it. You can type it in Japanese, and it will come out in English. The world is being unified and God is being excluded. What are you doing to prepare yourself for this age? An age where they are going to worship intellect, an age where they are going to worship¾ as it is happening in this country¾ money. The appeal of filthy lucre in a way that it's never appealed to man. You’d better, verse 23, "hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering... And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:" So what am I doing this morning? I'm provoking you to love and to good works. I'm telling you that the world is out there and it's going to begin to draw you into the temporal instead of the eternal. It's going to tell you that you need more time to yourself instead of more time in seeking the Kingdom. You're going to need more time to build your earthly kingdom than you are to speak into one another's lives and build the eternal Kingdom or the body of Christ. Which voice are you going to listen to in this hour? I'd encourage you to listen to what the scripture says; it says, let those that have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. Can I tell you what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church of Jesus Christ today? "…and much the more, as ye see the day approaching." How much more prepared are you today than you were last year for the coming of the Lord?

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Now, we need to understand, they met daily! And this term "daily," is an interesting word in the Scriptures; so that's what I want to talk about today, our daily living for Christ. It doesn't matter what you did yesterday. Tomorrow we don't know whether or not it will come. The Bible says today is the day of salvation. So what are you doing today for the Kingdom of God? How are you living today? You know the Bible tells us about daily things when it tells us about praying: "Give us this day our [say it] daily bread." You see, if you haven't even thought about praying for your daily bread today, then you are trusting in yourself, you are trusting in your bank account, you are trusting in Safeway, you are trusting in your cupboard at home. And you know what? That abundance has removed our minds from pursuing Jesus. We call it blessing, we call it abundance, we call it, you know, modern living today that we're able to now preserve this bread and we're able to put it in some Tupperware and now we can keep this stuff indefinitely. And so we don't need to believe God daily, we can now believe God weekly when we get our paycheck, or monthly, however you are paid. And, in fact, we're really not believing God, are we? We are looking to our employer. And we're not even looking to our employers anymore, we just have gotten so used to that check being automatically deposited into our accounts that we don't even give that a thought anymore. And you've got such great faith in that, and you don’t even realize that you’re firm’s on the verge of bankruptcy. You don’t even know, man, that the CEO is getting ready to skip the country with all of your retirement funds. You’re just believing that it’s going to be there. And God’s not even in the picture. "Give us this day our [What?] daily bread." How subtly it happens to us. And yet, how many of us would convince ourselves that we’re believing God, we’re trusting in the Lord? "God’s my source." Can I ask you a question this morning? How can He be the source of your daily bread if you’re not seeking Him daily? If God has committed Himself to a daily supply, but we give Him no thought for the day, we’re not trusting in the daily bread, then how can we accurately say He’s our source? Now, let’s look at a couple of things which I think are interesting for us in the Scriptures. Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Exodus, Chapter 16, verse 4. "Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law or no." Exodus 16:4. So what we're looking at here is God stating that I want to provide for you daily. I want to have a daily encounter with you, and I want you to have to depend on Me daily, and that will be the indicator as to whether or not you are trusting my law or my words. Or another way of saying it, actually, is My person, My presence. Is you trust going to be in Me or in a natural source? "..I [He says] will rain bread from heaven…" daily. We're all very familiar with that story aren't we? The gathering of the "what is it?" The word, "Manna", means "what is it?" I think there's something unique about that. I won't go into it in detail; but isn't it interesting how we seem to think that somehow we need to have an understanding of what God's doing¾ everything that He's involved in¾ before we can really trust Him; and the scripture here is an absolute trust and dependency, not knowing what it is God is going to supply, but that He will, that it is His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. Everything that God does is to bring us to a daily dependence upon Himself.

Let's take a moment and pray for our sister. Father, in the name of Jesus we just ask that You'd bring strength to that heart now, Father, and that there would be healing that would manifest. Father, we ask You for the peace of God to reign and to rule in her body right now, Father. We rejoice in the work that's being done, Father, and we ask that not only will the heart be strengthened, Father, but that You would bring peace of mind, and that Father, You would deal with all of the other aspects that are being battled in that physical body, Father. We ask that You would bring healing as it pertains to the diabetes, Father, and that the damage from the strokes, Jesus, would be rectified. Lord, we're just going to give You all the praise, we're going to give You all the glory for what You do in our midst, for our eyes are upon You. We just thank You, Jesus. We thank You, Jesus. Hallelujah!

There's a daily supply there, as you're battling the physical wars that our sister's battling. You don't know from day to day whether you are going to be alive, whether these vital organs are going to function properly or not. When you are in that situation, what becomes reality? It's not whether or not she's going to play racquetball this afternoon, whether she's going to be able to go down jogging along the Potomac. I wonder how much thought processes are going on in her mind right now whether she should mow the lawn or spread the mulch this afternoon. Why is it that we, in our sin nature, have to come into positions like that before we focus on the eternal instead of the temporal? And every one of us in here is guilty of that. Every one of us in here battles with that on a daily basis. Because our flesh, the sin that is in our members, is so self-indulgent and so defiant of reliance upon God, of wanting to orchestrate our own lives, to establish our own priorities instead of allowing Him to dictate every step, that in His mercy God has to deal with us each individually to bring us back to¾ and we shared this as we began to pray for our sister¾ that everything that God does in our lives is to bring us to a daily dependence upon Himself. To where we can say with the Apostle, for me to live is Christ. And if for you to live is Christ, then to die will be gain; and tragically, so many people fear death. I don't just mean the actual death process, but the judgment that follows. Most fear, actually, the manner of death. "If I could just die in my sleep; but God, spare me inconvenience, pain, and adversity." It's what's in all of our flesh. So let me ask you something. If it's in you, then how are you going to be successful and stand without daily preparation when that's what God demands of us?

There's another passage that speaks along these lines of our daily responsibilities. "Give us this day our daily bread." There's another bread that we're to partake of daily. It's not just the physical bread that God would supply or the natural provisions; but the Lord Himself said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every (what?) word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Look at what Nehemiah says in the 8th chapter of Nehemiah, verse 18, it says, "Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according unto the manner." The daily bread that you and I are to be seeking today is the bread of life, the word of God, that has to be absorbed into our spirit on a daily basis. "Give us this day our daily bread." Man shall not live by natural bread, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So here we are being admonished into a daily preparation. Let me ask you something. Are you reading the word of God every day? Some of you aren't, because I can still hear you are looking for Nehemiah. It goes, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. As we're feeding ourselves daily with the word of God, the scripture makes it very clear then that this word is alive, it's powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword; it divides asunder between the soul and spirit, and it saw that it gives, then, as part of its benefit to us, it's a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. If you don't look into this word daily, or as the scripture says, it's a mirror and we look into it, and if we don't look into it daily, what happens? We forget what manner of man we are. So daily we have to take the word of God up and hold it there and say, "What am I really like?" And you say, "Dear Lord!" You know it's illuminating. It's seeing yourself without the makeup on, ladies. Us guys are naturally beautiful, we don't need all of that stuff.

DAILY! If you don't hold the mirror up daily, you're going to forget what manner of man you are, you are going to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. You're going to be able to see yourself only by how you imagine yourself, what you hope you are. Can I share something with you? The natural man, the man you and I all are, the man who daily has to deal with the sin that is in his members, thinks of himself more highly than he ought to think, cannot be objective, is incapable of seeing himself as he really is. Only born-again believers, who are willing to look into the word of God, allow it to speak to the indwelling spirit that lives in their hearts, can see what they are really like--and everybody else is believing a lie about themselves. You may be a Christian this morning, you may be saved, but I want to tell you something: if you are not daily preparing yourself, then you are gradually forgetting what manner of man you are, you are beginning to fall back into that lie. "Oh, I'm still doing the will of God, I'm still right with God, I still love God; I just don't pray like I used to. I just don't study like I used to, I'm just not as committed as I used to be to witnessing and sharing Jesus with others. I'm not as committed as I used to be to the fellowship, you know, because there are other things in life; and I'm actually so mature now that I don't need to assemble with the saints as much as I used to because I'm strong enough to make it on my own, praise God!" And "…the love of many shall wax cold." That's who you are, and you can't see it because the illumination of this word--thy word is a lamp unto my feet, the scripture says--has gone out. You're stumbling through life believing that your steps are being ordered of the Lord, and the Bible (Matthew 6:23) says "…how great is that darkness!" There is no greater darkness than thinking that you are in the light. And so, the only way to protect ourselves against that is the daily bread, the daily continuing in His word. If you walk in the light as He is in the light, you have fellowship with Him and His blood cleanses us from all of our sin, I John tells us. Let's say it another way. If you walk in the light daily as He is in the light, for "…God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all," the scripture says. There's no place for being outside of that light and us still being saved.

What kind of commitments have you made to trusting God? And are you drawing back from them based upon natural appetites? Let me show you something as we continue. Look at Psalm 61, if you would, for just a second. In the 61st Psalm, verse 8, he says, the Psalmist speaking, "So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, that I may daily perform my vows." Are you daily performing your vows? The scripture says you are better off not to have made a vow then to make it and not keep it. Isn't that what Ecclesiastes tells us? And so, we realize that there's a lot of people making declarations, promises, to God of their commitment and their zeal and all of these different things¾ and in spurts, you know, we make these great declarations and so many times when you've lived your life that way, you overcommit yourself. "Lord, you know, if you get me out of this, oh, God what I'm going to do, I'm going to pray eight hours a day and I'm going to give all I have to the poor…" And that lasts for about hmm, three hours. Why not just come to grips with where you really are, and instead of overcommitting yourself, and over-vowing vows you can't keep, why don't we just keep it scriptural, and depend daily on His Spirit ordering our steps, and understanding what He's looking for is a consistent dependence upon Him. You're better off to pray 15 minutes every day than you are to pray two hours once a week in desperation. Because today is the day of our salvation. So the Psalmist speaking to us here in chapter 61, verse 8, he says, as I sing praises, forever is my intention, but I'm going to perform it daily. I've made an eternal commitment but it has to be expressed (say it with me) daily. Okay? Are your vows being taken care of daily? And until we begin to see the necessity of this consistent, habitual commitment to the obedience of God's word, to the Kingdom of God, this commitment to the provoking of one another to good works, the awareness that even based upon the hour it may need to be escalated into much more as you see the day approaching. I guarantee you one thing man. It's not going to be a matter of the flesh. Your flesh will not cooperate with you until it's best for your flesh. The day can come when they are out there hunting you, and they are out there beating you, and you've lost your job, and you have no clothes, and you have no food, and you have no place to lay your head, and your flesh will say, "You know, we need to just go up there and fellowship with the saints." You'll come in with that new commitment to the Lord, praise God, the flesh will be saying, "Yeah, yeah. This is great, man. Three squares, a place to lay our head. Thank you, Jesus!" You'll think, "Now I'm really seeking God. Now I've really got this thing together; I've got my life committed to the Kingdom." But what you did with your last dollar was you bought a Lotto ticket, and lo and behold, even though you don't possess a green card, you hit the Lotto. Do you all notice that usually out in California 80% of the people hitting the Lotto, they have green cards? These are¾ it's an amazing phenomenon.

Your flesh will only cooperate and agree when it's for its best interest. The flesh will never agree that the word is true, because the carnal mind is what? Enmity with God. The carnal mind cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. Now, once you understand that, you're going to be in a position of strength because you are going to realize that there's always going to be a voice in you that's going to say, "Wouldn't this be better? Don't you think we should really balance our lives out? You know, this is getting a little extreme. I mean after all, most of Christianity just goes to church once a week, Sunday morning."

A very interesting thing. Just down the road here on Route 7. Catholic church just built a new auditorium. How many of you saw the new auditorium they built? There's a big article in the paper. I was reading about it, I thought it was very interesting. 8,000 member church now the one down here, I don't remember the name of it. An 8,000 member church that built a 2,000 seat sanctuary. Now, I know they have a couple of services. You can have 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock mass, or whatever. I'm just going to try and show you something from a logical perspective. We have some visitors here. "How come you're so hard on the Catholic church?" Well, let me tell you. Because they are the largest cult in the world today, and they are putting themselves off as Christians, and they are not. Most people have no trouble seeing that David Koresh was a cult leader, or that Jim Jones was a cult leader, and all of those who pride themselves in being experts of studying the cults will tell you that there's a couple of things that you can look at in the cult--and a cult leader is a person who has absolute power. If you know anything about Catholicism, you know that that's how the Pope must be perceived. A lot of people have trouble with that and they argue about it, we're not going to get into that. The reason we speak against it, very clearly, and I want to go succinctly, because we do have a number of visitors this morning. I personally refuse to accept the form of communion of the Catholic church of transubstantiation¾ that every time communion is going to be served, it becomes the literal body and the literal blood of Jesus, and He again is tormented and crucified and dying again on my behalf every time we take communion, transubstantiation, because the Bible says Jesus died once for our sins. Now, I'm not going to buy all this other stuff, and I'm not going to buy the immaculate conception. Mary was a woman blessed to be able to receive the visitation of the Holy Spirit, and to supernaturally conceive and bring forth Jesus, the incarnation of God; but she was not born sinless, and she needed a Savior just like you and I. She was one that portrayed that in her pursuit of Jesus as her Lord, and was at His feet when He was baptizing and in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, in need of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

I will not depend on a man to stand before me in the form of a priest and absolve my sins when Jesus has already pardoned me and redeemed me and I've had my sins remitted, praise God! And I can go into numerous things, I'm not going to. 8,000 members, 2,000 seat auditorium, and it's a mortal sin not to come to church. How many of you are glad that in this fellowship it's not a mortal sin if you miss church? Aren't you glad you can miss a church service and not go to hell? Not in the Catholic church. You miss church, you miss mass, you're going to hell. Well, how do we remedy that? It's simple. I decide not to go to church, I go play golf, and then I come back, I tell the guy father forgive I've sinned..., he says go say three Hail Marys and a couple of Our Fathers, and you're back! And you know you're going fishing next weekend, it's already determined. I used to take my best friend to Saturday night mass, where he could go into confession before we went out drinking! He was a bigger drunk than I was! I never went to church a day in my life. I sat out in that car knowing this isn't right. If there is a God, this isn't right, this doesn't work, this is not a life committed to God. How can I then expect Him to be committed to me? And what we're looking at here is the daily demonstration of our commitment to God. Now the Bible says where your treasure is is where your.... If you really are into something, whether it's your hobby, it's your job, you're always thinking about it. When you first fell in love with Sweet Thing, I'm telling you, you weren't good for anything. Your treasure, man. You'd do anything to be with her.

I shared with you about the situation with Janet when the Lord was bringing our lives together and¾ whatever it took, man! I'd just got off that Navy destroyer, came off of two watches. I hadn't slept for close to 60 hours at that time. Drove from San Francisco to Fresno. Played a game, a baseball game, softball game, that night. Got to see her, my heart was longing to see her, and I got to see her, man I was just pumped. But I was obligated to drive two hours after that game to teach at a youth meeting that night, a youth gathering up in the mountains. They were having a retreat. So I left and I drove up into the mountains two hours and I taught in that service, and I drove back and I got back to Janet's apartment (all of you young adults close your ears) at two o'clock in the morning…and we went outside for a walk. We weren't totally stupid. And we walked around the neighborhood. In Fresno at that time of year at night, it was still 80/85 degrees, made for nice strolling. I knew that I had the drive from Fresno to Long Beach still ahead of me. We’re talking about another 8-hour drive. I still haven’t slept. We walked and talked for about three hours, and now the sun’s coming up. It’s five o’clock in the morning, and I get in the car to head for Long Beach. You’re saying, "You’re stupid!" Nah. I was in love, man! And I still am.

You want to know why you don’t read the Bible like you used to? Because you don’t love Him like you used to. Why you don’t pray like you used to, why don't want to fellowship like it's kind of costing something to make this, I mean this is overboard. I mean, we as a fellowship here, we are fanatical. We come for Bible study three services a week, and people look at you and they say "you go to church three services a week you go and... man, what's wrong with you?" "Well it's not three days, that's twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday." "Oh, okay." "But then we have prayer every night of the week." "Well you don't go every night do you?" "Well I used to when we were told we had to, but now I don't. When it was required of me I did it, but now that it's of my own volition, I don't." "What? You mean there's a meeting on Friday for your youth? And young adults meet up there on Fridays?" "Yeah." "When do you have time for yourself?" "Oh, I have time for my self Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Monday through Friday; and my self chooses to seek God, and my self chooses to be with the body of Christ, and my self chooses to eat my daily bread." Let's step back and see how other people see us--fanatics, stupid. "If you ask me, it's not the Catholics that are a cult, you guys are a cult, because Christianity surely can't mean that your life has to be involved in it? Surely Christianity is not going to take up your life? Surely it's just something that's an hour a week at most? And the Psalmist says, chapter 88, verse 9, "Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee." "Hey, I can see seeking God when you're hurting man, yeah sure daily as long, until I feel better." You see, most people don't have any trouble with this passage. 61:8, to where we are daily performing our vows and just worshipping Him and loving Him, "but, yeah, you know when there's a reason of affliction then I can see it." Here the natural man, I mean everybody can embrace this: "yeah, okay, I understand, you're needing something from God. I can understand seeking Him daily when you are using Him, but just to worship and commit and provoke others and seek their good and not my own, that doesn't make any sense to me," and that's the thought of the natural man.

The scripture says watch and pray that we don't enter into temptation in these last days. That watching has to be consistent, a diligent watch. Look at Proverbs 8, verse 34, "Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors." You want to be a blessed man, you want to be able to move in the wisdom and the power of God? Are you watching daily at His gates? We can go into the book of Acts, and it's very interesting, or study the life of Jesus. It says as His nature was, or as His habit was, you found Him in the synagogue, they went daily to the temple of God, the scripture tells us. Are we daily watching at His gates? Does this sound like fanaticism to you? Does this sound like, you know, maybe we could get by with less? How can we choose to think that we can get by with less when the Bible says, and even more as you see the day approaching. You see, it would be one thing to just maintain. Now every one of us here that believes in the word of God knows that times are going to get worse. TIMES ARE GOING TO GET WORSE, the Bible makes that very clear. It would be one thing to maintain. Now watch, the Bible says do more; it would be one thing to maintain, but how wise is the decision to do less? You see, I had some people ask me. One of the deacons asked in one of our meetings, over different times the question's been asked many times, we're so busy, the pace we're on; why do we have so many meetings? I shared with you, if you all remember, a couple of months back, how many of you remember what I shared when I was sharing that, why we have all these meetings? Do you all remember? The reason we have all of this stuff scheduled is to help you deal with your own flesh. External motivation. How many of you realize that every one of us, even the most diligent among us, the most self-disciplined, still needs external motivation? We do. It's called an alarm clock, for some of us. For some of us even the alarm clock isn't external motivation enough. We thank God for our spouse who kind of (pushing sounds) and you go off on the floor. Then the dog comes over and licks you, and you're up and at 'em as you stumble into the bathroom still asleep, shave the dog and... Those that are slower to wake up. These meetings and all that we do are set up to protect you from your own flesh. The question: do I have to come? Of course you don't have to come; you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You don't have to come! But the real question at hand is this: Is what I'm doing hurting me or helping me? Was I better off before I did it and made this commitment and got myself involved for whatever reason, peer pressure, wanting to be obedient, a mandate that was given, wanting to, my heart's desire is to do what's right and to try to be a part of the fellowship and help others, and my motive for doing it was correct. I wanted to seek God more and I wanted to be a help. Then what would changing that be about? Are you and your family better off now than before you started? That's a question that has to be asked. If not, if not, if your children are not as diligent in pursuing God, and they are not involved and seeking the Kingdom, if somehow this involvement is destroying their relationship with Jesus, and if somehow this involvement is destroying your family, and if somehow the eternal benefits that were being derived at through this are not there, then by all means you must seriously look at making some changes.

But the real question to ask is, "How do I justify that with ‘much more’? How do I justify that with the obvious daily gathering of the church?" Now when Hebrews 10 says, "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is;…and so much the more...," that word "manner" is very interesting. The word, "manner", is talking about that that is in the process of becoming a life pattern. And we need to understand and look contextually in Hebrews 10 as to why they were forsaking the assembling of themselves, and the reason is it was costing them something. The church was being persecuted. Being identified as a Christian was now going to be something that was going to cost you socially, psychologically, and it's better off for me in the natural to disassociate myself, for whatever reason. Personal gain, I can spend more time at the office, I can spend more time in the secular and be able to advance there, I can spend more time on the sofa, I can spend more time whatever. The question, then, is will you be better off becoming less involved. Or let me ask another question: if you think now you are even too involved, too committed, too involved in these other things, let me ask you a question, what do you think would happen if you became even more involved than you are now? And if you can answer the question this way, you know here's where I used to be spiritually, I made these commitments and here's where I am now spiritually. I've grown, I've benefited, I've personally benefited; I've benefited in my relationship with Jesus, I've benefited in my relationship with the body of Christ, lives that have been knit together, I've been able to benefit others and sow into their lives. I have benefited, but I'm tired; and things have changed in my schedule and other things. Let me ask you a question, if you've benefited by this commitment, what do you think will happen if there was more commitment? Well, how can I get more involved? If you really want to know, ask me. I can find a whole bunch of stuff for you to do for the Kingdom.

We are a people here, as a fellowship, that's as close as any I've ever seen in my 30 years of ministry. You are the most committed fellowship I've ever seen anywhere in all of my travels around the world. I've preached in everything from storefronts to the biggest churches in the world. You are the most committed congregation I've ever seen. Committed to the Lord, committed to one another, committed to the vision that we have here. You say, "Well, praise God, we’re bad, man." You are the most committed people I've seen. But I want to tell you something this morning. There's more. There's more. And I want to tell you something else, at the level you've been operating, it will not be sufficient for the day we're going into; and if that's the case, how could I let you think that by doing less you'll be ready? It would be like preparing for the Olympics for four years, and then six months prior to the games saying, you know I've worked hard, I'm going to take a break. You deserve a break today. And so you take six months of eating Big Macs, and you start down the runway in the pole vault, because you'd been preparing for three years and six months and you deserved the break, and the only thing that breaks is the pole. The only thing that could ever make us think to do less would be to truly believe He's not coming now. Because I guarantee you, if you knew He was coming back in the next seven days, you wouldn't choose to do less, you would choose to do more.

Now watch, Luke 9, two more verses for this morning. Luke 9, verse 23, check it out, "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross [say it with me] daily…" "IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME, LET HIM DENY HIMSELF, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS [say it] DAILY." "TAKE UP HIS CROSS [say it] DAILY." Huh. That sounds to me like daily is a result of denying yourself. Is that how it sounds to you? Take up your cross daily. If you're going to come after me, deny yourself. How many of you know you can't do daily without denying? How many of you know you can't follow Him if it's not daily? You see, this is the process, beloved. Hebrews 3:13 says it this way, "But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." A-w-w! Sin is so deceitful! Sin can give you every reason in the world why you should do less when the word of God demands more. Sin can justify every decision to disobey the principles of God's word and establish a doctrine that says "God will understand." But the daily cross doesn't allow the doctrine of God understanding how busy we are in our generation; and you have the wrong concept of who these people were to whom this was written. When Jesus walked on the shores of Galilee and He stopped after having confronted Andrew, a man who was pricked by the message of John the Baptist. Andrew, having heard John's declaration, "Behold the lamb of God!" Andrew, who runs and gets his brother Simon and says I've found the Messiah! And these men now later, laboring and toiling, as we see in another example, laboring all night, having caught nothing. You think these people were just sitting around at Club Med? These were people that would labor all day and night and maybe catch nothing! These were a people who had to go gather their water, gather their sticks to cook whatever little meal they had! These were a people that worked from sunup to sunset, and they gathered daily! These were not a people trying to find more time for recreation, these were a people trying to subsist on just what was at hand. We talk about how busy we are. Busy about what? What are we talking about as it relates to our daily walk? I think it's something that we need to spend some time prioritizing. Why wait until it's necessary? Why wait until you are involved in a battle like our sister? Why wait for the circumstances to demand it instead of the appetite of our hearts? Today is the day of salvation.

Father, make it real to us, we ask in the name of Jesus. Father, cause us through our daily involvement in the word of God to really see our heart's condition and to ask the question whether or not we've lost our first love. We may be doing great. The question is, can we do better? Can we do more? More isn't always amount of time, it's the effectiveness, it's what's ministered in the spirit, it's a word in season. Let's allow the Spirit of God to speak to our hearts as it pertains to the involvement of seeking others' good, not just our own. Let's pray and just thank the Lord for His presence. Let's pray for our sister for strength and the healing power of God.

Hallelujah! Oh, Jesus. As we pray and just continue to intercede for our sister, if you're here and you can be a help somewhat, maybe one of the nurses that are here with us, that might be able to assist in the natural, the rest can do what you can do, and that's pray. Let's just ask Father to strengthen and bring peace. Oh, Father, we ask You to show Yourself mighty among us. Father, we delight in the anointing that's present in the person of the Holy Spirit. Father, we thank You for the name of Jesus, and we speak by the power of that name, even now, that this body would respond, Father. That Your presence, Lord, would rule. Praise you, Father. Glory to you, Jesus.

As Gary plays for us and leads us in a couple of these choruses, just continue to pray and let's believe God for His power to manifest.

Interlude

The torment that Latasha's in right now is just very wearing. She wants to come and fellowship with the saints. They told her to just lay and rest, and she wants to come and fellowship. That's kind of interesting. She wants to be here. Part of these convulsions, it's the consequence of wanting to be here with you, wanting to be in the Lord's presence. I think that parallels with what we were teaching this morning. Let's just continue to hold her up and rejoice in the goodness of Father.

Father, we thank You for the healing in Latasha's body, Father. and those that are among us in warfare. Help us to come together and even more as we see the day approaching, that we would lift up one another's hands. Father, that we would be touched with the feelings of the infirmities, and that our hearts would be moved on their behalf. Father, we thank You for the faithfulness of your people, and we thank You that we will not be overtaken in that hour that is coming on us as we provoke one another to love and to good works. We give You the praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Praise God. We do praise You, Father.

Before you go, turn to somebody next to you, say, "Much more." Praise God. Go in peace. God's love go with you.