Look them up all you want to about you at the house, OK? But I want you to listen to me this morning. Genesis 5 is where we're going to be at today. And we want to begin by just reading just one verse. Verse 22, it says, Enoch walked with God. Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years, and he begat sons and daughters. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we're thankful for this opportunity we have, and Lord, we're thankful for this place that we have to worship. Master, we're thankful above all things today for the blood of the Lord Jesus that cleansed us from our sin. And Lord, we pray this morning that you wouldn't be outside knocking, that you would come in our services and you would sup with us individually. We pray that you would fill this place with your strength, and Father, we pray that you help us. Our old flesh, we drift in our thinking and our flesh gets tired, but Lord, help us be able to focus on what you have today. And Lord, we realize that I'm nothing, nothing Lord, without you, and I pray that you take what I've studied and prepare it and use it in the lives of your people. Father, as we've come to an end of another year, Lord, we're just thankful for the many blessings that we've seen in 2009. Apostles, as we begin another year with you, we pray that we'd be about your business and that we would serve you. And this church, Lord, would not only be a lampstand here, but all over the world. And we pray that you'd use this church to bring glory, praise, and honor to the name of the sweet King of Israel, the Lord Jesus, our Savior. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen." Now, the message is just simply entitled, Walk with God. Mainly what we're going to do is, if you're taking notes, two keys to a close walk. with God. Enoch didn't receive, or Enoch, I guess it depends on which end of Hollard you live on, how you pronounce that. Always pronounce it Enoch, other pronounce it Enoch, so you know who I'm talking about. He's mainly famous for being one of two men that never died. The Lord translated him right to glory, but though he doesn't receive a lot of ink, he leaves behind in Scripture a tremendous testimony. And I love the testimony that he leaves behind in the text. It says that Enoch walked with God. Doesn't that even sound good, doesn't it? That is just a tremendous testimony. And I'd like to begin the message today is we're going to look at two keys to a close walk with God. Two keys to a close walk with God. You should covet that. You should desire that. Everyone here today that's saved, that's after you become a Christian, you should, for the rest of your days, desire to have a close walk with God. Now, just a few questions to ask at the beginning, and I ask questions at the beginning just to get you to think just a little bit. Number one, can I ask you, can that be said of you? Can that be said of you? And if you have a close walk with God, I can guarantee you those around you know it. People you work with will know it. People in your house, your children will know it. People around you will know whether you have a close walk with God or not, because you can have a close walk with God and it not be evident. You can't have a close walk with God and not be evident. It is evident. It's something that you can see in somebody's life. So that's my first question. Can that be said of you that you have a close walk with him? Number two, do you want to have a close walk with him? Do you want to have a close walk with him? That's a very key question, don't you think? It's sad to say, but there's many folks that have professed faith that really don't care whether they have a close walk with him or not. And we mentioned that just a few weeks ago in a different way. But if you're saved, that should be what you desire. You should desire to have a close walk with him. A lot of benefits to a close walk with the Lord, aren't they? You know what the key to joy is? Really, do you know what the key to joy is? It's how close you are to the Lord. It really is the key. We associate joy if I had a better house or I had a better run of car. If I had a better run of car, Jeff, I'd be happy. If I made a little bit more money on the hour, I'd be happy. And they go through all these different things, all these different circumstances, all these different possessions. If I had these things, I'd be happy. If you're saved, I'm going to tell you this. This is not deep theology, but I'm going to tell you something. If you're saved and you're close to God, you'll be happy. That's the honest truth. But if you are saved, truly saved, and you're not close to God, nothing this side of glory is going to make you happy. The world's not going to make you happy, and nothing else will make you happy if you're not close to the Lord. My desire for Elizabeth Baptist Church in 2000, of course the church is a people. in the church. It's not the building. This is a building. That's all it is, is a building. It is the people and the membership of the church is a church. So in 2010, I just kind of figured that if you have a membership where, I don't know, I don't know what the percentages would be in a church of how many people actually have a close walk with God. I mean preachers always like to brag on how many they have, but that don't necessarily mean you have 200 people or 150 people or 500 people. I just wonder what the percentage is of that many in the membership have a close walk with the Lord. See, that's really what I meant to it. I like the church's grown up, I realize that. We have people, I realize that too. I'm more concerned about your walk with Christ. More than anything else, you want to know what my concern is. My concern for you is that you have a close walk with Christ. And I don't think you should say worry from the pulpit. I guess I worry more about that about you than anything else. I want you to be close to your God. And I figure if a church has a great percentage of the membership that are close to God, everything else will fall in place. That's just the way I look at it. That's the way I've always looked at it. So that's my desire for you, and what I'm going to do today is give you some of the keys to that. If you're close to the Lord, you'll be what now? You'll be happy. Closeness to God is the key to fruitfulness, is it not? You want to be fruitful? Closeness to God is the key to that. It's the key to peace, too. Because you know what? When I'm not close to the Lord, I lose joy. And I lose peace, and I become unfruitful. So that's why you need what I'm going to preach on today. There's only two keys to a close walk with God. Two keys. I was going to do this in two messages, but I sharpened it up a notch. Since this is the last Sunday, I wanted to get this all on the morning. So I'm going to give you two keys. You can write this down. Two keys to a close walk with God. Here's the two keys. Both of them start with a T for your memory purposes. Number one, time. Time is the key to a close walk with the Lord. And number two, turning. Time and turning. And we'll talk about both of those this morning in the message. You write those down. Time and turning is the key to a close walk with the Lord. All right, number one, let's talk about this time. If you're going to be close with God, boy, this is deep, isn't it? If you're going to be close, deep. If you're going to be close with God, you've got to spend time with Him. You can't be close to anybody and not spend time with them. I've mentioned this a million times in 28 years of being here. I have people that I've been close to over the years. I had friends in high school that I was close to. And you know what? When I see them, we're still friends, but it's not like it was. Does anybody know why that is? We don't ever see each other. Back when I was growing up, we would stay at each other's house. We'd run together. We'd talk together. We spent hours and hours and hours and hours together, so as a result of that, I had friends who were almost like brothers. We were close. Well, over the years, you get married, and they move away, and you move away, and different things. What happens is where you don't spend time with that friend, where you don't spend time with that friend, what happens is you drift, and you become more of an acquaintance. Do you know what I'm saying? Well, folks, you don't want to drift that way to where God's nothing but an acquaintance. with you. You don't want to drift in such a fashion as that God is on the acquaintance with you. If you're going to be close to God, the fact of the matter is that you have to spend time with Him. You have to spend time with Him. Now, let's turn to Revelation chapter 3, and we'll turn you to some text. Remember, if you can't find things fast in your Bible, don't try. Just get the CD. Once we get back to normal, we'll get some of these things on our sermon audio so that you can listen to them on there, too. Look at Revelations chapter 3. I'm going to be real disciplined with this verse because Revelations chapter 3, because it's misused, aggravates me how people use Revelations 3 and verse 20. One of the most misused, abused texts in the Word. If I ain't careful, I'll jump off one and I don't want to. It ain't my intention to do that. It says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Now, does it say heart's door? You have to put that there. It doesn't say heart's door. Let me make one statement about it. The Lord is the one that opens your heart. You can't do that when you're lost. You're dead. You can't do it until you've made a lie. So I get tired of people saying that. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Jesus is standing at the church's door here. Here's a church at Laodicea, and this church had shut Jesus out. A lot of churches have shut Jesus out today. You know how you do that? You stop preaching His Word. You push the Bible out, and you push the Lord out. That's honest truth. They've got Jesus completely outside. They're entertaining everybody, but they're not preaching. What would I stand at the door and knock? The church door. Laodicea. Look at the context. It doesn't say heart there anywhere, does it? Unless you put it there. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we'll sup with him and he with me." You know, supping with somebody's fellowship. There is no question. There is no question on the part of the master that he wants to spend time with you. There's no question on that end of it. He will spend as much time with you as you want to and as you choose to. So there is absolutely no question upon his part in the matter. The only question in the matter is your part. The only question in the matter is your part. Do you want to spend time with him? Now, right off the bat, if you're saved and a child of God and you don't want to spend time with him, then quite obviously there's a problem right off the bat, isn't there? So there's no question. And you just see the picture of this of him knocking and wanting to come in and sup with someone, fellowship with them, spend time with them, see? So there's no question on his part of that, but there is on your part. He will spend as much time as you want to spend. James chapter 4 verse 8 says this, and I'm going to turn to that one, it says, draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Drawn out of God and he was drawn out of you. So there's no question that he wants to spend time with you. You like to spend time with your children. And folks, he loved you, you're his child, he loved you before the foundation of the world. He sent his son to die for you. He called you by his grace and to himself. He loves you. There's no one that loves or cares for you like Jesus does. I'm telling you, I love you. But I don't love you like Jesus did, or does. And we'll continue. His love for you is not based on your performance. His love for you is just, I don't know why he loved us. There's no cause on our part for him to love us. So there's no question that on his part to spend time with you. No question. So the question is on whose part is that then? It's all up to you. You've got to choose to do that. That's the decision that you do indeed make. That's the decision you make every day. I'm going to spend time with the Lord. Or not. It's amazing. I've read this over the years, and every time I lose it and have to look it up again. If the Lord granted you 70 years, it's entitled how you spend it. I didn't get to research all these to see if they were right. For one reason, I wouldn't know how to do it anyhow. And it would be different with different people, but here's an average. If the Lord granted you 70 years, this is how you spent your 70 years here on earth. You spent 24 years sleeping, 14 years working, 8 years in amusement. Most people, this is the average. It says 6 years at the dinner table. Yeah, some spend a little bit more time there than that. 6 years at the dinner table. Five years in traveling, four years in conversation, three years in education. This is all back-to-back time. Three years in education, three years in reading, three years watching television. That's probably wrong there. People in America spend four to five hours a day watching television. If you went to church every Sunday, and it's hard to get folks to do that, right? Much less go to all the services, but if you went to church every Sunday, and you prayed five minutes every day, went to church every Sunday and prayed five minutes every day, every morning and every night, you would give God five months of your life. That's scary, isn't it? I don't know how accurate that is, but that's a pretty good thought, is it not? If you get one every Sunday and the Lord granted you 70 years, if you went to church every Sunday, prayed five minutes every morning and every night, you'd be giving the Lord how long? Five months. Now, I'll be honest with you, that's not a lot of time, is it? That's not a lot of time to spend with the one that you're going to spend an eternity with. I often wonder about folks, you know, we're going to spend an eternity with Christ, but it seems that many people that profess faith don't want to spend no time with Him here. How are we going to like heaven if we don't like to spend time with Him here? So, time is a key. And you have to choose that time. You have to set apart time. Let me give you four quick ways to spend time with the Lord. These are basic. This is one of those deals, like Jesus said in the Gospel of John, if you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. A lot of people know things, but they don't do them. The joy of this comes in doing, number one, to spend time with Jesus, you've got to spend time with these words. You've got to spend time in His Word. We've been given a book. We've been given a book. Oh my, again, what a blessing it is to be able to have a full copy of Old and New Testament of the Word of God. Like I said before, when we go to heaven, can you imagine the years and years? The average Jew never had a copy of the Scriptures. When we've done our study through the book of Deuteronomy, remember only the king was given a copy of the law. We've been given a whole book. We got the whole book. If you ain't got a book this morning, if you don't have a book, the Bible will give you one. We have extras here to give to people who don't have a Bible. What a blessing it is to have the book. And you know what this book is called again? What's it called? It's God's Word. It's how God speaks to His people. It's how God speaks to His people. It's how He causes you to grow as a Christian. This is how God speaks. Now, you can't be close to the Lord and not spend no time in His Word. Do you agree with that? You can't be close to the Lord and not spend no time in his Word. You've got to have time in his Word. And Acts 17, verse 11, speaks of the Bereans. We've talked a lot about them recently. It says that they search the Scriptures daily. Do you know you can do that, too? You can do that. You've got a Bible, right? You can do that, too. But you know, you probably don't. If I had you to raise your hand this morning, how many search the Scriptures daily? Could you raise your hand? Could you, I'm not going to, I don't, I wouldn't embarrass anybody for nothing. Except for Westmont Shaman, I don't mind embarrassing him. But uh, could you raise your hand? Could you raise your hand? I search the scriptures daily. Now search implies a deeper look too, doesn't it? You ever search for something? You ever search for your keys? You ever search for your glasses? Every day of my life I do that. When I'm searching for glasses, I look in the couch, I look under the couch, I blame Debbie. It's always your wife's fault when you lose something. Well, my friend, a search implies a deeper look. And we need to spend time with the Lord, and we need to set apart a time to spend to let him talk to us through the means of his word. You know that, but you're not happy unless you do that. You have to set apart a time to do that which is important for you to do. But if you don't set apart a time in the scriptures, then you won't read the scriptures. You don't read them. Get a daily bread and read a devotion. Read the scripture or read a devotion part of it. Read the scripture that goes with the devotion. Then read the devotion. Pray before you do that. But you need to search the scriptures. That's how the Lord talks to you. That's how you grow. You need to take notes down whenever I'm preaching to make sure what I'm telling you is the truth and rehearse it again. Check it out for yourself. You don't just believe things what the preacher says anyway. You'll get in all kinds of trouble if you follow a preacher. You're following God. He's your Lord. You're following Him. The preacher's a preacher. Now, if he's God's man, and he's preaching God's Word, and then you study it, and you see it, then it gives you your own personal convictions. But you need to spend a time daily with Him. The devil will do everything he can. I'll tell you this, sir. He'll do everything he can after you're saved to get you out of this book. I want you to hear me now. He'll do everything he can to get you out of it. If he can get you out of this book, he can weaken you, and then you'll fall right into sin. You'll fall right into sin. You've got to have this book. You can't come to church, my friends. Of course, we'll talk about that here in just a little bit. But man, when you can't come to church, you've got to have, you've got to get this book. You've got to have it. That's how he talks to you. See, that's how you get close to God by getting in his Word. The things I'm giving you today is battle-tested. Battle-tested. When I was 14, And the Lord rededicated my life to the service of Christ when I was 14. These things is what the Lord moved me to do. And made me close to God. These things made me close to God. I knew that if I was going to be close to the Lord when I was 14, I knew I had to get the scriptures. So I read them every day. I didn't understand everything I read, but boy, I understood some things. So I've read them every day. Number two, you've got to have time in His Word. Of course, you've got to have time in prayer, too, don't you? We know that. You've got to have time when you communicate with Him. God's Word is how He talks to you. Prayer is how you talk to Him. See, that's a communication. See, all this is is communication. There's a lot of people I ain't close to as I once was because we don't communicate no more. We never talk. We never talk. Well, if you're going to be close to God, you've got to have communication with Him. Communicate with Him through His Word, but you also communicate to Him through prayer. Boy, you need to pray, folks. You get burdened at different times, don't you? Do you ever get burden-weighted down and just lose all strength? I did that this year. I do that on occasions. Try not to. You're embarrassed to admit things like it, but you did very weak around October of this year. So, you know what I did? I still studied and things, but I'm still in the Word, but I made a diligent practice of taking prayer walks. Prayer walks. You say, why do you take a walk for? Because I don't know why it is. If I sit still, my mind wanders. If I walk, it don't. Isn't that goofy? I might be wired up wrong. But I have to walk. Man, when I can walk, I can pray. When I can walk, I can pray better. I can. When I pray at the house, I know my poor next-door neighbor, their house is up, and they look over in my privacy fence. I know they think I'm a nut. I walk circles in the yard. I'm praying. One of Jeremy's friends said, somebody heard your dad talking in a yard with nobody back there. Took prayer walks. And I walked up to him and hollered. And I walked. I might walk an hour. You know, just I get to talking and not paying attention to where I'm watching for snakes. But I'm walking and I'm thinking, man, and you know what I do? I begin my prayer walk by thanking the Lord and thanking for what he's done for me. You know, what does Thanksgiving, does anybody know? Raises your focus off what's bothering you. It does. It helps you see blessings, how great your God is. So I just thank Him. Thank Him for saving me, and watching over me, and working all things, and thanking for things in my life that happened that I didn't understand, but I know works out for the good. You ever do that? I thanked him for that too. I said, Lord, I don't, these things happen. I wish they hadn't, but they did. But I know if you permitted them, you had a good purpose for it. And I want to thank you for that in advance until I understand. So I started going that. And as I kept going that, I started feeling a little bit lighter. Started feeling a little bit lighter. I began to pour my soul out to him. And then I take all my cares and give them to him, you know. And I pray for my people here at the church, or God's people. We're just people of the gospel. And I pray, pray, and after a while, man, I started doing that every day. I started getting slimmer because I was walking so far. Prayer walk. See, I'm communicating with my God, and what that does, it made me and Him closer. It made the battle less rough. See what I mean? It made the battle less rough. It made me better able to handle things that I thought I couldn't handle. So it wasn't nothing to do with me communicating with Him. Nothing but me communicating. So if you're going to be close, you've got to have time in His Word and time in prayer. You can't be close to the Lord without talking to Him or Him talking to you. Do you agree with me this morning? You can't be close to Him without those two things. You've got to have those two things. And you know who determines that? You. No question that He'll spend time with you. You have to set apart time to do that. You need time in His house. You need time in His house. Some people are sick. And they're not able. Some people are hurting and they're not able. Some people have to work and they're not able. We're not talking about none of those types of things. We're not talking about none of those types of things. One of the things I noticed back when I was 14, before that time I hated coming to church. I didn't like coming. I hated that horrible idea. My dad was a deacon. So there wasn't no choice whether I'd come or not. I came. I didn't want to come, but I came. I had to come, so he made me come. But one of the things I noticed is when I started getting close to the Lord, I started enjoying His house. I noticed that difference. I noticed it. Instead of counting the panels, how many cilinders we had and watching the clock, I started watching the preacher and taking notes. I started getting interested. I started enjoying it. I started spending time in his house. And the next thing I noticed, I wanted to come to the next service. And I wanted to come to the next service. So really, what was the difference? It was me. The Lord changed me. And I was getting close to Him. When you're close to God, you want to come to His house. David said in Psalms 122, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. I was glad. He said in Psalms 26, I've loved the habitation. I've loved the habitation of the house, but you know what also David was known for? What's David's, a lot of things, one title that's used is David, God said about David. David was a man after God's own heart. Like Enoch, David and God were what? They liked to spend time with him, in prayer, in his word, in his house. Those are three keys to a close walk. And finally, number four, let me give you one more. I got another point of that anyway. Number four, communion with these people. Psalm 119, the writer wrote, I believe the writer of Psalm 119 was David. He said, I'm a companion of all those that fear me. I like to talk to people that love the Lord, don't you? Uncle John used to talk about, I used to sit at my Uncle John's and he'd talk about the church. He talked about an old Baptist deacon that was here at Elizabeth Baptist Church. And he said, you know, Jeff, I hated him. He said, anytime I'd do anything mean, he'd tell daddy. And I'd get in trouble for it. So I hated him. He said, you know, after I started, the Lord saved me and changed my life. He said, you know, I loved that old deacon. I began to see him in a whole different light. And he began to like to talk to him and want a companion with him. I tell you what, you want to be with God's people when you're right with God. You want to be around God's people. And that's what I noticed when I started getting close to the Lord from time spent in His Word and time spent in prayer and time spent in His house. Then I began to notice I like to kind of begin to start running around with His people. I wanted to be with God's people. I wanted to be with those. I wanted to companion with those that love the Lord. I didn't want to run with the village drunks anymore. See, I wanted a companion. with those that love the Lord. I had to speak at one of my old pastors, John Henderson. I got to speak at a 50-year party they had for him. They celebrate 50 years in the ministry and I think a 40-year anniversary as well. So they invited me to be the speaker at that for him. And I thought back in them days, whenever he first came here, he's who I run around with, Brother Mike. I run around with my pastor. That's who I ran with. I ran around with him. I'd come down and help him work at the church. And I can remember shoveling flash in that building, helping the pastor. And you and me and him got real close, and I loved it. I loved running around with those that loved the Lord. So those are four keys. Those are actually four parts of spending. Those are four ways, I should say, to spend time with the Lord. Time in His Word, time in prayer, time in His house, and time in fellowship with God's people. You take those four out. You take those four out. And Satan will try to take those four out. And you'll grow weak and worldly in your conduct and in your thinking. These are key to a close walk with Jesus. Everybody see that? Let's go to our second point now, moving rather quickly. Turn to the book of 1 Thessalonians, I think it is, chapter 1. Let me turn to you to another verse. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1. Folks, spend time with the Lord this year. If you'll spend time in prayer with Him, get you a prayer list and pray over things, write your cares down, thanksgiving, all these things. If you'll set apart a time to read His Word, you'll spend time in fellowship with these See, you'll begin to come faithfully to his house. I'm telling you, you'll get close to the Lord that way. You'll get close to the Lord that way. When you get close to the Lord, your 2010 will be better than the 2009. 2010 will be better than the 2009. Two keys to a close walk. What's the first one? Time. Time with the Lord. Time with the Lord. Number two, turning. You say, what in the world do you mean by turning? I mean turning from sin. I want to tell you as I earned tonight, this morning, you can't be close to the Lord and walk in sin. It's impossibility. Sin is killing God's people. Loving them of their joy and their fruitfulness and loving them of their peace. There has to be a turning from sin. 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 9 says, "...for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you." Now watch this, how you turn to God for matters. You see the word turn? It's part of repentance, is it not? When someone repents, they not only are sorry for their sin, but they turn. See, it involves a turning. I like that word turn. If you're going to be close to the Lord, you not only must spend time with the Lord, but you cannot no longer continue to walk in sin. You say, well, Jeff, you thought the other day that you're not perfect. We're not. We never will be as long as we live in this flashback. What I'm telling you this morning, a genuine new birth, a new birth, a regeneration will change your life. These people in the Thessalonian church before they were saved were idol worshippers. But they turned from idol worship to the Lord. That's part of repentance. You can't walk in sin and be close to Jesus. You can't do it. Too many people say they are or that they can't be. Look at Amos chapter 3. I'm going to do some quoting for you just to save a little bit of time. You can write these down. Amos chapter 3 verse 3. Amos was from Judah, but he was a prophet to the northern tribes of Israel. And in Amos 3.3, if you'll remember, here's what the Lord sent a message, and then he said, Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Remember that? Now, you have to keep that in its context. Now, we always take that out of its context and apply it different ways. But you know, here's what the problem was. Israel was walking in sin. They were worshiping idols. They were living very immoral lives. They were very ungodly in their conduct, all these different things. And Amos says, can we walk? Here's what God can do. You cannot walk together unless they be in agreement. In other words, you can't walk in sin and be in agreement with me. They were at odds with God. That's the reason why God brought judgment on the northern ten tribes. You can't walk with him and live in sin. I wore this illustration out, but I've done it. Well, that's alright if you wear an illustration out, isn't it? That way you'll remember it. In Gospel of John, chapter 8, there's a woman caught in adultery in the very act, remember, and Jesus forgave her for her sin. He reached down and bestowed upon this woman His mercy and His grace. She didn't deserve it, and neither do you. Neither do you. And he never condemned her. He paid for her sin on Calvary. And after she received such a mercy from the king, do you remember what Jesus told her when he left? Go and sin no more. In other words, she wanted to continue on in an immoral lifestyle that she lived before the Lord bestowed upon her his grace. And you know what? When God's grace touches your heart, you don't want to do that anyhow. Makes you miserable when you do. Turn to Titus chapter 2, just another text. Titus chapter 2, since you're in the T section. Turn to the book of Titus chapter 2. Well, it's what it says, verse 11, Titus chapter 2, it says, "...the grace of God that brings salvation." Isn't that what brings salvation is what? The grace of God brings it. "...It has appeared to all men," all kinds of men. Gentiles as well as Jews. Here's what God's grace teaches you. Look what God's grace teaches you in verse 12. It teaches us to deny ungodliness, doesn't it? You don't use God's grace as a license to sin. God's grace doesn't teach you to do that anyhow. What does God's grace teach you? It says the grace of God that brought salvation, brings salvation, hath appeared to all. Here's what it teaches you. It teaches you to deny ungodliness. Worldly lust. and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. That's what God's grace teaches you to do. And folks, I'm not sinless. Man, I make mistakes. I've done things that are stupid, and so have you. But I can tell you honestly, before you today, the sincere desire of my heart is not to sin against my And when I do, it breaks my heart. Do you feel the same way? It breaks my heart. It does. So, what's that in evidence of? That's evidence of a new birth. That's evidence of a change. So, I know that if I'm going to be close to Him, I know that I have to depart from sin. I know that I can't live in sin and be close to Him at the same time. That's a deter to doing sin. I know if I do this thing, it's going to affect my fellowship with my God. Look at 1 John chapter 1. It says that we can have no fellowship with God and walk in darkness. Do you agree? You can't. You can't have fellowship with God and walk in darkness. There's a clear change after that you're born again. You can't live in sin and do that. God's people live in sin too much today. Do you agree? Too much. Too much ungodliness in so much of God's people. Our moral standards should be higher than the world's for crying out loud. should be much higher than the world's. I noticed this when we talked through the book of Ephesians, and I'm not going to turn you there either. But in the book of Ephesians, chapters 1, 2, and 3 of the book of Ephesians stresses salvation, God's blessings that are associated with salvation. Ephesians 1, chapters 1, 2, and 3 stresses salvation and God's grace. But you know what Ephesians 4-6 then does after dealing with salvation? It deals with the Christian walk after that. Folks, there is a walk with God after you're saved. Do you agree this morning? There is a walk with God. Enoch walked with Him. I could not imagine this world walking through this world without walking with my God. It has to be a walk of closeness between me and Him. I'm going to tell you again this morning, you're just as close to God today as you want to be. You're just as close to Him as you want to be. Ephesians 4-5 and 6 stresses the walk. Let me tell you some of the things it says. Ephesians 4-1 says, because this is another sermon, Ephesians 4-1 says to walk worthy of your vocation. What does that mean? It means you're a Christian, act like it. That's what it basically means. Means your conduct needs to match your profession. Many people have a profession, but their conduct's horrible. Look, that's the world. Ephesians 4, 17-19 says, Don't walk as the other Gentiles walk. Gentiles had a mind that just absolutely, sin never bothered them. They lived in immorality. It says, Don't walk as the other Gentiles. Ephesians 5, 1, Walk in love. Ephesians 5, 8, Walk as a child of light. Ephesians 5, 15-16, walk carefully, walk circumspectly. You see, five texts encouraging God's people that have received God's grace to walk in such a fashion as pleases God. You're accountable for your walk. You're accountable for your walk. Don't you want to walk with that you want to walk with and you've got to spend time with him. Number two, you also have to turn. Let me give you four quick keys to dealing with sin. Let me give them to you real fast. First of all, when you see sin in your life, you need to confess it. You don't need to ignore it. And you don't need to blame it on somebody else. And you don't need to bury it. You need to confess it and get it out of the way. Luke the Proverbs said, he that covers his sin will not prosper. He that confesses and forsakes it. You confess it when you see it in your life. And the microscope of the Word of God will reveal sin to you. Man, you can come to church sometimes and it's like, man, the preacher knew exactly what you did yesterday. Or it's just that you might hear a Sunday school lesson, or you might read the scriptures, but it will reprove you at times. Or it'll show things in your life that needs to be corrected, and you confess that. Confess it. Don't listen to the devil and say, well, I just quit, if I can do any better than that. He'll tell you that all the time. You confess it. Number two, you don't make no provision for it. Romans chapter 14. Man, when I started serving the Lord at 14, I knew that I couldn't continue to run around with the crowd that I was running around with. I didn't have a degree in theology or anything, but I knew that I couldn't run with the riffraff of the world and be close to the Lord. And I knew that if I continued to run with them, it wouldn't be long I'd be drinking and partying. So I knew I couldn't make provision for the flesh. You can't put yourself in a situation where you're going to fall. Book of Proverbs says a wise man foresees evil and hides himself from it. You can put yourself in a situation where you'll fall. So you can't make provision. Not only do you confess your sin, but you also can't make no provision for the flesh. Psalms 101 and verse 3 says, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. That's what's killing America. That's what's weakening God's people. It's a setting of wicked things before. You see, it used to be if you wanted to watch sin, you had to go up there in the middle of Charleston and purchase a ticket and pay for it out in public and people could see you. You don't have to do that to see evil anymore. It's readily available right through the television, readily available right through the internet. Man, you can't set wickedness before your eyes. There is always a clear pathway to sin in Scripture. You can see it in Eve, you can see it in Achan, and you can see it in David. You remember what that pathway to sin is? You see, that's what Eve did. You desire it, and then what do you do? You take it. You see it in the case. You see it in the case of David. Went out on the balcony, looked over, or the roof, and he looked over, and there she was. He saw, he desired, and he took. Achan, same way. He saw, he desired, and he took. Seeing is first committed to. If you're constantly setting evil and evil and evil, and evil before your eyes, it will affect how you think, it will affect your closeness with God, and it will affect what you do. I read an article in a book that Aunt Linda gave me, and in 10 years from age 10 to 20, our young people in our land will have seen 90,000 scenes of sex and sexual end-to-end over the time between 10 and 20. Do you think that affects what they do? Do you think that affects how they think? Sure it does. If you think you can do those things and be close to God, you're wrong. So you can't set wickedness before your eyes. You have to be strong with regard to that. My son, over his computer, has Psalms 103 he wrote down. Computers very handy. Man, our ministry here in Bancroft has went to the other parts of the world through that ministry. The big thing the Lord has blessed here is our internet ministry. You hear from people from everywhere, and the Lord is greatly using that, but it can also be used for evil. And there must be checks and balances with regard to such things. All God's people say it. You see it in your life, you confess it. Number two, you make no provision for it. You don't put yourself in a bad spot. Number three, you don't place wickedness before your eyes. Of course, you can have the ability to do that. It's readily available for you. Number four, you must avoid evil associations. First Corinthians 1533. Evil associations are a noun. Persons, replaces. You can't put yourself around an evil association had it not have an impact upon you, whether it's people, places, or things. So if you're going to avoid sins, these are the things that you need to do. And if you're going to be close to God, you can't live in these things. I said earlier, what I'm giving you this morning is what we need as a church for 2010. I don't know what our percentage is. The Lord Jesus knows. But I don't know. I want us to be 100%. I want to have 100% of our membership to be close to the Lord in 2010. And if you have that, my whatever, everything else falls in place. But if you don't have a membership and you have 10% of your membership that's close to the Lord, that's not real good. See, people don't think about things like that. I'm probably going to do a series on Revelations 2 and 3, but Revelations 2 and 3, the seven churches of Asia, remember I preached on the church of Smyrna? They receive an evaluation from the Lord, remember that? And you know, when I looked at those evaluations that these churches received from Jesus, there wasn't one thing said of how much money they took up. I don't know how much money the church of Smyrna took up. You know what? I don't know how big their building was either. I don't know how big their building was. I don't know how much money they took in, and I don't know how many they had in Sunday school that week. That's not necessarily an indicator of how well a church is doing. How well a church is doing is how well and how close that membership is to God. That's how well a church is doing. And you can have all those other things and not have truth, and you can have all those other things and not have closeness to God. And I don't want, I don't want a crowd at the expendance of closeness. I don't. I don't. So for 2010, this is our last Sunday. This is our last Sunday of 2009. That's what I want for 2010. If you're going to have that, if we're going to have these things, what's the key? Time. Time is the key, and turning is the key. All God's people say it. Let's all stand. We'll close