Amen. It is a joy to be in the house of God. It's a whole lot better in here than it is out there. And as long as we don't have a tornado warning, we are in good shape. Amen. And I love that song that we sang this morning, that we're going to see him face to face one day. I can't wait. And I'm looking forward to seeing my Savior. And October of last year was 52 years since I met the Savior. And it's been worth it all. And I am so glad that there was a little, I say little, there was a young, good-looking young lady in high school that was not Connie, the woman I married but she was in my geometry class and she knew the Lord and she wanted to make sure that I knew the Lord and so she gave me the gospel for the very first time and then invited me to a missions conference banquet and I didn't go to worship, I went to eat, amen? And I went because she was purty and sweet. But that night at that missions conference banquet down in the basement in the fellowship hall in a little tiny Baptist church, don't get this wrong, don't hold it against me, but up in Baltimore, Maryland, The Holy Ghost of God came and began to knock on my heart's door. And I remember, I remember like it was yesterday. The Holy Ghost was all over me. Now listen, I'm 18 years old and I couldn't eat. When an 18 year old can't eat, you know there's something going on. And I'll never forget this. The guest speaker who was a missionary, he said, He had never in his life seen conviction on a young man the way he saw it on me that night. And I came, I finally had all I could handle just dealing with the Holy Ghost of God, so I left the banquet, came upstairs, little tiny church, Baptist sanctuary, and there was just one light on over top of the altar, and that was just enough light that I needed to get to Jesus. And I knelt down right over here. I can take you to the place. And I asked Jesus Christ to be my Savior. And I gave my life to Him that day. And then He called me to preach, called me to be a missionary. And I have literally been around the world for the glory of my Savior. I just believe since He gave His life for us, we ought to give our life back to Him. And I surrendered my life to Him a long time ago. Thank you, Pastor Mike. I know you'll probably be watching this pretty soon, but thank you, Brother Mike, for the opportunity and the honor to be here this morning. I will be back at 5 o'clock, and we will worship together. I appreciate you praying for me this morning. I don't know why I get nervous. I've been preaching for 32 years, and I still get nervous. And I don't know if that's a good testimony to you all, or if it's a failure in me. But anyway, Amos, the book of Amos, chapter number three, book of Amos, chapter number three. And when you have Amos, chapter three, if you know where Daniel is, go to Daniel, then Hosea, Joel, and Amos. And when you have Amos, chapter three, I want you to look up here at me, because I've got a story to tell you. And I'm going to try to be as dignified in this story as I can. About ten years ago, my wife Connie, she's in glory now. We were at the Lexington Walmart, and I always park as far away from people as I can so I don't get my car dinged, right? You men, you know what I'm talking about. And so Connie and I, we always, everywhere we went together, we would hold hands and walk together. And I read one time that Red Skelton said that he always held hands with his wife when they went to the mall and went shopping because if he let go, she'd buy something. And so Connie and I are walking toward the Walmart door and all of a sudden I stop. True story. And I looked at her and I said, are you ready? She said, what are you doing? And I said, are you ready? And I went, we're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of God. And she pulled her hand away from mine, looked at me and said, you are a nut. And she was right. But at that moment, she did not want to walk with the husband that she loved. because I was acting like a crazy man. She didn't like the way I was walking. And I was singing on the Walmart parking lot as loud as I could sing. She didn't like my singing. You all probably didn't like it either. That's my debut. That's the only song I ever sing in church probably. But she didn't like the way I was walking. She didn't like the way I was talking. And she did not wanna walk with a crazy man. Amos chapter three, look at verse three. God asks Israel and us this question, can two walk together except they be agreed? God has called us, Galatians chapter five, I believe it's verse 17, God has called us to walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. And we are to walk with him. He doesn't walk with us, we've gotta walk with him. As I've been reading and studying about walking with the Lord, in Genesis chapter five, verse 21 through 24, you remember how Enoch walked with God for 300 years. I don't know about you, that blows my mind. I mean, we struggle just to walk with him a day, a week, a month, a year. He walked with God for 300 years. And he was so close to God that God took him home. Can you imagine just, he was walking along and all of a sudden, boom, he's gone. And he's in heaven with God. If you look at Genesis chapter, I believe it's chapter number six, And verse nine, it says that Noah walked with God. If Noah had not walked with God, he and his family would have all perished in that great worldwide flood. But because he walked with God, God spared his family. And the Bible says because he walked with God, he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. When we walk with him, we find grace in his eyes. Another testimony, Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 17, he walked in the first ways of his father David. Hezekiah walked before God in truth. and a perfect heart in Isaiah 38 three. And there's some, a couple of references that we have of people who did not walk with God. In 2 Kings 21, King Amon walked not in the way of the Lord. And this just amazes me. If you go to John chapter six and verse 66, It says many of Jesus' disciples turned and walked no more with Him. Can you imagine spending time with our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, walking with Him, being with Him, watching Him, listening Him, seeing all the miracles and see everything He did, and all of a sudden He preaches a message that you don't like. and they turned and walked away from the Savior. You know, we're living in a time. And in my life, we're in times of storm or trouble or struggles that people are leaving church, they're leaving their Bible, they're leaving their prayer life, they're leaving their families, and they're not walking with God anymore. And so we have a command to walk with the Lord. Galatians 5.16 says, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these two are contrary, the one to the other. In order to walk with God or each other, we must have four ingredients. We must, first of all, we must love the same thing. If you are gonna walk with God, you and God have to love the same things. When I was lost, I went to all the wrong places. I was reading all the wrong kind of magazines. I was drinking all the wrong kinds of beverages. I was hanging out with all the wrong kinds of people. But when I got saved and the Holy Ghost of God came to live in my soul and my life changed, all of a sudden my love life changed. The things that I used to love, I didn't love no more. I didn't love the party in life no more. I didn't love the wicked brew anymore. I didn't love my old friends anymore. I didn't love all the old places I used to go and all those old magazines I used to listen to or read. All that old stuff, it changed. And I found a place called the house of God. that I fell in love with. And I found a people that loved the same God I love that I had a kindred spirit with. And then I found that all those old books that I used to read, I found another book. that I traded in for all those ungodly books, and I fell in love with a book. And this book changed my life. It's the greatest book that we ever have on this planet. It has sold more copies, I think last I read it was like over six billion, because this is the inerrant holy word of God. When I was lost, I was listening to all the wrong music. And then all of a sudden I came to church. And I found out there's some good, old-fashioned, southern gospel music, just like we heard this morning. And I fell in love with good, old-fashioned, godly, southern gospel music, and I traded all that rock and roll into good, godly music. And so if we're gonna walk with God, or if we're gonna walk with each other as a church family, we've got to love the same things. And then number two, we've got to be moving in the right direction. When Connie and I were walking at that Walmart parking lot, we were moving in the right direction. And still I messed it up and started singing. But we as God's people, we need to be moving in the same direction. And that means that we need to be moving closer and closer to our Savior to be more like Him, to be more like God. The Bible says, be ye holy for I am holy. And we're to have a goal and a direction and a burden in our life to be more and more like our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then number three, we need to have the same purpose. You know we have one single purpose as a church family and that's to glorify Him in everything we do. I want to please Him. and glorify Him and worship Him and praise Him because He gave, our Savior, the Lord Jesus, gave His life for us. And His death, burial, resurrection, His shed blood, all the punishment and the scourging, everything He went through, He went through because He loved us. And our purpose, is to glorify Him and please Him. Bible says, without faith it is impossible to please Him. I hope this morning, I hope you have in your heart, you have a desire and a hunger to please our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then lastly, number four, this is all introduction. In Amos 3.3, It says, can two walk together except they be agreed? We've got to agree with him. Everything in this book, we need to agree with God. God doesn't agree with us. We have to agree with him. I was reading J. Vernon McGee's commentary on this verse. Here's what he said. He said, here is a cause and an effect. The cause, there must be agreement. If you are to walk together with God, the effect, you will walk with Him when you are in agreement with Him. This doesn't mean that God will come over and agree with you. You and I will have to go over to his side and agree with him. And then he said, it's like, as someone said, it's like God rides triumphantly in his own chariot, and if you don't want to get under the wheels of that chariot, you had better get on board and ride. And so we must agree with him if we're going to be walking with him. I wanna share just three thoughts with you. First of all, our foundation of walking with God. The first is right here, we must agree with God and not have God agreeing with us. In order to walk with God, we must have a solid foundation. And that foundation is the truth of the word of God. We cannot walk with him if we don't agree with everything that he says in his holy book. This is his word. It's filled with commandments and principles and we've been commanded to obey him and to serve him and glorify him. In 1 Thessalonians 2.13 it says that the Thessalonians, when they received the word of God, you received it not as the word of man, but as the word of God. as it is in truth the word of God. That world out there does not believe this is God's word. That world out there hates this book. They don't love this book, but we as God's children love this book, and we must agree with him when it comes to this book. Then number two, not only do we have to have the truth of God's word as our foundation, but we must have the desire for his communion must be our focus. Do you want to be close to Him? We should in our life have an overwhelming passion, desire to live and walk in communion with Him and be close to Him. In Matthew 22, 37 it says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. We should love Him and want to be close to Him. We need to be close to Him, have communion with Him. Hey, He's our Lord, He's our Savior, He's our God, He's our Heavenly Father, and we should want to be close to Him. And then, not only the desire for communion must be our focus, but the calling of God to please him must be our passion. Romans 12, one and two, y'all have heard this verse many times. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. God wants every child of God, every Christian, to give ourselves back to God. There was a point in my life, several years after I got saved, while I was in Bible college, there was a moment in my life where I realized that I needed to surrender my life to Him. And there was a time where I knelt down and I prayed And I said, God, here is my life. You can have all that I am. I will go anywhere. I will do anything that you want me to do. And God put me in prison ministry. And you say, you gotta be crazy to want to go to prison. I love going to prison. I was in prison last Thursday. Thursday before that we had worship service. Two precious souls got saved two weeks ago. because God put a burden and a love in my heart for some of the worst sinners on this planet, but they still deserve the right to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God wants us to have a calling on our life. Matthew 5, 6 says, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. And when I surrendered my life to him, There came a time where God told me, you need to pick up and move to Zambia, Africa. When I told Connie that we were going to move to Africa, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. But as the faithful wife that she was, She said, if God's calling us, let's go. We sold our house in Lexington. We shipped a 20 foot container of everything we thought we needed. And we spent 10 years of our life. starting a prison ministry, she started an orphanage, 18 precious kids are still in her orphanage, and we made a difference in a country just because God called us and we were willing to go and obey Him. And so we must walk with God, our foundation, then we need to be walking with God, our fellowship. God says in order for us To not only have close fellowship with Him, but in order for us to have close fellowship with one another. This is a place of worship. This isn't a fightin' place. It's not an arguin' place. It's not a fussin' place. This is where family is. We are the family of God. And when we come to the house of God, we need to be lovin' one another. And the only way we can love each other is if we agree on the important things that's in that book called The Word of God. I lost. That's what happens when you get old, you lose your train of thought. And so in 2 Corinthians 6, God says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness. If we're gonna have fellowship with one another, if we're gonna have fellowship with God, we've got to be willing to separate ourselves from the wicked of this world. There's people out there that we ought not to be with. There's people out there that we shouldn't have as our friends. There's people out there that are part of the world. God says that we are to separate from those of the world. And God wants us to be children of the light and love everything that God loves. And so we're gonna have fellowship together. We need to be separated from the wickedness of this world and walk with God. Our walk with God will affect our fellowship with one another, our families. God wants the Christian home, the family unit, husbands and wives. He wants us close together spiritually and loving the Lord with all our heart. Parents and kids, if we're gonna have a home that the fellowship is sweet, we've got to agree on what this old book says about how we should live for him. And then number three, am I preaching too fast? All right. And so when we walk close to God, our family relationships become closer. Our church family relationships become closer. The closer we get to Him, the closer we get to one another. And when we walk close to Him, we can sense His presence. We have His power. We have His peace. We have His protection. I remember in our neighborhood when I was real, real, real little growing up, y'all might be able to relate to this, it seems like every neighborhood has a bully. And I was a little puny thing growing up, and the bully always came and picked on me. But you know what I found out? If I was walking with my big brother, that bully didn't come after me when I was with my big brother. Because my big brother was bigger than that bully. And you know, when we stay close to God and we're walking with him, that old sleuth foot, the devil, he's not gonna come messing with us because we're walking with God and he is no match for, the devil's no match for our heavenly father. And then lastly, walking with God are distractions. There are hindrances to us walking with him. And the devil, he loves to distract us from the purpose and the plan of God for our life. He loves to tempt us. He loves to put enticement in front of us. And that's why the word of God is so important because God says in 1 John 2 15, love not the world. The greatest distraction you and I have from walking close to him is the attraction of that world out there. That world out there is not God's. My Bible tells me that world out there is the devil's. He's in charge of that world. He controls that world. And most of the people in that world out there are the servants and the children of the devil. And God says that we need to love not the world. And look at this, neither the things that are in the world. One of the dangers that we have is that we can get our eyes off of his book, get our eyes off of our relationship with him and begin to be attracted to the things of this world. And we can get totally out of balance and not have our love for him the way it should be because we've got a love interest of something in this world. And God said it right, if we love the things of this world, the love of the Father is not in us. And how can we walk with him if we're in love with the things of this world? And so number one, we can't walk with him if we love the world. And then in Isaiah 59 too, it says, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. distractions from walking and hindrances from walking with God. Number two is if we have unconfessed sin or if we have disobedience to His laws and His principles, if we have disobedience in our heart, the Bible says that God is not going to walk with us while we have sin and disobedience in our life. We cannot be close to Him and walk with Him if we've got some things in here that ought not to be in here. And then number three, hindrances. No prayer time, no Bible time. I love reading an old Scottish writer by the name of Andrew Murray. Listen to what he says. He says, and the word are inseparable and should always go together in your quiet time with God. When you pray, you must seek to know God correctly. It is through the Word that the Holy Spirit gives you the right thoughts of Him. It reveals to you all the wonders that God will do for you and the strength He will give you to do His will. The Word teaches you not only what you are, but what you may become through God's grace. How can we walk with Him if we don't spend time with Him? He talks with us through that precious book. The more we read it, the more He talks and communes with us. And then when we kneel down and pray, when we have our quiet time, we have our time of prayer to Him, that's us talking to Him. any relationship, any fellowship, you've gotta have communication on both sides. The Bible is God communicating with us, prayer is us communicating with Him. And the more time we spend in that quiet time, reading our Bible, studying our Bible, and praying and talking to Him, the closer we will be to God. And if we don't, will begin to drift farther and farther and farther from him. I don't share this story very often, but back in, 1992 to 1998 when I joined Rock of Ages prison ministry, I started traveling to about 15 different states doing prison revivals. We'd drive in on Monday, soul in and have services Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, drive home on Friday. And I was in a prison in another state and we met a man, and this is probably 25 years that was an independent Baptist pastor and he was an inmate in prison and we got to talk to him a little bit and I was young back then hello but he was older and we got and he never told us what he did to go to prison but he did tell us this He said, man, he said, I read my Bible and I prepared messages and I preached to my congregation. He said, I was faithful in reading and studying my Bible. And then he said, the reason I'm in prison right now is because I didn't pray the way I should have prayed. And that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Here's an independent Baptist pastor that's in prison and he did something to go to prison and he contributes it all because he didn't pray the way he ought to pray. Hey listen, we cannot substitute anything from spending time with our holy God. Amen. Let's stand together. I'm done. Let me ask a couple questions. How's your walk with the Lord? Would you do kind of like a spiritual x-ray this morning and look at your life and ask yourself, how close am I walking with God? Are me and God close? If the answer is, We're not that close. This altar is a good place to go. I wonder this morning if maybe there's some people here tonight that don't have a, this morning, don't have a clue about what we're talking about when we talk about walking with the Lord. Because you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior. If right now, where you're sitting, if you had a heart attack and you died, and you don't know for sure that you'd go to heaven, you can come here. We got some altar workers, and they'll open their Bible, and they'll show you how you can trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But if we're gonna be the men and women of God that He wants us to be, if we're gonna be Currytown Baptist Church the way God wants us to be, we need to be close to Him. And we need to be close to each other. And we need to love him and love each other the way God wants us to. There should be a hunger and a thirst and a passion in our heart to walk with our God as close as we can walk. Altar's open. Anyone else need to come? Christians be praying, a lot of people at the altar this morning. Amen. Father in heaven, thank you, Lord, for just helping me to preach this morning. And Lord, I know it wasn't real long, but Lord, you laid this on my heart. Lord, would you help us as God's people Lord, just to love you and serve you and glorify you and stay close to you. Father, please help us to have the passion to stay close to you. And Lord, just to get rid of all the distractions and just focus on loving you and serving you. Thank you, Lord, for our worship time this morning. Thank you so much for all the special music, and Lord, for your precious word of God. And Father, may everything we do bring honor and glory to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.