Go into the lesson this afternoon At ease spiritual slumber spiritual slumber we back talking about Nebuchadnezzar and What is in the Old Testament was written for our admonition But when who ends the world the ends of the world has come upon us And a lot of times the physical, what's physical in the Old Testament's a shadow of New Testament times or whatever. And when Nebuchadnezzar, we're in that fourth chapter, the fourth and the fifth verse, he says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my house and prospering in my palace. I had a dream which made me afraid and the thoughts and imaginations and the visions of my head As I was lying up on my bed, trouble and agitated, and it agitated me. Sometimes our biggest problems comes when we're at ease, when we think it's all peace and We've come maybe to the end of our physical road, you know, as we get older in life and the twilight years of our life. As Nebuchadnezzar was here, this chapter here, this vision that he's talking about, probably, as I told you Sunday, a few years before his death, this was a few years before his death, this would be the last that we hear of Nebuchadnezzar is in this chapter here. Uh, it had happened some 30 or 40, maybe 30 or 40 years, maybe after chapter one, two and three, all of those things had occurred and he had built the image and he had made all of his conquest and more than likely he had conquered Egypt, which was one of the last things he did as a servant of God. I'll tell you a little bit more about that Saturday. But God had rewarded him for the work he had did in Egypt. And just like us, we toil out all our lives or whatever, and some of us come to church or serve the Lord or whatever. But there's never a time that we retire and really are at ease. It showed all of the apostles dying deaths, dying horrible deaths. It was only, thank John, who died on the island of Patmos natural death. And that may have been had something to do with the prophecy that Jesus spoke up of, or whatever. But a lot of times in our lives, we have toiling, but coming to church and a lot of older people, I have a couple older friends that don't go to church as much as they used to or whatever. But we never stop on God. We can't slumber. The worst thing that happened to David when he was at ease at the palace and he didn't go out to battle, he didn't go out to war, and that's when he had the episode with Bathsheba. Here Nebuchadnezzar was at ease in his palace and he had looked over Babylon, great Babylon, which he had built. His pride and his accomplishments had lifted up. And God had been telling him and warning him all of this time. And even after this dream that he had, Daniel warned him. But I think the handwriting was already there, what Nebuchadnezzar was gonna go through, because as I said, he came and wrote this fourth chapter of Daniel. And it's to show his conversion. He's becoming a child of, you know, a servant of God, servant of the most high God. And he had been doing things for God all of his life, but it wasn't until we read in this chapter that he seen the Most High, a new ruler in heaven, and he had a testimony for God. And a lot of people in the church, I don't want you coming to church as you get older, sitting up here going to sleep, not coming to church or whatever. Or just kind of, as a lot of older people say, well, I didn't did my thing, now it's time for the young people to do it or whatever. But it may be, as you were talking earlier, maybe that you're still working and still doing it, but you may do it a different way. It's that the younger people could grab up two things or something of heavy weight and carry it or whatever. But you've learned to let leverage work out, let a dolly or something else make it easy. And latter in life, we don't want to quit coming to church. We want to be able to be alert. So we want to, as I was telling a former member, he used to always walk when I'm preaching or whatever. He said, that's them fluid pills, Rep. That's them fluid pills, Pastor. I said, well, look, now, by this time, you know how they work. So why don't you take them a couple hours earlier so you've been and got all of that out the way by the time church time come? either take up at the church at a later time. So during that time frame from nine 30 to 12 o'clock in the morning, you won't be, you learn how to work the system. What happens when we come to Christ is we all look the same. We all in the church, but some of us do as Peter, Peter and James and John, some of them ran with Jesus pretty. much more than the others did. And Jesus was going to face death. And they were in the garden sleeping. And Jesus said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And I'm not saying we don't need rest. I got the parable of the 10 virgins here. It says the king in Matthew 25 and 113, Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lambs and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, that is, careless and silly and thoughtless. Five were wise, that is, foresighted, practical and sensible. For when the foolish took their lambs, they did not take any extra oil with them, but the wise took the flask of oil along with them. And now while the bridegroom was delayed, listen at this verse. They all nodded off and fell asleep. But at midnight, a shout was heard and the bridegroom came. The five wives rose up and trimmed their lamps, whereas the five foolish, they didn't have anything to trim their lamps with. And they asked the wives for some of theirs and said, no, otherwise there will not be enough for us and for you to go instead to the dealers and buy oil for yourself. But while they were going away to buy oil, with him to the wedding feast, the door was shut and locked. I think that's more parable about preparation, of being ready when the Lord comes. And as the scripture says, that we should be continually being filled with the Spirit. In other words, we should be going to church, we should be studying God's word, we should be continually busy. Not on our loyals, not on our leaves, not going back and forth. Me and my brother talk a good bit this morning. He called, we were talking or whatever. And we was talking about my stepfather used to tell us about working and keeping busy and he called it piddling, even after you get old. And you retire off. I'm just as busy now. I be telling people, I say, well, don't call, ask what I'm doing or whatever. Can I do this for you? I'm not sitting around twiddling my thumbs, looking for something for you to give me to do. I'm already busy or whatever. That's the same thing when he says, wait up on the Lord. He don't mean a stop, a sensation of moving. But that word wait, it's like that word nodded off. Some people may nod off a while, but It's different from nodding off and going to sleep. It's a lot of people that kind of nod, but they listen to you. It's in a little light sleep. But it's better to be alert. Other people seeing you alert or whatever, it's a better example or whatever. the spiritually unprepared Christian may sit right beside the spiritually prepared Christian in Sabbath day service and both of them look alike. That's wheat and tares. One is ready, one is willing, one is constantly studying the word of God. They look the same on the outside, but inwardly what makes them strong, what makes them who they are, is the spirit of God. Now they say it's far wise and far foolish. Now the symbolism that they were all Christians are all on the outside looked similar or the same. They both seem interested in the same things and seem to have the same character. Both may diligently give tithes and offerings and serve the brethren. It may only be in a crisis that the real difference shows up. Then attendance may begin to wane. Some may just not come when it's raining. It might be a little bit too cold out for them or whatever to put out the effort. you know as we get older do we put out the same effort do we be as diligent uh... is a spirit of zeal there's a different spirit in the children of god that's why we ask him of his spirit that's what keeps you going that's what gives us life so when you see somebody battery ran down their spiritual zeal and everything going on they need a spiritual charge in them like David allowed his batteries to be ran down physically and he was around the house resting That's one of the reasons in Psalm 51. He says created me a right spirit renew a right spirit The bones that you have broken because you start sitting around watching TV or whatever That's all you would do and you don't want to fight a fight of fuss with people that tell you about watching TV on the computer too much or whatever because you don't want nobody to bother with your meantime Your self-serving time, that's time reserved for you, and that's the problem, is physically. And I tell you that about the Sabbath and everything. We're not being some sort of stringent people that don't want you to work or rest or whatever, but the body is not really made to stay sedentary. As you sit too long and move too long, I was telling my wife that my granddaughter was wanting to go outside and play today or whatever. And I was talking with some other grandparents the other day. I'm always talking with people or whatever. And they say them grandkids is what keeps you young. Because they're always busy, you're always behind them, they're always doing something. Whereas the reason old people, they try to slow the young people down. And if you notice those that's more verbal, more hands on, you have the young people, the little children acting like little old people. They make them sit down, they're not energetic, they don't do anything. Because the old people don't feel like all that, it gets on their nerves or whatever. But if the young people, the older people are energetic, she wanted to go outside, she wanted to go in the woods, she wanted to do all this, that keeps you young. So it might not cozy up to you sitting there doing what you want to do, taking it easy. But it's better for you because if you're diabetic or anything else would help, they tell you try to get 15 or 20 minutes a day of good exercise, good moving around, good energetic moving or whatever. Both of these groups were carrying lamps. So these vessels are not a sign of who had prepared because we all look the same on the outside. Sometimes that's why I say you can't tell the tree by the fruit. That's why Jesus crushed the tree that had a lot of leaves and things on it, but it didn't bear any fruit. There are a lot of Christians that are dressed up and in the church or whatever, but they're not producing any fruit. And if you really bear down on them, you'll see what they're made of. A lot of people, they don't show who they are or what they are until the pressure's really on them. Similarly, a person carrying a Bible to church does not show that that person has prepared by study and prayer during the previous week to overcome sin and produce spiritual fruit, and it was just during this age, the last 20 years or so, that people made a big deal about bringing your Bible to church, having the Bible or whatever. because when i was younger or whatever and i used to go to a baptist church with my mother or whatever but the old people didn't a lot of them couldn't read the bible anyhow but a lot of them didn't carry the bible so it was a different day and time but in this day and time or whatever doing bible studies okay you could bring your bible but doing preaching most of it is not needing your bible at that time because most of the time a preacher take text out of the context of the Bible, and he preaches from that. He puts his sermon around it, so he's not consistently referring to the Bible. He's a different preacher, an expository preacher, in which he goes by verse by verse explaining, and it's a lot less about expounding the Bible. But I want to give you a little Bible knowledge of preaching, I mean teaching, other than preaching at times. So sometimes I don't want to be monotone or taken in a certain way, but sometimes the preacher is what puts you to sleep or the subject's not interested in to you. You know, a lot of people come into the church, it's like the church at Sardis, that they had left or they had, the romance had worn off. You know, people talk about it's past the honeymoon, all the excitement and the joy, and when you first got into the church, you were busy, you were wanting to do everything, you were running and running, but now it's, you know, like you've been married a while, you know, the excitement, the same excitement. Jesus say, you've left or you've lost your first love. You may not be as thankful as you used to be or grateful or zealous. It used to be the zeal is no longer there or whatever. So they all slumber and sleep. And so, like I said, we're not saying that Jesus told his disciples to sleep on. And once they had came away from preaching or whatever, he told them to go in to a deserted place and get some rest. to rest a while. God designed rest for us. We see Jesus after a hard day of ministry was in the sleep, at sleep in the boat or whatever. But we see in the Bible most of the time when somebody is slumbering asleep, it has a sign or a symbol that's attached to that. If you look at the Bible stories, and I don't want to exposit that too much or whatever, but those that are always sleeping, always are slow for spirit or slumber, and that's what we're looking at when he says he was at ease and he is in prosperity. Sometime we get prosperous and get wealthy, we're not as zealous for God as we used to be. We could write him a check, or we could send the money to church or whatever, and about them, and they don't want to put their time there because they're too busy making money. They like the man who was building bigger barns to look at what position his soul is in. So that's why I'm talking about spiritual slumber here. Those five wives didn't sleep spiritually. They both slept. We need, as humans, we need to sleep. But we're talking about a different type of rest for the body. And I told you Christ was our Sabbath. He's our rest. He's our spiritual rest. He even tells you, all ye that are heavy laden and burdened and cast down, come and cast all your cares and your burdens upon me and rest. Come unto me, learn of me. So the principle of the chief thing is learning of Christ. I think that's where we get more rest at. That's where we'd be more vital at. If we have the knowledge of God, it's like you were saying earlier, you learn to work smarter. That fellow that's toting all that stuff and all of that laborious work, he may rest good at nighttime or whatever, but by us being old and then got older and everything, we don't need to wear ourselves out, right? Because we're gonna sleep in and that's part of the thing and part of the thing in age and also is a lack of rest. Baby, that's why Anna was given so much prayer, though, because a lot of people, as you age or get older, prayer, I may need to go to my last point at the end of this, prayer is part of that last point that I want to tell you about. that we should be doing, opening the door. Are we opening the door to Christ? Are we diligently praying, studying, meditating, fasting, and not allowing our deceitful and sleeper natures to accept excuses for failure? In other words, we ought to be able to get up earlier in the morning and take time and read our Bible, those of us who are not working or retired or whatever. We ought to dedicate more time during the day to praying and studying the Word of God. The younger people, maybe not, but as Nebuchadnezzar had gotten older here, was at ease. Be aware, Satan has a rowing line. He's seeking that time for when you are not alert. When you're not circumspect, when you're not watching, the devil told Jesus after the temptation in the wilderness and Jesus overcame it, he said he departed until a more opportune season. Believe me, he's coming back again. He's gone, but he's coming back. He's never completely gone. So we shouldn't be lulled to sleep and not know that diligence is a part of being a child of God, for that's one of the devices of Satan, is to lull you into a false sense of security. And a lot of us, when I tell you when we prosper and have money, financially secure, this nation thinks that its military is secure. This nation is primed for a fall. It's primed for a fall. It's just like Nebuchadnezzar. We have the proudest president we could have ever had. That's a sign of danger. An arrogant, hubric leader. We're spiritually complacent. We're not, we're like the Laodiceans, the Christians have prospered. They're the ones who put this president in that are in. So they are slipping. They have become apostate. The church is falling away from the upstanding. And when a man think he's staying, we have to watch out. Because now that's when Satan, if you look at the book of Revelations, four of those churches, Jesus says, unless you repent, I'll come and fight against you with the sword of my mouth. In other words, with the word of God, because you're a Christian hypocrite. That's the problem. Amos and Hosea preached to the people, and it was two different type of people. Amos was preaching to a people that went to church and that were very religious, but they were religious hypocrites. Those, the one Isaiah was addressing in Jerusalem, Amos, he was a prophet to the northern tribes, but he addressed Jerusalem also as those that was like Sodom and Gomorrah. Because due to our wealth, our prosperity, the church is preaching prosperity, and they think that they have need of nothing. They're led to sins. They have prospered, and they're not strengthening that which is about to die. The spiritual railings are gone. They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Look throughout Isaiah, and you see, he wasn't even accepting their worship anymore. He said, I'm not going to accept it when you fold your hands and come pray to me. I don't want your altar. I don't want your offerings or whatever. In the book of Malachi, he went so far as to say, why don't somebody just come in and lock the doors, close the door, so you won't offer this stuff on my altar? So the people have become apathetic and complacent. We see where even the most dedicated and sincere saints may temporarily become spiritual lethargic because you've served the church and you've done so much and now you think it's time for you to rest. But that's what Jesus, that's what God had told Solomon in his dreams. He said, Solomon, right now you're young and everything, but as you get older, these women will draw their hearts away from you. is nothing like a whole full most of me and all fools you know the women make fools out of the all of me and most men know the women lead them about that that's what happened with a here the women takes control and that's why in the profits is says women in boils of boys of the year leaders and that's what we're having today with this dodge or doge or whatever it is. Young people coming in and tearing down the country. They're firing and laying off without any discernment or without any sympathy. They're looking at money. They don't know about people. They don't know about God. And that's a problem when we get to sleep or we don't have a conscience that's awoke to God. The fact that the bridegroom delayed his coming was one of Jesus' many hints that his return may be later than expected, but we should still be expecting and watch him when they start eating and drinking with the servants and doing as the church doing today and start playing footsies with the world. and have allowed the world to end in the churches and the ministers of satan has transformed themselves into ministers of light. It's almost, they're deceiving, if possible, the elect. So we have a problem, so that's why I say you need to be studying it. I don't want, that's the most dangerous thing in this latter day is Christians that don't go to church, that's not studying the word of God. I wouldn't put my money on somebody that's not going to church. I wouldn't put my money on somebody that hadn't been studying the Word of God, even though they may be in a better position and more sincere and may be saved than that hypocritical person in the church. They had a time to know God, and they didn't. They refused. They rejected God. Now whether God had their eyes closed or not during that time, it could be like the Jews. God could have closed their eyes or whatever. What we can't do to nepotism, allow people to lead us and do things that are not skill in the word of God. by exercise of use in the word of God. We should not allow ourselves, Habakkuk 2 and 3 says, for the vision is yet for a point in time in the future. As it hurries toward its end goal, the fulfillment, it will not fail, even though it delays, wait patiently for it, because it will certainly come. It will not delay. So it's rushing to its end. And when I say patiently wait, I don't mean stand there and look and stop doing anything. I mean, stay busy until he comes. If he come and he find you're not busy, you will have a problem there also. So we can't stop, but we must, the word slumbered. The word slumbering is actually nod off, as I told you, it's a transient act, whereas slept would be sleeping, a continuous act, whereas nodding, you just nod, a lot of times you catch yourself, you're in and out, it's kind of a light state there. The 10 virgins service in reverence to God is done perfunctorily. What I mean, when I say perfunctorily, in other words, a lot of people go to church just because that's what we're supposed to be doing, going to church. It's a performance, it's what they do. That's, you're expected to go to church on church days and Bible study days and things. But it's just going and that's not how to go because are you going expectantly that God's gonna meet you there and that he's gonna do something that he's gonna feed you? Are you hungry and thirsty? Are you just coming from home and then go change one sleeping chair to another sleeping chair? You could come from home, sleep and come here and go to sleep. Are you not paying attention? See, because His Word says those that He bless and feel are those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness. So maybe you need to pace yourself to where on Bible study, prayer service nights, and preaching days and nights, that you should be that day not sleep or whatever that night, so you'll be alert when you come to church because it even helps the people around you. But if you're going to sleep, you can make that guy next to you sleep. You can start making everybody sleep. For a long, everybody's yawning. The preacher keep hollering and changing, trying to wake us up. Whereas if we attended, searching and seeking to find God, like I said, you have to work at it. But if you slumber and sleep, and I said, what's in the physical leads to the spiritual, because physically, if you're not paying attention, spiritually you're asleep, you're slumbering. They, it is more of a habit than a sincere zeal of going to church for some people. It's just like some people saying their prayers. Are you really just saying the prayer or you just going through the ritual like the Pharisees and things did? You almost do this mindlessly. It's almost by rote or whatever. But it's not out of a sincere presence of the Lord and pleasing the Lord and coming before the Lord. The lack of zeal, actually, eagerly looking for Christ is a sign of maturity because you're coming because you want to do, as Peter says, add to your faith knowledge, add to knowledge. So you come into a filling station. But it's no use going to the restaurant to eat and don't eat. You know, if I come home and I'm not hungry or whatever, I think, I do it. If I cook or something, I would rather you not eat if you're not hungry. Don't mess over the food. Don't take it. And that's what the word of God does. He doesn't continually give you the word of God so you can trounce and work it underfoot. He gives you enough that you can be a doer of that word. That you take the word and by exercise of youth and physically and those that are hunger, those that are assimilating the word, he gives you more. But if you're not using that he's giving you, it's gonna be like the talents that you won. Why he gave one person one talent, the other two talents, the other five talents? Because he know that one talent guy was a complainant, wasn't gonna do nothing with it, but go hide it anyhow. So why should he give you five? You're not a hard worker, you're not going to invest that, he do give you. If you read the Song of Solomon, I'm just referencing here, but the Song of Solomon is about this bride, and we'll see that she was diligent after the bridegroom in the beginning, but after the romance had been there a while, it's like I said, about the marriage. The wife will say all she'll do of the husband, all that they will do for one another before they get married. But after the marriage, you might have to fight to get dinner out of him. You might have to do everything to get that joker to go to work. You have to understand that that's why God puts a variation, a difference in life, and he puts the spirit of God in us, and that's the only way marriages last a long time, is partners. Now, let me say that's not the only way, but that's the way marriages last a long time. They both learn how to sacrifice and do for one another. But now there are performances there. Don't let me say that's the only way we're talking about in general. You can tell when someone's love has gone cold. And that's what Jesus says, you've lost your first love. You're not attentive to him anymore. You're not passionate for the church. In other words, you've gone cold, you're going to sleep on him. in a relationship like this woman in the Song of Solomon, that she was dreaming and she didn't know whether it was a dream or not, that the beloved was knocking at the door and the beloved kept beating at the door and she was sound asleep. But then if you read chapter two and three, she wasn't asleep and he was bamming and she heard it, but she couldn't rouse herself up to go to the door. She was drunk with passion and love, and she had had her fill, so she no longer thirst and hunger. The beloved went on about his business. When she realized that he was at the door, and the only way he could have gained interest, and that companions along with the lay of the sea in church, when he says, Jesus, he's knocking at your heart's door. And he says he's trying to gain interest. Well, that kind of is saying that the way to get in the door, you have to open up the door. In other words, it opens from the inside. And he was trying to get in and he left because he couldn't gain interest. It's not that Christ couldn't gain interest to our souls or heart, but he said, he's knocking, he wants you to wake up. He wants you to pursue, he wants you to come, he wants you to voluntarily, like the bridegroom. The brides that was nodding off when they heard the bridegroom, they hurried up because they were looking for him. But this bride, he left. And if you read the story, and from different viewpoint, you'll see where the guards, the policemen, the people of the city beat her. when she went out searching for her beloved. They caught him faster because they thought she was just a street prostitute looking for this beloved. They didn't know that this was her betrothed beloved. They thought she was just some harlot about tonight looking for love in all the wrong places. That's why I say we have to be within the church. We have to be prepared because we will get up doing the wrong things. As Peter, when he awakened from sleep and Jesus was about to be taken from the soldiers, he woke up and doing something rash, he cut off the soldiers' ears. If we're not in alert and in full control, we'll do irrational things. Jesus had to get the soldiers here and put it back up on his head and say, well, don't do this, Peter. He who lived by the sword has to die by the sword. That's why we have to learn to operate. in the word of God, the way the children of God. That's our sword, the word of God. That's our rod. Prayer is one of our tools that we use. That's how we approach God. Through the veil of his flesh, we entered into the body of Christ, into the body of the beloved. We were betrothed unto him. And as our bridegroom and we are his bride, he tell us to facilitate things, ask the father for anything in his name and that he'll perform. So he died for us. He gave his life for his bride. He gave his life for his church. He reconciled us to us. So let's wake up. He made us, he quickened us and made us alive where we could be aware of what we had access to the inheritance in Christ Jesus. how to access these things. So it's by the blood, by the coverage of his blood that he died so that we can boldly go to the throne of grace, that we could approach God boldly. and not dream about these things, but we could act up on them. It's a lot of people that's gonna be dreaming and dreaming. But like Brother Alma used to say, well, he told me that, I don't know, we was riding together, we was doing something out. We had went somewhere, but he was saying there's a lot of people gonna do. He says when he first came in the church, there's so many people always praying about what they're gonna do and they're gonna do, and they still talking about that today. He says, but he's been busy. He built a church there. He's got a lot of things done or whatever he had. See, a doer do whereas a talker talks in dreams. See, so God has placed all of this before us that that's what I want to be. I want to be a doer of God's word. I hear God's word. I see God's word. And when the cry had went out, part of the church, a part of what's in me trying to awaken, but the flesh is trying to lull it back to sleep through making provisions. But let it be a warning to us that we must fight against our own flesh, our own passions and desires. I don't know if you wake by a clock or not, but I know you always up. In the morning, you get on up. But if you get used to listening at that snooze and waking up by that snooze, you go over sleep many a time. Now, the flush don't want to get on up when that clock go off, when that alarm go off. You need to go and get up from there. But the flush goes, give it five or 10 more minutes. Give it another half an hour. Give it a little bit longer. You need to press against that flush. You need to not slumber in sleep. The Bible has a lot to say. Deacon Noble used to always talk about the slow for serving or whatever. I wasn't too much on Deacon Noble, but you know, he did, you know, I did know him some, you know, and like I say, I did have communication with some people and God was, Solomon was hard on the slow for serving. We don't want slow for servants of God within the church. That's why I say, we need young people. We need people that can work in the church. They come in and get things done. We need those that be able to carry two signposts at one time, like you say, the guy was doing. No, he didn't carry our signposts. God didn't move us to a whole nother level. So, being wise is we have to have spiritual progress. But, Now is not a time for wild-eyed fanaticism, but for recapturing a steady sense of control, urgency, and preparing for Christ's kingdom. So don't think that you can go from zero to a hundred. It's a process of growing in the church. I've seen so many people grow in the church and the Bible says not to put a novice in as a preacher, a leader. Young man, I don't want to call names or whatever. I just say G or Gerald. You may not contract anything. When he came in the church, they letting him do this. You can't let anybody preaching in your pulpit. You can't follow novice or too younger people that don't know what they're doing or whatever, inexperienced or whatever, because you want a steady hand at the wheel. He wants somebody that's not, that you can go, you know, with an older person, you can more or less go to sleep while they're driving or whatever, but a younger person, you have to be walk with them because they'll fool around and collide with something, zoom in along. They take the church too fast. They get them involved and all that. So we need the balance of young and old or whatever, just like we need the balance of sleep and rest. So we need the spiritual waking up or whatever, but we don't need to be at ease. My daughter, the church she attends, they have a lot going on a lot of nights and sometimes I say this, I'm not saying that a church shouldn't be busy all the time, but it may not should be the same people all the time. Now that's a problem if the same people having to do it all the time. But I think that the church has to get busy. It's time for the church to put the battle in array. And as Israel failed, God had blinded their eyes and God had gotten us older people. And like I said, I can give advice to my children and to anybody else right now. But God had some time, he puts us to the side to rest. or to go at a pace that's a temperate pace. It's not a pace of sleep. Don't nod off or don't go to sleep. But as we were saying, don't come in and go too fast and try to finish the job off because you have to learn to let God go before you. Saul at the beginning of his ministry. He couldn't wait on Samuel to come he went and offered up the sacrifice and Samuel said I was coming why you didn't you wait to see that's learning to wait patience because He got involved and he offered up a sacrifice He did something he shouldn't do but he was panicking that the enemy was there or whatever but we need to learn to become under pressure and we need to learn that we need to be able to stand and not go to sleep. Wait a minute here. The book of Romans, it says, God hardened their heart. He hardened Israel's heart. God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, a spiritual apathy that has continued to this very day. And David says, let their table of abundance become a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a retribution to them. These are the people of God. Sometime in the church, God allows his people to operate in blindness or darkness because, how can I say this? They have a professional faith in the prosperity. It's not the love of people. When Belta Cesar, Nebuchadnezzar's son got in. When the younger people get in, sometimes they go too fast and with prosperity and moving and not being able to rest and be able to learn about rest, they run through all of the signposts. As Nebuchadnezzar took time, he let the other people go first and Daniel always went last. That's because you always give other people a chance to prove themselves. So sometime with the younger people, not hold them down from proving themselves, but they need to fall in their place also to seek wisdom and guidance from the older people and not criticize the older people about going to sleep and not being made aware. I asked my wife this day, she was doing something, but she could have kept on doing what she's doing. But if my daughter come along and said, well, look, Gigi wanted to come over and be with you today or whatever. Well, that's what we need. My son was calling us Saturday trying to catch up with us to go to the parade. We don't need to be excluded out of our other's lives or whatever to where we just go to sleep or don't have nothing doing and we lull. We need to be incorporated together, but not carried so fast if you're doing so much. Can you understand what I'm saying? So Nebuchadnezzar was a hard worker. He had worked hard all of his life, and I'll tell you about it Saturday. And God was looking after Nebuchadnezzar in his later years. He had been warning him all along. The same with Abraham. So we have to see in life, God is with us all along, and going with us, but he's trying to teach us to be empathetic. Okay, the federal government may be over bloated. It may be a lot of jobs, it may be, but the thing is, what is your motive? You remember I told you God looks at your motive? So sometimes you might need to rest or come aside and take that rest because in sleep, your subconscious mind takes over and it reorganizes your thoughts. And that's why rest is very important, a reorganization. And that's why we have to come aside and study the word of God. That's why he gave us the Sabbath, a day of rest, a day in which we bring God in and learn that God's presence need to be with us, that Sabbath becomes all the time to those that know the Lord and that in Christ Jesus, he becomes our Sabbath, our rest, then we keep that pace or whatever. But we are asleep or we are operating in darkness just as the Israelites and God hadn't awaken us or made us alive, we are in spiritual slumber. Our understanding is darkened at sleep. And the reason I don't say I'm not using the word sleep, I'm using slumber is because we are groping in the darkness. In other words, we're doing things. A lot of people are doing things, but they in darkness that God is not the light, they hadn't found God, and if they find God, He shows you Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ becomes the light of your life, and then you can see. Now you say, nah, I see. I begin to understand that same stuff that you're doing when Christ is incorporated in it, when you married to God, when He's your head, when you being led by the Spirit of God. Now the same things that you're doing, you're being led by the Spirit of God. You have God's blessing. You become a living stone in Christ. You're not building the church. Christ is building the church. But if you build a church, it's doomed for failure. It's doomed for failure. It says, unless the Lord build the house, you labor in vain. All of those stones in the building, they're not gonna be one stone left upon a stone. You have to be led by the Spirit of God. So. I hate to see it. He says, let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see and make their back being under the burden forever. So I say, I have, have they stumbled and so as to fall to spiritual ruin? Certainly not. But by their transgression, their rejection of the Messiah, salvation has come unto the Gentiles. He says, when they realize what they have forfeited now of Israel, if transgression means the riches for the world at large, their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment and reinstatement be? But now I'm speaking to you who are Gentiles, and as much as then as I'm apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. In other words, the whole world's life in darkness. They didn't do what they're supposed to have to do. Israel failed. In the Old Testament, we see they failed tremendously. They were hypocrites, God destroyed, and he says, they'll never have a king to sit on the throne until him who it had been given to come. And that's when he turned it over to the Gentiles. He calls it the times of the Gentiles. That started with Nebuchadnezzar, the king of kings. And the Gentile, and that's why Paul's talking about the Gentiles. But at the end of the Gentile age, is when Jesus Christ comes back and brings in his judgment. But during that time, there's another kingdom arises, it's the kingdom of God, where he's quickening and making us alive. And we're the ones that should be work, we doing the work, and we waking up to the kingdom of God, it's within us. So we're not operating at night, it's light. The manifestation to us is light because he's in the light. We are lights unto the world, but the world is operating in darkness. They can't see Babylon falling. because he's not calling them out of Babylon. Those of us that are not sleep, and I mean spiritually sleep, spiritual slumber, we're children of God and we hear God working. So he says, Thessalonians, he says, so let us not sleep in spiritual indifference as the rest of the world does, but let us keep wide awake, that is alert and cautious. That's 1 Thessalonians 5, 6 through 8. and let us be sober, self-controlled, calm and wise. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who are drunk, get drunk at night. But since we believers belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope and confidence and assurance of Christ. How are we doing that? We're putting on Christ. We're robed in him. You remember I said through the veil of his flesh, he begins to give us light. He awakens us. He quickens up so we can see the deception in the world. We can see those as walking in darkness and we preach to them. We try to wake them up. We consistently witnessing to the world. That's what Nebuchadnezzar did. I told you a sign last week when he says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, he was telling a witness of the most high God of what he did to him. And that's what we tell people what God has did to us and try to awaken them from the night. While sleep one cannot watch. The Greek word for watch can be better translated alert or the word for sober is more correctly translated self-control. So Paul advises, let us be alert and self-controlled. In other words, while all of the things of the world is going on, don't be distracted by the shining lights. Love not the world or the things of the world. Stay focused using the world, but not abusing the world. So like I said, it's not wrong to have things, to want things, to have good things in the world or not, and to prosper. but don't forget who had given you power to get wealth and how to use that wealth. So what the youngsters that are cutting off and laying off, they're driven by money and they have forgot the precept. They forgot what God has and says, love ye one another because you should be willing as Warren Buffett is to carry the burden of others. Warren Buffett says he'd pay over $8 billion a year in taxes. He says if the rest of the 1% of billionaires would pay their fair share of taxes, wouldn't nobody else have to pay taxes? But we are following a nation that advocates deceiving the people to where they got the people trying to disrupt and bring down the government because they're in darkness, they're in spiritual stupor, they're operating in sleep. In other words, they're slumber, they had been awakened spiritually. So a lot of those that are getting laid off, that all these things happened, some of the very ones voted for this. And what motivated you to do these things? Why was you doing it? To entrap and ensnare, it was out of wickedness motives. So don't tell me that you got buyer's remorse now or whatever, you're getting what you got coming because remember, I told you the judgment of Christ comes along with that. And that's why we are studying because these are the end times when it says, fret not thyself because of evildoers. So if it's happening to someone in your family, don't care who it's happening to, you'd better be led by the Spirit of God. You better be in the church asking God what should you do, who you should help, and being led by the Spirit of God. Because if you compromise with sin, If you do the right thing for the wrong reason, you will be punished for it. And you may forever. What does revelation says 18 and four, he says, come out of her, my people come out of Babylon, unless you take part in her place. So there are gonna be a lot of sick people. There are gonna be a lot of people that lose it all. There's gonna be a lot of people even that are in the churches because they were spiritually ignorant or spiritually slumbered and slept. So as I said, we come by the blood of Jesus Christ. We enter into Christ. And I told you one of the verses that was given me coming here was in Revelations, the third chapter. to the book of Sardis. He says, wake up and strengthen. He said, I know your reputation as alive and act as an active church, but you're dead. Now wake up, strengthen what little remains for even what is left is at the point of death. We had a church that was a vibrant church that had a good deal of members in when I first came in when Brother Washington was here, and that's why the church, it had a nice, before I came, it had a pretty large congregation. But with their preaching, doctrinal errors, different ministers and things, it started killing off the church. It started, weakening the churches, and they thought works of religion would get them there, and they start baptizing everybody. Well, baptism doesn't save you. That's not how you strengthen the people. If the way you get a dog or animal away from around you or whatever, the way you get anything away from around you is don't feed it. As long as you feed it, And if it's a goat, they'll eat anything. But if it's a child of God, that's why they went other places. And Jeremiah says, you've scattered my flock. Well, the people went to different churches to be able to feed. And they're looking for the word of God for the truth. That's why the coalition of the MAGA movement, that's why this nation can't last, because the truth, even the little truth that it was founded on, it has morphed away from that, and it's building itself upon a lie, something that's a beast world system, something that's not sustainable. So the truth is what makes us free. Lies and misleading and deception brings you into bondage. And that's where the world, that's where this is headed to bondage and judgment of God. But the little flock, he talks about a little flock in the book of Matthew and the book of Luke. That's the small church. The church is not gonna be a mega church. It's not gonna be the masses. That's the problem. The masses, the popular churches. That's why a lot of our children and things are not following us because the truth is hard. When Jesus fed the multitude, when he fed the 5,000 or 10,000, do you know there were 20 or 30,000 if you counted the women and children? But as he presents the truth, he says, unless you eat of my body and drink of my blood, you shall have no life. They stopped following him. They said, this is a hard saying. He, the greatest preacher that ever was, went from congregations of 20 or 30,000, feeding people through miracles of feeding with just 12 loaves of fish and a basket of bread, to 120 in the upper room. That's all that was with him when he died was 120 in the upper room. He said, the reason they followed me was because of the signs and works, because I fed and healed them. You stop doing for people and you stop prosperity and entitlement and giving them then, you'll see whose side they're on. After your spouse, after you start getting older or whatever, you'll find out whether y'all really love one another, whether y'all still doing for one another, whether it's a reciprocal love. After 50 or 60 years, is it still a strong bond? And that's why, have you left your first love, or are you still fighting? Paul said he was pressing on toward the mark of the hog, high calling in Christ Jesus. Are you still feeling bad if you miss a church service? Are you still feeling bad if you don't get a chance to read your Bible and pray during the day? Don't hunger for that. Don't drift. The Hebrews was drifting. Like I said, I can't say it all tonight. But the Hebrews was drifting. This is just kind of, I'll give you these sheets, but I wasn't able to complete them or open up the way I want to. But the Hebrews had begun to drift away from God because their fervency, their hunger, and that's what's getting a lot of people today. They're becoming apathetic because they're lonely. And they're not letting Christ be their companion. If Christ was with them, they'll be satisfied with a church with five or six people in it. They'll be satisfied with him just being the God in the midst of two or three of them. But if you clamoring as a Pharisee to please the people and for popularity, yet you want to go the broad road and it's a sign of been lulled to spiritual sleep. Heavenly Father as we come before you this