All jokes aside, I'd like you to take your Bibles, please, and turn with us over to the book of Ezekiel, chapter number 47. Trust everyone's had a good week. And if not, well, today's the first day of the week, so you've got a chance to have a good week this week. Once you have found Ezekiel 47, and if you're able to, if you please stand in the honor of the Father's Holy Word, we're going to read the first eight verses here. I have not been intentionally trying to preach out of Ezekiel lately, it's just this is the direction that we feel the Lord would have us to go. So here in Ezekiel, chapter number 47, beginning in verse number 1, the Bible says afterward, He brought me again unto the door of the house. And behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward. For the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under the right side of the house at the south side of the altar." Basically, we've got a trickle going on here. Verse number two. Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the other gate by the way that looketh eastward. And behold, there ran out waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters. The waters were to the ankles. Again, he measured a thousand and brought me through the waters. The waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through. The waters were to the loins. Afterward he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass over. For the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Let me pause right there and say, I laugh every time I read that because I just can't help but picture Ezekiel saying, seen it, I'm about to drown in it. And he says, then he brought me and caused me to return to the break of the river. Now, when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. The Bible says in verse number eight, then said he unto me, these waters issued out toward these country. Remember they started off as a trickle back there in verse number one. And they go down into the desert and go into the sea, which being brought forth into the sea, the water shall be healed. The Lord being our helper this morning, we'd like to bring our sermon on this thought, when the water is allowed to flow. when the water is allowed to flow. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you again, Lord, for the opportunity to be here at 29th Avenue. We are most certainly looking forward to what you're going to do here. We don't believe one bit that it's just to hold our place and wait until Jesus comes, that you are calling us to step forward, to step up for you, and to make a difference here in the community. And I'm not talking Dennis Sampson. I'm talking the whole church here at 29th Avenue. And Lord, we're looking to see a movement from you, Father. We don't wanna move if you ain't moving, and the direction you're moving, that's the direction we wanna go in. And we are begging you, Father, please to help us, because we are all sinful flesh. We fail, we get lazy, we get our feelings hurt. But Lord, our desire is to serve you, the one who bought us at such a great price, and snatched us from the pits of hell so that we could one day go to heaven. Man, we're looking forward to that, Father. We love you, Lord, and help me, Lord, please, to present this sermon the way that you'd have me to. In Jesus' name we do pray, amen and amen. You may be seated. So when the water is allowed to flow, today we're, for lack of a better word, we're looking to challenge each and every one of us with our sermon here this morning. 29th Avenue is embarking on a new leg of our adventure in this world. It would be happening, whether it was myself, Jeremy, somebody else, eventually a new pastor, whatever the case would be. The road still lies ahead. There will be twists and turns, there will be ups and downs, there will be hard times, there will be easy times, there will be glad times, there will be sorrowful times, there will be times of disappointment, there will be times of shouting and rejoicing. But if we will go forward for the Lord, and in the Lord's strength, in the Lord's power, we are going to see some growth here at 29th Avenue. Not just in the number of people inside the building, But in our own lives, in our own spiritual well-being, we are going to get healthy again, church. This flesh might be falling apart, but spiritually, we can get healthy. And I want to get healthy. Now, we're not looking for a monumental, sudden increase, a sudden movement, but we're looking for what the Lord would have us to do. And if it ends up coming that way, praise God. If it ends up taking us a while before we really start to see any change, praise God that's what we're going to do because that's the way He wants it. But if we will be faithful, if we will allow His waters to flow through our lives, to flow through us and into others, I believe, church, that we are going to see something wonderful happen here. A couple weeks ago, we referenced there in the book of Revelation about how Jesus told the church of Laodicea to buy gold of Him that had been tried in the fire. And as we said then, Jesus went and told them to buy this gold if it wouldn't do them any good, if it was already too late. Church, it's not too late. You say, how do you know that, preacher? Simple, you're here. There might be empty seats, but you're here today. If it was too late for 29th Avenue, there would be a for sale sign outside this building and the lights would all be cut off. It's not too late, church. If we will take care of the little things, I believe we're going to see some movement. There's a song out there on the radio right now called Dream Small. And I really am liking this song there because it's basic premise is to take care of the little things, Miss Monia. And God will take care of the big things. We do our part, church. God will do His part. If you look at the very fact of a covenant, we're getting a little off the sermon here, but if you look at a covenant, one side was supposed to bring bread and the other was supposed to bring salt. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. If we will bring the salt, He will come and meet with us. But we've got to bring it into our lives. And I believe what we see here as we go through a portion of this chapter here is we're going to see how these waters flow and what happens as a result of it and what will happen in our own lives. Verses 1-7 we see the coming of the waters. And for the sake of time we're not going to re-read those verses. We did it with our text there. But we see as this water begins it's just a little trickle coming out. And you say, well a little trickle doesn't amount to much, does it? Well, leave that faucet on in your house as a trickle for a year and find out how much your water bill just went up. It goes up a lot. That trickle means something. And it's going to start off small. It may not seem like much, but it's going to add up. I was actually thinking this morning about an incident that happened on my bread route a few years back. I was pulling Miss Carol into one of my stops and I noticed that there was a red Solo cup tipped over. And the ground, even though it's kind of dark, was kind of shiny. What in the world's going on there? It caught my eye. And as I got closer to the cup, I realized that it wasn't shiny because liquid had spilled out. It was shiny because a whole cup full of pennies had been spilled out. Yeah, I got out and I picked up a whole cup full of pennies. They add up to dollars. Dollars add up to getting bills paid or going on vacation. Whatever the case is, church. So, it starts off small. Don't fret the small stuff. Take it. Run with it. See what God's got for you. Because it's going to build up. It'll be slow, but it'll do it. But you notice here, in these verses, it starts off with a trickle. And then the man takes Ezekiel and four times he takes a measurement of a thousand cubits. Turn me down a little bit brother Jim. A thousand cubits there. Four times a four thousand cubits later, he gets to verse number five and it's a river that he can't pass over. He gets to a river that there is no bridge to cross over. He gets to a river, he can't walk across this river. He's going to have to swim if he wants to go through there. Now church, why would God bring us to a place where we have to swim through the waters? Plain and simple, because our enemies cannot swim, but God will carry us through. He says, through the fire, through the flood, I am with you. Praise God. He will take us through this mighty, this little stream, turn into a mighty river. I got to thinking about a mighty river, one we've got here in the Western Hemisphere. You may have heard of it, it's called the Amazon. The Amazon River is 4,345 miles long. It winds through several countries in South America. It begins at Huancayo Province, Peru, up in the Andes Mountains, and makes its way over to the Atlantic Ocean. A little trickle coming off a mountain becomes the mighty Amazon River. 4,345 miles long from a trickle. Church, it'll start off small for us, but what sort of an impact are we gonna have? How many lives are we gonna end up touching as we go through the course of our lives? Let the coming waters flow, church. God's got something for us. Now, not only do we have the coming waters, but if you're gonna have all this water flowing, there needs to be a course for it. Verse number eight says, then said he unto me, these waters issued out toward the east country. That's where it began. And go down into the desert, and go into the sea, which being brought forth into the sea, the water shall be healed. The site has been set. You know anything about shooting a gun, you look through a sight back here and a sight there and you line it up so that you get on target. If you are running a race, you've got an idea as to where that finish line is and your sight is set on it because you don't want to stop short of the finish line. You don't want the finish line to be over there and you decide you're going to take off running this way. It ain't going to do you no good. But the God says, I've got my sights set on a specific destination for you. And praise the Lord, He's going to take us there if we will go with Him. But it's up to us if we're going to go with Him or not. We can easily choose to sit back here and say, Lord, it's all you. God will say, OK, it's all me. And you're going to miss the blessings for it. But his sites are set. We need to get our sites set right alongside his. Why? Because there are sand dunes that are going to come along. It says here that it flows into the desert. Now the desert tends to have an awful lot of sand. No witches, so you can't make no sandwiches. Go figure. Some of y'all catch that joke a little later. But what you do find there in these sand dunes are dry patches where there is no water. You will find mirages that make you think there's water, but there's no water. You will find abrasive sand, that sand that starts getting into cracks and grooves and it hurts and it starts making, you know, irritating your skin. It's abrasive and it's uncomfortable. Our feelings are going to get hurt from time to time. I might say something that will offend you. I'm apologizing right now in advance. I'm human. I don't mean to hurt anybody, but for the sake of 29th Avenue on the overall, I'm going to do what's best for the church. I don't want to exclude anybody. It's not my intentions, and I don't want to be excluded. That's why I want all of us to work together. It'll cut down on the hurt feelings. Now, if we will avoid these distractions, we can see some results. Because these distractions are just that. They're wanting to take our eyes off of the prize. And the prize here is the shoreline that is coming up. This river didn't just flow into the desert and say, poof, that's it, good enough. The river kept on going unto the sea. In other words, the water was flowing out there where it was natural for it. The water is not natural there in the desert, but it is natural with other waters there. And if we will flow and allow God to use us, we are going to see Him opening up the windows of heaven and pouring out a blessing to us such as we have never thought about having before, Brother Jose. Let the Lord work it in. It's kind of like a good balm that way. You get some muscles that are hurting or tired, and you start working that balm in there, what happens? That muscle starts feeling good again. As you're letting the medicine get in there, God says, you let my water flow into your lives in the course that I want it, and you're going to see benefits. One person put it this way. Focus. Follow one course until successful. Focus. My problem is that I can get in out there and get excited about this, and that's nice and shiny. I'm not going to go searching over here. Oh, yeah, I got to do this. Oh, but I got to come back over here. And I can get myself distracted real easy. The river that does that ends up drying up because it is branched out so many ways it loses the water. It got distracted. Follow the one course that God has laid out for you, and He will benefit you. If we will do that, I'm telling you now, church, there will be consequences to this water. Verse number nine, we see the submitted lives. and it shall come to pass that everything that liveth, which moveth with us over the river, shall come, shall live. And there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come hither. For they shall be healed, and everything shall live, whither the river cometh." That word, moveth, I thought that was a very interesting word. Did one of my word studies on it. Well, I tell you, Miss Maudie, I'm glad I did. Because, you know, I'm moving. Everything that's moving, it's alive. Yeah. Because if you stay still and you're sedimentary, you're going to eventually die. But if you're moving, yeah, I'm feeling good. Blood's flowing, and I can get strong that way. That's not what this word means. Blew my mind when I looked It means to breed. I got to thinking about this. Having kids, is that what we're talking about? No. This is a breeding of growth. This is like if you take a book of matches and you pull one match out and you strike it, that one match will burn. But you take that one match and you strike it, And then you put it with all the other matches that are still in that book. The whole thing lights up. Fire breeds fire. Did you hear me, church? Fire breeds fire. We need souls that are on fire for God. And when we get on fire for God, and we will find it is a different C word, a C word called contagious. It will spread like wildfire. And the more people who are getting into the Word, and reading it, and studying it, who are spending time in prayer, who are going above and beyond, doing everything they can for the cause of Christ, they're going to find someone else who's going to say, I want what they got, and I've got to start acting like them. And it's going to spread to them, and it's going to spread to them. And we're going to start to see some growth here, church, in our own lives. And once we start seeing it in our own lives, then we can start seeing it as others start coming in. as we start seeing others as we get saved. And that's what verse number 10 talks about. It's like shooting fish in a barrel when we are on fire like this. Verse number 10, and it shall come to pass that the fishers shall stand upon it from En Gedi even unto En Eglium. They shall be a place to spread 4 Next their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea exceeding many. like shooting fish in a barrel there, consequences to allowing God's love to flow in us, to allowing God's power to flow in us, to allowing that water to flow into our lives there, and it begins to spread out, and we start seeing souls saved. Praise God, that's what we're supposed to be after anyways. And for those who are worried about seeing actual numbers in a church, that's when you're gonna start seeing it, church. I'm not looking to steal members from other churches. I want to see actual growth. Over and over again, the book of Acts talks about, and such and such, blah, blah, blah. The Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Why? Because they were on fire for God. Can he do it for us? Yep. Will he do it for us? Now why do I say it depends upon us? Quite frankly, because the sedimentary stuff is going to get flushed out. Verse number 11 says, but the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed. They shall be given to salt. Those two words, miry places, means a swamp. And you think about all the nasty stuff in a swamp, That's sedimentary. It ain't moving. It's stagnant. It stinks. Good night, it stinks. And it does nothing but breed mosquitoes. I work over here by a swamp. Trust me, it does. The word marshes means a reservoir, a place of collection. In other words, stuff comes in, but it does not go out. God says, I'm going to take that stuff, and I'm going to push it off to the side. because I want my waters to flow. Running water is healthy. Water that's not moving unless it has been somehow preserved like originally. This bottle was sealed up nice and tight so as it would last for a long time. But if I leave this out here now like this, a couple weeks I'm going to come back and there's going to be a film on the top. A few more weeks there's going to be some funky looking stuff growing in there. It's going to have fur eventually. Because it's not going to move. God says, whoever ain't going to cooperate, I'm going to let them have their way. And I'm going to let them sit off to the side. And they're not going to get healed because they're going to ignore me and following my will. That's not ignore Dennis, that's ignore God. There are consequences to this water when it flows. But there's also a consideration from the water too. Verse number 12, And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed. That shoreline along this course of the water is going to change and trees begin to grow. What happens when the trees begin to grow? The wildlife starts coming. What happens when all that's happening? You've got life. You've got shade. You've got rest. You've got a place to eat. Things can change here in our community. Things can actually begin to turn around here in Lake Station. If we can get this place to where God wants it to be. And by place I mean me, you, you, you, you, you, you. Not this building. The building's nice. I'm glad we've got a nice big building here, church. Someone say amen to that. I'm glad that we've got room for a choir up here eventually. I'm glad we've got a fellowship hall in the back. I'm glad we've got Sunday school classrooms. And by the way, that's a huge thing, because I know of at least one church right now that really ain't got Sunday school classrooms. I left it. I'm coming here. We've got room, church. It's nice, but it ain't that neat. Trust me, I've seen it there at Sunrise, how the Lord has moved, how we've had services where literally the pastor doesn't even get to preach because the Spirit is among us. I want that here. I want to see the shoreline changed here for us and for them. We see the strength to benefit others. The Bible talks about that these trees shall grow all trees for meat. I've never once, brother Dave, seen an apple tree that eats its own apples. Have you? No. Anyone in here ever seen an apple tree eat an apple? No. Because the apples aren't for the tree. They're for the people. They're for the animals. They're for others. And Lake Station will benefit New Chicago will benefit, Hobart will benefit, Gary will benefit if we'll get on fire from the Lord. Strength will flow. Our fellow churches will benefit from us, and we'll benefit from them. That's why we made sure to post these flyers here, all the doors here, talking about this upcoming meeting with C.T. Townsend, because we want everybody to know about it. And I definitely encourage everyone, go to these meetings. Say, LePort's far. I understand. That Tuesday night, I'll meet up with anyone who wants to and we'll carpool out there, we'll caravan out there, we'll get us a convoy, Brother Dave, how about that? And we'll go out there to LePort that way. We'll do whatever it takes. I want to go out there and I want to get what the Lord's got for me. I want you to get what the Lord's got for you as well. Don't wait just for the Hobart meeting. If you can, go. Don't make up excuses. Go. Because I'm telling you, God's got something great here in mind for us. And God says, I've got strength abounding for you that I want to give to each and every one of my people. And that's why we've got plans, why we've got desires to see growth here, and have other services take place, and get into God's Word, why we're pushing it so much. Because we know there's strength waiting for us. And I want it. I hope you do too. Because his supply... It's endless. He says here... whose leaves shall not fade. You know, what we've got right now, we've got summertime, but eventually fall, these leaves are all going to turn yellow and brown and red, and they're going to fall off. And we're going to have a period where these trees are not going to be able to produce nothing, because they're going to go dormant for the winter. God says here, ain't going to happen when I get a hold of you. Neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed. I got to thinking about that one. And I found out, Jose, that it's not talking about it will not be eaten. It's kind of pointless. What is it, wax fruit? No, this is the good stuff. What it means by not consumed is it will not end! You know what ends it right now, church? My hard heart. Your hard heart. Your hard heart. That's what ends it. Our laziness. Huge sinner right there in that one, I'll admit it. Don't no one raise your hands, I have done a minute for all of us. When we start getting back to God, He's gonna do something for us and it's gonna be an endless supply. As I was thinking about the Amazon River there, church, we'll tell you this story and we'll close. A couple of centuries ago, There was a boat that was sailing around South America. Something had happened and they ran out of water in the middle of the ocean. Can't exactly pull in the port and stop at a 7-Eleven to get more water. And they had gone days without water. Brother Jim, they One day they spotted another ship heading their way. And once they got close enough, give us water or we die. Give us water or we're going to die. And the captain of that other ship responded with this, dip it up. We're in the middle of the ocean. You can't drink salt water. I mean, you can, but you're going to kill yourself because your body can only process so much salt. And when you get more salt coming into you, then your kidneys can eliminate. Guess what? You're going to die. Your organs will shut down. Too much salt. You cannot drink salt water. What do you mean, dip it up? We need water or we're going to die. Dip it up! So finally one guy says, all right, I'll show him. Took a bucket, threw it overboard, got some water in there, he pulled that rope up there, started chugging. Woo-wee, this is fresh water! Was he going crazy from not having water? He dehydrated and all of a sudden he's drinking the salt water? Eh-eh. You see, even though they were out of sight of the shoreline church, they were within 100 miles or so of the Amazon River. And that little trickle that begins there in Huancayo Province, Peru, up in the Andes Mountains, that little trickle that, logically speaking, should go down the other side because the Pacific Ocean is so much closer than the 4,300 plus miles it takes to get to the Atlantic Ocean during that winding course that zigzags back and forth and goes this way and goes this way. It makes absolutely no sense. And you've got the river here and 100 feet over, there's the river again, but it goes down that way for a mile before it finally turns up this way. And there's all the twists and turns. It's totally logical. That little trickle produces an outflow so powerful, it pushes the saltwater back and brings in fresh water into the ocean. And their lives were saved by a little trickle way back there. They didn't think they stood a snowball's chance, but they had water right underneath them. They thought they had no hope. but they're surrounded by hope. They thought they had no strength, but the strength is right there. Church, it's sitting right there in our laps. Are we willing to dip it up? I've got just two questions and a statement for you this morning. Number one, can you stand to see some change? that you yourself make in your own life? Or are you willing to just go with whatever flow you're in? Number two, are you willing to let yourself go with God's flow? Choice in both cases is up to you. I can only choose for me. I can't even choose for my wife. I can only choose for Dennis Samson. The choice is yours. And my statement is this, this is a choice that each one of us has to make on our own, on an everyday basis. And we can write it as far as we want to, but how far is gonna be up to us? Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for all that you've done for us, and pray, Lord, that each and everyone here was able to get what they needed out of the sermon. And we do pray, Lord, that you'd help each one of us to please be obedient to you, We want to see growth here at 29th Avenue. We want to see you moving in our lives, in the lives of our families, in the lives of our friends, our co-workers. We want to see a movement, Father. Because otherwise, we might as well just go ahead and shut these doors, kill the lights, put the property up for sale, and go on with our lives. I'm not looking to do that, Lord. And I do pray, Lord, for everyone here that we will all come together and work for you. As we said earlier, to pull the rope the same direction. We know you can do it. We love you, Father, and to you we pray. Amen and amen. Please stand.