Now Is the Accepted Time

And I think sometimes when you grow up in church, you can forget some of those things and the world looks attractive. And my prayer is that you wouldn’t be deceived by the wicked one who wants that in your life. But I’m in Acts 24 and a lot of the meat of what we’re gonna be talking about this week will be tonight and during the week, and we’ll build on what we talked about in the first the first session this morning.

But in Acts chapter 24, we’ll look at this man named Felix. And in Acts 24 and verse 24, the Bible says, and after certain days when Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, go thy way for this time when I have a convenient season I will call for thee. Let’s pray. Lord, I pray that you’d bless the message this morning. Lord, I have nothing in myself and I wanna submit myself again new and afresh just totally to your care. God, I pray that you would speak through me and that your Holy Ghost, Lord, would minister to your people. Lord, you know where the message needs to land and God, only your Holy Ghost can open our eyes and our understanding and motivate us in spiritual matters. God I pray you’d bless this morning in Jesus name.

Amen. Sad situation here when we see this man who is looking for a convenient season. He’s saying, I’m interested. I’m convicted. This is moving. This has touched me. But when it’s convenient, when it’s a better time, then come back and we’ll talk about these matters. And we know of that phrase in the Bible, thou almost persuadest me to be a Christian. And so often is the case with not just lost people, people that don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior or said another way, they don’t have assurance that they’re on their way to heaven.

And I’m amazed even today the people that they hear terms like saved and born again but they really don’t even know what they mean. Up our way, the Catholic church has hijacked those terms. If you ask a Catholic if they’re born again, they’ll say yes. Where before they would say, oh no, I am a Catholic and and they would be very curt about it. But what they believe is when you ask them how are you born again, they start to talk about their entrance into the Catholic church at baptism and the good things that they do and and it’s the same old same old getting to heaven by good works.

And so we shouldn’t take for granted that people always know what it means to be born again. To have a spiritual birth. To have the spiritual lights on in your heart and soul. To have Jesus as your friend, not just someone that you know about. As a Catholic boy, I knew who Jesus was. I heard about Jesus all the time. I believe Jesus was God. And you said, if you believe Jesus was God, you’re going to heaven. Not if you’re trusting your good works or your baptism or your church membership or your family.

And so many people in the North and in the South are trusting in something else other than just the mercy and grace of God forgiving their sins because they realized that they were on their way to hell. And if you’ve never been lost, if you’ve never realized, truly realized you’re on your way to hell, you’ve never been saved. And it’s so simple. A child can understand how to get saved.

A child can understand the simple gospel plan. But we have a number of different kind of things happen in our churches. Sometimes young people reject it. In other words, they’re not confused. I’m ever amazed. My brother was a pastor’s son, didn’t get didn’t get saved till he was 19 years old. And if you were to ask him, he would say, I rejected it the whole time. If I could have, he would say, I would put I would have put my fingers in my ears when I heard the gospel being given. That’s how rebellious his heart was.

Now I got saved at a young age but I was one of those young people that went astray and in my teen years kinda went out and started Though I was in the church, my heart wasn’t there. So I know what that’s like. And God had mercy on both of us. We’re both saved, born again Christians pastoring today. God has blessed us. So everything is not always right just because you’re in the walls of the church. And so if me and my brother are just a sampling, there’s many people in church that are not saved and some of them are rebelling against salvation.

They know what they need to do, they just haven’t done it. They’re like Felix. They’re saying maybe one day I believe in God. I do understand that he died on the cross to save me. I know salvation’s available and I might even have been convicted. But I’ll send you away and I’m gonna send all of this conviction away and when it’s convenient, when I’ve lived my life, when I’ve had a good time, when I’m an old man, well then I’ll make time for God.

And that is a sad situation. There’s some that are deceived. They think that they’re going to heaven because they’re Baptist or they’re good old boys and and they’re better than someone else and surely God’s gonna have to have mercy on me if that person or that preacher or my neighbor who claims to be a born again Christian, if they’re going to heaven, I’m surely going to heaven.

You know, that’s what they think. And maybe that’s you today. And I’m here to tell you, listen, we’ve got to look at what God has to say in his word. He’s the one that makes the rules. He’s the one that sets the platform and this thing of the gospel that we need to follow. But you know in Felix’s life, he puts this off and he says, when a convenient season comes, I’ll send for you.

In Felix’s life that convenient season never came. He never called for Paul. And I just wanna tell you that while conviction is at your heart’s door, the biblical admonition is now. Now is the accepted time. The Bible talks about salvation and now is the time. Not today, now. Now is the accepted time. When you hear the preaching of the word of God and I said in the first hour, I’m gonna say it again, you’re gonna have to bear with me. I’m a New Yorker. I’m just blunt. I’m gonna be as nice. I promise the preacher I’m on my best behavior.

Alright? But I don’t know any other way than just to throw it out there. I love you. I care for you. I’m just gonna throw it out there. But you know the truth is a lot of times we we are looking for a convenient season but the convenient season never comes. And now is the accepted time. There is no other accepted time than now. When the preacher is preaching, when conviction comes, whether you’re reading your Bible, whether you’re driving down the road and conviction comes, when you’re hearing the preaching of the word of God and preaching comes or conviction comes to your heart I should say, now is the accepted time. You need to get right with God now. You need to obey him now. If he’s calling you to the mission field then you have to bend your heart and your will to him now.

It’s not a convenient season. It’s not sometime today, maybe tomorrow. I’ll come to the altar and God I wanna do better tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. And we’ve got to commit ourselves to God now. I wanna warn against pushing God aside. One of the greatest sins that you could ever sin, the Bible talks about it, is to push God aside. To grieve his Holy Ghost, to say no to God, to reject him. There’s a lot of people that come to church and this may be you. I don’t know the people in the auditorium this morning. I’m a stranger here. I’m from a different place.

But the thing is is a lot of times people come and they say, I just am not sure about this salvation thing and I don’t know that I can trust God and I don’t know about this and I don’t know if I could believe in a God I don’t see and they’re questioning some things. Listen, it’s okay to question. It’s okay to have questions. It’s okay to seek. The Bible says if you seek me, you’ll find me but don’t reject him. Don’t reject him. Open your heart to him.

One of the greatest Bible words is yield. Yielding is one of the greatest principles taught in the Bible and if you’re not yielded to him, you are in a sense rejecting God or grieving his spirit. And so many people in churches, the reason why we have schisms and the reason there’s trouble in the family and there’s trouble in all areas of our life is because we’re not yielded to him.

We may be doing certain things that are biblical but there’s a whole cast of things that we’re rejecting God on. We’re choosing I’m gonna do this but I’m not gonna do that. Which is categorically rebellion in the Bible. I mean it’s just Saul did all of this and he said, listen I have killed the Amalekites. I’ve done what you’ve told me to do but the people saved Agag and the sheep. And the people made me do this. And of course, what does Samuel say?

Thou has rebelled against the word of the Lord. A lot of times we think we’re obeying when we do part. Incomplete obedience is is rebellion against God. And so when God speaks to our heart, I wanna encourage you all this week that when God speaks to you, I don’t care if you come to the altar or you get right with God in your seat, now is the accepted time. Amen. And if you’re here this morning and you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, if you have no assurance of heaven, now is the accepted time. Don’t wait. Don’t wait. Felix is pushing it off. He’s saying a convenient season and so many are are doing that saying, you know, I’ll do it later preacher but just not now.

If God calls me to the mission field or one day I’ll surrender to be a preacher. Listen, the reason why we’re not sending missionaries is because people are saying just what Felix is saying. Later. A convenience season. When the bills are paid. When I’m in a better position. When my kids are a little older and now never comes or the convenience season never comes. Now is the accepted time.

The Bible says now is the day of salvation. Now is that accepted time that we we see in the Bible. Matthew chapter four, very quickly, and we’ll look in some of the gospels just to see this principle taught in the word of God because Jesus walks by Simon Peter and he walks by Andrew, his brother. And in verse 19, we see these words recorded in Matthew four, the Gospel of Matthew chapter four. Follow me and I will make you what? Fishers of men.

Jesus walks a little further. He sees James the son of Zebedee and and John his brother and what does he say? Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Can I just tell you this morning God’s saying the same thing to you? Follow me. Follow me. We’re all different. We talked about that in the first session. There’s diversity of gifts and we have different personalities and we’re all different parts of the body and if that’s all listening to the Holy Ghost, we will function as a team.

But listen, one of the principles of this of this yielding is just simply following, another Bible word, just follow me. God is speaking. Are we listening? Are we following? If if I said this morning, whoever is following God a 100%, you stand this morning. I mean, would you be able to stand? Would you be able to say I’m yielded to the to the Holy Ghost this morning? Whatever he wants me to do, wherever he wants me to go, I’ll do whatever he wants me to do.

We have reservations sometimes, don’t we? And maybe that’s our humanness. Maybe we don’t understand God. Maybe we don’t trust him. We think if I yield to God he’s gonna ask me to do something that I don’t wanna do. Something that’s scary. Something that’s dangerous. Can I tell you that you don’t have to fear God? Amen. When the disciples were called follow me and Jesus walked by, they did not have to fear because that God had a perfect plan for their life.

Can I tell you that God has a perfect plan for your life? You say, but I’m not one of the disciples. You need to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Just following in his footsteps. I think the more I understand about the Lord Jesus Christ, the more I read about him in the scripture, the more I understand how good he is, the less I fear him and the less I’m prone to resist him.

Oh, I still have that flesh that wants to do what it wants to do and I still have the same fears. It’s amazing how we can fight battles and see great victories accomplished and we can go through all kinds of things and see prayers answered. And the next thing you know, we’re fearing God again. We’re doubting God again. I mean we talked about Elijah this morning. Elijah stands on Mount Carmel and Elijah, I mean he has this great victory over the prophets of Baal. I mean fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice and I mean the next thing you know they’re cleansing the land of the prophets of Baal and then Jezebel, one one phone call.

You say, she didn’t call him on the phone. I’m trying to make application this morning. One phone call changed his life. One word and all of a sudden the great prophet who had the great victory, now he’s running. And the same is you and I because we’re flesh. But I want to encourage you, don’t fear God in the sense of I can’t trust God with my future. You can trust God.

Don’t put God off and say later Saved or lost, the position we need to be in with God is now is the accepted time. Yielded to him, following him, now is the time. Look at Matthew chapter eight and verse 19.

We already mentioned a convenient season never comes. If we’re waiting for the perfect time, it’ll never get here. My father used to talk about something, he was very impacted about something that was called Maslow’s theory. I don’t know if you ever heard of it or seen a diagram. There’s a pyramid. And Maslow’s theory was just this that you get all of your life in order and you pay all your bills and you get everything all set and take care of your family and you do everything. And by the time you get to the top of the pyramid when everything is all settled in your life, then all of the blessings will flow out at the top and now you’re in a position with plenty of money and everything’s going perfect that you can bless everyone. But you know what the problem with that is?

You never get to the top of the pyramid and so you never bless anybody. You live for self your whole life. So Maslow’s theory doesn’t work. But a lot of times if we look at what we’re doing in our life, we’re following Maslow’s theory and we’re self centered and what we need to be doing is considering others. And so don’t look for the convenient season because life is full of trouble. Matthew eight and verse 19, and a certain scribe came and said unto him, master I will follow thee. Okay. He’s saying, I wanna follow you Jesus, whithersoever thou goest. Well that sounds good.

Great. You know, we’ll sign you up. We’ll sign you up for institute. We’ll sign you up to go to the mission field. We’ll sign you know, great. I’m so glad. People will come to the pastor and say that. I’m ready to follow you pastor to the end. You tell me where what’s what’s the job, I’ll do it. If you’ve pastored any length of time, you’ve heard that. If you’ve been a leader in a ministry, you’ve heard that. But you know what?

All of a sudden when you give the job out, all of a sudden it changes. When when they all of a sudden they see what the cost is. Well, I was thinking about something where someone else could you know use their time and their money and and all of that. Let’s look at the scripture. Verse 20, And Jesus saith unto him, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Well, doesn’t sound very good. I was in a meeting with some of our staff and they were talking about a job position and talking about budgeting money. Nothing wrong with budgeting money for a job position and all of that. But you know in our church a lot of the guys that have come out and served, my father, myself, the first assistant pastor, many, can go through a list, they did a job for no money.

They served and sacrificed and got almost nothing. And I’m just saying that what Jesus is saying is I’ve got nowhere to sleep you. There’s gonna be, you know, the foxes have more than I have to offer you in earthly things. Can you see that in the scripture? He’s saying the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man, I don’t even have a place, I don’t have a house where I can go back and sleep.

I mean I’m on the road constantly. You know what he’s doing? He’s testing them. He’s helping them to count the cost. Now listen, God wants us to count the cost and when we’re talking about eternal things, they’re always worth it. It’s always a good plan to follow God. God’s not gonna hurt you. But we’ve gotta get shook out of all of this, well is my life gonna be perfect God if I follow you? Am I never gonna have a pain? Am I never gonna have a struggle? Am I never gonna have a financial hardship?

Trying to help you this morning. A lot of the schisms in the body is because we have the wrong expectation. We’re looking for God to iron out everything on the road perfectly flat but we don’t get that. Man is born under trouble. So either you will face the trouble with God in his will or you’ll face the trouble without God. It’s not a matter of, well, if I don’t follow God, I’ll not have any trouble.

That’s not what’s gonna happen. You can make a choice to be with God and there be some difficulty but you’ll have him with you. Rather to have God with you than to be fighting the battles of life alone. So many people think, well if I have a good job or I have money or I have this, that will answer my problems. It will not. So much better to have God.

So Jesus is kind of answering back. This this person saying, I’ll follow thee wherever you go. And he says, I don’t even have a place to lay my head. And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go bury my father. And Jesus, he says something pretty harsh here. He says, Jesus said unto him, follow me and let the dead bury their dead.

Wow. I’m not recommending the leader to say that but think about if the pastor said that. Wow. You say, well Jesus said that. Yeah, I know. And we know he said it, it’s right. It’s perfect. We’re not gonna question it. But it seems a little insensitive, doesn’t it? I mean on the surface Jesus is saying a hard thing and what his point is is you’ve got to put me first and you’ve got to forsake everything else. He’s gonna use a comparative word called you know hate is the comparative word with family that listen, God’s gotta be first and everything else has to pale in comparison.

God’s gotta be your number one. If God’s number one, our soul can be refreshed. If God’s number one, we can have no schisms in the body. It starts at salvation. It starts with this attitude of now is the accepted time. Sometimes we get saved and we listen and we answer that but then all of a sudden something changes. We live our Christian life and all of a sudden now we start pushing God’s things off.

We had the right attitude in the beginning. God spoke to us. He convicted our hearts. We accepted him as our Lord and Savior. But now all of a sudden, we’re pushing him away. Now is not so important to us anymore. And now it seems like we’re we’re kinda pushing things off.

I think if Jesus said that to the average Christian today, that would probably run most of them out of the church. If Jesus was here and he said, let the dead bury their dead. You follow me. But this is what Jesus said. Now you’re looking at me real strange. See like like I feel like I’m in a in a foreign culture. You know, I’ll be in some place in the third world or somewhere where they’re speaking a foreign language and they’re all looking at me like, what is he saying?

I’m just trying to read the Bible a little bit. And if you’re thinking that’s a good thing. But this is what Jesus’ words are. He’s saying, I’ve got to be your number one. Are you yielded to me? Are you willing to do whatever it is that I ask you to do? And whatever he asks, his words, his ways, it’s not grievous. His commands, his laws, it’s not grievous.

The the world tells us it is. The world tells us if you get married, you’re up you’re gonna be in for a bunch of trouble. Not if you do it God’s way. It it it’s one of the most Marriage can be one of the most wonderful things and it is one of the most wonderful institutions on earth if it’s done God’s way. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

It’s a lot better than than not getting married and just living selfishly. Now it’s not God’s will that everyone gets married but you understand God’s way is that most people will get married and it’s a good thing. But what does the world teach? It’s it’s misery. It’s shackles. All the There’s all kinds of jokes about it. And you know it’s same thing about having children. How many children do you have?

One, two, three. You have four? You have five? How do you how do you sleep at night? How do you how do you pay for anything? I mean can you imagine? I mean all of that. You know what I’m saying? The world looks at it and the Bible says that happy is the man that hath his quiver full. It’s totally opposite. And I can tell you it is a blessing to have children.

I see the pastor and their family getting around and singing together. Our family does the same. Not perfect families, I guarantee. But what a blessing that is. And listen, it’s not God’s will that everyone has children. We have people in our church, numerous people over the years that were not able to have children or God had had them wait for seven, eight, ten years and then had children.

It’s not God’s will that everyone has children but there’s a different thing when you just say, I want to live my life for me and I don’t want the burden of children. I worked with a guy that that was his thought. I wanna be on the boat every weekend and he would spend his money on him and he’s a miserable old man. No one around him. No one to care for him. No one, I mean, they grandchildren.

They don’t have those joys. How selfish we get. And it all comes with this idea that I’m gonna take care of me. Felix is saying, listen, you’re upsetting my world Paul. You’ve convicted my heart. You’ve made me a little shaky and I know what you’re saying is the truth. Just It’s true and you just need to just go away for a while. Let me put this conviction off and when it’s convenient, we’ll talk about it again.

Don’t be like that this morning. Saved or lost, don’t have that attitude of a convenient season. Many refuse to give God his rightful place because they’re worried about the cost. You know, I might someone might walk away. I might lose someone I love. Meaning they’re not gonna be my friend anymore. My family is not gonna understand. As we travel around the world, there’s a lot of people that when they get saved, have to choose to step outside of their family and their family’s gonna just disown them.

And a lot of places around here, that’s not the way it is. We have a little of that in the North. I’m telling you, when my father left the Roman Catholic Church as a New York Italian, that was a big deal. His godfather threw his hand away at my grandmother’s funeral, said I I don’t even know you. And and it’s a big deal. But I’m just saying, a lot of times when we come to Christ casually, and it’s a blessing to be in a place where there’s many churches and you see Jesus saves. We don’t see that up north.

We don’t see those slogans about scriptures. We don’t see that up north. But when you’re in a place and you see all of that and you can just get casual and you could just push things off and it’s just not as important and you become kind of You can you can be a lukewarm worm Christian and kinda just blend in. And the thing is is it didn’t cost you anything to come to Christ. And so when God says I want you to go to the mission field or I want you to give a large sum of money or I want you to go help someone or break out of your mold or quit your job or whatever it is.

Well, now we’re worried about the cost. We’re worried about what others will think of us. Many refuse to give God his rightful place because they’re worried about what he might ask them to do and I talked a little bit about that. But can I just tell you, you can trust God? You don’t have to worry about God. Here we’re fretting and wondering, what’s the will of God for my life? And then the whole time we spend resisting him.

On one side we’re praying, oh God, I don’t know what your will is and I don’t know what you want me to do but I’m afraid to surrender to you. Doesn’t that sound like a crazy person? Our churches are full of them and if you’re honest we can all raise our hand. Yes, I’ve been there because there’s that war in us. Paul talked about it. On one side he wants to do right but then that part of him you know doesn’t just struggles to do it and there’s a war.

We have the old nature and the new nature. I wanna encourage you to surrender to God. Often fear is rooted in selfishness. Our fear is based in selfishness. I teach this often. We do a lot of marriage conferences around the world and the Bible says perfect love casteth out fear. Perfect love casts out fear. In other words, when you give and you’re not expecting anything in return, you can give freely and effortlessly and take your hands off and you’re not worried about it. You know when you’re really worried? When you extend yourself to someone and they don’t reciprocate.

Boy, there’s a lot of fear in that. And the Bible says perfect love casteth out fear. Bible talks about charity and charity is the chapter for Christians and for marriages and for so many things. God’s love, giving without expecting anything in return. But the truth is a lot of times our life, we’re rooted, our fear is rooted in selfishness. What about me and what am I gonna have to give up and what’s it gonna cost?

But perfect love casteth out fear and the Bible says because fear hath torment, he that feareth is not made perfect in love. First John four eighteen. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Preacher, that’s me. Okay. Well we’ve identified that. That’s alright. But understand, you’ve gotta grow in this love thing. You’ve gotta grow and allow God to root the selfishness out of you and the pride that’s in your heart and all about me.

Felix is saying, I’m convicted of these things and I know I need to be a Christian and many Christians are convicted of many things but they’re saying, I’ll deal with it later. Later. I mean just just not now. The week will be a lot better if you get right with God now. If you just yield to him now and your life would be better too. Many are just looking for the convenient season.

We’re busy. Americans are busy. We live in a time it’s busier than it’s ever been. Husbands working, wives working, Internet flying, WiFi everywhere. We gotta be connected. We gotta be. I don’t know why we gotta be. If I took a minute everyone would give me their reasons why we gotta be. But you know that’s what’s in our mind. We’ve got something to do. Listen, everywhere I go, New York is the fastest place I know on the planet.

Everywhere I go in my own country and around the world, nothing rolls faster than New York. So it’s in our culture. I gotta go. Where do you gotta go? I don’t know. I gotta do something. I gotta hurry up. Why? Because we got something to do. And we’re running ourselves crazy and we can’t even hear the voice of God. I read a book years ago. I know my son’s here. I know he likes the book. It spoke to me. It was shortly after World War two, there there was a farmer. He was a contented farmer. His name was Henry. He lived with his wife and children and there on the farm, things were, I would say in some ways, picturesque. Though there was hard work and such, but you know he measured days.

He measured his life in days not hours. Sundays were happy days when they they hitched the old horse up and they went to town and they the children you know, they would they would count all the boards on the fence and they knew if someone was missing a board or a fence was broken. You know, when you take a slow walk, know, you notice things that you don’t notice them when you just drive on by.

And they noticed all those things. They were happy when they would go to town and go to church but this thing called progress came to their town, the town of Willoughby. And things started changing drastically. First electric lights and cars and all these things that were moving around and you know Henry couldn’t deny that you know the new tools, the cash register was so much faster than the handwritten notepad that Mr. Wiggle used to write on.

And this thing of self-service going and getting your goods rather than the grocer going and picking them all out and getting them for you and all that. That sure seemed like that made a lot of sense. And the next thing you know, they’re saying, Henry, we wanna run electric lights through. We wanna run electric through your farm and listen, you need these electric lights. Wouldn’t it be nice when your tractor’s broke, you could put a little light on and you could fix the tractor and you wouldn’t miss a day of work and Henry gets the electric and he starts working. Of course, when you don’t have lights, everything stops when it’s dark.

Henry starts working in the evening and now he’s And then they say, you know, you need a car. And he gets a car and his wife gets really engaged in the things of the town and she’s going there so now they’re, you know, when you don’t have a car, you’re together, you’re at home and life starts to change. Progress comes to Willoughby. Progress, this thing called progress comes to Henry in this great society.

But you know it’s not so great. And the next thing you know, I mean Henry’s mortgaged his house to pay for the lights and to pay for the car and he’s gotta work harder and he’s miserable. Can I just say that that is a picture of where we’re at today? I’m not against all the modern tools and all the progress that we’ve made. Thank God for modern medicine and hospitals and the things that We were so blessed.

But maybe you’re here this morning and you’re just a little too busy. And maybe you’re here this morning and you’re just saying, because of busyness, I can’t do it now, preacher. I know God’s speaking to me about something, but I can’t just now. I can’t give because I’ve got commitments. I can’t go because I’ve got commitments. Do you see the problem that we’re facing? God wants to work in our lives and change our lives and use us but we’re like Felix. How many times you’ve read the story of Felix and thought, what a fool.

What a fool that God was speaking to him, giving clear direction and what did Felix say later? I just wanna put it to you this morning. Maybe you’re here and you’re not a Christian, truly saved. You’re not on your way to heaven. Don’t put that off. Now is the time. And I know those that are saved, you agree with me, but can I say to all of you that are saved, apply that same principle to what the message is saying to you this morning?

We’re busy. We’re running. I don’t know your schedule. I don’t know what God wants for you. I don’t know where you’re supposed to work. And I don’t know I don’t know how you’re supposed to order your home. I just know God’s things need to be primary. God is still saying, follow me. And either we’re yielded to him or we’re doing just like Felix and saying, I will but just not now. Let’s all stand and we’ll have a verse of invitation.

If the Lord’s spoken to your heart about anything, I would encourage you to come. Maybe we could have heads bowed and eyes closed this morning and you’re here and you say, Preacher, God spoke to me. And I’m not gonna ask for a raise of hands, I just want you to consider maybe in your own quiet solitude what God said to you. And if Lord’s spoken to your heart, you just follow him.

You speak to him this morning. As we sing or as the musicians play, the preacher comes, you just obey God this morning.