Continuing Our Walk With God – Dr. Bobby Roberson

[music] You are listening to the classic sermons podcast from preachthebibole.org, a ministry of North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, California. You will hear fervent, old-fashioned revival sermons from great preachers of the past. It is our desire that you will be helped by this gospel message. Well, don't you turn to John chapter 21. Here, and I'm going to read verse 18, if you'll notice, verse 18, of John 21 and verse 18. Very liberally, I say unto thee, now Jesus is talking to him here, when thou was young, thou girdest by self and walk us whether thou was. But when thou shall be old, I shall stretch forth on hands, and another shall gird thee and carry thee with thou, wouldest not. Notice verse 19, this spake he signifying about what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken to this, he said to him, "Follow me." Well, that's a good sermon, right there. Our kids saying, "My Lord knows the way through the wilderness all after this Father." And I think it'd be good for us adults too. Now here Jesus said, Peter, when you was young, he said, "You were where you wanted to." But now he said, "The time has come when you want." But another is going to gird thee and take you where you don't want to go. This signifying the death that you must have for me. You know, this idea that Christianity is popular to the world is not the Bible. Not the Bible. The more I read my friend, our life is full of trials and tribulations. Somebody had said, "I'm not trying to get you on the Juniper tree. I'm trying to get you out." But somebody said, "You're either going into a battle or you just got out of a battle." That's right. You want to enter, you just got out, one or the other or you're in one now. I guess because I've been where I am for a long time. I have a lot of calls from preachers. Brother Bobbitt, do you know, and I've said to him, "Do you know of a good church that's wanting to do something?" And I'm not smart, but I say, "Sir, I don't know a good church. I don't know a church that wants to do something." But I know you and I as pastors under the leadership of the Holy Spirit are to try to stir up to get them to move to something. They're human. They don't want to do anything. No. For if you're here and you're looking for a good church, forget it. Forget it. I mean, they all got wonderful people in it, but that's not the thing. Now he said, "You're going to have to die if I'm a Peter." But what I want to do is follow. Now let's read a few more verses. Verse 20, "Then Peter turned about, said to disciple whom Jesus loved, followed, which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, 'Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?' Peter's seeing him, says to Jesus, 'Lord, and what shall this man do?' Jesus said unto him, 'If I will, that he tarry, till I come, what is that to thee, follow, thou me.' Then went this see in the broad among the brother, that that disciple should not die. Yet Jesus said, 'Not unto him, each of not die, but if I will, that he tarry, till I come, what is that to thee?' This is a disciple which testifies of these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things, which Jesus did, the witch, if they should be written, everyone I suppose that even the world itself cannot contain the books that should be written, amen. Now if you'll notice here with me, and I'm going to get going in here just to me, but if you'll notice here, Jesus told Peter, 'Now, Peter, I want you to follow me, I want you to follow me.' And he said, 'What about John over here?' And Jesus said, 'It's none of your business.' 'Yeah, it's none of your business.' Now sometime, people would say this, 'Brother Bobby, I've been doing this for so many years, I think it's time for somebody else, I think, 'What am I, how come so and so long? Folks, we got to do what we supposed to do, to have victory.' That's the end, you see. I know some fellows my age is not past and church. Does that mean I'm supposed to not pass? Does that mean that they're going wrong? No. God's got a will for my life, and he's got a will for your life. And what I need to do is to make sure that I'm following him. Once in a while, somebody will say this to me, 'Brother Bobby, you can wear yourself out, and that church won't appreciate it.' I've heard that since many times. If I am pastored, or you're pastored, just to get the church to appreciate you, you've already got your reward. What did Paul say in Philippians? He said, 'For me to live is Christ, not that somebody had patten me on the back, but that I might please him.' You remember how he talked about forgetting all things or behind, and reaching forth to those things, we need my friend to keep our eyes up on Jesus, and just to follow him. Now it's a lot of verses he could add to this. But I got me a title for my message yesterday on a plane. How to continue our walk with the Lord? How to continue our wife? Now I've been past in quite a few years, and I've seen people who have never missed visitation. I've seen deacons, I've seen Sunday school teachers, and they're out and gone now. And you have too, and your heart gets broken. And it could be you and I, but to mercy and grace of God. Now I want to give you five things, God laid on my heart, they're very, very simple. I want to say number one, we must learn to die to self every day. Now you remember that. If we don't die to self, surely somebody's going to hurt our feelings, and we're going to get bitter and critical, we must die to our self. You know Paul said, and Paul was a man to learn that. You remember what he said in the Romans 12, 12, "I've been teaching therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice which is holding acceptable." And he said, "It's your only reasonable service when you do. Don't be conformed to this world, but you transform by the renewing of your mind." You remember what Paul said to the church at Galatians? He said, "I'm crucified with Christ." Nevertheless, I'm alive, you see, but it's not really my life, it's his. You see, this life that I have now, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I'm just saying this morning, this thing of dying to self, I was thinking about another verse of Scripture in Luke 9, 23 and 24. Jesus said, "If any man come after me, ways you got new, deny himself." And then take up his cross. What's a cross for? It's to die on. And take up his cross daily. You remember that word in there daily? Take up daily. And then he goes on to that next verse and he says, "If we lose our life, we'll have life." But if we're going to keep our life, we're not going to deny ourselves then we'll not know what real abundant life is. Listen, let's face the fact, I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of preachers and pastors and young men. And I don't know much, but I've seen a lot of things happen to the years. And right now in this church here, our church, we don't have 6,000 in San Jisco, we never have. But we've got 6,000 members. And you're looking, I hate to admit it, but it's true. You're looking at the one I have the most trouble with right here, is me. You see, you get things thrown at and talked about and all of that, but it's the condition I'm in will make a difference on what kind of attitude I have when that happens. That's what I'm trying to say. So we must die. We must die to sin. One day I was writing along and I had a message by Dr. Tom Malone, most of you know who I'm talking about. What a man of God. We had him so many times at Gospel Act. And it was a message that somebody gave me and I just listened to him the car. And he got to talking about this thing of dying to self, being in the will of God. And this is what he said. I put it down here. He said one day, a W tozer was in a meeting somewhere and Dr. Malone said, I was just a young preacher. And he said, I went in a restaurant where he was eating, where the folks were eating. And I walked over and I said, Dr. Tozer, I'm a young preacher. Could you give me some advice on some things that helped me? And he went on to tell, I don't remember what they all keep his sins confessing on the online and he said and die daily. Dr. Tom said, "I ask you," said, "what do you mean, you know, by that?" And he said, "Brother Tozer said, "I believe it can help you." He said, "The other day I was standing out at the edge of the cemetery, and a young man asked me the same question you did." And so I asked him, said, "Do you know anybody buried there?" And he said, "That fellow looked and said, "I don't know, I remember that fellow there. He's a meanist man in this town, have a stone up, you know, with his name." And he went on to tell how mean, all the things he done. Dr. Tozer was telling Doc Malone this now, and Tom Malone's a young man, and Tozer told the old fellow, "I want you to do me a favor. I want you to walk out there to the tombstone, tell that man all about them bad things you told me about it." And he said, "Oh, look, him said, "Go on." He said, "Hey, he said he walked out there to the grave, and he said, "Fell out, I remember when you was alive, and you was a meanist man in this town. You drank, you done this, you run around, you want a meanist, one of a meanist man I've ever seen." And then he turned and come back, and he said, "You tell him?" And he said, "Yeah, he said, "What did he say?" He said, "He didn't say nothing." And I get this point. And then he said, "Can you think of one good thing about me?" He said, "Is this young preacher stood there?" "I think of a couple." He said, "I want you to make a number, one more trip. I want you to go out there and stand in his stone and tell him about them good things." He said, "That old boy went out there and talking." And he said, "I remember when you was something old." And I know that, but he said, "There's a couple of things that was good about you." And he began to tell him what was good about him, and he got through and he'd come back. And Dr. Toesie said, "Did you tell him?" And he said, "Yeah," he said, "What did you say?" He said, "He ain't said nothing yet." Dr. Toesie said, "That's what I'm talking about." He said, "When you're persecuted, you're dead." But he said, "When they brag on you're still dead." "When they brag on you're still dead." Let me tell you folks, let's don't get this little ego problem. No, no. You know, you go somewhere, there's once in a while some guy thinks I'm a great preacher. Once in a while, he's never heard nobody else. And he said, "I'll tell you this, Phil, right? He's one of the greatest preachers." And if you're not careful, when you walk off, let folks say that two or three times, and then you, the devil, put in your mind and say, "Well, you know, no, you're not good." Paul said, "I am what I am by the grace of God." And he said, "Here, I have worked for that is more than all of them yet. A bunch of yet is not I, but it's a grace of God in me." Listen to me, I'm saying young men, if you could see, if you could see a church like North Fattie, if God gives you a ministry for millions and thousands and all of that, and they hear your name all over America, you're dead. Because if there's any good thing, you didn't do it, God done it. And the more you and I enjoy and see the hand of God, hit all the drivers to our knees more. But when I walk around Gospelite, that is church. I've had some hallelujah times. God's giving me an unusual ministry. I was born two miles, if you go through the patch of wood, I was born two miles some day. And I remember when it started, I was a second pastor. My church, my home church, it was just three miles away. And I remember somebody coming over there about three miles up the road and starting to put a little Gospel 10 up in 1949. It was organized. And I just stayed busy and I didn't go. And then later I heard this start in a church called Gospelite Baptist Church. And I still didn't go. It's a fellow, give him a little three-fourth staker land, it built a little block building on it. And I always looked here at Dr. Harold Sightler preach. And they had him over there in May's Jackson. And that fellow had him sausage that there were to some of the meetings and met the pastor during that time. And he was there for seven years and had a good ministry and felt like God wanted to go into evangelism. And he went into evangelism and they gave me a call. And I looked there around there and there, but three but all in buildings. And all the stuff around there, and their missionaries, and you name it. And that makes me want to crawl. God reminds me, "You're that little country boy that plowed on you two miles from here." And brother, I realize if you take Jesus away from you or me, the one where the same old rotten sinner. And I'm just saying this morning, "We don't need to be built up. Bless God. We need to realize that it all belongs to him. And no flesh will ever glory in his presence." Don't you go to try, fellow told me years ago he passed through the end of Georgia. He said, "Brother Bobby, you watch me. He said I'm going to build a church, a large and a first baptism in Hamlet. You watch me. I've watched him. He's been out of the ministry for years. The church is not there anymore. Brother, when men you get built up and thinking we're doing something, we are in bad shape. And I want you to know that you and I, everything we do in our flesh is not worth a dime. But when he does it, that's everything. And I'm saying this morning, young preachers, don't get on this ego problem. I'm going to build, you know listen, God hasn't promised to bless success. He's promised to bless faithfully. Every church is not going to grow like the North Palace or the Gospelite, Matt and his church. But that don't mean it's you're not important. I was in the church the other day, fellow trying to compromise, "Oh, I've been wanting you to preach to me." Brother Bobby, I didn't really know him. And he had 20 in the Sunday school. And he said, "I know a fellow." I said, "Listen, fellow, get off that junk." Get off that junk. I said, "I'm a sinner's saved by grace, oughta go to hell, but God saved me." And by the way, this month I've been trying to preach 49, 59 years. I was saved two years and finally, surrender, call the priest. And I said to that young man, "I said son, you be faithful." If you get 100 in Sunday school, give God the glory. If it's 10,000, give God the glory. I said, "You're dead and you're nothing." And if anything's done, it's God and it's not you. Brother, we've got to, we've got some like it. We've motivated and grabbed this fellow and put him up here. Listen, I understand that you can get your doctors degree for $35, $40. Somebody asked me, "Pretty, you know what, Dr. Dr. I said, that's all right, that's fine." Yeah, yeah. If it hit me, and I got four of them, it's just like a curl of pigs' tail, no more ham. So we'll get started away with it. You know what I'm trying to say? Don't get ego problems, folks, and that's why we need to die to sell. We need to die to tragedies. They'll come in your life and we need to die to those tragedies. Dear elderly man told me this years ago in Kansas where they have those big wheat fields. And this fellow here, he was a Christian, he'd got saved, and he had a hundred acre wheat field. And I don't remember, this man's older than me, and he said one year the grasshoppers came, and just a million of grasshoppers and ruined the wheat out in that land. And he was telling me about this old gentleman that was saved, and he went down to the little jot 'em down the store. And the fellow walked in and said, "Your acres, that's yours out there, yeah." And they tell me, "You're a Christian," he said, "Yes, sir." And he said, "What kind of God do you have that will let the grasshoppers ruin that hundred acres of wheat?" He said, "Father, you got that all wrong. That belongs to God." And if he wants to feed his wheat to the grasshoppers, that's his business, not mine. That's what I'm saying, folks. We'll get all tight and word, and everything else but, "Bless God, God's running this business." That's what I'm trying to say. We need to die to die to tragedies, my friend. To die to criticism. I never will forget Dr. Lee Robertson, and the old auditorium, Holland Park Baptist Church, my boy Steve was there from '68 to '72. And so I tended to, I'd never comforts I could. But anyway, doctors preached for us several times at gospel play. He told this story, I believe twice at gospel play. He said, "You know, if you'd ever been there, it had a balcony down the side, it's always full." Dr. Robertson served us one Sunday. He said, "When he got through and everything baptized some people." And he said, "I'll always go out to Allen." And down to Allen behind in Park to over there. And he said, "I can go away." And there was one of my members, the lady standing there. And he said, "How are you today?" She said, "Not good." Not said what's the matter. And she said, "You mean you don't know it?" And he said, "No, what is it?" Dr. Robertson, for 22 years, I've set to your left. Do you remember? He said, "Yeah, yeah, I saw it." Well, I went up early this morning and said, "It was a man sitting there." And I told him, "I always sit there." and he said you won't. today. Now this hacks are happened. And you know we're just about that same way. And that woman had left the service and was trying to catch the pastor to tell him about it. You know what Dr. Robinson said? Have you ever heard me preach on dying to self? He said, "Mam how long has it been since you died?" And he talked with a little bit and went to Dr. Robinson, "Well Sunday night he said I'm sitting on the platform." And he said, "The choir is singing and you don't know pastor ever enjoys anybody leaving, you know, man." And he said, "I'm sitting here and I looked upstairs and I didn't see you." And I went all the way around and I didn't see you. And I started back to my left. She was over here downstairs, but he said, "When I got around she done that away." And he said, "She died. I never had no more trouble." I'm just saying, "Freen, we got to die to self." And let me tell you this, if we'll die to self, I believe we can sometime be like Paul and Salis there in the jail. We ought to witness now. But I believe if we're dead to self, somebody's going to see Lord in us. You ever thought about why I won the Lord's sin to that earthquake? There was other prisoners there. How come I'm coming to Paul and Salis? There's something about those fellows who were different. Dr. Johan Rehankin's, a few of you know him, but a Raymond know him. What a spirit, field man. I heard him say one day he was in Alabama and revived. And he said after church, church was earned ten. He and his wife in the past, so I went down a little restaurant to get a bite to eat. And he said a couple of ladies sitting there. And they watched him. And he said, "I noticed when we sit down back there, one of my specialists didn't take her eyes off of us." And old Dr. Hanckin said, "I won't Christ be seen in me." And he said, "That woman got up and walked back to him and said, "Mr. Your Christianity." And he said, "Well, yes, ma'am. I guess she was in our service tonight up here." And she said nothing about that. This was back before the interstate days. She said, "That's my sister up there. And we got the sister lives in Florida. We live up north. And we're on our way to see our sister. And we stopped here in Alabama. And we stopped here to get us a bite to eat." And Mr. I'm a Christian. I'm saved. I can't explain it, but some about your walk made me think of my Savior. Old Dr. Jo Henry Hanckin's, "Oh, we've been preacher." He said, "I bowed my head, being the Christ." And so that's been my prayer that somebody would see Jesus in me. I'm going to say to you, "I've got to hurry. I've got four more points. I'll just give them to you." But a few years ago in Winston-Salem, a fellow Paul Myers barbecue. He's now, remember my church. He's with the Lord now. But he was woodland Baptist about 10 miles from me. Paul was a good friend of mine. Run this restaurant. One afternoon about three or four more couples and my wife and I went there to eat or even meal. Paul was in the kitchen. He come out so glad to see us. He was all sitting together. And the waitress came in waiting on us. And for some reason she missed my wife's meal. And when she brought the food back, Jackie and my wife didn't have anything. And I said, "I believe you've missed my wife's meal." And she said, "I'm so sorry." And I said, "She just kept up." And I said, "Well, I'm sorry." Now, I'm not back on the set for the back, but maybe think. I was not set time. Let me tell you what I'm trying to say. I said, "Don't get upset." I said, "That's all right." And I called my wife and my wife and my wife and my wife and I said, "Mom, what was it you ordered?" And I told them, "Paul Myers is a good see man." We were eating in a few minutes. He stepped out of the kitchen and walked out and said, "Brother Bobby, thank you for witnessing to my waitress." Well, I said, "Paul, I haven't even given her a track." Oh, yeah, you witnessed it to her. And I said, "No, really I haven't." He said, "Yes, you did." He said, "I've been trying to win it." That woman's not saved. I've been trying to win it to Lord for two years. She said, "She come back in the kitchen and said, "Mr. Myers, didn't you say that man with one of your preacher friends?" And he told her, "Yeah." And she said, "You know, there's a lot of preachers eating here and I messed up on there, meals and something awful, but he don't act like them." And he's out telling me, "Thank you." And ever since seeing I've said, "God, heaven, I'm a dynamist, I mean, when something happens to your car preacher and you go down there, you're not some special thing to get it fixed. Don't get, they don't do it just right. Died of self. That's what I'm talking about. I can't say enough about that, but we need, we must die to self." Then let me give you another thing. Here's something else I put down. We must learn to resist Satan. He's our enemy. You know the Bible said in sects 11, he transformed himself into an angel of light. And then you remember when 1 Peter 5, he says, "A roar in line." He comes as a roar in line, so time then is like the angel of light. And you and I must resist him. And James, listen, James 4.7 says this, "Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil." He have flee from it. Now I'm no match and you're not for the devil. I like what the little boy said and he got saved. And he had temptation. He said, "Jesus, the devil's knocking on my door and I'm scared of him. Will you answer it?" He can take care of it. But let me tell you, Satan is out to the feet. Let me just use our illustration. Resisting the devil. The devil will make you feel like that you've got the hardest place in the world. I'm thinking of this. But Trevor, if you're like me and you do, you have some many things on your mind. I'm on the shake hands. And I've caught myself later. Maybe it's missing one fellow. I just, you see a visitor in our church. We have a good time of shaking hands. And I see some visitor. But I can't miss all these members to get to that. And I don't have a lot of time. But I'll shake hands with them. And later I thought, "Man, I missed that guy right there." And then he'll shake hands. Well, you know what the devil can do. The devil can say, "Yeah, that's what I thought." You see, the preacher shook hands them and shaking hands with me. He'll put all kinds of stuff in our mind. And this, you do the same us preachers to another preacher. I mean, we need to grow up. I've never seen the beat of us independent badness. And I'm so independent of all of our green preachers revival for me back in 1966. He sent some of us to so independent that the termites in our building won't happen to the termites of another one. And I'm just about against any of you name. But honest to God, if we independent badness, we need to grow up and realize Satan is our, I mean, we're not one of others anymore. Have you ever took a wrong attitude about something? And then you think later, "Wouldn't that steep it of me?" Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is not Tom Malone's sermon, but it'd be all right. I don't want to tell you what he told us from one time in church. Somebody heard of him, but you need to hear it again. Listen, Dr. Malone said I was, you know, he passed through the manual Baptist Church in Pontiac, Michigan for years, you know, went to heaven. I went to his funeral, I didn't have part, but I went to his funeral for years. Anyway, let me say quickly. He said one night that deep voice, he said, "I was coming in from meat and driving along ways to a clock in the morning and said the thoughts hit me. Nobody appreciates you. Look, everybody else is going to bed to a clock in the morning and you are wearing yourself out and nobody appreciates it. Man, he said I got an awful shape." Dr. Malone said, "I get who's making me feel like it. That's the devil." This is what he said. He said about 2.30 in the morning, I just pulled my little Pontiac off the side of the road and I got out and went around and went out and opened the passenger door and I said, "Devil, in the name of Jesus, get out of here and you're road to me long enough." Yeah. And then he said, "I got back in my old Pontiac and I went down the road singing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved the rest like me. Then I began to think God had the strength to drive all night. It got opened up a door for me to preach and I had a hell of a spell when the devil got out of it." And buddy, we got to resist Satan. I got a lot of things, but I can't say much about that. I'll tell you about it later. Oh, Bobby Grubbs. Let me tell you about Bobby Grubbs. Most of you people on Bobby weighed about 404 and fit. He used to preach for me. Oh, he was a preaching man. He'd been dead for a cell of years. I heard him on tape two years ago. Oh, Bobby said, "You know, in Holland they have lily festivals. I understand in Holland they raise acres and acres of lilies and have a festival." And he told the story in his message, "I got a blessing here on tape." I was riding down the road. Oh, Bobby said, "You know, I said deer season." He said, "Those deer, people hunting deer, he said they ride, of course dogs, dogs are trying to get the deer and they're riding horses." But he said, "When they get after a deer, he said, "If that old deer can make it right out in the middle of a [BLANK_AUDIO] really feel. He said, "A little dog come up that little bill and he'll stand there." He don't know where to go. Them lilies smells so good. He's lost a sense of deer. And that old deer is laying out there. Oh, Bobby said, "When the devil gets after you run out out in the Lord's little field and lay down and say, 'You'll go crazy trying to find you.' Oh, let me tell you how we need to stick closer to Jesus." And in them you say my third thing. Resist Satan, die to see him and keep in contact with Jesus every day. Every day keeping in contact with him. We ought to have a time to pray if we don't really end up not praying. Now how do we stay in contact? I stay in contact with him by prayer and he stays in contact with me by the Word of God. Jim Vineyard sent to me years ago one day. He said, "But, Bobby, you ever find yourself every time you open your Bobby, you're looking for a sermon?" I said, "I guess I do." And he said, "He said I have to." And he went on and he said, "I made a resolution. I'm going to quit looking for a sermon. Old Jim needs to look for something himself." And he went on. He told him in chapters he read every day in the Bible. And I'm glad he didn't ask me because I didn't know. I read a little every day of nothing else. And then one of the Saturday nights one of us was going to preach on Sunday. But, you know, I didn't never tell him. And I don't know as you know today. But anyway, I made a shot. I was going to read me 10 chapters a day for myself. And boy, I was going, I was about the middle age, you know, and they talk about these poor ladies going through the change of life. Well, me and do too. I got so depressed but long by that time when I got into Word, God had a nugget there for me. That's God, that's what I see. "Mantain, lila, we'll be right alone." But the Word, it comes for me. And let me say, "Stay in contact with Jesus every day." Every day, every day. Stay in contact with Him. I wrote down something I got to tell you this. If I take a little bit of his spare time, then you take somebody else's time, then y'all don't have to eat lunch, so late. Tom had to stay in contact with Jesus. Years ago, I was visiting the Highland Park Baton's Church on some occasion. I don't know, that's many conferences. And Dr. Jack Hiles was preaching. Now, most of you have heard of Charles Wagle. Charles Wagle wrote the song, "No one ever cared for me like Jesus." And then he lived to be 95 or 6 years old. And he had no living relatives. And Dr. Roberson gave him a place to live. Well, Dr. Hiles is telling this from the Highland Park Poor Piot. I'm sitting back in the group. He said, "I was here a few years ago, and I wanted to see Dr. Wagle." And I asked him by the Robertson, and he said, "He's sick." He was 92, I think at that time, and said, "He's sick with, and he wouldn't be able to come tonight." He smiled like, "See him." He said, "Okay, go." And he told him how I have to service him. Dr. Hiles was telling us this from the Poor Piot. He said, "I went and I stood in the hall, and he was talking to somebody." He said, "I stood there. I guess for 10 minutes. I wanted to talk to him so bad, but I hated him to interrupt him and his company." He said, "Fine, I just knocked on the door." And said, "Dr. Wagle, if I heard him preach one time in person, and heard him sing that song in person too, but going back to the story." He said, "Dr. Wagle, come." "Well, hello there, brother. How's coming in?" And brother Hiles told us that I said, "Well, I don't want interrupt you and your company. So I don't have any company. Come on in." And he said, "Brother Wagle, I'm in stand now here for 10 minutes, and you've been talking to somebody." He said, "Dr. Wagle, he's head." He said, "Well, I just talking to Jesus." He said, "See, when we long, I'm going to barely with him. We're just talking over some things." Oh, God help us to get to that place. If I had time, I could tell you about two old grandmothers, what of them? We had to be 95. For the times they had a long with God. But now wait a minute, let me finish this. But the Hiles said, "See, he didn't have those shoes on. He just stand there and stop me." And he said, "Well, where is his shoes?" And he said, "Brother Hiles, don't think I'm crazy. But it got so rich I've been up on the bed, jumping up and down, having time." Let me tell you folks, I'd rather have the presence of Jesus Christ than anything in the world. And you had to. And I've got to stay in contact with him. That's the way to have a good marriage. Dr. Lincoln used to preach for us about 12 revivals. And he'd call his wife every day. And Lincoln said to them, "In that kind of expensive," he said, "Not like Alibone." But you know, a lot of our marriage is getting the mess because there's no communication. And I'm going to tell you, you can get under the junior portrayal and you start thinking, "Well, the church, oh, that fellow has been with me for 40 years." And he left and went down the road to the praise and worship. And the devil can say, "Well, all the first thing you know, we're digging a hole, we need to stop and realize that's Satan." And then keep him to contact. And then let me say this, I'll quit. We need to look for him every day. Everyone's able to sermon themselves. But look for him every day. You know so many verses in the Bible. I put down Matthew 2442, "Watch there for it for you, no, not." God, our Lord comes. He's coming. Yeah, he's coming. I don't know who he's coming. Boy, I thought yesterday on that plane, "Let's God, if he'd come now, I'd get a start on y'all." I go over to the grave of my mother and dad. And my dad has been in heaven 66 years. My dad's whole face is badness preacher. Worked five and a half days a week and passed the two churches, run over 200 in the Sunday school. Priest don't Sunday and drop dead 39. And he had a bad heart on his life and dropped it on Monday at work. I haven't seen him long time. I got his pictures there. I can remember my 12 when he died. And I'm my sweet mother. I was her pastor 33 years and she's been in heaven, by the way. And I was over there at the old cemetery. They buried an old Methodist church cemetery. A while back, got some flowers. And I got blessed. I stood there just the Lord and I, beside of the grave, and I got to quote him first, that's along his chapter four. I said, "Lord, if you just come out of there and give the shout, "Mom and dad, and come forth and glorify bodies," and his says, "would be called up together with them to meet the Lord in there." Isn't that going to be a glorious day? Keep looking for him, my friend. And I'll tell you, if we're looking for him, he'll have us to keep our house spiritually in order. You know, if you're looking for a company, you're going to try to clean up things. And let's face it, let's look for Jesus. About 15 years ago, I was visiting one of our, we got members in 18 rest homes now. And I like to visit one again. We have a group of visits and so on and so forth. But anyway, I was in the rest home there, about five of my house and the church. And I was going up a hall one day and you know, there's a lot of sad people that just wasn't one of my members. But I went by this store. I was going to visit some of my members and I went by this store and I said, I thought of myself, I wanted to go and speak that lady. And she was back in the back, it's two bears in there. And she was back being rocking, and little rocking chair upside the bed. And I said, didn't tell us a preacher or whatever. In fact, I was going to witness to her, but I didn't ask this. And I said, "How are you doing today, ma'am?" She never stopped rocking. This is exactly what she said. "Mr. I don't feel good, but I'm sitting here waiting on Jesus. He's coming and he ain't never lied yet." Just kept rocking. I said, "Boy, I went out up the hall just having me a hell of a good time." And then I closed with this store when everybody can to Jesus along the way. Pass a gospel track. I think about a fellow named Bill Smith. About 34 months ago, one of our ladies lives in a little town called Walnut, called 14 miles from our church. This lady literally didn't see anyone ever got some of the tracks to him, man. This little fellow got to coming in the back and he'd raise his hand, but he wouldn't move. About two months ago, I said, "You go put him off too long, too long," and he didn't move. He just come home Sunday night. And I was talking after service and you stood. I'd never been close to the fellow. Just an old country. I mean country fellow brother. He said, "Am I too late? Am I too late?" See, and I was talking about putting it. And I said, "You sit back here and wait too late. Am I too late?" I said, "Oh no, I recognize it and let him be Christ." And he said, "Oh, I'm going too late because I'm feeling it. I feel it. I'm too late." But I felt it so happy. And he sums and slipsy and he's so backward. And last Sunday, he brought a young lady been on drugs and all that. And she got saved as pass-send. And he come up to me and he said, "He don't fear a sin. I can get up to him." He's so backward. He said, "Man, I'm liking this stuff." He's this great, but he said I never now for three miles from our church. So I never heard this place, but I had such an emptiness in my heart. And that's a woman walked up and said, "I'd like to give you something good to read." And I know who the woman was now. Folks, that's when everybody can. - Thank you for listening to the classic sermons podcast from preachthebibole.org. A ministry of North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, California. To listen to many more powerful sermons, visit our website, preachthebibole.org. If you enjoy Christian music and programming, visit knbbc.com for Christian music you can trust.