It's About Time!

Genesis 1, 3 to 5, I'm gonna read three opening scriptures and then you can take

your places in the first scripture is found in Genesis 1, 3 to 5, says,

Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the

light was good. You know isn't it something when God speaks something it's

always good. When he speaks it's good. I don't know about your neighbor you can

tell him I don't know when you speak with said good but when God speaks it's

good and when God confirms it in himself it's gotta be good. He said that he said

God saw it and he said it's good. Amen. Then he separated the light from the

darkness and called the light day and the darkness night. And evening passed

and morning came making the first day. Somebody say the clock started. Genesis

1, 14 it says, Then God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens

to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for

days and years. And then finally Genesis 1, 31 it says, God said all that he had

made he saw all that he had made and it was very good. And I want to leave this

thought if I may with you it's about time. It's about time. Somebody tell your

neighbor it's about time. Amen. You may take your places thank you.

Praise God. It's about time. Did anybody has anybody ever told you that? It's

about time. Amen. And yeah whether we're late to something or whatever we're we

show up. It's about time you showed up. Praise God. Anyway time began when God

brought order to the universe that existed in chaos. Out of nowhere God

speaks to the chaos and the lightest clips the darkness which became night

and day. When God speaks it doesn't matter if there's chaos. It doesn't matter

what's taking place in your life or in the world. God can put things back in

order. Amen. And for the first time ever and by this miraculous act of God we now

have time. Time did not exist prior to this. The universe operates and it comes

and it's under consistent laws of nature. A divine design that maintains order

and it maintains balance. God's creation is in balance. Everything he does he

doesn't just speak it and you know and there's there's still chaos. No

everything has balance. Praise God and God is and God is a God of order. He's a

God of order. Everything he made and makes it's orderly and it's also

consistent as well as complex and very detailed. In Genesis 2 and 7 it says

that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his

nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Amen. A living being

and this is who we are today. God made us from the dust. We're a miracle. You are a

miracle here today. Adam was created after God's image and had established a

man before Adam was born there was already time. God had already separated.

God had already established the night and the day the days and the months and

the years. He had already established then but time was already ticking when

Adam was created. In the garden where God placed Adam it had two trees that were

very familiar with and that and both of those trees made a difference in Adam's

life. One tree was a tree of life and the other was the forbidden tree of

knowledge of good and evil. As long as Adam would eat from the tree of life he

would never see death. Time was his friend. Amen. And so but since the moment

he ate from the forbidden tree he was expelled from the garden and the

cherubines began to protect not the garden not not his possessions not

whatever he may have made out of wood or whatever he made his own furniture or

whatever in the garden. We don't know what is what his household looked like

if he lived on a tree if he lived on the ground we don't know that but the one

thing that the cherubines did was protect and guard the tree of life. You

can have everything else in fact Adam you can take your stuff with you but

you're not gonna come back and eat from the tree of life. Once Adam was expelled

from the garden he faced a new reality and his new reality was time. Time became

a factor for Adam because he now began to experience what a lot of us wish we

would could avoid and it's called aging.

Aging I'm sure that everybody in here is aging. You can't escape that right? Tell

your neighbor you can't escape time it's all over you man. And time leads to death.

Listen to what I'm saying it's important for us to understand this because for

the first time Adam had to see Eve get wrinkles on her face. Oh what happened to

you Eve? I'm not gonna tell you to say that to your wife so don't go there we

won't have peace today. Although Adam was created from the dust of the earth while

he ate from the tree of life he would not age. Time did not affect Adam while

he ate from the tree of life but it was in his disobedience. Somebody say

disobedience. That began to age him. All that to say that time does not age us.

Time doesn't age you. What ages us is disobedience. Hello, praise the Lord.

You can take that theology with you and study it later. The wisest man in the

world wrote one time in Ecclesiastes 3 and 1 he said to everything there is a

season, a time for every purpose under heaven. And truly there is. Wisdom tells

us there is enough time in a day, days in a month, and months in a year to fulfill

God's purpose in our lives. Many people habitually fight the clock as a way of

life. Everyone, how many people can say do you know how many clocks you have in

your house? I know you're probably starting to count them now. One, two,

three, four, five. You got a clock in the shower. Then I have one

outside the shower. I have one by my bedside. I've got clocks everywhere.

Everywhere you turn is a clock, clock, clock, clock by the ironing board. Clock

everywhere. Why? Because the clock controls us, right? Everything we do is

hinge on that little tick tick tick tick tock. I was in the garage the other day

trying to by myself and I was trying to listen for something and I was like what

is that? And I looked at it and it was a clock. It makes a lot of noise. I don't

know why. It's just tick tick tick. Everywhere you go there is that tick

tick tick. You're not going to avoid it. Considering the life of Christ, he became

amazed. It became amazed. Amen. And it was an amazing thing what he did

because he came and I'm telling you he came and changed everything about life.

He never seemed to be in a hurry. Do you read somewhere where Jesus ran? No, he

didn't run. He took his time. If anything, he would just appear like he did to the

disciples out in the sea. Praise God. And so he never was in a hurry although he

was doing the most important job in history which was redeeming the world

and although he knew he only had a few years to do it, a short time to do it, he

never appeared rushed nor did he run to make up time as we perceive that we can

do. He had time for everyone and stopped many times to minister to someone even

unexpectedly people would show up and he would tell it's gonna be all right.

Don't worry, amen. She's not gonna die. It's gonna be all right. We're

gonna get there. Praise God. And I want somebody to know this. Don't worry about

if the clock is ticking. Know that the Lord is always on time. He's gonna get to

where we need. He's gonna get to your situation. He's not subject to your Timex

watch. Praise God. I have a little story about a Timex watch. You remember back

in the day before, you know, I mean now you got these other real nice watches

and everything, but I had a Timex watch and I loved that watch. In fact, I

still have it. It doesn't work. It doesn't have a band but it's there as a

reminder. One day I had my, I didn't have an air conditioner under my cars. They

never did at that time and I had my arm out in the freeway and my, and the

wind busted the band of my watch and my Timex one. I just seen it. There goes my

watch. Then I looked in the mirror and my watch was bouncing on the freeway.

I says, oh my watch. And then I seen a semi truck coming and the semi truck goes right

over it. And then I had to think about it. I pulled over. I mean I was, I was, I was

in tears man. My watch. And so, so I, I said should I go back and get it or not?

I says, I hate myself for the rest of my life if I didn't at least try to go get

it. So with all the traffic, I put it in reverse man on the side and I went back.

I went all the way back where I figured it might be. I get out of my car and I

started looking around and there it was. It was on the first lane of the freeway

and I was just waiting for cars not to run over it no more. And then when a

good opportunity came I ran out and I grabbed my watch and I went in the car

and I looked at it and guess what? It was still ticking. It was still ticking. I

says this can't be. It's still ticking man. God. And back then you know they

used to have a saying you know about timex. They said timex it can take a

licking but it keeps on ticking. Praise God. That's timex man. That's why it was

so important to me and it was. The only thing is that I couldn't wind it up no

more so it stopped. Well but at least it was still ticking. Praise God. I don't

know if you can go through life like that. There's people say, brother I've

been ticking a licking but I'm still ticking. I'm gonna call you timex. He had

time for everything Jesus did and stopped many times to minister to people.

Once again by the second Adam time became his friend. The first Adam lost it.

The second Adam gained it back. So time became his friend again. The Bible gives

us some great insight into how time can become your friend and my friend rather

than our enemies. God exists in the realm that is not bound by time or space. God

is not subject to the day planners. He doesn't pay attention to the Sun dials.

He's not interested in that. He's never late. He's always on time. It don't matter.

Don't put God on a clock. Don't bind him. Don't bind him into that. Don't

confine him into that. Second Peter 3 and 8 says, but beloved do not forget this

one thing that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years

as one day. Bless the name of the Lord. Look at that. He speaks with eternity. He

speaks with no limitations, no boundaries. God when he is everything

about him and that's just a small... They could have said a million years and it

wouldn't have made no difference because God is not bound to what humans have to

be bound to. He's not bound to that. He is the creator of time and he's not

subject to it. The first step in making time your friend is to emerge yourself

in God completely. Praise God. If you're a worrier and you're always worried

about, you know, the time clock or whatever, emerge yourself in God and you

will live a life of peace. Praise God. You will live a life of abundance. He is a

creator of it. So emerge yourself in what he created. Psalm 90 and 12 says,

teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. We need

wisdom to manage our way through life. We need wisdom. When it comes to time, we

use phrases concerning time that are not even possible. Not even possible.

You can't buy more time. How many of you can buy more time? Tell the person on his

taking his last breath. You can't buy more time. You can't find more time. Time

is never lost. That we have to go find it. You can't make more time and you cannot

save it. If you don't use it, you lose it. There is an entire field of study called

time management. In almost every business in America, and I've been through that

when I worked in the corporate world, consultants are hired to teach busy

executives how to better manage their time. Well, I have a little

caption that I pulled out of the book, Seven Habits of a Highly Effective

People, and Stephen Covey wrote this. If you can put it up, please. He says, time

management is a misleading concept. You can't really manage time. You can't delay

it, speed it up, save it, or lose it. No matter what you do, time keeps moving

forward at the same rate. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage

ourselves. You hear what I'm saying? You can't manage time. You can't stop it, but

what you can do is manage this person. You can manage yourself. There's an old

saying about those that live life without purpose, and I heard this

years ago. People that live life without purpose and they just don't manage

themselves. They don't care about nothing. It says it's two people in a car.

They're going somewhere. They're in the car. They're taking a road trip, and they

say, we may not know where we're going, but we're making good time. That doesn't

make sense at all. If you don't have a destination, how can you measure it? But

it says, I don't know where we're going, honey, but we're making good time. Praise

be to God. I mean, if we can go through life like that, man, you don't have a

worry in the world. Praise God. I dare you to do that. The Bible does not mention

time management at all. Instead of managing time, it speaks about redeeming

the time. The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 5 and 15 and 16, he says, see

then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time

because the days are evil. He mentions two things here, you know, not as a fool,

but as a wise. And walking circumspectly, we all are required to be stewards of

our gifts, our talents, our careers, our callings, as the series has been

preached for this last few weeks. We're to be stewards of our resources, our

finances, that God has bestowed upon us. We are responsible, much given, much

required. God's gonna require of us. We accumulate or possess nothing unless it

has been God given to us. You don't have anything, anything you have, whether it's

in your pocket, in the bank, in your garage, it doesn't matter. Everything you

have is because God allowed it to happen. It's there because of Him. We must be

good stewards of them, of what God has entrusted in us, which includes time. The

phrase walk circumspectly means to be constantly seeking for ways to make the

most of every opportunity. To walk circumspectly requires wisdom, requires

awareness, it requires mindfulness, prudence, and discernment. And I would

like to talk a little bit about opportunity knocks. Opportunity must be

welcomed. There are many times in life when people have confessed that they

regretted a missed opportunity. Irrational and ungodly pursuit of

opportunity is a calamity waiting to happen. I can sink into a cycle, you can

sink into a cycle of despair, confusion, and frustration when you pursued

something in an ungodly manner. This is why opportunity must be prayerful and

in line with God's will to avoid unnecessary calamities. In Revelation 3

and 20 it says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice

and opens the door, I will come to him and dine with him and he with me.

Everything that God permits or the way that God works is He knocks on the door.

He never barges into our lives, He never barges into our schedules, He never

barges into our activities, He doesn't barge into whatever you're doing. He

knocks, He's a gentleman. He will knock on your life and He'll say, Hey, is it

okay if I show you an opportunity, lend you an opportunity? When God knocks with

opportunity, it is a fruitful and celebrated, amen, time with Him. The way

that you can confirm if this is the will of God, an opportunity that comes your

way, if you cannot have fellowship with God, then it's not of God. But if

something comes your way and it knocks in your heart and you're able to commune

with God as He enters into your life and to whatever opportunity it is, if you can

fellowship with Him in a godly way, it's of the Lord. But if you can't fellowship

with Him, it's not of God. Opportunity especially for us Christians will not

force itself upon us. It must be welcomed. In Galatians 6, 10 it says,

while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men and especially to those who

are the household of faith. The word while in this verse simply means

opportunity must be acted on quickly. Time is of essence. Have you heard that?

And when the scripture says while the opportunity, in other words,

it's not gonna be there forever. You know, God called me to the ministry or God

called me to this and called company. Yeah, I'll check it out in 10 years.

Believe me, in 10 years it may not be there. The time is now. If God puts an

opportunity upon your life, the time is now. This is the day, the Lord says,

of salvation. Don't put off the things that God deals with us, amen,

with things that He puts in our hearts, opportunities He knocks on your heart.

Don't put it off for tomorrow, amen. Like somebody said, don't put off for tomorrow

what you can do today, praise God. And that is exactly what the scripture is

saying. While we have opportunity, and this verse simply means opportunity must

acted on then, time is of essence. Godly opportunities will most always

bless the household of the faith. In layman's terms, you must bless the house

of God, which is your church, amen, with whatever God has gifted you with,

whatever God has given you, amen, give it to the Lord, then it will spill over to

other areas of your life. Bless God, amen. In other words, being good stewards

of time is founded on the same principles as any other things that God

gives, finances and whatnot, opportunities, business, ventures or whatever that God

gives us. If we bless and seek the house of faith first, all things will be added

unto us. I've learned this over time, and this is a biblical truth, and it will be

realized not necessarily, amen, that you... Believe me, I've made investments over

time and over the years. I've made investments that some were good and some

were not so good. And I remember an investment that my wife and I made one

time. Well, I made it more than her, but I lost my pants, man. I almost lost my

home. I was signing over my home, everything, man. I had to sell my boat. I

had to sell my Lincoln. I had to sell my new pickup. I had to sell it. We ended up

with no car. Hello. We were on foot. How can that be? Lord, help me. Well, I think

I made a bad turn somewhere. I didn't blame God. I blame me. I made a bad

turn. It cost me a lot. Believe me, it cost me a lot. But I told the Lord, Lord,

I'm sorry I messed up, and then somebody gave me a few hundred bucks to buy

an old used car. And I went and I bought an old used car, and the car was so

terrible it'd leave us everywhere. The only thing that was good about that car

is it had a good air conditioner. Outside of that, it would leave my wife on the

freeway. She had to go to work for the first time. I never, she never worked. I

provided it, and she had to go to work, man. She had this, she took this job at

nights so that we can swap the kids, and then I would go to work, and all of

that. But the car would leave her on the freeway, man. And another thing, too, the

car leaked. If it rained, you have to have an umbrella in the car. I'm not

kidding you, man, especially on my wife's side. She'd get all wet, soaked. Amen. Well,

those are the things you learn through life, huh? One day I came out of a

restaurant that my father-in-law treated us at, and we came out and I

seen this beautiful car. Wow, man. I said, ooh, look at that car. Man, I started walking around it, and

then I told my wife, God's gonna give us one of those. Don't be playing games, you

know. We're gonna get one of those. Hey, within about a year, we were driving one.

We were what they call a comeback people. God began to bless us again,

bless us again, praise God. But it's, you know, you got to be careful with

opportunities. I'm a victim of that. I'm telling you by experience, praise God.

Amen. Don't go do what I did in that case. There was a great football

player. His name was Emmett Smith. I know he didn't play for the 49ers. He played

for, I think, Dallas or something like that. He was a fool. No. I'm sorry, you Texans.

Emmett Smith was a great football running back, but his greatness was not

attributed to his size. He wasn't a big guy or his speed because he wasn't that

fast or his strength. His greatness was attributed to the ability of him to run

with his eyes open. He read, if you watched him, he would, he wouldn't put his

head down like a bull, you know, and just go. No, he would run with his head up. You

can go back and watch some more films. He would run with his head up because he

was looking. He was looking. He carved his way through the opposition and he

seized every opportunity for what is called a breakthrough. And I believe

that's what we need to do. Praise God. We need to carve our way through

oppositions. Opportunities come our way. We need to seize that opportunity, amen,

and have a breakthrough in our lives. That's the way we should live, looking

for every opportunity to invest time wisely, then dart through it with

everything you've got. When an opportunity passes, it cannot be reclaimed.

It's over. It's gone. A missed opportunity leads to what the Apostle Paul called

the life of regrets. And Ephesians, back to our opening scripture, redeeming the

time. Redeeming the time is seizing the moment. The Apostle Paul exhorted the

Ephesians to adopt, adopt an excessively careful attitude toward time when he

wrote redeeming the time. This means that believers should be very aggressive in

using the proper, you know, the proper and the proper intentions, amen, if

they're attempting, amen, to do something for God. You got to be careful and knowing

and value, amen, the time that God has given you and the opportunity that God

has given you. Seizing the moment is being sensitive to God for that very

second, in that very moment. Seize the moment. There's too many Monday morning

quarterbacks that say, I should have and I could have. No, let's not live a Monday

morning quarterback syndrome. Let's do it today. Let's step out in faith today. If

God gives you an opportunity, get out of the boat and walk on the water today.

Don't give up for tomorrow. Don't wait, Jesus. I know you called me out of the

boat. I'll see you tomorrow. God's not gonna wait for you for tomorrow. This is

the day. This is the moment where we take advantage of the opportunity. Redeem the

opportunity. Redeem the time. Redeem this, what God has put before us. It means that

we should be aggressive, amen, and be intentional and know that God is calling

us to something which we know, amen, to redeem or to recoup time. It's impossible,

amen, but the apostle made strong emphasis on the reality that we cannot

let time pass by. It's too valuable and all our actions should be laced with a

sense of urgency. The time is now. We need to be good stewards of the use of the

time that God has given us. Make the most out of your life now. You don't need to

live a hundred and fifty years, amen, to accomplish anything. You can accomplish

something in a short time, amen. You can do something right now, this moment of

your life. You're not too young and you're not too old. You can do something

for God right now. Take advantage of this for right now. Do what God has asked you

to do. We need to be good stewards of that God has given us, even through the

duration of our life. And it seems like life is real long when we're young,

but man, when you get to be my age, amen, you know that it's not too much more. It's

more behind you than in front of you. So you got to really, amen, take

advantage of the time and use it properly, amen, things that are going to

bless God, amen. And I know this, maybe this is not in tune with anybody else,

but I live for God. I don't live for myself. Everything that I do, whatever we

do, my wife and I, we're just dedicated to the Lord. Whatever God wants, that's

what we'll do, amen. I wanted to retire. I don't know how many years ago. I wanted

to retire, I think it was like 10 years ago, and I did. But look where God has me

now. You don't quit on God. If God says, you're going to do this, all right, Lord,

I'm ready, I'm able, let's do it. Praise God. Tell your neighbor, you can do this,

amen. Don't say, not me, Lord, no. God wants to use your life. And John 9 and 4

says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is

coming when no man can work. Praise God. Know that the clock is ticking, amen. If

God called you to do something, don't wait till tomorrow, amen. Do it today. We

can learn to redeem the time by becoming conscious of the fact that we may not

have another day to do it. Live as if this is your last day in the planet

Earth. Live every day. This is it, Lord. This is my last Sunday. I'm going to worship

you. I'm going to praise you. I'm going to glorify your name, Lord. This is the

day, Lord. This might be it. I don't know. But do it with everything you've got.

Invest your whole life and self into it. The word redeeming comes from a Greek

word that is called exagorazo, amen, which means to make the best use of. To

make the best use of. Redeeming the time is stewarding our time in a way that

glorifies God. Praise God. To redeem time is to intentionally walk in wisdom and in

submission to God seeking his will. A great enemy of redeeming time is

procrastination, which is a deadly sting of deceit that can ultimately consume

precious time in life. Procrastination is what we refer to as indecisiveness. The

apostle James calls it double mindedness. They can't make up their minds and they

waver back and forth in everything they do. They just don't stay on the railroad

tracks, man. They're always somewhere else. Amen. If you're going to get

committed to serve God, let's do it with everything we've got. Amen. And let's not

look back. Let's just look forward. Somebody say, praise the Lord for that. The

last point is because the days are evil. The days are indeed evil and this

realization should fuel our zeal to make good use of every opportunity and every

moment that God grants you and me. Our days are days of active evil. The world

is getting from bad to worse. I know we just had an election and everybody's

excited and the world's going to change. Well, biblically speaking, the world is

going to get from bad to worse. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Because that's

just the way that it is. Sin abounds and sin is abounding. There are great thieves

of time to fool us, amen, into thinking that we can put off until tomorrow. We

can procrastinate. No, there's no sin in entertainment either. But when

entertainment becomes a priority in your life, then it robs you of your time, amen,

and it leads to sin. Somebody say, praise the Lord for that, amen. Even a career

which may many pursue with great intensity, praise God. God bless you, amen,

and do the best you can. And if you're going to start a business, praise God

that God may multiply you and bless you, amen, and bless your life, your family,

amen. But it can become a great distraction as well, and it can derail a

good intention for a God chaser. If you're after God, if you're chasing after

God, those kind of things could potentially distract us, amen. We need to

remain faithful. I work for an individual. I won't say who, amen. In fact,

when we were here in Mountain View back in the days that I was not married yet

and I wanted to save up a little money, and I worked for a brother that owned a

jack-in-the-box, you know, and I says, hey, he needed somebody that he can trust.

I said, you can trust me. So he hired me, and I had my regular job, but I got a job

with him, and I told him, don't pay me nothing until I get close to my wedding

day, and then you can give me a big check. And he says, okay, I won't pay you

nothing. Well, he liked that part, but he had to pay me eventually. But I worked for

him, you know, and I saved up money. Yeah, I did, and I made a lot of

tacos. I ran the fryer. Don't eat those tacos, man. I'll tell you, that grease is

bad, man. You know, when they made, they would, never mind. You go eat. Oh,

the ghost, my God. But the Lord blessed him. He was my youth leader when I got

converted, and then he started this business, and then from that business, he

went to another business, a bigger business, and a bigger business, and a

bigger business. And I had to tell him at one point, and I says, beware. I haven't

seen you in church lately. Well, it's because right now the business and the

business is gonna kill you, man. Well, needless to say that his kids ended up in

drugs. His wife divorced him, left him by himself. He lost his businesses. He had

sizzlers. He owned three, lost them all. He had a beautiful home up in the

foothills that we used to go to all the time, and he would have those sizzler

pies and all that, you know, and we used to fellowship with him. No more. I went to

go visit him in a small little house at the end of his life engulfed with cancer.

He was dying, a lonely man. You see, you can have a great business, but it can

take you down. It'll take you up, but it's... you can slip down. Jesus said to seek

him first in every aspect of your life, including time, and he will add unto you

so you will lack nothing. I'm not gonna read the scripture, but in Genesis

27 and 28, you can point that down, it speaks about the dew of heaven. When we

seek and we take advantage of the dew of heaven, God will give us what he says,

the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain, which is prosperity. This is an

interesting thing that I studied sheep, the characteristics of sheep. Sheep can

actually live for months without drinking water from a brook, a fountain, or

a well, because they have naturally learned to drink water from the drops of

the dew. This is proven. During the night, the dew forms as drops of water on a

delicate, delicate grass and vegetation. Very early in the morning, the sheep whose

shepherd allowed them to graze would go out and drink the drops of dew. Dew is

considered to be the most pure in crystal water. The healthiest sheep were

and are those that get up early in the morning to take advantage of the drops of

dew, dew drops. They signify mercy and providence. Before Noah and the

flood, there was never rain as we know it today.

The earth was watered with dew. It has, it's been scientifically proven, even in

our day, that there are more dew drops in the world than there are raindrops.

Rains always make a lot of noise. Spiritually speaking, there are many

Christians who only wait for spiritual rains that come with much noise. Indeed,

there is revival in the rains, but the most powerful and healthy revival is

when the sheep get up early in the morning and drink the dew drop. Dew drops

symbolize purity, renewal, divine blessing. Why do I use this analogy?

Because when we give God the first fruits of our day and seek him first and

give him the first of our everything, including our time, he will give us the

fatness of the earth and prosper our every endeavor. You will have time to do

what you're expected to do if you give him his part first, because he will add

it unto you. We must carefully discipline ourselves in how we walk in

this world, or else we become vulnerable to the deceit of conformity which will

affect our end of the day. In Romans 12, 2, it says, and do not be conformed to this

world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is

that good and acceptable imperfect will of God. The use of time is important,

because time is what makes our day. Time is valuable. As many say, time is money. In

the parable of the talents, and I'm getting ready to close, it doesn't only

reference money, it includes all precious gifts of God and opportunities, and there

is no greater gift given to man than the gift of time. The parable tells us that

God will require of us what he has put in our care. If we disregard the

opportunity of time, we will be held accountable for every minute wasted. If

we do not discipline our use of time for the purpose of godliness, especially in

these evil days, these evil days will keep us from becoming godly, and we will

waste away. It is then of extreme importance in making the most of time

because of the pressure, the presence, and the moral challenges in the world.

There's a great need in being spiritually alert, proactive against

evil influences. Let us value every moment of every day and give to God what

he has graciously given to us, time. I'm going to close with this quote from Dr.

Martin Luther King. It has impacted me because I'm from that era. He spoke to

the clergy and the laymen concerned about the war in Vietnam. If you can stand

with me, please. He spoke to the clergy and the laymen

about the war in Vietnam at a Riverside Church in the 4th of April 1967 in New

York City. The speech was entitled, Beyond Vietnam. He said, we are now faced

with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the

fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is

such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of

time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost

opportunity. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but

time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled

residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, too late.

There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our

neglect. And I just wondered today how it is that we manage ourselves, not the time

we can't manage time. We manage ourselves. And I want to challenge all of us

beginning with myself that we need

not more quality time with God because there's all time is the same whether it's

it's just the same. There's no time that's quality that one's quality this

one's not. It's all quality. But what we do and how we manage ourselves within

that clock, that sphere of time, would determine the outcome in our life by

which one day we will be judged. And I say how then are you using your time, my

time.