Revival Conference 2007 - Richard Sipley - Part 4

Now, you'd have more presence of mind than that. And then, I don't know how he did it so fast, but this frozen-looking kid jumped out of the front of the car, out of the front door, and ran around the front and grabbed the bumper. I would have thought it was funny if it weren't my car. And his feet are skidding on the pavement, and the car's picking up speed, and of course he did what you know it would do to hit the front of my car. And he was, the poor kid, he was so mad, and he stood by the car and started kicking it and swearing at it, which really helped it. And so, you've got to understand, I'm still living in Canada, and so I get out and say, Well, do you have a driver's license? Yeah, he had a driver's license. Do you have insurance? No. Just then, my son came home from work, and he saw his dad over there in his new car, and he stopped, got on his cell phone, and called the police. So the police came over, and the policeman is looking at the whole situation, and I said, This young man just bought this car and just got the license plate put on it, and he's on his way home, and he has no insurance. Then I made my third terrible mistake. I said, If we were in Canada, that wouldn't happen. Oh, don't ever do anything like that. He was very unhappy about that. He said, That's the law here, too, and I said, Then why doesn't he have insurance? Well, that didn't make him happier. Anyway, there wasn't anything much you could do about it, so some of us got the car off my front bumper, and we went on home to my son's place, because we hadn't moved here yet, and so we go in the kitchen, and my son says, Well, he may not have had insurance, but our company does business with his company. I know who he works for, and I'll get the money out of him. And all at once, God spoke to me. Do you ever have God speak to you all at once? And he said, What are you doing? What are you doing? That stupid piece of metal and rubber and junk, I'm going to burn it all up someday. What is the matter with you? There was that young man. Yeah, he looked frowsy, probably doesn't know the Lord. You blew it! And I said to my son, Whoa, wait a minute, son. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm all wrong. My attitude is wrong. How could I love that car like that? That's worldliness. And I said, because I wanted my son to hear it, I said, Son, what I should have done was put my arm around that kid and set up a date with him to take him to breakfast and share Christ with him. Amen? Yeah. That's how worldly I can get. Which disturbs me most, missing a Sunday church service or my favorite TV program? Which disturbs me most, a sermon ten minutes too long or lunch thirty minutes late? You may get a chance to test that. No, no, no. What disturbs me most, my Bible unopened or the newspaper unread? What disturbs me most, my children late for Sunday school or late for public school? Which disturbs me most? When I was here and when God was moving in power, there's a wonderful friend that came to the Lord, a Greek man that came to the Lord. And he's been living for God the whole thirty years we've been gone. And God has made him a powerful preacher and witness in the Orthodox Church and people are coming to Christ. And as soon as I got back, our friendship blossomed again and we would meet and talk. And one day he said to me, you know, God has really spoken to me about something in my life that was worldly. Oh, I said, what was that? He said, well, whenever the football season came on, I was a fan of the Cleveland Browns. Browns, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. And he said, my family and everybody knew that I worked hard and that's my time for myself. And so he said, nothing disturbs me, nothing interrupts me when I watch the football games. Nobody speaks to me, that's my time. And he said, God has really convicted me and I have confessed my sin and repented and I've given it up and I'm not even going to bother with it. You say, my goodness, do you think it's wrong to watch a football game? Not necessarily. But it's wrong for it to have priority in your life over anything that God wants in your life. And when I lived in Canada and I used to say to people, you know, the God of Canada is hockey and the arenas are the places where they worship. And sometimes they frowned at me for saying that, but I'm still alive. And I want to say three things. One of our brothers before said that American Christians are totally caught up in the things of the world. All kinds of things, not just sports things, but you name it. They're running their legs off and destroying their health and their home and everything, taking their kids to all of the junk and making sure that their little junior is good. He can hardly stand up and he's already got, he wouldn't be here but he can, he's already got ice skates on. So, worldliness, priorities, putting things of the world ahead of the things of God. What is the solution? Well, there's only two ways to get from the world, this world, to the next one. Translation or death, right? Is that right? You're not asleep. Okay, that's right. In Galatians 6:14 we read, God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. My friend, when someone was led outside of the gates of the city of Jerusalem and up on the hill called the Place of the Skull, when the soldiers led them up there and stripped their clothes and threw them down on that cross and nailed them to that cross, they were through with the world. Right? Whatever they had done in the world, whatever they owned in the world, whatever their pleasures were in the world, it didn't matter, anything and everything about the world was finished. They went up that hill to die and they were crucified unto the world. They were dead to the world. They no longer had any priority of any kind in their lives. And that's why the one thief had the good sense to make sure that he could get into the next world where he wanted to be, in paradise with Christ.