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Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord. Abide in him always, and feed on his word. Make friends of God's children, help those who are weak.

For getting in nothing is a blessing to seek. Take time to be holy, the world rushes on. Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone.

By looking to Jesus, like him thou shalt be. Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see. Take time to be holy, let him be thy guide.

And run not before him, whatever be tide. In joy or in sorrow, still follow thy Lord. And look into Jesus, still trust in his word.

Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul. Each thought and each motive beneath his control. Thus led by his spirit to fountains of love, thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come today. For this thou come today to rapture us out unto thee, to take us home to be with thee. Amen.

I am missionary Richard Yerby in Japan, continuing preaching sermons on the series Safety, Rest and Quiet, where the perfect and upright man named Job declared, I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet. And when the end of my life sermon came, I was speaking to you on being invited to a church on Wednesday night in the States back in 1985, I guess that was, to speak to their youth. And when I arrived at church, they directed me to the church gymnasium where the youth met in the gymnasium and the boys were active on that gymnasium court with basketballs, had trouble getting them into the side room to listen to the word of God.

They had no ears to hear and they had no heart to perceive. So I'll take up where I left off the last time. I finished preaching to them with just no effect, hardly.

And doing so, I prayed, and then I turned the meeting back over to their leader, a young man, the youth leader of the church, and he soon dismissed them. As soon as he did, the boys bolted out the door of this gymnasium side room, right back onto the ball court to eagerly resume the recreation provided for the church at much financial expense. Blap, blap, blap was sound that greeted me when I walked into church that night on Wednesday night.

And just 20 seconds after church was dismissed in the gymnasium, blap, blap, blap again, several basketballs in action on the court. Boys who could not remember, teenage boys, they couldn't remember the nine words of scripture that I read to them, or 20 seconds after I had spoken those words into the ears, were showing their profound ability to keep their mind sharply focused on a vain basketball at church, at church time. Let us be not deceived, almighty God on high is highly displeased with such lukewarm, laodicean church activity.

Judgment day is coming, and likely it will only be a matter of time, and I don't think very long before those young people will assemble there on Wednesday nights and have no semblance of a church service at all, but the play ball only. And I can readily see why several in their group would probably be lost as the godly sister in the church told me about the burden on her heart for their souls, for their eternal salvation. And she was hoping I could do something with them and for them.

By the time I got finished with that stinking recreational mess in the church gymnasium that was being passed off as church, I was beginning to feel a little lost myself. My friend had told me, she hoped I could do something for those young people. I know exactly what that church needs to do for their youth, repent of building that idol for them on the church property with God's money, tear it down, put those teens into real church each Wednesday night, and give them some strong preaching.

The ones among them who show no evidence of being born again, dangle them over the eternal fires of hell to put some fear of the Lord in their hearts, hopefully. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil, repent, and call upon God to save them.

It is most heartbreaking to me to witness the church in general sliding so rapidly downhill in these matters. The human race suffers monumental tragic loss by forsaking the God-ordained method of earning our living by tilling the soil, while at the same time deriving a fulfillment of God-ordained pleasure out in God's created nature, free of monetary cost, and not done in a money-costly church gymnasium at church service time. But we gladly traded tilling the soil for the devil's world, the method of the devil gladly offered to us for earning our living out in the world.

And we traded because we love the world in sinful disobedience to God's command in 1 John chapter 2 verse 15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

We traded living on the earth amidst God's beautiful nature for living in the world amidst the devil's ugly concrete, hard, cold asphalt, steel, glass, chrome, and such, where anything we now do for recreation, pleasure, and such is no longer free like it was out in God's nature. Rather, it costs much money. Therefore, the church located in the devil's world responds by spending much of God's money for recreation and such.

I believe God is highly displeased with that. God's money should be used to spread the gospel to the lost world, to take care of poor and needy folks, especially poor and needy church folks, and such as that. I plainly recall how that while I was growing up in God's nature on the farm, about all I desired for my parents or any other adult to do for me regarding providing recreation was just turn me loose in God's nature, and I could easily find enough clean pleasure there, needless of supervision, and free of monetary charge.

But you well know what happens when you turn young people loose in the devil's world, in the city, they go to the devil. Therefore, I understand your Christian desire to supervise them and provide them clean recreation for the benefit of their eternal souls. It would be wise to strive to keep such completely separated from church, from God's church, from God's house, where you meet to worship the Lord, and that you don't spend God's money on it, and you don't carry it on at his church house, especially during church service time.

Looking at the devil's world around you, you can see it is already full of man-made places to play, gymnasium, stadiums, playing fields, parks, six flags over everywhere, and all kinds of places to play. Why be so stupid and foolish to spend God's money to build more of such to clutter up the church property? You Christian adults who believe that such recreation with a money cost is presently the best option available, then please do it all outside of the church, away from the church, using your money only and none of the money that has been given to God as tithes and offerings. And each time you come to church, do it for the purpose of pleasing God in worship, preaching, praying, Bible study, and singing.

Cease to come to church for your own pleasures of Super Bowl Sunday at church, eating, drinking, playing, making merry, and cease using God's money simply to heap those pleasures upon yourselves. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please tell me if Brother Richard has the mind of God in this strict preaching.

Please show me just exactly how displeasing it is to Thee, Lord, for Thy church to spend Thy money on facilities built for our own fleshly pleasures. Show me how important it is for us to use the money that has been given to Thee for Thy pleasure, mainly being that of spreading the wonderful news of Thy saving grace to the billions of lost souls so badly in need of Thy salvation. Please deal with all other Christians, especially our church leaders, to do that which is most right and most pleasing to Thee in these matters.

Please work a great miracle and save us all from living to wallet in our own pleasure and help us to instead live for Thy pleasure. May our eye be single in this matter, Lord, I pray. Grant all this, Heavenly Father, I pray in the name of my dear Lord and Savior, Thy Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen. As I visited in other churches during my one furlough that I've taken from Japan in 52 years, during the year 1985, I was shocked to see that churches which years before had met together every Wednesday night to pray and to study the Bible had come to assemble together only for a big meal on one or more Wednesday nights a month, and about the only religious thing they did at that meeting was to pray in thanksgiving, giving God thanks for the abundance, and asking Him to bless their banqueting and gluttony. And then later on, as I would visit stateside churches on a one-month or two-month visit to the church, a very short stay from the year 2005 through the year 2020 or so, the downhill trend was ever so evident, and the trend increased of gathering in the church banqueting hall on Sunday nights and Wednesday night when the church met together.

They met there instead of the sanctuary. And even more startling, sometimes on those Sunday nights or Wednesday nights when they met in the banqueting hall, several times when I arrived at the church and I was the missionary guest speaker, and I walked into that setting, the very first greeting I received was, coffee's over there. I mean that was the first thing said to me.

Being as I'm not a caffeine drug addict, I always passed on that offer of a free drug fix in God's house. Visited one large church back in the early 1980s, going back further again, I saw a new building that was an amusement and game center on the church property, full of all kinds of demonic computer games and lots of other play things. It was a large separate building built by the church simply for recreation, and in the 1980s the building cost was $100,000 to provide that playing.

That's a lot of God's money that God never got, but was rather consumed upon those people's own lusts for pleasure. It vexed my spirit when a church lady, I remember that church, a dear friend of mine, a godless sister lady, she proudly told me that the pastor had stated boldly from the pulpit that he would absolutely not allow it to be used during church services. Well, amen pastor, that's really doing God a favor by not providing recreation while church services also are going on.

That's holding to the fundamentals of the faith, isn't it? I can just picture the trouble they have running ever one of those young ones out of that recreation facility as church services began and getting them into church, and then as soon as church services end, the church service ends, the stampede back to the game room as soon as church is dismissed. What a tragic marvel. Another pastor in Alabama told me of taking some of his church people to Six Flags over Georgia on a Saturday on church bus, I suppose, for a day of playing at Six Flags, and though he lived about 180 miles from Atlanta, he had seen four other church congregations from his own city at Six Flags over Georgia on the same day.

If lay out of sin, Christians are without rest these days. It's not from working for the Lord, it is from never ceasing to play. The youth leader in so many churches is no more than a recreation leader being paid a salary by the church to provide recreation, but we think that as long as we label it Christian recreation, then it is pleasing to God.

As long as we boast of being fundamental, then we are pleasing to God. When we do away with Wednesday night service of singing, preaching, Bible study, and praying, and testimonies, and instead meet in the fellowship hall and gorge ourselves on a feast, it is pleasing to God to have a church gymnasium, as long as some scripture is written on one of its walls. You can proclaim to the world that you are fundamental.

You can have the fundamentals of the faith written in your church covenant or bylaws, have them written out and displayed in your church building, have every leader, teacher, preacher, worker sign a statement affirming that they believe those biblical facts, preach them regularly from the pulpit even, teach them often in every class even, and still go straight to the devil by being a church that lives to play. Neither had I rest, Job proclaimed. About the only way the present-day church is like Job in this matter is that it has no rest from playing.

A temperate amount of recreation, which is really creating, recreating, recreation, recreating by anyone is justifiable and beneficial. It causes the fewest problems when it is done with family and close friends, neighborhood friends, and such. There are two institutions on the face of this earth which are ordained of God and have absolutely no business being in the recreation business.

Those two are government and the church. Compare your zeal in working for God to the zeal and dedication you put into other things. Normally the first thing we want to take it easy on is serving the Lord.

If you get a burden for lost souls, get broken-hearted over the gross sin around you, then get on fire doing all you can to witness, pray, win souls, pray, bring people to church, pray, preach in public, pray, distribute gospel literature, pray, pour every dollar you can into rescuing souls, pray, burn the midnight oil, pray, never cease to pray, be like Job and have no rest, and you just see what will happen. Christians around you will say to you, take it easy, no need to get so excited about religious things, calm down, don't overdo it, don't be a fanatic. Hypocrites seldom is that their regard for any other realm of their lives.

They go all out to gain all the worldly fun, fame, and fortune, prestige they possibly can. Doing thus, their philosophy certainly isn't take it easy, don't overdo it. Rather, it's just the opposite with so many people who lay aside rest, working overtime to gain more unrighteous mammon.

They work hard to earn that pay raise, if they have their own business, some ruin their health, laboring fiercely night and day to build it up. They neglect family, they neglect God, but never mind. Let health, family, and God, everything that is important, go to the dogs.

We got to get all we can out of life, so let's give it our all. Hypocrites they be. I warn you not to have the nerve to tell a Christian brother or sister to take it easy when they are doing something zealously that will last for all eternity.

God have mercy on your sinful, rebuke, convicted, guilty soul if you do so. We don't have the attitude of take it easy when we play and madly chase after the pleasures of this world. God intently watches our zealous hunting, fishing, partying, playing night and day.

No one says take it easy with this. God is listening. He also knows your heart's motives.

Parents, you don't tell your children to take it easy when you push them to make unenrolled at school. Fanatics don't take it easy as they fervently worship the idol god of sports. Coach and fans push the players as cheerleaders push everyone.

Many of them will quickly tell the Christian worker to slow down and not to get so excited about serving the Lord, but if someone stood up in the heat of a ball came and yelled, take it easy and don't get too excited, don't overdo it, then everyone, all the fans and the fanatics would think he had gone crazy. Why is that? Because they love the pleasures of this world more than they love God. Back about 1981, one day, a group of children and I were standing by the flagpole on a little square between Tammuning Post Office and Bank of Hawaii on Guam.

We would sing together for a while, then I would preach and let them rest. Sing and preach, sing and preach, getting out the gospel message to people coming in and out of the bank and the post office. A tropical shower suddenly blew in and rain started.

I told the children, let's get out of the rain as I went up under the overhanging roof outside out front of the post office. Most of the children followed me up there to the dry, but Myung Hee, Young Joo, and Da Ann, three Korean girls, stayed out there in the pouring rain singing those old hymns at the top of their voices while getting soaking wet. Well, I rejoiced at that sight.

A Christian friend of mine on Guam, a church friend, happened to be in the bank at that time and later told me that the people in the bank were making all kind of snide remarks about how foolish those girls were to stand out there singing in the rain. And there I was looking so backslidden, standing in the dry under the roof. But despite all appearances, I did not urge those girls to stay out in the rain.

Rather, I told them to get in the dry under the roof. They chose to stay out singing in the rain of their own free will. Anyway, at that time, a man walked out of the post office and he stopped as he got outside the door and he just he disgustingly looked at those three girls, 11 to 13 years old, drenched in pouring rain, singing praises to God to the top of their voices.

What a glorious sight. Then that man looked disgustingly at me like I was some guilty criminal. I was standing in the dry and he said, they're going to catch a cold out there.

He spat out at me. I had not forced or even urged those girls to stay in the rain. Instead, I had told them to get under the roof.

But everyone seemed to assume the worst of me and to make a villain out of me just because I had preached to those girls many times on how important it is to tell the whole world about salvation in Christ. And that resulted in them choosing on their own to stand out there in the rain, singing praises to God. I believe that was a wonderful thing for them to do.

I rejoiced to see it and I had no desire to stop them from doing it. Glory to God. But what that man said about them catching a cold was possibly true.

Tropical Guam is hot all year, but summer colds are most easy to catch there. And because what he said was possibly true, I was at a loss for a reply. So he quickly spoke up again.

Why don't you get out there with him? There that he, the man was rebuking me for being backslidden. Reckon I should have been out there with him singing as loudly as I could while getting soaked and possibly catching a cold. David, when Goliath, shepherd boy David, when Goliath was threatening God's army and Israelites were afraid of him and cautioning David against doing anything against him, he said, what? Is there not a cause? It's the greatest cause of lifting God high.

I see my time is up for today. I hope to continue here the next time.