The instructions for living a joyous, useful, and effective Christian life are found in God's Word. To be used by God, one must first know Jesus Christ as Savior, then maintain a single eye on God's purpose, and remove any hindrances to spiritual growth. It is essential to yield one's will completely to God, daily commune with Him through prayer and His Word, and learn to live by faith. Christians should also be mindful of their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, taking care of them through proper diet, exercise, and rest to honor God.
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They have you. Come right on up and we'll harness you in here. Well, what was last night they told me that they had a trap door that opened up at eight thirty. It is a joy to be back to Southside. I was here twenty-one months ago, and the Lord has been good, as he always is, to us in many ways since that visit.
And one of the things that impressed me then, and one of the things that impresses me and blesses me now is the large number. of young people that are here tonight, and how this thrills and inspires and challenges the heart of the one who is ministered in his word. What I shall say tonight can be appropriate and applied to those of all ages, but I trust it might have a special word of challenge to those who yet have many, many decisions to make. in their lives that are ahead. I would like to say a word about the Believers Bible Conference that it has been my privilege to be the chairman of for about fifteen to sixteen years.
Some of the people here have been privileged to attend the conference and can testify to the blessing that it was to them. This conference is held now every summer. and we trust that we'll be held every summer until the Lord comes, at Covenant College on top of Lookout Mountain, twenty-three hundred feet above feet above sea level. The food is wonderful, the ministry is very, very blessed of God, and the fellowship is just about out of this world. And we'll guarantee you, and I told you this, last spring a year ago when I was here and one or two who are here that went can tell you we guarantee you a mountain top experience now not all conferences can guarantee that because we don't meet on top of a mountain but since we meet on top of a mountain we guarantee that if you come to the conference you'll have a mountain top experience in more ways than one the dates for the nineteen seventy conference in the will of the Lord, July eighteen to twenty-four.
The speakers, Mr. John Phillips, formerly of Moody Bible Institute, but now of Emmaus Bible School, who is in fellowship in the Lombard, Illinois Assembly, will be speaking, and also joining Mr. Phillips as a longtime friend of his from England by the name of Stan Ford. A very capable and able evangelist. I'll guarantee you also that he'll be one of the biggest men you've ever seen preach in your life. He's a former heavyweight boxer. His nose has been broken three or four times. His arms and hands stretch about eight feet from tip to tip.
He's about six feet, four inches. And somebody was telling me this afternoon that on one occasion that he probably won't do this here when he comes. But he was on the west coast and there was a lady who wanted to come here and preach and her wife wasn't too interested in spiritual things or his wife. The lady wanted to come here and preach and her husband wouldn't let her come. So he sought the man out and grabbed him by the nap of the neck and says, Listen, you let your wife come or I'll come see you. You know what happened? He let it come. But Brother Stan Ford will be with us.
And working with the boys and girls will be Mr. Jack Gawley of Chicago with the eight to twelve year old group. Working with the wee little tots from about three up to about seven will be Mrs. Fred Cozen who worked with them last year. And working with the teenagers this year will be Mr. Fred Cozen who worked with them also last year. Now that's enough I think. The dates eighteen to twenty four of July and we trust that numbers of you will be able to come. Now for about a month, I've been very much in prayer that God would give me His message for tonight.
One of the things that I fear in going from place to place, speaking perhaps just one night in one place, I fear that the meeting might not just be just another meeting. And so it's been my prayer that the Lord might lay upon my heart for tonight the message that is needed in at least one heart, maybe two hearts, maybe three, maybe four, maybe all of our hearts. And so tonight I'd like to bring a message based upon the teaching of the Word of God.
It's not going to be an expository message because it's going to be a topical message. But I'd like to bring the message tonight that I wish I could have heard a little while after I became a Christian. You see, the first three years after I was converted to Christ as a student at the University of Georgia, I didn't have anyone to teach me, that is not consecutively and regularly. I was still going to a church where the gospel was not preached clearly and certainly where the Word of God was not taught systematically. And about the only teaching that I got was what little teaching I got.
while attending an intervascular fellowship chapter at the University of Georgia. And there were a lot of things about serving the Lord and knowing God's will and the importance of getting into the Word and the importance of prayer and things like this that I had to just kind of get by myself. And so tonight, I would like to talk about the things that are important. in the Christian life. Now, Mrs. Skew and I have just redecorated part of the home that the Lord has given to us.
We put wallpaper on one wall. She went to every store in the county, I think, not just to see it, but in the county looking for the wallpaper. And when she found it, she bought it. on credit. I'm glad to say I paid for it since then, because it was on a sale, you know, naturally. She never pays regular price. She waits till they mark it down. But anyway, we came up... Now, I'm not a wallpaper hanger. Neither is she. To begin with, you wouldn't hardly get a person to come out to your house just to hang one little wall of wallpaper. So what do you think we did?
We got the instructions. and we spread them out on the dining room table and we read them and we read them and we read them and you know what we did then we read them again that's right and when we were completely familiar with what they said do if you wanted a job we started and we hung the paper and a week later A nephew of hers was visiting us, and his job, he works for RCA. And they put the sound systems in all of the motels, the big new motels that they are building around Columbia.
And as you know, most motels have wallpaper on the walls. And you know what he said? He said, ain't that? The professional wallpapers that hung the wallpaper last week in the Ramada Inn out near the airport says they didn't do near as good a job as you and Uncle Shockley did. And you know what the difference is? The professional wallpapers were hanging wallpaper because they were being paid for it. We were hanging wallpaper. because we wanted to bring glory to God. And in order to do it and to do it right, we had a set of instructions and we followed the instructions.
Now, friends of mine tonight, let me tell you something. The instructions as to how you are to live and to be happy and joyous and useful and effective on this earth are right here in this book. And if you want to be a useful Christian and an effective Christian and a radiant Christian, you can find how to live in this book.
There's a verse in Ezekiel chapter twenty-two. I'd like to read it to you. It's in Ezekiel chapter twenty-two and it's verse thirty. The word of God says, I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it. Then there are four very, very sad words. And the four words are, but I found none. He says, I thought for a man, but I found none.
Now, I'm going to read a verse. You don't need to turn to this because if you don't know it by heart, I hope you'll know it by heart before you go to bed, because this, I think, is one of the most important verses in the Bible. The first verse of Romans twelve. It goes something like this. Paul the Apostle says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. In First Corinthians chapter and verse nineteen we read a verse and it goes something like this what know you not that your body your body is the temple of God which dwelleth in you and ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price Therefore, glorify God in your body.
Now, dear friends, someday you and I, who know the Lord Jesus, are going to stand before him, not to be condemned because We have been justified and we need never fear standing before God in our sins because those of us who have trusted Jesus Christ will be his or his rather and will be his for eternity. But someday we'll stand before him and he will reward us in proportion to our faithfulness in service. Not in proportion to what we've done necessarily, but He will reward us in proportion to how faithful we've been with the opportunities that we've had.
And what a wonderful, marvelous thing it would be. And what a marvelous thing it is if early in our lives The Lord speaks to us perhaps in the quietness of some night or the coolness of some morning. And He whispers to us, and we realize, as we've never realized before, that we belong to God. And that the most wonderful, thrilling, joyous experience in all the world is being constantly aware of the fact that this is God's temple.
And because this is God's temple, I am to honor Him in everything that I do. And so now, in the time that remains, we're going to make a list, and this is not a message, this is an outline for a study. And how wonderful it would be if some of you might happen to have a notebook or a piece of paper or a back of a letter or piece of stationery or something and a piece of paper and a pencil. And you could take these headings down because actually all that I have time to do in the thirty minutes that I have is give you the outline. You can get you a Thompson Bible or a Schofield Bible or a good concordance and look up these words or these topics in your Bible, and you can get verse after verse after verse.
Now, in most cases, I'm going to give you a verse, one verse. I'll probably quote it or read it, to tie these truths onto. Now, if you'd like to know how to follow the instructions and be a joyous, useful Christian that is used of God, There is one thing, and I'm not going to say that these things that I'm giving you are given in their importance, except this first one. This first one must be first and foremost. If you'd like to be used of God, it is absolutely essential that you, K-N-O-W, know experimentally the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Now you cannot empathize that too much, because God needs a clean vessel. He needs a vessel in which He lives, in order that His Spirit may flow through, in and out of that vessel. And God does not live in a vessel until, first of all, the vessel has been cleansed. and a vessel our bodies are cleansed when we by faith take Christ into our hearts and into our lives and we are born again off His Spirit. Paul says, I know in whom I have believed.
and I'm persuaded that He's able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. So number one, if you want to be used of God, if you want to get off on the right track and you want to follow the instructions as to how to be used of God, first and foremost is you must have become a Christian. And how do you do that? By acknowledging your sins. By saying, oh God, I'm a sinner. I cannot save myself. I believe that Jesus died for me, and I'm trusting in what He did for me on the cross. Save me in Jesus' name. The Bible says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
You don't have to go to an altar or prayer. You don't have to go to a confessional booth. You don't have to go anywhere. You can be saved right in that pew, right where you are, right in that seat. If you recognize that you are a sinner, if you recognize that you need Christ, You put your faith and your trust in Him. The Word of God says, For whosoever shall be saved. First and foremost, you need to know the Savior. Number two, and I think this is very important, but I would not declare necessarily that it has to be second in order, but I know it's very, very important. If you'd like to be successful and you'd like to be used by the Lord in His service, and incidentally I would like to correct any false impression that some Christians sometimes get, and that is that you do not have to be what we call a full-time worker in order to be used of God.
There are a lot of people think that when you really get things straightened out with the Lord and you give the Lord your whole heart, life, and body and soul, that you'll go off to some Bible school or seminary and go out and be a professional Christian working. No. Sometimes this may happen. I mean, you may go into what we call full-time work. But, beloved, some of the most outstanding Christians... some of the most gifted Christians, some of the Christians that are being used in the most wonderful way by the Lord are people who still have what we call secular jobs. Because a Christian businessman, for example, a Christian secretary, a Christian nurse can reach people that the man in the pulpit can never reach.
And so, I want you, dear young people, especially to know tonight that if the Lord calls you into this field or this field, whether it be full-time or not, that's not important. The thing is, if the Lord has called you there, he'll use you. Now, let's get back to the point that I really started on. That is this. If you want the Lord to use you, you need to ask God... to cause you to have your eye single on one purpose, one aim, one goal in life, and that is to be the man or the woman or the boy or the girl or the mother or the father, as the case may be, that God wants you to be.
Once again we go to Paul. Philippians three-thirteen Paul says, This one thing I do. One purpose, one goal, one ambition, and that is to be God's man or God's woman. I remember a young lady. saved during the early years of my life as a servant of the Lord in Columbia, South Carolina.
We had brought a number of people over to the Billy Graham Crusade in Atlanta. This young lady found the Lord that weekend. She was involved in the personnel department of the Southern Bell Telephone Company. It was one of those cases where she grew by leaps and bounds. Oh, she just ate up the word, and she began to have a real prayer life, and she studied the Bible, and she began to witness, and she really grew like few Christians do. And after she had been a Christian for some, maybe a year, a year and a half, she felt led of the Lord to go out and work as a home missionary in some of the rural areas out in the West.
And the young ladies who were associated with her and the Christian Business and Professional Women's Council had kind of a little going away party for her. And they got a bunch of luggage and so forth, you know, and they stood up and made a wonderful little speech. I was told by my wife who was there about how wonderful it is that Dot's going away into full-time work for the Lord. And she got up with tears in her eyes and said, Oh, my dear friends, I appreciate all the wonderful, nice things that you've said about me. Going out into full-time work. But dear friends, I want to tell you that since the night the Lord apprehended me on the tenth floor of the Henry Greater Hotel in Atlanta.
And drew me to himself, I've been full-time for the Lord. You know, I think that was one of the greatest sermons I've ever heard in my life. Here's a young lady who is full time for the Lord. Why? Because she's been apprehended of Christ and she's apprehended him. I think of a man like my dear brother in Christ, Theo McCully, who's now in heaven. He was the manager of a large bakery in Milwaukee. But here's a man whose life counted tremendously for the Lord Jesus. I think of commercial artists that I know.
I think of salesmen that I know. I think of insurance men that I know. I think of school teachers that I know, counselors that I know in school, and their lives are counting for Christ. And they have but one purpose and one goal in life, and that is to let their lives count for Jesus Christ. May God grant. Especially in the lives of you young people. As you finish high school, perhaps go off to school or get a job, that wherever you go and whatever you do, that you remember that that life you have belongs not to you but to the Lord. And that your life can count for him and should count for him wherever you go.
I believe it was William Carey, the first modern missionary that went to India. He said... that his main job in life was to win souls to Jesus Christ. He simply cobbled shoes to pay expense. Beloved, that should be the attitude and the aim and the ambition of every Christian who knows Jesus Christ. The third thing that I would say is very important. If you'd like to be used to the Lord, is to remove every hindrance that might hinder you in your work for the Lord.
Listen to this verse. While foreseeing we also accomplish about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which thus so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Lay aside every weight and every sin. Now, it might be very simple if I would have said to that young people or Christian friends, if you really want your life to come to the Lord, I tell you what, you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do this and by all means don't do this and don't do this and do this and do this and do this.
That would be too simple. that would also be very legal. I remember seeing Gil Dodds run. I don't know, well, you young people don't know who Gil Dodds was because I'm talking about another generation now. But twenty-five years ago, maybe almost thirty years ago now, Gill Dodds was the world's indoor champion mile runner. He happened to be also a wonderful Christian. And I went to a large evangelical rally on one occasion in Minneapolis, and Gil Dodds ran an exhibition run.
And he came out to run the race, and he had on a real heavy football uniform. with heavy shoulder pads and hip pads, you know, and heavy boots, shoes on, you know, and knee pads. And you got down the run. How many of you believe that? No. Didn't do that. To be quite frank, if you'd taken all the clothes, including the little sandals he had on, and put them on a scale, they would have weighed less than one pound. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which thus so easily beset us.
Now must a few, you say, how can I know what there is in my life that might beset me and might hinder me? and might impede my progress in the race of the Christian. Well, I'll tell you how you can know. James chapter one, verse five. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who give it to all men liberally, and uprate it not, and it shall be given him.
And I believe that you honestly and earnestly in your heart beseech the Lord and say, Lord Jesus, my life belongs to you. I want my life to count for you. And if there's anything in my life and in my heart and in my social life and in my school activities and in my business that is displeasing to you, that is a hindrance and that's hurt in my testimony, I want you to put your finger on it and I'll get rid of it. Take God's word and you'll do that. The whole secret, you see, is your relationship and attitude toward your Lord. If you are daily feeding upon God's word, as I'm going to admonish you to do in a moment, and if you do not let a day go by but watch you spend some time in His presence, earnestly seeking His will, I'll not worry about what you'll do.
Now, Gil Dodge could have run that exhibition race against that young man who'd had some training in the Navy as a runner, and Gil Dodge could have had on a football uniform. But when the race was over, I'll tell you what, he wouldn't have won the race. Now, you can be a Christian and do things that you shouldn't do as a Christian because you're not saved by works, you're saved by faith in the Lord Jesus. But you can't expect to be a victorious, godly, useful, joyous, radiant Christian, unless you are willing to lay aside anything in your life that the Lord Jesus, by His Holy Spirit, might point out to you as being wrong.
And so if you really want to know God's will in this, he will make it known to you now the next thought ties in very very closely with what I've just said Romans six thirteen Romans six thirteen there's one word I want you to notice the second word of the thirteenth verse. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness under God.
Under sin, rather. But yield yourselves under God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness under God. If you'd like to follow the instructions in God's word, if you'd like to be a useful Christian... If you'd like for God to take your body and your testimony and your life and use it for His glory, it is absolutely essential that you yield your W-I-L-L, will completely to God. Now there are a few cases where a person has been properly instructed at the time that they are converted where they do this.
But in most cases not. I never shall forget when I was a Methodist pastor in Memphis, Tennessee, the Lord gave us quite a ministry among some student nurses from the Baptist Hospital. And a young lady found the Lord one night. My wife and I had their joy, partner to the Savior. And about three weeks later, the Lord led me to bring a message on yielding to the Lord. And she came up at the close of the service and she was all confused. She says, Mr. Few, I'm all mixed up.
I said, why? She said, well, Mr. Few, when I trusted the Lord three weeks ago, I did what you said we're supposed to do now. I said wonderful, praise the Lord. But you see, dear friends, as we grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, quite frequently we realize that there are areas in our lives that we were not aware of that we are seeking to live and use for ourselves. And as the Holy Spirit speaks to us about this, quite frequently we see fit to yield these areas to the Lord Jesus. Now, really, we could talk about this for an entire evening by itself.
Knowing God's will, yielding our hearts and lives to Him, but just let me mention one or two areas that we could yield to the Lord. For example, perhaps the largest thing that we could yield to the Lord would be Where are we going to serve Him with our bodies? What type of work are we going to do? And this is something that every Christian should pray earnestly about. Lord Jesus, am I in the type work that you can use me most effectively in? Or do you want me to go to college at a Bible school or somewhere else to prepare to serve you?
And if so, make this known unto me. I want to know your will. And if you seek his will and are honestly willing to do his will, he'll make his will known unto you. But I want to mention another area that's very, very important. And young people especially need to yield this to the Lord. And that concerns the person that you're going to look at every morning at the breakfast table. And some of you boys are going to need a lot of grace, I'll tell you. Especially if they still use rollers in the hair by the time you get married.
But this is most important. I've been so happy and I know that I hope it's not a sin to brag on your daughter-in-laws. But we're so thankful, because since I was in this pulpit, actually within the last year, the Lord has given us two wonderful Christian daughter-in-laws. And I want to tell you that that is a wonderful feeling. To have two daughter-in-laws that you love like your own children, and you know that they know and love the Lord Jesus. And the thing that makes it so very blessed is that when our sons met these young ladies, they didn't know the Lord, but they had the joy of introducing them to the Lord on either the first or the fourth date.
And so we thank the Lord for these daughter-in-laws. And I want to tell you that next to choosing whether or not you're going to let Jesus Christ have his way in your heart and life or not, who you're going to marry is the next most important decision. Because many a young man and many a young lady has missed God's best for their lives because they didn't leave the choice up to the Lord. Someone has said, this is not in the Bible, but the truth is in the Bible, God always gives his best to those who leave the choice to him.
And I want to testify to the fact that when you are earnestly willing to do what God wants you to do concerning your life partner, the Lord can certainly be good and gracious to you. You know, back after I was converted, I worked with End of Oscar Fellowship for a while and I went here and yonder and I suppose I met the cream of the crop. And I had my standards and ideals about what the girl should have and be like that I was going to marry, you know. Oh, she had to have a college degree and she ought to be able to play the piano and she ought to do this and this and this and this.
And you know what the Lord did for me? The Lord led me to somebody that couldn't do hardly any of those things. But you know what he did? He gave me somebody that could do a lot of things that were a lot more important than I thought were important, and who was just the person for this crazy guy. I thank God every day. for the wonderful Christian helpmate that He gave me. And I believe that for every man and every woman and for every young man and for every young woman with a very, very few exceptions, God has someone for you.
And you just ask the Lord to give you the one of His, well, let me give you a little secret. At least this is how it worked with me, and I believe it could work with anybody else. I almost married a girl that would have really, I believe, she would have wrecked my life as a minister of the gospel. I really did, after I was saved. I was going with her when I was converted, and I almost married that girl, and God, by His grace, delivered me from her. And you know what I did when I realized how close I had come to running my life by being unequally yoked with the wrong person.
And by the way, Christian, young person, you can be unequally yoked with a Christian if it's not the person the Lord has for you, see. And so I got on my knees and here's what I asked the Lord. And I believe there are certain times in our lives when we can really ask the Lord for something that's hard and specific because you see, nothing's too hard for God. I got on my knees and I said, now Lord, I don't know who you have for me. But I know you know. And the only way I'm going to know where it is, Lord, I'm going to ask you this. I'm going to ask you to cause me not to be fond of any girl that I meet, but the one that you have for me.
And the Lord kept his part of the bargain, and I kept my power as part of the bargain. And there's one or two people here tonight that know my wife, And they know what a sweet, wonderful person she is, not because I said, but because God made her that way. And you see, God knows me. And he knew all about my acidic ill-syncrasies. And so he knew just the kind of person with the right kind of southern sweet temperament that would counteract my quick impulsiveness. See? And I want to tell you right now, I mean what I'm talking about because I've experienced it in my heart.
And I cut it for every young person here tonight that God would give you his very best because you will never be effective for him until you have the one of the life partners that the Lord has for you. And I want to tell you, There are a lot of fine Christian young people today. If you don't believe it, go for a day and spend a day at Emmaus or at Moody or someplace like that. And you sit in the lobby and in the library and watch them. The Lord has a... I praise the Lord that the devil doesn't have all of the fine, talented, good-looking, alert, sharp young people.
The Lord has a lot of them. And I'm proud of it. And I'm glad. But I would suggest this. that there's awful good fishing off at some of these tools. And I will say that now. Now, if you young ladies decide to go to Mass, don't you let anybody tell you you're just going to get a husband. You're going to study the Bible. But just in case the Lord decides to give you a husband, you know, while you're there, well, praise the Lord for it. All right. I didn't intend to say all that, but it won't cost anything extra. All right. We've got four more minutes, so I've got to hurry. All right. I was going to tell you how to know God's will, but you can ask Brother Stuart and he'll tell you.
All right. Number five. He will. He probably has the same outline I have. Doesn't have a three-point. W.E. Vine and George Mueller both use the same points. All right. Number five. Now, this is very essential. You want to grow... I want to be a strong Christian. I want to be a useful Christian. I want to be a spirit-led Christian. You need to daily commune and fellowship with God in prayer and in the studies and in the reading of God's Word.
Now, you young people at Southside are very fortunate because you have some adults here, some older Christians, some elders who recognize that young people need to get together for fellowship and they need to get together for the study of the Word of God. And this is very wonderful and you are very extremely fortunate to have the setup you have at Southside. But that is not enough. If you really want the Lord to use you, you need not only to take every opportunity you have to study in a group, but you need to make it the habit of your life to daily, personally, feed upon the Word of God and to commune with God through prayer and praise and fellowship.
Now there are some very wonderful little booklets that deal with the subject that I'm talking about right now. They can be purchased for some fifteen or twenty cents. Anne DeVosca has a little booklet on the Daily Quiet Time. Mr. A.P. Gibbs has written a little booklet that Good News has published on the Christian's Guide. Mr. Gibbs also wrote a little booklet on the Quiet Time. And we don't have time to go into all this, and it's not necessary because it's all available in a little booklet. But if you want to know how to go about a systematic, orderly, regularly quiet time, there are many little booklets that can help you in this way. Another thing that's very important in these instructions, and this is a matter that you can pray about because it comes as a result of praying and believing, and that is a matter of faith.
You need to learn how to believe God to answer prayer. And I want to say this. that if you have not experienced in your life being led of God as a result of a prayer of faith, you have something to look forward to. I think that as a believer in the Lord and as one of His servants, that the way the Lord can lead me sometimes Sometimes when I'm not aware of it is one of the things that just thrills me no end.
Last week when I made my plane reservation to Chicago, I made a reservation that would get me into Chicago at four fifty-five in the afternoon. But about Thursday the Lord began to speak to me and the Lord said sharply, Move your plane reservation up so that you'll get into Chicago earlier. I didn't know why. I had no earthly idea except that I know the Lord told me to. And so I got a plane out of Columbia at eleven o'clock Saturday morning and at one o'clock I was in Chicago. And when I got to Chicago, my host met me at O'Hare.
We drove to his house and said, now we'll take a little rest, because at four o'clock we're going into the missionary study class. And we went in there, and four of the Lord's choices served were there. And I was challenged as the Lord knew I needed to be challenged. You see, those of us that are constantly speaking and giving out and giving out and giving out, we just get starved to have someone to feed us. And this was just what I needed. And as I sat there and drank in these challenging messages from these four choice servants of the Lord, the tears streamed down my cheeks as I realized how precious the Lord was to feed me and to lead me to get that earlier plane reservation because had I gotten the one that I'd gotten earlier, I wouldn't have gotten to the missionary's credit class.
But you see, the Lord knew that. I didn't. And I be it in the way the Lord led me. Oh, young people. It's a wonderful thrill to commit your life, your heart, your body, your family, your home, your job, your future, and everything just to the Lord. And just leave the choices up to Him. Oh, you'll have a lot of interesting experiences, I'll tell you. And there'll be a lot of experience you won't want to be telling anybody about. But there'll be a lot of experiences... But you'll say, thank you, Lord.
You knew what was best. And I'm glad I left the choice up to you. Ask God to teach you how to believe in Him and to trust in Him for your every need. You need to learn how to work in the anointing of the Spirit of God. You need to ask God to give you a God-given passion for souls, for the souls of men. You need to ask God to give you courage.
And last but not least, you need to ask God to teach you how to discipline. your body. Christian should be very careful about what he does with his body. Christian, God doesn't give you but one body on this earth. And if you disobey God's laws concerning health and the proper diet and the proper exercise and the proper rest, And if you disregard the normal, everyday, logical, physical laws of this body, God doesn't promise to give you another body.
And because of this, you should learn what foods You need to eat in order to have a healthy body and you should eat them. And you should learn that if you eat too many of one kind of food and another kind of food, that it's humble to lay off of them. And you should learn that you need a proper amount of exercise and you need a proper amount of rest. You need to be a well-balanced Christian. You need to be a strong Christian. Because after all, it isn't your body you're living in. Remember that. It's God's body. I have a very, very fine friend in Columbia. I've mentioned him in this pool pit several times. His name is Johnny Spence. He's a professional golfer.
But you see, the first forty-five years of Johnny Spence's life, he lived for the devil. He dissipated his body. And about twelve years ago, the Lord saved Johnny Spence. And he spends a lot of time traveling over the country, giving his testimony to people and talking about the Lord Jesus, but he's not able to do near as much as he would be able to if he had a strong body. But you see, God gives you only one body on this earth. So take care of your body because it's not yours.