Best of 2020: Pastor Greg Laurie Then & Now: Getting on Our Level

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. To find out how to know God personally, go to knowgod.org. K-N-O-W, knowgod.org.

Hey, would you do me a favor? Share this message with someone who needs to hear it. God comes to each one of us on our own level. Even at the age of 24, Pastor Greg Laurie was preaching the Gospel. He was eager to tell people he had an emptiness in his life, but God filled it. You have an emptiness inside of you, too.

The only difference is I tried to fill mine maybe a little differently than you tried to fill yours. But you know the far out thing about the Lord, no matter what our age is, how old we are, how young we are, everything from an eight-year-old child to a rock musician, he comes to each one of us and says, Hey, I love you. Were you around in 1977? Back then, the miniseries Roots premiered on TV.

A postage stamp was 13 cents, gas was 62 cents, and snow fell in Miami, Florida. In 1977, Pastor Greg Laurie was standing at a pulpit about to preach a message and give his testimony. Today on A New Beginning, we'll hear that recording.

24-year-old Greg's voice was a bit higher, but his passion for the Gospel was already deep and infectious. In the day, the day when life begins I started getting into smoking grass in the 60s, and it was when the so-called hippie movement started gaining popularity. Tune in, turn on, drop out. I started hanging around with a bunch of friends that were really into getting loaded. I started growing my hair long and doing the whole thing and really becoming a hippie. We had an English class, and we were supposed to go watch Romeo and Juliet for our class. I loved that movie, and my friends said, Hey, let's take LSD.

Oh, hey, that'll really be good. So we took acid and sat in the movie. I was sitting there watching the movie, or I could have been watching the wall for that fact. This girl was sitting in front of us, and she turned around for a minute and turned back. I just looked at the girl.

Here I was, stoned, watching Romeo and Juliet. I see this girl, and I start going, There she is. I've met her finally.

I looked at her, and she looked at me again, and I went, Oh, wow, I got to meet her. It was weird because the next day a friend of mine went over to his house, and he had the latest Beatles album. The Beatles had just broken up. It was funny because I followed the career of the Beatles, maybe a little more aggressively than most people. The Beatles really had an impact on my life.

They helped me get into drugs, and I followed their careers. When I watched them break up, it had a strange impact on me because I was just coming off a psychedelic trip. I sat there and thought, Wow, the Beatles broke up, man. I thought, Something's happening.

I knew in my life a change was coming soon. So I really wanted to meet this girl. The next day, Monday at school, I was walking across the campus, and I saw her. I went, All right. She was talking to a friend of mine.

I'll just walk right up there. And I looked down, and she had a black book with gold edges on it. And I went, Oh, no, she's a Jesus freak. Now, if you want to be popular in school, you don't become a Jesus freak. Because I looked at her and thought, What a waste, man. Because I used to avoid Christians.

I didn't like to talk to them. We'd be out on the beach, and we'd see Christians coming, and we'd literally go out and hide in the water to get away from them. Because Christians never went in the water because they didn't want to get their Bibles wet, you know? So here is this beautiful young girl.

And at that time, I was very disappointed because she had wasted her life on Jesus. And so I saw this girl, and one day I was sitting out on the front lawn, and a friend said, Hey, there's a guy on campus, man. He's selling orange sunshine. That's LSD. And he says, Why don't you go get some?

I said, All right, you know, for the weekend. And so I went walking across the campus looking for this guy, and I started hearing this, you know, Jesus. And I looked over, and here's about 50 of these Christians sitting, Love, love, love. Is that the way Christians dance, you know? Then they all point up to this guy.

What are they pointing at? So I just looked at him, and I saw that girl. Her name was Chris. And I saw her there, and I went, There she is, man. And then I saw this guy talking.

He was sitting down, and he had long hair and a beard. And I said, Well, he kind of looks like sort of a turned on guy. Maybe he has some good things to say. Maybe I'll listen to this guy. So I sat down close enough to hear what they were saying, but not too close.

So people would think I'd become one, you know, because I don't want to do that. And I sat down and listened, and I kept looking at Chris, you know, going, Oh, man, I'd sure like to get to know her. And I started listening to this guy, and he said something that just shook me up. He said, Jesus said, You're either for me or against me.

I thought, What? Does that mean that if I'm not like one of these Christians, that I'm against God? And I thought, I'm not against God, man. God's got me out of a lot of jams. I believe in God. You know, I've called upon Him, and He's helped me out. But yet, I'm not like one of these people. And I began to realize that either I was for Christ or against Him. Now, I was always considered to be neutral to myself, you know, in between.

But I realized that to be undecided at that point was to be decided. It really touched my heart. And so the guy said, Now, there's some of you that want to give your lives to Christ today. I want you to stand up right now, right in the front of a high school. I mean, there's hundreds of kids sitting around eating sandwiches and, you know, to stand up there and go, Jesus.

I mean, that just is crazy. And people got up and started going up there. And I looked out the ground and I started feeling this funny sensation inside, something I'd never known before. And it was a very alien sensation. And it was something just drawing me and calling me. Now I know it was the Holy Spirit.

And I looked out the ground. I said, I'd like to do it. I really would. And I'd like to see if it's real. I've tried everything else. Why couldn't I try that?

But I just can't do it. And then about a moment later, I was up there. I don't know what happened, but I got up there and they prayed a prayer. I don't even remember what I prayed.

I don't even remember what happened. But I'll remember it was after we were done praying. That girl came running up to me and said, praise the Lord, brother.

That girl, Chris, I like. And threw her arms around me and hugged me. And I went, oh! And I thought, hey, maybe this Christian stuff isn't too bad of an idea. Again, my motivation for going in and hearing the meeting that time was totally wrong. I wanted to meet a girl, but the Holy Spirit had different plans for me. You know, there may be a lot of reasons why you're even here tonight. I've heard people say, let's go to Calvary, man.

The music's really fine or this or that and all sorts of weird reasons. But, you know, whatever gets you here, once you hear you begin to hear the word and praise the Lord, because you may have one idea, but God has another. Anyway, so I prayed and I said far out. I'm just going to, you know, be a loaded Christian now. Smoke grass, take acid and read the Bible.

Sounds good. I was all set. So I went off and that weekend we went off into the mountains and a friend of mine said, Hey, Greg, you want to drop acid? And I always took it whenever drugs were offered, I'd eat them, you know, right there in the spot. And I said, no, man, I don't want it.

I don't know why, I just don't. I just feel like getting loaded on grass. And so I want to go off by myself.

I'll see you guys later. And I walked off and I took out my pipe and started to fill it with some grass. And I was going to smoke it and that feeling came to me again. The one I got the day before and the spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said, you don't need that anymore. And I went, what?

You don't need that anymore. And he spoke to me again. It wasn't like a preacher jumped out of the bushes with a black Bible. Thus saith the Lord God. I wouldn't listen to him, but God spoke to me. The beautiful thing is God comes to each one of us on our own level.

You know, you may listen to what I'm saying. You go, well, he was a mixed up kid that was taking drugs. He needed religion, but I'm different. You're not different. You have an emptiness inside of you, too.

The only difference is I tried to fill mine maybe a little differently than you try to fill yours. But, you know, the far out thing about the Lord, no matter what our age is, how old we are, how young we are, everything from an eight year old child to a sixty five year old successful businessman to a person that used to be a Mr. Universe to a rock musician to a normal Joe Schmoe guy. He comes to each one of us and says, hey, I love you in their own way and comes on our own level. Anyway, he started to speak to me and I realized that was God speaking once again.

I said, all right, God, I'm going to give you a chance. Now, you got to remember to me, smoking grass was not just a pastime. It was my life. I had actually formed my life around it. It was everything to me. There was nothing more important to me than my drugs. I loved them.

They were like the rich man had his money. I had my drugs and that was my thing. And for me to give up drugs was a pretty big deal. And I said, all right, God, if you're real, if you really exist and I've seen all these Christians with their happy faces, if you're real, change my life, I'm going to give you a chance.

And I took it, ripped it up, threw it down and said, all right. So I went back to school and the Christians came up to me and just welcomed me into fellowship. And, oh, God bless you, Brother Greg, you know, I didn't like being called Brother Greg, but I put up with it. Praise the Lord. You know, all those words, I had a hard time. Praise the Lord, you know.

And so they said, hey, man, you know, you've got to really watch out. You're going to get tempted by the devil, tempted by the devil. You believe in a devil?

Oh, yeah, man. Satan's real. You've got to watch out for him. He's really subtle.

He's going to come to you and give you all the things that you want. Just resist. And I thought, oh, come on. You know, and I went to my next class and this girl that was in the class, a really attractive girl who I had been wanting to meet for a year. But I was just totally afraid to talk to her. A really good looking girl, non-Christian girl, came up to me and said, hey, what's your name? I said, Greg, she goes, hey, I've never met you before. You know, I kind of like you. Oh, wow.

She goes, why don't you come up to the mountains with me for the weekend? And I went, it's it, it's the devil. And it was, it was. And I realized Satan was tempting me and I said no. And I was saying to myself, what are you doing? You know, I said, no, no, I believe in God now. And then she just, oh, wow.

You know, and got away from me the same way I reacted to Christians a few days before. So after class was over, I was thinking that over and I walked up and my old buddy came up and said, Greg, you want to smoke a lid of Acapulco gold right now? And I went, I'm getting tempted again. And that was really a temptation for me because I really wanted to do it. And I started to realize this whole thing and it was starting to make sense. And I was seeing the whole spiritual realm.

That's when I started to enjoy resisting temptation. I said, no, I don't want it. You know, all right. I figured something's going on. You know, someone's trying to rip me off.

There must be something to this. So I was starting to like it because things were happening. It wasn't something I had to make up.

It was really existing. So I started reading the Bible and feeling I don't like to compare God to drugs. And I don't like when people say Jesus is better than getting loaded because I don't think you can compare the creator of the universe to some stupid drug. But when I would read his word and pray, I had such a presence of peace. I'd never known before that I never got from anything. And I just said, wow, this is great.

What a deal, you know. And I became very excited about it. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of this message from 1977 in just a moment. We send Pastor Greg studies out via the radio, email, satellite, and even our Harvest at Home online services.

And it's encouraging when we hear that these messages are impacting lives. Pastor Greg, I have been a true believer for six decades. I've been receiving your daily devotions for a couple of months now. They are my favorite devotionals and I look forward to getting them every day. In addition, about one month ago I started tuning to your live sermons on Harvest at Home.

You inspire me and I get all your jokes. Thank you for your ministry and all it does to bring people to a relationship with God. I'm happy to partner with you in your mission.

I pray God continues to bless you exceedingly, abundantly more than you could ask or think. It's a privilege to bring these studies your way. And we're thankful for our Harvest partners who make them possible.

Would you partner with us? You can make a donation at harvest.org. And you'll find Pastor Greg's Harvest at Home services at the same web address, harvest.org. Well today, a unique message from Pastor Greg. We're listening to a sermon preached when he was just 24 years old, and he spoke of his journey to Christ.

Let's continue with this presentation now, one of the most requested programs of the past year. Well I got back to school and I had a hard time relating to the Christians because they were, the Christians on this campus especially, they loved the Lord and they didn't care if anyone knew it. And they would walk down the middle of the campus, like I said, singing out loud at the top of their vocal chords, praise the Lord! And I couldn't relate to that. And I said, well I'm going to kind of be a loner Christian.

I'll believe in God, but I won't hang out with them. But then one day one of them said, come on to a Christian meeting. And I said, all right.

So they were at lunchtime, we went into a room, I sat down. Everyone was looking at me, hey, isn't that guy used to get loaded? He's a Christian now?

Wow! I was just sitting there. And this guy came to preach. He was kind of a strange brother.

He was very fervent and he preached like an old-fashioned preacher. And Jesus said, you know, he's storming around the room. And I'd never seen anybody talk like this before, you know. Throwing their arms around and, and God!

You know, the fluctuations. And I didn't know why a person would want to speak so weird. You know, I still really don't know why people talk like that. And so I got out of the class and this guy comes up and he goes, Brother Greg, I want to give you a Bible. And he gave me this suede Bible with popsicle sticks glued together to make a cross on it, you know. And I thought that was kind of neat.

Wow, thanks a lot. You know, can I pay you for it? No, no, you just take this and read it, man.

It's God's word. And I said, thank you. And got out of the room and thought, oh man, I can't carry a Bible around. Don't they make little ones you can hide in your pockets or something? And so I had this jacket with big pockets on it. And I said, well, I'll just stuff the Bible down in the pocket, pull the flap over and no one will know. So I stuck it down in there and I walked along and I hadn't seen my friends for like a week.

My old loady buddies, you know. So I said, hey, I'll go over and visit them. And so I walked over and looked around and opened the bushes up and stuff that Bible and hid it in the bushes. Walked in.

Hey, man, how you guys doing? They said, hey, Greg, where you been, man? Oh, nowhere. And the Lord, you know, with that feeling came back and I started feeling what was conviction to witness. Oh, I wasn't going to witness.

Didn't want to do that. So I sat down. Greg, we haven't seen you for a week. Where have you been? Oh, I haven't been anywhere. And I just kept evading the subject.

They kept cross examining me. Hey, want to go smoke a joint? No, no, I don't want to do that. Where have you been, man? What's happening? You're different.

Oh, nothing. And no way was I going to witness. Suddenly the front door comes bursting open and it was my friend's mother. And I don't know how she did it. She found my Bible in the bushes. And she says, who does this belong to? I said, that's mine.

I took it. And every eye in the room went to the book with a black cover and the gold edges and the ribbons. You know, not many books have ribbons in them and gold edges.

You must remember. And they said, Greg, what is that Bible? It's a what, Greg?

A Bible. And then this one guy goes, oh, Greg, are you going to be a good Christian boy now? Praise the Lord.

Thank you, Jesus. And I said, you know what? I'm going to slug you right in the mouth. I didn't know what it meant to be persecuted and to endure it for the Lord.

I just want to hit that guy. You know, I didn't like it because here these are the guys that told me no matter whatever happened to each one of us, we'd stick together. We're your friends.

And I had said I believed in God and they were really giving me a hassle over it. And my friend, my best friend who I'd grown up with said, I said, hey, man, are you going to shine me on two? And he goes, no, I'll still be your friend.

I said, that's neat. I go, listen, don't worry. I'm not going to get into it saying praise the Lord and carrying the Bible. I'm still going to be like everyone else. I'm just going to believe in God.

Well, you know what happens. The Lord began to work in my life and pretty soon I started saying, praise the Lord. I remember the first time I said it, it was hard getting those words out.

Praise the Lord. What an alien set of words to say when you've never known him and suddenly to start saying, praise God and thank you, Jesus and hallelujah and things like that. And I started saying it and my life started changing. And again, I started really identifying with the Christians and I started realizing they really were my brothers and sisters. Now, see, back in the old drug culture, people called each other brother. Hey, brother.

But they'd rip you off. A guy would look at a girl and go, hey, sister. And what he really wants is I want to go to bed with you. And that was the only reason. And it was just a big facade. So I was really paranoid about calling people brother and love because everything the hippie movement offered, it didn't have. And everything the hippie movement offered, Christians had. They had love. They had peace. They had brotherhood. They really loved each other.

They really put down the walls that they had. Now, you know, Odin, the guy in mustard seed faith, he tells me he's a completed hippie now, you know, because everything the hippie movement offered. Jesus Christ gave all the facade and imitations that Satan put in it is fulfilled in him and much more besides that. And so I started getting into it. And we had a little Bible shot down in Newport Beach, and I'd go down there and hang out there after school. And one day I saw my old buddy who I told you a little bit earlier, I told him I'd never become like the rest of them. Here I had a cross around my neck, a Bible under my arm, and I started witnessing to him.

And I was so excited. I'd been a Christian for like two weeks now, and I was telling him everything I knew. Oh, yeah, I'm the Lord this and the Lord that. And I was telling him and all of a sudden there was this guy in a head shop that was right next to our Bible shop, you know, drug paraphernalia shop. The guy comes walking out and he'd been listening goes, Hey, man, are you a Christian?

I said, Yeah, I am. He goes, Well, let me tell you something about your God. And apparently he'd studied the Bible a little bit and knew how to make contradictions that didn't really exist, but I didn't know better. And he just totally put me down, totally put down my faith, totally put down everything I believed in right in front of my friend that I was talking to. And I went back in that Bible store and I was mad and I started to cry. I said, You know, I just tried to share Jesus with somebody and this guy came out and just totally ruined it. And they began to share with me about being a Christian and the kind of attitude that people have towards you. And I thought, Well, why are people so hostile?

Why? You know, what is their trip? They go, Man, don't you remember what you used to feel before you were a Christian? I go, Yeah, I used to feel the same way.

And now I am one and I'm going back to people just like I used to be. And I'm trying to tell them and they're doing the same thing I used to do. And you say to them, I used to think that way. They go, Oh, no, you didn't.

You were never like me, but you were just like them. You know, people think Christians are odd specimens, that we were all brought up in religious homes. How many of you were involved in drugs before you were Christians? Raise up your hand.

Look at that. God's changed your life. And so many of you, you know, you look at you and you'd never know it.

People think that we were all brought up in Christian homes and taught the Bible since we were little kids. And so many of us just had wretched lives, men out there in the world. Anyway, I began to change and my life began to change before my very eyes and the Lord began to make himself real to me. Later, someone told me about this place called Calvary Chapel. Now, I thought there were only about 100 Christians in all California. And when they took me to Calvary Chapel and I saw 2000 people crammed into a building, I freaked out. I couldn't believe it.

And I was a little afraid because that's a lot of Christians in one place, you know, and I was still adjusting to this whole thing. And I was kind of glad we got there late because there were no seats available. But suddenly someone left out of the second row and there was a seat left. There's a seat over here, Brother Greg.

And I went walking in and sitting down and I was sitting there surrounded, happy, happy, happy. I was just going, oh, man, you know, and suddenly this man comes out with a bald head. And he starts talking about the Lord. You know, and I really had a hard time with adults because up to that point, I was a real rebel with the adult world. I've been through so many things. I just felt like I didn't want to even get involved with them.

And here this guy was, an adult sharing the things of God. And I just liked him. I liked him right off the bat as that guy. I really take this guy, you know, and it wasn't things he said. He didn't relate to me like talk in heavy terms or dress like a young kid and try to be youthful. He just was himself.

But of course, we know why he has that attraction or why anybody does. It's the Holy Spirit. And I thought, you know, why did he get his head to shine so much?

The Lord had gifted him. And so the changes that happened to all people that give their lives to Christ began to happen to me. And I became a new person in Jesus Christ and my life began to change. People come and tell me, they go, well, you psyched yourself into that.

I go, just cut that jive right now. I tried to psych myself into a lot of things. I tried to psych myself out of a lot of things. But the thing when I came to Jesus Christ, I had wasted myself so bad. All I did was just throw myself down and say, OK, God, start working. I didn't even have the ability to psych myself anymore.

And I know it's the same with many of you. We haven't psyched ourselves into this. We haven't thought ourself into an emotional high because Christianity is an emotional high. There are times where emotionally I feel absolutely nothing as a Christian, but that's not what Christianity is about. It's about reality. People accuse us of escaping from reality when in essence we found reality because we've come to grips with eternity.

We've come to grips with life and quit playing little games like little children trying to cover it over and pretend that emptiness isn't there. And we've approached it and embraced it and found the one that said, I am the way, the truth and the life. And no man comes to the Father but by me as the words that I heard that one day changed my life.

Maybe they'll change yours tonight. The words in which Jesus said either you're for me or against me. Are you for Christ tonight? I don't mean to you just believe he exists and say your prayers once in a while. Are you born again? Is your name written in the book of life?

Are you going to heaven? If your answer to those questions to any of them has been no, I doubt if you know him or are you against him? Are you violently opposed to him? Do you want to reject him? Do you want to turn your back on him? Do you want to be for him? Well, I want to be neutral. I don't want to be for him, but I don't want to be against him. Well, you're either one or the other. And if you walk out of here tonight not for Jesus Christ, you are just as much in opposition to him as the atheist marching up down the street corner with God is dead on the sign. Oh, no, I'm not like that. Yes, you are.

Because either you're for him or against him. Either you're walking with the Lord or you're actually working in opposition against them tonight. That's the words of him, not the words of Greg Laurie, not the words of Calvary Chapel, the words of Jesus.

And that's what he said. That same Jesus that has changed our lives is knocking on the door of your heart. He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Many men will hear my voice and open the door.

I will come in. Well, I'm too old to accept Christ. No, you aren't. I'm too young to accept Christ. No, you aren't. You're not too old.

You're not too young. You're ready. If you want to open your heart and say, yes, Jesus, I see my need for you. I see that emptiness that I need filled. I want to know that there's eternal life coming to my life and change me. Pastor Greg Laurie from a message recorded way back in 1977 talking about the importance of coming to the Lord to have our sins forgiven. And if you'd like to do that today, Pastor Greg will help you before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes.

And he also has a closing comment about what we've heard today, so stay with us. The title of today's presentation, one of our most requested of the past year, is Pastor Greg Laurie Then and Now. Look for that title at harvest.org if you'd like an instant replay. Again, just go to harvest.org. Or for a CD copy, call 1-800-821-3300.

Again, that's 1-800-821-3300. And then we're so pleased to mention that Pastor Greg's new film, A Rush of Hope, watched by over 1.8 million people over Labor Day, is now on DVD by popular demand. It's a powerful presentation of the gospel along with some outstanding music performances. That's for King & Country, Mercy Me, and Jeremy Camp, all featured in A Rush of Hope. Pastor Greg, you also highlight moving moments of several recent films, important films.

You know, that's right, Dave. I don't just mean showing film clips. I've written a narrative taking what I think are key moments from three films produced by the Irwin brothers, John and Andy Irwin. And the films are Woodlawn, I Can Only Imagine, and I Still Believe that present the gospel in a compelling, artistic, and powerful way. And there's some other resources included with this Rush of Hope DVD, including a booklet that I wrote called Life's Most Important Questions Answered, and a special piece that we wrote telling you how you can host a watch party, how you can show this film in your house or in your backyard or somewhere else as an outreach to your neighborhood, your community, so many ways you can use it. So for whatever you can send us financially, we'll rush you your own copy of A Rush of Hope. So thanks in advance, and God bless you.

Yeah, there's really nothing else like it. Also, with the bonus resource we're sending along with the DVD, we'll include a digital download code so you can download the film to your computer or smartphone or tablet, so you can take A Rush of Hope with you wherever you go. You'll have an outstanding evangelism tool right there in your pocket or purse. So get in touch today with your investment at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime around the clock. And again, dial 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to Harvest.org. Well, Pastor Greg, you spoke today about having a relationship with the Lord. That's right. Someone can enter into that kind of relationship with God right now, can't they? Yeah, they really can. That's the amazing thing. I think people are surprised that it doesn't take years to become a Christian. It doesn't take months. It doesn't take weeks. It doesn't take days.

It doesn't even take hours. You can believe on the spot. And I would like to lead you in a prayer where you can ask for His forgiveness, a prayer where you can receive Jesus Christ into your life as your Savior and Lord. So if you want Christ to come into your life, if you want Him to forgive you of your sin, if you want a second chance in life, if you want to go to heaven when you die, stop what you're doing and pray after me these words. Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I'm sorry for my sin. And I turn from it now, and I choose to follow You from this moment forward as Savior and Lord, as God and friend. Thank You for loving me and calling me and forgiving me. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Listen, if you have just prayed those words with Pastor Greg and meant them sincerely, the Bible assures us that your sins have been forgiven.

We're told in 1 John 1-9, The Lord is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we want to send some resource materials to you that will help you in your new relationship with God. We call it our New Believers' Growth Packet, and we'll send it without charge if you prayed for the first time today with Pastor Greg. Just ask for it when you write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. We're here to take your call anytime 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

That's 1-800-821-3300. Or go to Harvest.org and click on Know God. You know, Pastor Greg, we've had the opportunity to hear from 24-year-old Greg Laurie from over 40 years ago. A great message. If you could somehow go back and speak to that young man, knowing what you know now, what would you say? Well, I would say, Greg, young man, some things are going to happen to you that you won't be thrilled about, starting with your hair. It's going to be gone sooner than you expected.

So enjoy it while you have it. I would also say God's going to open up incredible doors for you. That will blow your mind, and you'll be able to have that dream that you had as a young man fulfilled of sharing the Gospel all around the world. But I would also say, Greg, you're going to go through some very hard times, but God's going to be with you, and He's going to get you through it, and you're going to be stronger as a result. And I would just say keep doing what you're doing, because you're on the right track, boy.

You're preaching the Gospel, you're teaching the Word of God. Keep studying, keep growing, keep learning. I would also say, Greg, you made an awesome choice in marrying Kathy Laurie. She's going to be the greatest wife ever. You're going to have two wonderful sons. You're going to have five incredible grandchildren.

And it's just going to be a rich and fulfilling journey for you. So I would just say what Chuck Smith said to me years ago when I asked him, if an older Chuck could speak to a younger Chuck, what would you say? And his response was, hold the course. So I would just say, Greg, hold that course. You're on a good course. You're on the right course. You're fighting that fight and running that race.