Truth Talk. Serving Something: Sin, Self, Or The Savior

What you obey, owns you. We dive straight into Romans 6:16 to confront a hard truth: every heart serves a master. From obvious chains like addiction to subtle ones like our phones, sports, or status, small daily choices become habits, and habits become a kind of worship. We talk candidly about how obedience shapes identity, why love for Jesus shows up as action, and how to spot the moments when distractions quietly steal our prime time and offer God the leftovers.

Greg and Hubert trace the difference between fruit and root, pressing past surface behaviors to the deeper loyalties driving them. Expect practical examples, Scripture you can hold onto, and honest stories from work, church, and home that reveal how quickly seducing spirits promise freedom but deliver bondage. We unpack James’ call to submit to God and resist the devil, Jude’s charge to contend for the faith, and Jesus’ words that those who keep His commandments are the ones who truly love Him. Along the way, we explore why technology becomes an idol, how community protects conviction, and what it really means to guard your house and your time.

This is a clear summons to choose: light or darkness, the Shepherd or the thief. If you’ve felt scattered, cynical, or stuck, use this conversation to reset your daily liturgy—Scripture before screen, prayer before plans, fellowship before isolation. Cling to Jesus, or everything else will cling to you. Subscribe for more Truth Talk, share this with someone who needs courage to choose well, and leave a review to tell us: what’s one habit you’ll exchange to give God your prime time?

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Theme: Truth Endures
• 1:12 Romans 6:16: Who Do You Serve
• 3:20 Hooks Of Habit And Addiction
• 5:09 Cell Phones And Modern Idols
• 6:30 Resist The Devil, Draw Near
• 8:30 Obedience Proves Love For Jesus
• 10:24 The Bible As Our Owner’s Manual
• 12:15 False Promises And Seducing Spirits
• 14:20 From Despair To Life In Christ
• 15:55 Cling To Jesus Or Be Claimed
• 17:15 Roots Of Sin And Heart Idolatry
• 19:00 God’s Patient Call And The Cross
• 21:00 The Lord Is My Shepherd
• 22:30 Solomon’s Fall And Our Warnings
• 24:20 Guard Your House And Your Time
• 26:00 Daily Choice: Light Or Darkness
• 28:20 Joshua’s Declaration And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:01

To the trumpet of Jesus. How the world is it different in sound?

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

You're listening to Truth Talk with Greg Abraham and Hubert Saylor. Truth Talk will be airing every third week of the month. Go visit our website for more, all the latest content and information at HOR421 Show.bussprout.com. Now I'll give you your host, Greg Abraham and Hubert Saylor.

SPEAKER_02: 0:29

Praise the Lord. We thank the Lord for another opportunity to come together with Brother Hubert. Amen. And talk about the goodness of God. Hallelujah. Talking about the truth of God. Amen. And the hope that's in God. Today we have a text that's centered around our topic of discussion. And that's the name of our show Truth Talk. There's a lot of conversation in this old world, a lot of wasted time on things that don't live past today. That's not eternal. A lot of people live their whole lives to things that are not eternal. But the word of God, Amen. It's eternal. Amen. The Lord said heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Amen. But the text that we're uh bringing to light here today is Romans chapter 6 and verse 16. The Apostle Paul is talking. And he says, Don't you know that to whom you yield yourself servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. Amen. So you yield yourselves, amen, unto sin and to death, or you have the opportunity to obey God and yield yourself to obedience to God's word and unto righteousness. And uh we were meditating on this and thinking uh everybody's serving something. Amen. Amen. That if you're a human being on the face of this earth, you're serving something. And you might say, wait a minute, brother Greg, uh I'm my own boss. I do what I want to do. Well, let me tell you, you're serving self, then. You know, and the key point of this is no matter what you're serving or who you're serving, if you're submitting yourself to that, it's getting its hooks in you, and uh it's going to exude power over you, and uh the more you do that, the more harder it's gonna be for you to break away from that. And uh so one thought come to our mind, we thought, well, all the different things that people uh people uh serve. And uh we think about drug addictions, uh chemical addictions, we think about diverse lusts, you know, that uh and uh you it's it's all that's on people's mind. Yeah. All the time and everywhere, uh whatever they're uh they're giving themselves to, uh it consumes them eventually. The Bible says where your heart is, that's where your treasure is. And it also says from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So you don't have to be around anybody for any length of time at all to figure out what they're all about and to figure out what they're serving. If it's um if sports is your God, every time you're around that person, it's all they want to talk about. It's what's going on in the in the world of sports, you know, covetousness, whatever it is that you're uh you're getting consumed with, it comes to light. So the Apostle Paul uh told us that. And I remember earlier on in my nursing career, uh, uh one of my first patients had a problem with alcoholism. And uh I was talking to uh his wife, and we had some really good conversations about the Lord, and and uh she started sharing with me uh that how he had broke free from that alcoholism and um and uh and uh really broke free from it and was starting to live a life free of it. And then uh his buddies started coming around and hanging around and he took it back up again, you know. Uh it's hard to imagine sometimes, and it seems far-fetched, I know, that things and stuff like that can exude power over you, but they absolutely can. Uh things motivate people. Uh of course, drugs and alcohol, you know, is strong addictions and stuff. But outside of that, and one of the best examples that I know of today, and new technology that is absolutely controlling people is the cell phone.

SPEAKER_01: 5:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:22

And I don't, you don't have if you don't believe me, all you gotta do is just walk or take you a walk around in public and look at people and uh and you see them staring into that all the time. Uh if they lose it, they just about lose their mind. And if you're listening today and you have a cell phone and you still don't believe me, just try doing without it. Try doing without it and see how you start to feel. Now, Brother Hubert's uh an older feller like me, too, and uh as incomprehensible as what I'm about to say may seem, but there was a time, not too long ago, that if you wanted to talk to somebody, you had to call them on a landline to talk to them. People would get up and they would leave their house and they would go go places, and there was no way whatsoever that you could get in touch with them, as funny as that sounds and stuff. But I remember the time, you know, old old wild phone would start ringing, somebody answer the phone, go get it, you know. But it's a different world today. And the world we live in is that strong delusion that the Bible talks about that's coming upon the world, and it's a it's a time of great deception. And uh, but our our focus today is who are you serving? Who are you serving? Who are your if if if every human being is is going to be a servant to somebody, who are you serving, Brother Hubert?

SPEAKER_01: 6:55

Well, what you do becomes who you are.

SPEAKER_02: 7:00

Oh, Rosh, amen.

SPEAKER_01: 7:02

The people you run with, the places you go. Had a guy testify in church about the old crowd trying to get a hold of him to come and be with them, and yeah, same thing you said, they said, Well, you you can just visit with us, you don't have to drink. No, I can't visit with you in that arena because that's a seducing spirit, and I would wind up falling. You visit me in church and listen to the gospel being preached, and let's see if we can turn you around. But people are caving into gambling has gone off the chart. Child pornography is off the chart, sex trafficking is off the chart. Somebody's murdered in Lexington, Kentucky every day, almost every day. How come? How come people's raging and killing each other, lying, terrible spirits have gotten a hold of them somewhere or other? How do you keep from that happening to you? Jude said, and I'll paraphrase a little bit, I have found the need to tell you to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered under the saints.

SPEAKER_03: 8:19

Amen, brother.

SPEAKER_01: 8:20

Because if I've got that faith and I'm walking with Jesus, you can't get in my spiritual house. The book of James says if you want to shake the devil, submit yourself to God and resist the devil and he'll flee. Then you draw nigh to him and he'll draw nigh to you. Devil can't get at me while I'm drawing near to Jesus. Jesus said, If you love me, you'll obey my commandments. Are you obeying his commandments?

SPEAKER_03: 8:54

Come on.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

Do you attend church regularly? Do you study your Bible at home? Do you have an altar at home you pray at? What is the percentage of your day that you even think about God or do anything pertaining to him?

SPEAKER_03: 9:09

Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

The book of uh, I believe it's Hebrews 10, says to forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. Have you forsaken your attendance? Most churches, modern day churches, a lot of them, some of them make it churches, they have one service. There is no Sunday night, there's a Sunday morning, there ain't no Wednesday night, they don't want to do no more than they have to do and claim that they're going to heaven. We're gonna have to. What are we willing to give the Lord? And what do we get in return? We have a covenant that cannot be broken. He died for our sins, he took a whipping post for our healing.

SPEAKER_03: 9:53

Oh, amen.

SPEAKER_01: 9:54

I'm healed from the top of my head to the bottom of my foot. I'm washed in the blood, and I'm going to heaven, and the devil's going to hell in the lake of fire, and I I can he can't never be where I can be, and I ain't gonna be where he is because I'm not gonna keep company with him.

SPEAKER_02: 10:10

Praise the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 10:11

Praise God, hallelujah.

SPEAKER_02: 10:13

That's so good.

SPEAKER_01: 10:14

If I am involved in submission to my Lord and Savior, when I get out of the bed, I go straight into the kitchen and make me a cup of hot tea now, because I have sacrificed calf of coffee to the Lord. If you want to give the Lord something, give him something you like. Don't give him, don't say I'm gonna fight between midnight and two o'clock when you're asleep, anyhow. Give him something you like.

SPEAKER_03: 10:40

Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 10:41

Jesus went in the temple and turned the tables over and run all of them out of there, but we up in there selling old sick animals and stuff to offer to sacrifice to God. Are you giving God your trash time? Or are you giving him your prime time? Oh, that's good. What's your percentile? Look at your own self and you tell me.

SPEAKER_02: 11:01

That's good, Brother Hubert.

SPEAKER_01: 11:02

That's so Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_02: 11:04

Uh I think it's the book of James. James tells us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. Amen. If you're just hearing it and you're not applying it, you're going to deceive your own self. And there's a strong deception about that today. There's a deception out there that uh oh, God loves you, God understands, you know, even though you're doing nothing but serving self, and you're doing nothing but living a uh a sinful life, or maybe falling after the things of the world, don't worry about it. God understands. That's so contrary to the word of God. Uh, because God made the earth and everything in it, and the human being was created to be connected to our creator. And in fact, we're not complete until we are connected to the creator. But Jesus said this right here. Now, listen, this ain't my words, this is Jesus' words. And he says, They that have my commandments and keep them, it's that person that loves me.

SPEAKER_01: 12:21

Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 12:21

Now, if that don't separate the men from the boys right there, but we deceive ourselves and uh not listening to his words, not obeying his words at all, we're yielding ourselves, we're a servant to the world, the ways of the world, or we're a servant to pleasures, uh just all caught up in pleasing ourselves all the time. And the last person that we're serving at all is the Lord Jesus, but we deceive ourselves and tell ourselves that we're doing his will. You see how we can deceive our own selves? Brothers and sisters, I don't think there's anything scarier uh than somebody to think that they're right and not be right. How do we know that we're right uh by keeping his commandments? Amen. You see, the word of God is true. Uh they sing that old song, I'm using my Bible as a roadmap. The Holy Spirit tells me what to do, and that's so true. I like to call it uh the owner's manual for the human being, you know, because it tells us uh what to what to stay away from, the destructive things in the world that'll take us down. Uh it tells us, uh instructs us in the right path to travel and how to be re most importantly, how to be reconnected to the God that made us. Amen. So, and just looking at what we talked about so far, many people are serving many things. Paul told Timothy that uh in the last days that men would be lovers of themselves instead of lovers of God. In other words, they're gonna be serving themselves instead of serving God. And we're seeing all that. But I thought to myself, Brother Hubert, if I'm gonna serve anybody, or if because I'm a human being that I will be serving something, I'm gonna serve the one who died for me and who loves me, amen, and cares about me, Brother Hubert.

SPEAKER_01: 14:26

So many people they allure people with a seducing spirit to try to make you think you're gonna gain something or have something. But the fact is they're leading you astray. Yeah. The devil told Eve, said you'll be as God, you'll have all knowledge, he doesn't want you to have that. And he tells people stuff like that all the time. Come and run with me, and I'll make you rich, you'll have a great time. When I was teaching Sunday school before you took it, Patrick was a guard, I believe is his name at the prison. Yeah. And one of the Satan worshippers had sent a letter or a note to another prisoner to try to allure him to the church of Satan. I wish I had saved that. I should have it right now, but I didn't keep it. And he said, Oh, our our Lord Satan, we're gonna have a never-ending party. We're gonna have all the women and all the liquor and drugs and good times, we'll good time it for eternity. No, sir, he is the biggest liar that's ever been and the father of it. And you'll you'll give yourself over to him, and he'll laugh at you while you're in the lake of fire, and they'll bite on you with their teeth and claw you and laugh at you because you turned down the Lord and Savior that died for your sins, going after fleshly lust, and pleasure. The same way when Noah or when Moses was up on the mount getting the Ten Commandments. We don't know what's become of him. Everybody get your gold altogether. We need something to worship. And Aaron had a part in it too, and he's lucky he got by with that. They throwed all that in there, and like Brother Abraham said the other day, now pops a golden calf. What do you know about that? The devil made that real handy, didn't he? And then they fell into a spell of extreme fornication. It says they rose up to play. Sexual immorality is rampant. It is running totally wild. The pornography, drive down now, the interstate through Chicago is one example, and look on each side of the interstate as you drive through, going to Milwaukee. And you'll know what it's all about. And it's everywhere. And you can see where they arrest somebody in a schoolhouse, a coach, or this one, or that one, or the other one, molesting children because those seducing spirits are driving men to do things that's totally unseemly, unreal. It said in the last days they would be without natural affection. You go into perversion and things that only a demon could do when the devil gets control of you because you submit to him. Submit yourself to God and he'll loose you from every stranglehold. Some people are caught up in deep depression. They have been mistreated, they have gone through hard times. There's one entity that loves you, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, and he came to repair your broken spirit and to save your lost soul.

SPEAKER_02: 17:49

Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

Attach yourself to him, and he will let you live again. And the devil will sit there on your shoulder, screaming, you might as well kill yourself. He wants you to do that, so you'll be in hell where he's at. Give your heart to Jesus, I promise you, you will begin to live again, and not only will you do that, you will inherit eternal life. Praise God, praise our Lord and Savior.

SPEAKER_02: 18:17

Amen. Well said.

SPEAKER_01: 18:18

Brother Abraham.

SPEAKER_02: 18:19

Well said, well said. Submission. Submission. Everybody's submitting their self to many different things. Uh thought of a thought the other day, and it was just simply this cling to Jesus, or else everything else will cling to you.

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 18:45

And that's so so very true. So we live in a world of people that is submitting themselves to all kinds of sinful attitudes, desires, and behavior. And all of these things lead to death. You know. You know, we we think about sins that people that we call sins that people do, and we think, well, they smoke, uh, they drink, they cuss horrible, say horrible things, oh, they're a bad gambler, or they're a hateful person. All these things are the fruit that's on the tree.

SPEAKER_01: 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:32

You know, and that fruit, that fruit is coming from a deeper thing. It's coming from a root that's down deep inside of them. And that's what the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus wants to lay the axe to is that root that's down deep inside of you. Because the Lord Jesus said there's nothing from outside of a man that can defile him. In other words, things outside of us ain't What's defiles it, but what defiles us is down inside of us. When we submit ourselves to these things, amen, it sets up a root inside of us. There they say that pornographic uh uh uh the problem of of of porn is so uh horrible today and so rampant everywhere, especially through uh uh you know uh the internet now, you know. Uh gone are the days when you had to uh try to seek out some kind of hard copy of pornographic material uh to satisfy the lust inside of you. Now people give their 10-year-old children uh access to the internet and they can see the most horrible porn that ever was. So submission all around us. Uh people are are are trying to find something that will satisfy them. And above it every bit is uh the deception that God is going to understand your uh rebellious and your obstinate ways. You know, the word the word obstinate means you're putting up a barrier. I I'm not, I can't believe this. You know, uh I I can't believe, you know, that that that I can't have what I want to have, you know. But when you get to the bottom of it, uh Christ has told us through the whole Old Testament uh and reached out and beckoned to humanity through the whole Old Testament, trust me, love me, serve me. You know, I my intentions are good towards you. I will lead you in the paths of righteousness and light. And what what did mankind do? They refused him over and over and over again until he came down here in the New Testament and he said, I'm tired of telling you. I'm gonna show you. Amen. And he came down and he paid that wonderful price for our sins. You don't, you don't, you don't, you you can't trust me, you can't take me at my word uh of my good intentions for you. Look at me hanging on this cross. Look at me being wounded for your transgressions. Is not that someone that you'd want to serve? So through the Holy Spirit, as much as I can beckon today, and Brother Hubert as well, as best that we can try to put it into words. Quit looking for love in the all the wrong places. Amen. Quit serving something that's that's all it's going to bring you is pain and disappointment and heartache. You'll never get fulfillment in it, but all it will do is drag you down, down, down, down unto death uh and start looking to the one. You know, Jesus told people, he said, uh, call no earthly man father.

SPEAKER_01: 23:22

Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 23:23

I often wonder, Brother Hubert, why? Why? And I just come to the realization it's because no earthly man is worthy of that title. No earthly man can love like our heavenly father can. No earthly man can look out for us like our heavenly father can. No earthly man has the wisdom to guide us and destruct us to and instruct us in the ways of righteousness like our heavenly father can.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

The twenty-third Psalm says, The Lord is my shepherd. Yes. Is the Lord your shepherd? Oh my goodness. Or is the devil your shepherd?

SPEAKER_03: 24:06

Come on.

SPEAKER_01: 24:07

Are you letting the Lord lead you? He don't lead you to the honky tonk on Friday night.

SPEAKER_03: 24:13

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_01: 24:14

He don't lead you to the mint to gamble, he don't lead you to try to go out with somebody else's wife. Come on, no, he don't lead you to lust after materialistic things. He leads you unto righteousness, unto holiness. If it's anything other than that, you're being led by the devil. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I don't want a thing but him. Oh, you might say, I'm too smart for that. Well, the smartest man recorded was Solomon, if I'm not mistaken. And the Lord gave him long life and riches and wisdom, the greatest wisdom, because he asked for it. He was pretty smart at that point. But then he started breaking the commandment. He was told, and all Israel was told, do not marry these Canaanite and heathen women that do not worship God. They have idolatry, Molech, Dagon, all of the false gods.

SPEAKER_02: 25:20

They'll pull your heart away from me.

SPEAKER_01: 25:22

Oh, but those women are so pretty. And so I'm gonna get me a bunch of them. And he'd already lost his mind when he had a thousand wives. And they said, no doubt, as he got older, he started getting soft. He had a if you read in 1 Kings 10, and I think this may be a coincidence or maybe not, his reception of gold that year was six hundred and sixty-six talents. Then you jump to chapter eleven, and Solomon loved many women. But he departed from the ways of God and made them places to worship false gods and provided them all that bad material and fell, and God took the kingdom from him and done away with the seed of David right there that had been promised because he broke it.

SPEAKER_02: 26:26

That's good humor.

SPEAKER_01: 26:28

He, you're not smart enough, you're not good enough. Obey the Lord and his commandments. Do what he tells you. Stick close to him. He sticks, he loves you better than a brother. He will not lead you astray. The devil is like a rat going around trying to find a hole to get in. And if he can get at you, he's taking you down. You better guard your house and call upon the Lord, and if you got time to waste, you better use it on God. He will He will heal you, He will bless you with long life and health and a good marriage and a good home. And you can take your children to church and raise them and prevent them from being totally destroyed by Satan. If it ain't your fault, whose is it? If you don't serve God and take your child to church, it's your fault.

SPEAKER_02: 27:22

Amen. Amen. Well said, brother. Uh all those things that Solomon, uh, the other women, the idolatrous women, what did they do? They pulled his heart away from God. Amen. That's what all these things uh happen today that people submit themselves to over and over and over again. All it does is pull their heart away from God.

SPEAKER_01: 27:49

Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 27:50

I've experienced this. I know James has, and I know you have. You get through your day, you get all your responsibilities took care of, and you've got a little time now. There's nothing to do. You've got you've got some time to yourself. When I get to that place, everything in the world will come into my head. Really? Everything will invade my mind and everything. Well, you wanted to get the when I get to a place to where I can get alone with God, you know, and I can uh seek Him and praise Him, get into His Word, meditate upon Him. It is a warfare. And so you've got to make up your mind who you're gonna serve. Bible says, choose you this day who you're going to serve. Amen. And uh it's a choice that we have to make. Don't kid yourself. John 3 19 says, This is the condemnation. In other words, this is what's gonna separate a person from the God that made him through all eternity, is that light come into the world, and men love darkness more than light. That's it in a nutshell. Men have chose to serve all these other things and to serve pleasure and to serve self instead of focusing on Jesus and saying, I've made up my mind, I'm going to serve you, Lord. I've decided to follow Jesus. We sing this little song in church. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. And I'll end her message today with Joshua twenty-four, fifteen. It says, If it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you're going to serve. Whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and for my house, I'm going to serve the Lord. And me and Brother Hubert's prayer for you all today is that you get to that place, that you have made up mine. I'm not going to serve the temporal things of the world anymore. I'm going to make the Lord my Savior. Amen. And I'm going to serve him. Amen. Amen. God bless you, is our prayer. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_01: 30:26

Through the trumpet of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: 30:30

You've been listening to Truth Talk on the 421 Podcast. All shows are recorded live, no post editing. If you'd like to support the show, you can support it through PayPal slash HOR421 or you go through our website at HOR421 Show.bussprow.com. Emails HOR421 Ministries at gmail.com. Phone numbers 239-849-1502.