All right, good Wednesday evening. I'm glad to be in the house of God tonight, and as I was preparing for this evening, there was a thought that come across my mind, a thought I've never had before, ever, about Wednesday nights, or Thursday nights, depending on what night that people normally go to church, what we would call midweek, service which we have on Wednesday nights. And I'll try to be fairly brief but I want you to understand that Wednesdays are important. They're extremely important. Not only is it part of the way through the week what uh you know they used to have this commercial with hump day and had the camel and all that and everybody says oh wednesday's hump day you got over the hump and now it should be smooth sailing from there well if you're like us it doesn't matter what day it is it's not smooth sailing It doesn't matter if it's a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it don't matter. It seems like that the devil would have it that it be hard for you to do things. But here's what my thought was on Wednesdays. I would say that Wednesday services are, first of all, I'd say that they're hungry. Here's why I say it's hungry day. It's because the ones that are there on Sunday morning typically are always going to be there. They may not be there on Sunday night, but they'll be there on Sunday morning. The best crowd that you'll have in the House of Gods on Sunday morning, and everybody knows that. Every church everywhere knows that Sunday morning is going to be the morning where you're going to have your visitors, you're going to have family members come with you, and so on and so forth. And then Sunday night, it seems like everything kind of gets to trickling down and you don't have as many on Sunday night. And then on Wednesday night, that's the bare bones skeleton crew of the church. So here's why I call it Hungry Day. It's because those that are here on Wednesday night are hungry for God. Now here's something else that I want to mention is that what the outside world sees, and that's why I'm recording this while we're putting it on Facebook tonight, what the outside world sees is they just see a bunch of chest-poked out Christians that they think are better than everybody else for going to church on Wednesday. Let me tell you something, it's us that's here on Wednesday night, that we're probably the sorriest of the bunch, because I personally cannot make it until Sunday before I can get rejuvenated and be with God's people. Does that make sense? What the world sees is they see a bunch of Christians that want to go to church on Wednesday night to be goody-goody tooth shoes, and I say that the ones that are in the house of God on a Wednesday night, man, we're just starving. Got to have a little something. I got to have a boost to get me from Sunday to Sunday. Amen. It's my snack time. Amen. I can have breakfast and I can have supper. But in between breakfast and supper, I will starve to death. Amen. And some of us, like myself and possibly Whitney now, seeing as she's pregnant, about every two hours, I got to have something. So Wednesday night is not even just enough for me, but we listen to sermons and we listen to good gospel songs and things like that all week long, all day long or whatever. It helps keep me built back up because I'm hungry and I don't want to starve to death. Does everybody, does that make sense that Wednesdays are going to be hungry day? Now here's another thing that I've noticed about Wednesdays. And I've got scripture that I'm going to get to here in just a second, if you will. As I'm saying this, turn with me to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. Wednesday nights is very, very important. And the reason why I say that Wednesday nights are so important is because it bothers the devil. You'll not find any Wednesday that you'll see everybody on a Wednesday night get there on time. We could put the service at 9.30 p.m. and somebody would be late. Why? Because the devil would have his way and if he can interrupt you in any way, shape, form or fashion to get you from being at the house of God, he would. Because it's an increase, it's a boost to those that need it. So, what Wednesday nights, what happens there is that, you know, like me and Whitney and Papa was over at the chicken house and we get to working and it never fails. Something always happens on a Wednesday and it pushes us further behind. Well, this Wednesday, we actually kind of got a little bit caught up and I thought, man, we'll be to church on time and everything. I mean, we'll probably be there 15, 20 minutes early and everything will be fine. But then I tried to put on my shoe. I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up. I tried to put on my shoe and it's like the devil said, uh-uh. Nope, I'm gonna make that late. I mean, I couldn't get it on. Of course, most of the time, I'm able to just slip my shoes on, but this time, this shoe on my bad foot, it just wouldn't, it would roll up on me. And I'd try to get my finger down in there, and I'd try to get it popped back up, and I just couldn't do it, and I was having a hard time with it. And Wednesday is always the day that at about 4 o'clock, when you're trying to wash up your clothes for church, 3 or 4 o'clock, that it just so happens that the devil had poured out your laundry detergent. Is everybody listening to me? And that's the day that you're going to cook a real fast meal in your crockpot. You put it on early and your crockpot burns out. And then you're going to have to sit there and cook. And that's the day that you find out that you don't have all of this or all of that. And I'm going to have to make a trip to Walmart. And I'll be real quick. It's only an hour down there and an hour back. But then by the time I get down there, I say, well, I'm hungry. And then I go in, I'm going to sit in line at Arby's, and I'm going to get my roast beef sandwich. And then the next thing I know, I'm 30 to 40 minutes late. The devil does not want you to be in church, period. But he sure hates a Wednesday night. Now look at your scripture. Chapter 4 of James, starting at verse 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lust, that war in your members ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain? Ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace? I like that. Just that one little part. He giveth more grace. In other words, I could have just enough. I asked Wendy the other day, I said, can you grab me a bottle of water before we go out of the house? And she grabbed me too. Guess what? That's more grace. That's God. He's giving me more than enough. He gives me more grace. Anyways, can't get bogged down right there. But he giveth more grace, wherewith he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, and resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Boy, there's a lot to unpack in those few verses, but here's what I want you to look at. It's just seven and eight, right quick. 7 and 8 is all we're going to look at. Submit yourselves. That word submit means that it does not come natural. Amen. I mean, it doesn't come natural to be godly. And everybody thinks that once you're saved and life is going pretty well, because here's the thing, once you get saved, life does go pretty well. for a little while. I mean, God's grace, that's all you're thinking about. All you're thinking about is His mercy. Everything else that you've got going on around in your life, you're not thinking about because you're thinking about God. So everything looks real pretty and real nice. But then all of a sudden, and it comes in a small little bitty waves, it doesn't come in big waves, and that small little trickling effect happens, and the next thing you know, you don't feel as close to God as the day that you did when you got saved. And I would struggle with that. I'd struggle with that real bad. I'd think, man, I remember the day I got saved, but I don't feel the same way that I did then. And then I find out and I realize that I'm not as close to God as I was back then. So then I start to think, and this was years ago before I knew about grace, love, mercy, faith, all of those things. And then I would think to myself, well, have I ever been saved? Because it'll have that trickling effect on you. Just say this real quick, that submitting means I'm taking a daily devotion. I'm getting up in the morning and saying, God, I'm following you today. I'm going to listen for you today. Do you know that me as a husband, I can wake up and I cannot hear my wife? True story. If I want to, I can tune every last thing that she has out. I'm good at it. I'm really good at it. It's just like your children that Whitney caught Hattie the other day. And she said, Hattie, will you shut the door? Hattie didn't move. She said, Hattie, will you shut the door? She didn't move. And she said, Hattie! And she got up, went over there and shut the door. She said, I didn't hear you. Well, then how'd you know that we said to shut the door? Okay, we have to submit to God. It's a daily walk. That's what the Bible says, is that it's a daily walk. So at the time that you wake up in the morning, and you, you know, for me, I pour myself out of bed, one foot at a time, and then, you know, I've got to sit on the side of the bed long enough for my brain to catch up with my feet. And then I sit there, by the time that I've turned around and I'm starting to stand up from my bed, the devil's already got a team of angels waiting to devour you. That's fact. There's a veil between you and the spiritual world. If you could, remove the veil of the spiritual world so that you could see what all was going on around us. And we've seen the demonic angels trying to attack us. And we've seen the heavenly host of angels that's trying to protect us and keep us safe and fighting off the demonic angels. It would absolutely scare us to death because number one, the pictures that you see on Good Home Living and what was that other home decor? Everybody on the mountain had it and everybody sold it. Goodness. Home interior, it's not these little cute angels. It ain't these little pictures of these little women. Number one, that's false. I ain't trying to get off on that real fast, but I'll say this. The Bible never says that a woman figure is an angel. No female angels. Look at Gabriel, males, I mean, just so on and so forth, there's all male angels. So your home interior, you got these little cute little girls with these angel wings on them and so on. That's not it. If you really want to look at what an angelic angel looks like, it would scare you to death. Because they're ready to battle. They have to battle against the demonic angels. But can I tell you this, that God has always got for every one demonic angel, I believe it's seven. Three. Two for every one, so two-thirds. So anyways, God has got the demonic angels outnumbered. And I appreciate that a lot. really appreciate that but we have to submit ourselves therefore to God so when you are trying to get ready for church on a Wednesday night we're making the conscious decision God I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna follow you even though my day has been bad I'm sunburned don't feel good I ain't ain't good or I or the trucks ran out of gas, or the kids have been terrible, or whatever. You right now in the church have said, God, I submit myself to you. I'm gonna go on anyway. And I like that. I like that you're here on Wednesday night saying, God, you know what? I'm just gonna do it anyways. Submit yourselves therefore to God and resist the devil. So we have to submit to God, but the Bible says that we have to resist the devil. In other words, the devilish ways of life come natural. It's already there. So why would he say that we have to resist it instead of submit to it? Because the devil is so good at putting things in your mind that when sin entered in into the garden in Adam and Eve and back in Genesis, that sin was just running rampant. It's everywhere and at every place and at every turn that sin is just everywhere. So the Bible says that we have to resist the devil but submit to God. So for us that are Christians, saved by His marvelous, wonderful grace and mercy, we have to make a conscious decision. God, I'm going with you. God, I'm going with you. I don't care what kind of day I've had. God, I'm going to go with you. God, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to go to church tonight. And you know, there's been so many times, so many times, and this is the honest truth, So many times that we was going to go to a revival meeting and the day just get completely shot. Completely and totally. And we'll look at each other and say, are we going to go tonight or not? That's how we say it because we know that we need to go. So we'll look at each other and we'll say, are we going to go or not? And then we'll say, well, we'll just go ahead and get cleaned up and try to go ahead and go. And every time that we have been late to a revival meeting and the devil fought us all day, and we go ahead, tired, wore out, bleeding, busted, and disgusted, and we go ahead and go to a revival meeting, God blesses me. Every single time. Because I said, look, you know what? Leave the day behind. Go serve the Lord. And he's blessed us for that. So submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You know, the devil, here's why this says that resist the devil and the devil will flee from you. Here's why he says that is because the devil is very prideful. If you're not giving him attention, if you're not giving him the attention that he wants, he's gone, buddy. He'll go find somebody else to pick on the fool with. You do your kids the same way, Matt, Carlette. If they're bugging you and you ignore them while they do, go on somewhere else. And that's what the devil does is if he's bugging and picking and gnawing at you and you just resist him and you don't give in to him, he said, look, you're no use to me, I'm checking out. And he'll leave for a little while, just like our kids, but he'll come right back and he'll start bugging and poking and prying and trying to get you to do all manner of whatnot. And then you just resist the devil. And go on, same way on Wednesday nights, every single person on Wednesday night that makes it to church, you just make the devil mad. And on Thursday, I promise you that he's still gone. You'll wake up Thursday morning and you'll still feel better than what you would have if you'd missed Wednesday night because the devil said, look, I can't get nowhere with this guy. I just can't go. He's too submitted to God. Now here's something I want you to look at, and I'm not this kind of person. I don't look at other women. Whitney is my wife, and I don't talk to other women. And anybody in the church, if there's a problem with a woman in the church, I ask Whitney or Miss Tina or somebody to go in there with me. I don't like that. But here's what some of these kids at high school, here's what happens. There's this couple, I'm just giving you an example. There's a couple. And the girl is dating a guy. By the way, that's biblical. And the girl and the guy's dating, but the girl finds that she likes another guy. And that guy likes that other girl. But guess what? They never wind up coming in contact with each other because they think that they're submitted one to another. And then what happens is once that one has taken a hold in this relationship and he won't pay her no attention, she don't pay him no attention, the other one, not the couple, that they finally go on about their business and go somewhere else. And they start looking around, they find them another girlfriend, they find them another boyfriend, and so on, because they're submitted one to another. Right? When you're married, you are submitting yourself to your wife, you submit yourself to the husband. And the Bible even says to do that. It says, wives, submit yourself to your husband. But everybody won't stop right there, they don't want to read on. And again, the husband's supposed to be leading the house as the church. Let's go on. Number eight, draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Do you know that a relationship, especially a marriage, a marriage is not a one-way street. It doesn't mean that the wife submit totally, totally to the husband and the husband ain't got to do nothing. That's not what it means. And the same way with God is that when you submit yourself to Him, He draws closer to you every single time. Now, Oso over here, he likes to ride what he calls the digger or trico excavator. He likes to ride it. And here's what I said yesterday. I said, Oso, do you want to go with me and go get hay out of the field? No. I said, well, do you want to ride the tractor? No. I said, do you want to ride the lawnmower? No. I was trying to get him away from Whitney, because she was cleaning the truck. And he was being a nuisance. And I said, do you want to go do this? Do you want to go do that? Do you want to ride the truck? Do you want to ride the four-wheeler? No, no, no. I said, do you want to go ride the digger? And he went, let's go. So we loaded up and went over there. And we cleaned out of the fence row a little bit. And me and him just riding that digger. Had the air conditioner on. And I mean, we was just having a good old time. But if I didn't have something that He wanted, He wasn't going with me. But guess what? God's got everything I need, everything I want. But why do we still want to turn back to the world? And why do we want to stay and watch Whitney clean a truck? I mean, that's what he was going to do. He's just going to stay with mama. He's just going to get in the way. And he's just going to do whatever he wants to do. But when daddy had something he was interested in, and can I announce to you real quickly that my heavenly father, my heavenly daddy has got a whole lot I'm interested in. I hailed a son, a heaven to gain, grace, mercy, and love. And I mean, just over and over, the adoption. And I'm going to preach this one day. John 3.16, it hit me just the other day that God said that He gave His only begotten Son. Do you know what that means to me? He said begotten Son. Do you know why He said begotten? It's because I'm a son too. I'm just an adopted son, and Christ is the only begotten. But now I am a child. I'm a son direct descendant. And do you know that you, in the adoption world, that you've got just as much right as the biological, once you've been adopted? I didn't know if you knew that or not. But you've got just as much right. And that puts me, oh my goodness, that gives me as much right to the throne as Christ. Hallelujah. That's pretty good. That's why he said his only begotten son is because he's adopted a whole lot of other sons and daughters as well. Hallelujah. Anyways, the devil hates you coming on Wednesday night. I mean absolutely cannot stand it in any way, shape, form or fashion that he could stop you from being here. He's going to stop it. But we have to make the conscious decision to say, you know what? Devil, you ain't winning. Just like Shannon said Sunday morning, said, I ain't letting the devil get in on this. And you know what? I believe it sparked a revival is what it done. The devil could have won Sunday morning. And the devil still don't like it, and the devil's still fighting it, but there was a revival started Sunday morning out of something that was extremely bad and so on, but God can turn anything around and make it to the good. Although the devil, he still don't like it, we're just gonna have to stomp him in the ground like a tent peg and say, I think, just like the song, I think, I'll just go with God. He hates, absolutely hates you being here on a Wednesday night. So what I ask for you that are here in church and for those that are listening to this or going to be watching it on Facebook, go to church on Sunday night. Go to church on Wednesday night. Don't let the devil win that deal. Don't let him. Everybody's wanting to go home and everybody wants to enjoy the evening. It is right in the middle of the week and everybody is still tired for Monday and Tuesday. I get it. I really do. But the devil hates for you to be here. I mean 110%. And you know what ought to give you some pride? give you a little bit of guption and unction is that the devil does hate it. Because if we can make him mad, why not do it? Hey man, why not just go ahead and make him mad? My kids do it all the time. Why can't you do it to him? Oh, so this is what he'll do. He'll do stuff for spite. He'll do it for spite. He'll take the eggs and I'll tell him, I'll say, oh, so put the eggs pointy side down. And he'll take the pointy side ones that's already in the rack and he'll turn them pointy side up. And he does it just for meanness and just for spite. So guess what? I don't invite Oso to pack eggs because I know he's going to do it for spite. I don't invite him to come over there while I'm eating either because he'll pick through my plate. Are you getting what I'm saying? It's that when we know that it bothers the devil, the devil's just going to say, you know what? I ain't inviting him to this party. He's going to earn it. He's just going to run it for everybody. He's going to run it for every demonic angel I've got. He's going to run it for every servant I've got. I mean, you just walk by a beer joint and start handing out tracts, and I guarantee you that the mood of the devil changes. They don't like it. Hey, man, he ain't going to invite you back. There's been lots of places and lots of people that I've been in contact with, that I've been friends with, that we don't have that friendship anymore because the devil, we wasn't giving him his room. We wasn't giving him what he thought was due to him. So those friendships had to end. Those relationships had to end. Some really big to-do things that we just had to cut off and end it because it was It wasn't godly, and it was giving the devil his place. So just cut it off. I've told every new convert that's come into this church, I said, the first thing you're going to have to do is cut off your friends. Because the drug heads that you're with ain't going to do you no good. The people that you're running around with, drinking with, ain't going to do you no good no more. Get rid of them and show and prove to them that your life has changed. Because every one of them will say, you'll be back. You'll be back because you like the drugs too much. You like the drinking too much. Hey man, I think about Yard Dog. And he don't want to be nowhere near any drinking, not whatsoever. Because he said, when I quit, I quit. I don't want to be running it at all. I don't want no part of it. And I say hallelujah to that, because you're different, you're changed. Do you know that you can still have the desires of the flesh? You can still have the desires of the flesh, because here's the thing, that God saved the soul, but He didn't save the flesh. So the flesh still wants tattoos. The flesh still wants a sip of alcohol. The flesh still wants a doobie and a shot in the left arm and a handful of pills. I mean, really? But we have to submit. Submitting. Submit. Do you know what they say about submitting? In the old days, when you'd submit yourself to the king that you'd come in, you would bow down to the king. That's the way that we need to be to God every morning is we need to bow down. The first step in that is in prayer when we bow and we ask the Lord to start our day off. I think that's a good way to start it. Please be here on Wednesday nights and Sunday nights.