Thank you for coming out. This is such a blessing. And my last time to get to speak to you, but I really, really, really, I've prayed so hard. I want so bad. There's so many things that go through my mind. You know, so many things I want to give you. I want to give you a gazillion things and all, but I got a limited amount of space and a little bit of time. And so I'm going to try to give you something that I think is going to help everybody in the room and hope will be a blessing. Last year, if you were here at all, I said, the battlefield is in our mind. Well, I've said that even this time too, but the battle is in our mind. And there is scripture, matter of fact, in Proverbs 23, 23, the Bible says, buy the truth and sell it not. Also wisdom and instruction and understanding. Buy the truth and sell it not. The Bible says in Proverbs 21 30, there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. But the devil's trying to sell you, Bill Goods. And he knows we like to shop. We are shoppers. And so he wants to sell us a bill of goods. And he thinks, and he's got bargains. He'll sell to us too. We're gonna pray and jump right in. Father, I thank you so much for this time to get to be with these ladies. I thank you for their desire to be here, their desire to learn and grow. I thank you for all the young ones that are in the house tonight because, oh God, those of us that are older, we've made so many mistakes. If they could learn from our mistakes not to follow that same pathway, if we could guide them into all truth, if they would hear it tonight and listen, oh God, they might be spared from so much heartache. Father, I pray you bless this time now, please. Bless everything that I try to say and do tonight. It's not about me, Lord. I just wanna empty myself out. I want you just to pour yourself in, speak through me, and help us to gain truth from your word that we might all walk out of here better Christians for having been in this place. We thank you and praise you for it. In Jesus' name, amen. Up here, I've got a few things up here. And when I think about that verse, buy the truth and sell it not. Buy the truth and sell it not. has a, we have a store of life, if you please. And for every good thought that you would have in your head, there's always a corresponding evil. Because the day that mankind took the fruit in the garden, they took the knowledge of good and evil. So Satan has the right to affect your thinking, okay? And that's the reason the battlefield is in the mind. So for every good thought that we'd be there, there's always gonna be a corresponding evil choice that we can make. And so we've got to rightly divide what's coming into our heads, because he's out to sell us a bill of goods. And when we're in the store of life, if you please, there's things that Satan's trying to sell us all the time. He may try to sell us anger, because he'll say things like, things that he'll come to a woman and say, you were a servant. You serve that man. You did everything just like you were supposed to do and he chose another woman. That isn't fair. So you have a right to be angry. You have a right to be angry. And he wants to sell us that bill of goods that you have a right to be angry. You see what I'm saying? And so he'll come along and he'll sell us hatred. And he'll say, hey, if you weren't so ugly, you would have friends. If you're an example of God's creativity, then maybe he shouldn't be trusted. You see, so you have a right to hate, you have a right to be upset, you have a right to be angry, you know, and you need to act on that because that wasn't fair, that wasn't just. He'll try to sell us things like distrust. You know, if God really loved you, why would he let this bad thing happen to you? Why would he let you suffer? He wants to sell us a bill of goods and he'll sell it to us cheap. He'll give you a bargain on any one of these things. Matter of fact, he'll tell you, you don't have to pay for it now. Hell, give it to your own credit. Just go ahead, take this, use it to your advantage. You can pay me later. But the Bible says that the Lord maketh rich, but he adds no sorrow to it. Anything the devil's selling always has sorrow attached. We choose what he offers, we're gonna pay. And it's a hefty price we pay when we choose what looks so good, what sounds so good, what sounds so right to do. He really likes to sell revenge. Revenge. Get back at all the people that hurt you. You know, but all that glitters is not gold. He likes to sell us a bill of goods. There's peace, there's love, there's joy, there's a lot of other things we can buy. But the devil doesn't want us to see that, he'd like to blind our eyes to the truth. But that over there, it's already been paid for, bought with a price, it's available and it's free. It's free. And not only do you get it free, you get the one who purchased it for you to walk with you, to enable you, to use it, to teach you how. We already have it. The devil's like, oh, you don't want that over there. That's expensive. That costs you way too much, you see. Look at what I have. And so he's out to sell us a bill of goods. He's out to sell us some bargains. And it's all in our thoughts. But the Bible says, buy the truth. Buy the truth. I mean, you should go shopping for the truth. I think he knew who we were when he said, buy it, because we are shoppers by nature already. And he's saying, listen to me, ladies. There are treasures in my store. Treasures that you'll want to find. Any of you love to go thrift store shopping? And you'll dig through a whole pile of stuff to find that treasure? We'll look through gazillion things to find that one thing. Then we're like, when we found it, I got this for $2. And we're so excited about those treasures. And God says, I've got a storehouse full of treasure. Buy the truth. Come searching for it. Come seeking for it. Come find it. If we would go to a thrift store to find a bargain, why won't we seek the treasure that he has to offer? And it's free. It's free. We don't have to pay a dime for it. All we gotta do is go find it. And yet so often, We go for the bargain brands. And guess what? The cheap stuff never works and it doesn't last. And there's always sorrow attached to it. How do you know, Ms. Hooker? How do we know what's the truth? How do I know what's the right thing to do? You know, in talking to ladies, sometimes it's very frustrating because we're very complex creatures. And all of our problems are major issues. And that's usually because all of our emotions get attached to everything that's going on. And we have a tendency to freak out. Short circuit, if you please, you know. We can have a problem in our marriage. Everybody has problems in their marriage. There's no perfect marriages. and we have to walk through problems. And understanding how a man's makeup and understanding our makeup, understanding what his weaknesses are, understanding what our weaknesses are, understanding what makes him tick, understanding how Satan's after us to get us not to meet his needs, all of those things become paramount to success. And so child rearing, same way. There are rules, there are principles, there are things that can govern our child rearing. But we just take in so much of what this person says this, and this person says this, and this person, and I read this in this book, and I read this, and I heard this on the television, and I heard, and these, all these things factor in, and we start going, and we don't know how to rightly divide it. But the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10, verses three and four, the Bible tells us exactly how to rightly divide it so that we don't short circuit in this thing of trying to make the right choices. Your choices are gonna determine your destiny and the destiny of those you love. I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians. I always say first and I mean second. 2 Corinthians 10, verses three and four, the Bible says, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. I said the battlefield is in our mind. So we've got to capture every thought everything that's factoring into our heads and coming at us, and we've got to hold it up against the light of this book, and we'll know what is truth and what is not. The Bible says we're not to choose anything that exalts itself against this book. Why? Because over in Proverbs chapter 21, in Proverbs 21, And verse 30, the Bible says, there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. If anything out there exalts itself against this book and tells you that that method will work, but it's not in line with these truths, guess what? It's a bargain brand. They're trying to sell you a bill of goods. That's not true, you see. There is nothing that's gonna work apart from this book. Anything else is destined to fail, all right? You with me so far? Because I'm laying a foundation, all right? So if it exalts itself against this book, then it cannot be right and it cannot be true. Therefore, you don't buy it. You don't buy into it. You don't do it. You don't submit to it. You don't subcum to it. You say, but Mrs. Sooker, what happens when you just feel like God's put puke on your plate? I have two plates of food up here. I'll show you what I have. Is anybody hungry? Which one would you choose? Which one? That one? You think so? Which one? Which one would you choose? Is there really a choice, really? No. Okay. This one looks pretty. Do you see that? This one looks like puke. How many of you want the plate of puke? I think you want it. No, you don't. No. If we have a choice, wouldn't we rather have this plate? Sure we would. Absolutely. Nobody wants to eat a plate of puke. Okay? That's not what we look forward to. But there are times in our lives where we feel like we've gotten puke put on our plate. I had a lady come to me one time. She said, Mrs. Hooker, How do I keep my home from falling apart, be a good wife, point my kids to my husband when I hate him? He doesn't do anything he says he's going to do. He propositioned my daughter. which was his stepdaughter. He doesn't wanna work. He's lazy, but he comes to church. He drives the bus for our bus route. He's the father of our two boys who need their dad, but he disgusts me. I don't love him. I don't want to destroy my kids. I know what the Bible says. I know it's me. I must be wrong somewhere, but I don't know how to realistically get past where I am. What do I do, you say? In her words, she feels like basically God's put puke on her plate. Like this is not fair. This is not just, how am I supposed to deal with this? How am I supposed to do this? Our head knows the right things. And I know when I deal with women, they'll say, I know, I know, but our heart resist. I don't want to eat the puke. Our heart resists, you see. Have you ever had a little one and you sat them down at the table to eat and you knew that what you put on their plate was not puke, but they thought it was? Ever tried to make them eat green beans, or make them eat broccoli, or make them eat something that they think is puke, but you know this is good for their bodies, and it's a good thing? And what do we do as moms? We take that, and we put it in the spoon, and we go to feed them, and they've got their mouths like this. And they do this. They're shaking their head, and they've got their mouth clenched. And you say, open your mouth. And you've ever been the mom that held their nose like this and made them go, because they have to breathe. You pinch their nose and then they go, and then you shove the food in their mouth. And they're like, and they're spitting and they're crying, you know, and you say, close that mouth and don't you spit that food out. And we make them do that. Or there's times where we've said to them, we've put it in front of them, we'll say, just eat three bites. If you just eat three bites and you can get down and you can go. We've been there, done that. Why? Because we know that what that is, is good for them. They don't know that it's good for them. And there are times that God puts puke on our plate, if you please, but he knows that it's good for us. We look at it and we say, this is puke. Why do I have to eat this? I don't want to eat this. We are the child of God, right? So we're sitting in the high chair and he's having to feed us what we don't wanna eat. And we're like, no, God, no, no, no. And even if, and you know, as a parent, sometimes you look at your child and you say, this is good for you. And as a child, you're saying, yeah, right, ain't no way, you know. We think that's kind of the way it is. Sometimes things get put on our plate that we don't want. And we cannot see how it could possibly be good for us or that any good could come from it whatsoever. And God's put this on our plate and we gotta eat it. And we look at this and we say, but realistically, Mrs. Hooker, how? How do I do this? How do I do this? Listen, your head and your heart, I mentioned this before, have to match. When your head and your heart don't match, enter confusion and unhappiness. Evil. That's what James tells us. With confusion comes every evil work. That means when my head and my heart don't match, I'm opening myself up to satanic oppression, which means I'm giving the place to the devil. I'm allowing him to affect my thinking and my thoughts even more so, to counter anything good that comes in. Why? Because my head knows the right things, but my heart disagrees with it and refuses to accept it. You see, it's not what I want. Sometimes we'll say, God, if you loved me, you wouldn't make me go through this, you see. And so injustices and pain come. But how else do we grow? Do you know there's nine fruits of God's Holy Spirit and one of them is meekness. And did you know that meekness is the ability to yield to God's sovereign will? That's what meekness is. It's yielding to God's sovereign will. Well, guess what? It's no problem to yield when we agree. The problem with yielding comes when we disagree. The only way that you could grow in meekness is if injustices come in your life. You will never learn meekness if you never go through the valley of injustices. And God has to teach us how to be meek. God does not want you to be concerned with your husband's growth or your parents' growth or anybody else's growth. He wants you to be concerned with your own. he's working on you and he is more concerned with developing you into the character of Christ. so that you can know all the love and the joy and the peace that is available to you. He loves you. He wants you to have the best of what he has to offer. But we have to go through things in this life and sometimes we go through things because he has to grow us in those areas. There are a lot of things in life that make us puke. a husband that molests a daughter, or perhaps looks at pornography and then wants you, or someone who visits nightclubs or gets drunk and sleeps around, or perhaps they just mistreat you. There's verbal abuse or physical abuse. They won't take up any time with the children, or they won't pay the bills, or they spend money that you've earned, or they do. You know, there's a lot of things we can take issue with. There's a lot of grievances out there because Satan's in control and Satan affects the thinking. There's a lot of things that make us want to puke. But guess what? Every one of us in here is guilty of doing things that make God puke. We're all guilty. We're all guilty of thinking things, of acting on things, of saying things, of our actions. We're guilty of making God puke. But he still loves us. He still is good to us. He still is long-suffering and gentle and gives us joy and wants us to have peace. And he still gives us all good things. And I said before, you cannot do it in your own strength. We're human. But God has promised Holy Spirit power to do the impossible to anyone who asks for it. And so he will do it through you if you let him. It's not that we can't, and I've said this before most often, it's that we don't want to. We don't want to eat the puke. We don't want to. We'd rather throw it out, you see. But we don't know how good it can be if we just swallow it. That sounds terrible. We resist what we don't believe could be good and thereby resist the very grace God has for us to get us through it. When we resist, then we don't have the grace we need. And so it isn't any wonder that if we resist and we don't obey God's word, then when the trial gets heavier, we don't have the grace we need to bear up under it. Obedience brings blessing and we get the grace that we need as we do what he tells us to do. And so when we resist the grace that God has given us to get us through, then we leave him. He never leaves us. He says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. He's right there to walk us through whatever we've got to go through. But when we resist the grace he's given us, when we refuse to eat whatever he's put on our plate, then we leave him. He never leaves us, you see. The Bible says, your iniquities have separated you from God. It's our disobedience that separates us from God. Those iniquities, those things we open ourselves up to by disagreeing with God. And to disagree with God is to agree with the adversary. There's no middle ground. So when we disagree with God, we are giving place to the devil. We're allowing him to step it up in our mind and in our thinking and in tormenting us. And allowing him to build a stronghold of opposition in our hearts and out of which will proceed every emotion that's not from God. Hatred, depression, anxiety, anger, lack of temperance or self-control. All of these things, when those things are presence, God's spirit isn't. because there's nine fruits to God's Holy Spirit. And any one of those nine fruits will combat any negative emotion you may have. So if I'm succumbing to a negative emotion, then I don't have God's Spirit with me. You follow me? So I need His help. by the truth, by the truth, by the truth. For example, the Bible says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he make it even his enemies to be at peace with him. Are you having struggle in a relationship where you feel like the person that you're struggling with is just an enemy to you? Well, the Bible says when our ways please him, he will make the enemies to be at peace with us. That's what God will do. That's a promise we can count on. The Bible says, sometimes there are conditions to the promises that says, for example, by mercy and truth is iniquity purged. If we want to have the right kind of relationships, we've gotta be willing to give mercy and truth. We have to be merciful and don't assume wrong, you see. The Bible says, but if we'll have mercy and truth, iniquity can be purged. Wouldn't we want iniquity purged from our homes? Wouldn't we want iniquity? If we resist Satan for it to be gone, sure we would. But sometimes we have to swallow and do the hard thing, which is to be merciful. And sometimes that's like puke. Because when someone's really wronged us or hurt us, the last thing we wanna do is give mercy to that person, you see. The Bible says before honor is humility. If we're not willing to be submissive, how will we ever know honor? Before honor is humility. I can't get the cart before the, the ox before the, which one is it? The cart before the ox? No, the ox before the cart. The Bible says a merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Do you know that one way to overcome depression is to pursue joy? Those things that are gonna bring joy. I can choose to wallow in depression. I can choose to look at the flowers. Those choices are up to me, you see. The Bible says, a man hath joy by the answer of his mouth. The Bible says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. It's not sometimes what I say, it's how I choose to say it. It's how the other person perceives that I'm saying it. God's promises are true. We just have to believe them. If we want a great marriage, if we want a great relationships, if we want to get along with other people, we've just got to trust his promises and do what he says. Did you know the Bible says that the heart of the king is in the Lord's hands to turn it withers wherever he will. If I'll do my part, he'll turn the heart. of the king, you see, he can change that other person. The Bible says that the evil shall bow before the good. But guess what? The evil aren't gonna bow before the evil. I have to choose to be good to the ones that are doing me evil. The Bible says, how do you overcome evil? You overcome evil with good. I mentioned already in loving, the Bible says, love your enemies. But for whatever reason, we just don't think those things are gonna work in the daily grind of life. But if we don't practice them in the daily grind of life, we're never gonna see the blessings that could come. We have to trust. The Bible says again, there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. There is none. If it's in opposition to this book, it isn't going to work. I can say to ladies, if you're having child discipline problems, use the rod. Why do I say use the rod? Because the Bible says use the rod. And the Bible says, don't spare the rod or you will spoil the child. The Bible says chasing him because the rod of correction will drive the foolishness far from that child. But guess what? Nobody wants to talk about the rod because the world has sold us a bill of goods that what you ought to do is use timeouts. Timeouts! Okay, who said timeouts? Excuse me. If that is something that's exalted itself against the word of God, and people get up in arms about this thing, so much so that we're afraid to say, use the rod. How is that? What is the rod? The rod is a switch. It's a little old thin, skinny little switch. It ain't gonna kill anybody. It's safer to use than a paddle. It's safer to use than a belt. It's safer to use than any other thing else that might be handy that we just pick up when we're mad. It's a little old teeth, skin. You know, when I was a little girl, I had a, my mom worked for a little while and we had a maid that came in and took care of us, my brother and me. And she was a believer in the switch. But I got a taste of it one day because she wouldn't go out and get the switch off a tree. She made you go get it. Anybody ever been there before? And when you're a little kid, you go out there and you're looking for the smallest one you can find because you think that it will go easier for you. And that's why they send you after it. Because they know full well you'll go after the spin. That's exactly what they want. Why? Because that little thin little old switch, there's no challenge in withstanding it. You know, a boy will consider it a challenge to withstand a paddle. He'll come away going, ha ha ha, didn't hurt me. He considers it a challenge. I got 10 licks. I mean, he's proud of himself. And I took it, man, like I mean, there's no challenge in a switch. It stings like fire, but guess what? It's not gonna kill him. You beat him with the rod and he won't die. And so, but everybody's like, oh, it's child abuse. Really? Really? I'd like to see that hold up in court. I can see the judge now, bring the weapon. Here it is. This is what I've been accused of beating my child with, really? I tell you, God knows what he's talking about. And if we get off our high horse and stop trying to outthink God and just do what he tells us to do, we're gonna find out life goes a whole lot smoother. You can take a little switch like that when you're training your children in obedience when they're two years old, which is when they disobey, when they learn the word no. And they look at you and say, no. And they get the defiant little looks on their faces. If we don't train on purpose, we will be training by default. And we may not like the way that turns out. But what I want to do, why does God say use a switch, use the rod? Because there needs to be a fear factor. Why? Because pain is inevitable in this life. It's inevitable. We're not gonna get out of this life without pain. But you see, as a child sees its parents, it's how they, it sees God. And when you have, when you can train them and teach them what's right because you love them and you care about them and you use the switch when they disobey and violate commands, what are we doing? We're showing them that both love and pain can come from the same source and be a good thing for them. They gotta know that love and pain can come from the same source and be a good thing. My God loves me, but that doesn't keep pain from coming. That's a reality, but it doesn't mean he doesn't love me because pain comes. He loves me and he wants what's best for me. And sometimes he has to spank me, but it's because he loves me that he spanks me. Whenever I had to spank my girls, I used to sit them down and I'd say, I don't want to spank you. It hurts mama to spank you, but it's my job because if I don't do my job, then you're going to think it's okay to continue doing what you're doing and you're going to destroy your life. I care enough about you and I love you enough to stop you. from destroying your life. Why do I do that? Because I love. Because I love. The same reason God does it. But you see, we say, oh, well, we can't use the rod. We can't do that. By the truth. By the truth. By the truth. When God tells us, guess what? When we do our own ways, it don't work. And may I tell you, timeouts don't work. And you can hate my guts for saying that, and I'm sorry, I probably crossed a line, but I'm telling you, they don't work, why? Because without a fear factor there, they just sit there in their own minds, in the idleness of sitting, their minds can become the devil's workshop. So we have to buy the truth, buy the truth, please buy the truth. I don't say these things because I want to hurt anybody, you understand? I've seen so much in heartache and heartbreak that could have been avoided if we just believed what God told us was true and we found a way to obey it. Now, I understand that there might be a person that has truly been abused, truly been hurt by something, and it makes it hard to choose that kind of truth. Satan wants to hurt us and wound us to convince us to not trust. That's part of his game plan. There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord, you see. Now I wanna show you three different ladies, three different scenarios that I hope will help us just a little bit in this thing of trusting what God says. If you turn in your Bibles over to 1 Samuel chapter 25, 1 Samuel chapter 25. Probably in this room, there is a myriad of things that have happened in your life. things that maybe make no sense to you whatsoever, or maybe something, some kind of puke that God's put on your plate. I don't know what that is, but I do know this. The Bible has the answers for every situation. We have to trust. We have to trust. But every time God gives us a story in the Bible, he gives us a story to show us a picture of humanity. And if we do the same things that the people in the story do, we'll end up with the same results. That means if they made bad decisions and we make those same decisions, we're going to end up with the same results. But where we see God work and where we see what is right to do, then God shows us the end result of that too. Those stories are there to show us a picture of humanity. How to act and behave and what to do. In 1 Samuel chapter 25 we see the story, we start in verse 3. Now the name of the man, there was a man and he lived in Carmel. His name was Nabal. And the name of his wife was Abigail. And the Bible says of her, and I love this, it says, and she was a woman of good understanding and a beautiful countenance, but the man was churlish and evil in his doings. Very interesting what God says there. I think it's no accidents. Anytime God puts something in the Bible, it's there for us to see it. She was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance. I don't think that that necessarily meant that she was just a beautiful person to look at. It meant that she had the peace of God, the love of God. She had a beautiful countenance. She had that on her face. It showed what was inside her heart. She was of the beautiful countenance. And the story, and I won't read every word of the story, but you probably know the story that David and his men were coming across Nabal's property. And so they needed something to eat. And so he sent his servants. to Nabal to say, hey, is it okay if we cross your property? And, you know, can you help us? Can you meet our needs? Have you got some bread? You know, my men are hungry. Can you help us? And in verse 10, Nabal answers David. Nabal answered David's servants and said, who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my flesh that I have killed for my shears and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be? He sure said I a lot, didn't he? This is my bread, and this is what I've gotten, and this is all about me. Selfishness breeds contempt. Selfishness breeds contempt. The more selfish we are, the more it's going to reciprocate contempt back to us. That's one reason God wants us to be good, because he loves us. He cares what comes back to you, and he wants you to be the beneficiary of good, you see. But selfishness breeds contempt, and we see it right here. Verse 12, so David's young men turned their way and went again and came and told him all these things. And David said unto his men, gird you on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And they're going after him. David's angry. He's going after him. But one of the young men, verse 14, told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master, and he railed on them. But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, as long as we were conservative with them. When we were in the fields, they were a wall unto us, both night by night and day. And all the while, we were with them, keeping the sheep. Now therefore, know and consider what thou will do for evil is determined against our master and against all his household. For he is such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak to him. I want you to notice something here. I want you to notice in verse 17, the servants came to Abigail and they said, evil is determined against our master and against all his household. And then they spoke evil themselves of their master. He is such a son of Belial, or however you say that word, Belial, I don't know, that a man can't speak to him, but Abigail never said a word. She didn't rail on him. She didn't say, oh, that stupid idiot man, that stupid husband of mine, what on earth was he thinking? You know, she didn't rail on him. She didn't accuse him. She didn't bring up accusation against him, nowhere. Instead, verse 18, the Bible says, then Abigail made haste. She took 200 loaves and two bottles of wine and five sheep ready dressed and five measures of parched corn. And she got all this together. And the Bible says that she rode as quickly as she could to David. And as they came down the hill towards her, she got off of the donkey she was riding. She fell down at his feet. And I love what she said. And verse 24, the Bible says, and fell at his feet, David. She bowed herself to the ground, verse 23, and she fell at his feet and she said, upon me, my Lord, upon me, let this iniquity be. Upon me, my Lord, upon me, let this iniquity be. She didn't blame her husband. She didn't accuse her husband. She fell down on her face before the king and she said, let this iniquity be on my head. Let this iniquity be on my head. She said, let not my Lord, verse 25, I pray thee regard this man of Belial, even Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him. She acknowledged his sin before the king. She didn't rail, she didn't accuse, she acknowledged his sin. It was a pretty big sin he committed before the king, you see. Nabel is his name and folly is with him, but I, thine handmaid, saw not the young men of my Lord whom thou didst send. And then verse 28, she says, and I love this, she said, I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid. Forgive the trespass of thine handmaid. And she bows herself, she humbles herself before him. And she says, don't let this be a grief to you. Please don't hold this. Please don't hold this. You don't want this to go against you. Let me make amends for this sin and let this iniquity be on me. What did Abigail do? She bore her husband's sins. And I think in this passage of scripture, David in this passage represents the Lord Jesus Christ. And we, just like her, sometimes get puke put on her plate. Wouldn't you agree that Abigail had puke on her plate? The Bible says that her husband was churlish and evil. Churlish and evil. His name meant stupid. That's what his name meant. But even though, and she was of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance, she loved the Lord. She knew what was right, but there's no disrespect here given to her husband by her. She bought the truth. Even so much that she was willing to make amends for what he did wrong and take his sin upon herself. And she bore it before the king. And she says, please forgive the trespass of thine handmaid. I think that humility is so amazing. And David did. The Bible says, blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou, which has kept me this day from coming to shed blood and from avenging myself. And in verse 39, it shows how, well, not verse 39, I'm sorry. Verse 35. So David received of her hand that which she had brought him and said unto her, go up in peace to thine house. See, I have hearkened to thy voice and have accepted thy person. The next day came because that night Nabal was drunk. The rest of the story tells us his heart was drunk. So she didn't say anything to him then because he was too drunken. But the next morning, when she got up, she went and told him everything that had transpired. And to the best that we see in scripture, she didn't rail on him, she didn't accuse him, and say, do you know what kind of trouble you almost got us into? Do you know what just happened here? Do you understand what I had to do in order to save this household because you were so stupid? But guess what? That's what we want to do. And the truth is, we would feel justified in doing it. And that's what our emotions would dictate. He was gonna kill us, Nabal. He was gonna wipe us out. Do you understand what could have happened? You're such a fool. And the truth is every one of us would have thought she was justified in saying it. But doesn't the Bible itself say that he was a wicked and churlish man? But yet in the story, we see that's not how Abigail reacted. That's not what she did. She positionally respected her husband. She took his sin upon herself. She bore his sin before the king. And she said, oh king, please forgive him. Let this be on me. He didn't know what he's doing. As his name is, so is he. There's folly there, but oh God, And that's exactly what we're supposed to do. And what happened? David representing the Lord Jesus Christ said, I like that. I like that. Blessed are you. And he says, and I want you to go back to your house in peace because you've not only done the right thing, but I'm gonna stand in defense of you. I'm going to stand in defense of you." David protected her and all that belonged to her because of her choice, her decision that she made. She did the right thing in spite of what her emotions were dictating for her to do. And when she went and told her husband the next day everything that had transpired, The Bible says in verse 37, came to pass in the morning when the wine was gone out of Nabal and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him and he became as a stone. And it came to pass about 10 days after that the Lord smoked Nabal and that he died. And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, blessed be the Lord that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal and hath kept his servant from evil for the Lord has returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail to take her to him to wife. That's exactly what the Lord Jesus will do for us. David representing the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God's already given us a pattern of what we're supposed to do. He's told us in 1 Peter 2, in verses 17, He says, listen, He says, well, let's just read it. I think I probably read it to you last year, but we have a lot of new people and that doesn't matter because that's a year ago, so we'll read it again. But in 1 Peter 2, in verse 17, Well, let's start down with verse 19, verse 19. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. Did you see that? If you endure grief, suffering wrongfully, you didn't choose it, puke was put on your plate, okay? You're suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even here unto where you call because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin. This is what Jesus did. And he's telling us this is what our pattern should be. Who did no sin. "'Neither was guile found in his mouth, "'who when he was reviled, reviled not again. "'When he suffered, he threatened not, "'but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.'" Get this in verse 24. "'Who his own self bear our sins "'in his own body on the tree, "'that we being dead to sins "'should live unto righteousness "'by whose stripes ye were healed. Chapter 3 verse 1 likewise you wives Likewise you wives Everything that just preceded this likewise you wives. What's he telling us to do follow his example when you get puke put on your plate and You don't want to eat the puke. God says just hang tight Follow Abigail's example because this is well pleasing to me. I see it. I see what you're going through I understand But I went through it too, for all the puke of the whole wide world. And puke like you wouldn't believe, puke. But do what I did. Why? Because there's victory. Because there's victory there. There's victory there. What does he mean? If I can keep my mouth shut, and I cannot lash out, and I cannot say what I'd like to say, and I cannot lash out in anger and hatred and aggravation the way I want to, if I can submit myself to the Lord and do righteously and love to the best of my ability, I don't revile, I don't threaten, I don't Do all of that, but I'll take things patiently. And what did Abigail do? She bore her husband's sin before the Lord, before David, who represents Jesus. The same thing for us. We're not perfect people. I don't deserve any good thing, but I feel like someone has wrongfully treated me. What can I do? I can take their sin before the Lord. And what can I say? I can say, Father, Forgive them. Let this be on me. Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. They don't understand the grief that they've caused. They don't understand what they've done. They don't understand the heartache and the pain that their actions have caused. But Father, I bring this to you and I give it to you. Why? Because he said that when we do that, the stone will be rolled away. You see, what Jesus did for us wasn't found just in the death, but the death had to come, it was found in the resurrection of life. Because his willingness to die and bear our sins in his body brought about a newness of life. When we're willing to bear the sins of others before the Lord and not become prosecuting attorney and judge and jury ourselves, and take it to God and let Him have those things and we just continue to do what's right, then the Bible says that is well-pleasing to Him. He accepts that. It pleases Him. Why? Because we're being Christ-like. And by faith, we're doing what he says to do and we're obeying his word. We're trusting him for the outcome. We can see a resurrection of a new relationship, of new life in our marriage, in our homes, in our families, in whatever the need may be. What happened? David said to Abigail here, he said, Abigail, go back to your house in peace because I've accepted you. I've accepted your person and I'm gonna defend you. And I'm gonna meet your needs and I'm gonna take care of you. Well, Nabal was a wicked and a churlish man. His heart wasn't right before God and there was no changing him, so God did exactly what he said. He took Nabal out of the picture altogether. He rescued Abigail and he set her free. true to his word, you see. And the story's there for every one of us. There is nothing that you will go through in this life that God doesn't see. I'll tell you another story, you see. You think of little Hagar in Genesis chapter 16, a familiar story. But in Genesis chapter 16, the Bible tells us, get over there and read it. The Bible says, of course you know the story, that Abraham took Hagar, his little maid, and went into her, and he had a child by her. And then Sarah, her mistress, begins to beat her and treat her terrible. And so Hagar runs away from home. And the angel of the Lord in verse seven of chapter 16 says, and the angel of the Lord found her, Hagar, by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way of Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarah's maid, whence camest thou and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarah. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands. You think Hagar wanted what happened to her? She's a little maid. She had no say so in the matter. The truth is she was being obedient to her master and to her mistress and complying with what they wanted and she got very unjustly treated. Now she's pregnant with a baby, probably that she didn't even want. She's terrified. This is Abraham's child. And here she is a little Egyptian maid. And now she's being beaten and mistreated and sadly abused so much so that she flees into the wilderness. That was almost like a, it was a suicide. She couldn't take it anymore. And so what happened? You see, God came to her rescue and he came to Hagar and he said, and he mentioned, I know who you are and I know what you do. Hagar, what are you running away from? Hagar, Sarah's maid. He knew exactly where she was at, exactly what she had suffered through, exactly what was breaking Hagar's heart. And he says, he told her, Hagar, I love you. And he said, look, go back to your mistress and submit thyself under her hands. And he said, if you'll do what I tell you to do, he said, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered from multitude. And so what was he gonna do? He said, you go submit yourself to her. and I will multiply your seed. I'm gonna bless you, Hagar, for doing the right thing to do. It is so easy when we're up against it to escape. It is so easy to want to flee. It is so easy to quit. It is so easy to throw in the towel. We don't like the puke that sometimes gets put on our plate. But Hagar submitted herself. She did what God told her to do and God blessed her for it. There's one other story I want you to see and I'm done. 1 Samuel 1. Another familiar story, but we see the story of Hannah. Hannah. There was a man named Elkanah in this story in chapter one, and he had two wives, the Bible says. One was Hannah and the other was Penina, and he loved Hannah. But Hannah was barren, she didn't have any children. And so, and Penina had, she got pregnant, started having baby after baby. And so, and back in the day, that was just a very terrible thing for a woman to have to live with. not having a child and it broke her heart. Well, did Hannah think that God was perhaps being unjust? I don't know, but I do know this, that when they went up year by year, verse seven, they went up to the house of the Lord And she went to pray, but she was very sad. And verse eight says in Elkanah, her husband said, Hannah, why weepest thou? And why eatest thou not? And why is thy heart grieved? Am I not better to thee than 10 sons? But Hannah was grieved nonetheless. And the Bible says in verse 10, she was in bitterness of soul. bitterness of soul. And she wept sore. Listen, it might not be because of, it can be a lot of things that make us bitter of soul. But there are things that get put on our plate sometimes that make no sense to us. It is just puke on our plate and it makes us bitter in our souls, bitter. And in Hannah's case, she had a bitterness of soul and she wept and she wept and she wept. But the Bible tells us she never railed on Penina. She never duped it out with her in the house. They didn't have screaming matches. She took it to the Lord in prayer. She took it to the Lord in prayer. The Bible says she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. She prayed. And then in verse 12, it says, and it came to pass that she continued praying for the Lord. She was pouring out her soul in agony so much so that Eli thought she was drunk. So now you have the man of God comes up to her and he gets on to her, he scolds her. And she says, woman, you know, basically, how long are you gonna be drunk? And he gets on to her. Have you ever gone to the church thinking you were gonna find some solace and comfort there? And sometimes the very people that you thought should be the ones that should help you were the ones that railed on you and misunderstood you. You don't have to raise your hand, but I've been there. And that's when you feel like, you know, not only are you in bitterness of soul, but now you just got kicked. And by the very person or persons that you thought it shouldn't come from. Well, here she is, and that's exactly what happens to her. What does she do? She didn't yell and scream at Eli. She doesn't say, fine, if you're gonna treat me that way, I'm out this door and I'll never come back to this church again as long as I live. You know, what do our emotions wanna do? That's what we wanna do. That's the way we're tempted to react. And we feel justified in doing it. Don't I have a right to be angry? Don't I have a right to be upset? Don't I have a right? Don't I have a right? Don't I have a right? She wept bitterly. But she didn't. She gave everything she had. She prayed and she gave it to the Lord. And guess what? Elphaba realized the mistake he had made and he came back to her and he said, God's gonna bless you. And she had a beautiful baby boy. God is good. Is there gonna be times where we have puke on our plate? Yeah. In this life, puke's inevitable. But when God allows puke to be on your plate, we still have choices that we can make. We can buy into what the devil's selling and end up making our whole situation way worse. Sometimes I'll talk to a lady and she'll say, Mrs. Hooker, You just understand, he and I, we fight all the time. All we do is fight. Every time we're together, we fight, fight, fight. Wouldn't it be better for the children if we just got a divorce? Wouldn't it be better for them if we were separated? Wouldn't it be better? And I said, no, it'd be better if you don't fight. We don't have to fight. It's our pride that gets in the way of the blessings of God. Only by pride come with contention. We have to learn to swallow our pride. And guess what? The only real puke that's on this plate, it's our pride. Because our pride is the hardest thing to swallow. It's the hardest thing to swallow. The Bible says in Psalms 30 verse five, it says, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. God says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. God says he will not put on you more than you can bear. God says by mercy and truth, iniquity can be purged. God says before honor is humility. God makes us promises and he is true to his word and he will keep his promises if we'll just do what he tells us to do and not second guess it. God says the evil shall bow before the good, but we'll never know that if we don't choose good. We have choices and our choices will determine our destiny. I have something in closing I want to pass out to you. This is a, do we, are they over there? Okay, great, there they are in the back. I know that things are hard. And I know that when you're going through a hard time, Sometimes we still need a little additional help just to remind us of what we got to do. And I have for each one of you what I call the prayer formula. It's what I used for myself when I went through a very bitter struggle one time, and I was crying, crying, crying, and went through some hard times. And God gave this to me, and it made a difference, and it helped. And it's coming. It's coming forward, so they're passing them up. But I just want to tell you what it is. What it is, is it's a prayer formula. And what I want you to do is use it. Sometimes us ladies, one thing I know about ourselves, I mean, if my preacher used to get up and he would say something like, Listen, you need to teach your children to work, for example. I would say, how? Give me specifics. One, two, three, four. I function good. And when I'm in an emotional frame of mind and I can't think clearly, sometimes if I just have something in front of me that tells me what to do, that helps me. And so this prayer formula is a set of points, if you please, to just sort of tell your head what to do when you're going through the valley, okay? And there's basically seven points to it. The first point is vomit on God. Psalms 142 tells us he knows that sometimes there's puke on your plate. He knows that. So when you feel like there's puke on your plate, take it to God and vomit on him. Okay. I can't handle this. I can't take it. He's equipped to handle it. Psalms 142 tells us that. Vomit on God. The second thing tells us to do, and you can read through all of it, and I'm just gonna skim it real briefly, but the second thing God tells us to do is to confess our sin. You say, but Ms. Hooker, if I've been wrongfully treated, what sin do I have to confess? Well, the truth is any negative emotion that you're feeling at that point in time, is in opposition to God's Holy Spirit, okay? So if I'm feeling anger, if I'm feeling hatred, if I'm feeling self-pity, if I'm wallowing in despair, if I'm depressed, all of those are negative emotions. Think about the nine fruits and what's opposite of those nine fruits and you can figure out whatever you're in, you see. So I'm gonna confess whatever it is I'm dealing with at that moment in time. So there I can confess my, God, I'm so angry right now. I'm so angry. My husband said best and so to me and I've never been so mad in all my life. How dare he say that to me? Oh God, I'm sorry. I'm so angry. I'm so sorry. I know this anger is not from you. It's not, God help me because I didn't like the way I was treated. I can take it to him. He's the one that's equipped to handle it. So I'm gonna confess the negative emotion. And then the third thing I'm gonna do, matter of fact, I need a paper. Is there an extra one somewhere? That way I'm not going by memory. Thank you. And we'll go through these real quick. But right there, confess known sin, that's 1 John 1.9. And I've got some things listed there that might be one of those negative emotions. Negative emotions torment our hearts. We cannot justify negative emotions. We've got to confess them and let them go. We have to, okay? Because Satan will use negative emotions to destroy us. Three, forgive, forgive. Sometimes we have to forgive the offender, the person that hurt us. Sometimes we have to forgive ourselves, we have to forgive others. And I say we have to forgive God. I've had people correct me before and say, you should never have to forgive God, Mrs. Zucker. Oh yeah, I'm a woman. And there are things I get mad at God about. that I don't understand why he chose to do something he did. It's okay. That's okay. Sometimes I have to say, God, I forgive you. I know you're just in what you do. I understand you have a righteous judgment. I can't see it. Please forgive me for being so angry at you for bringing this into my life. Sometimes we have to forgive God because that's the state of our emotions, okay? Forgiveness is a command. The Bible says, judge not and you shall not be judged, condemn not and you shall not be condemned, forgiven it shall be forgiven. It's a decision, not a feeling. Forgiveness does not exempt the other person from receiving justice. It just simply relieves you of the burden of exacting the justice yourself and allows God to deal with them in his way in his time. Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will repay. Nobody's getting off because you choose to forgive. You've heard the saying, people that drink poison, you know, and then expect somebody else to die from it. It doesn't work. The lack of forgiveness will only destroy you. We have to let it go. You've got to choose to forgive and believe God. Now I wrote down here, this does not mean that a criminal act should not be turned into proper authorities. If somebody has hurt somebody and they could go on and hurt somebody else. But this is how we deal with the offense personally. We have to forgive, okay? And then four is give mercy. That's the second part of forgiveness. Ask God to be merciful to the one that has offended you. And you can read through these and that'll explain it. Number five is erase the pain. This is the most difficult step because there's a feeling that if we ask God to erase the pain, we will never be vindicated for the way we have been treated. But if you outwardly forgive, but inwardly continue to harbor negative emotions, you may have forgiven the offender, but you are not trusting that God will vindicate you. We're not trusting God that he'll vindicate us. So in doing so, we're actually becoming our own defense attorney and keeping the evidence so we can remind God that he hasn't come through like we thought he should. You see, this is wrong and is evidence of lack of trust. It is essential that you let go of the evidence. Let it go. That's hard to do. Easier said than done. I've had ladies tell me as they started walking through the prayer formula, they did the first four, but they couldn't get through verse five, that they just couldn't get through it. But their peace will not come until you're willing to truly erase the pain. What do I mean by erase the pain? What I do is I ask God, it's not that God will erase necessarily a hurtful memory necessarily, that the memory will always go away, but the pain of that memory can. Those of you who had children, You know? Well, what happened when you went through labor? It was painful. But do you know, if we really truly remembered the pain, we'd probably never have a second child. God can't erase the memory of the pain. He can. He does when we have children. And so he can do it again when we have hurts from our past that are plaguing us. And so you take it to God and ask him to erase the pain of that memory from your RNA, your DNA, your memory cell structure, push delete on it, whatever he's got to do, get rid of it, okay? And then number six, access the fruit of the Spirit that you need to combat whatever negative emotion that you expressed when you were vomiting on God. Okay? You have access to any one of God's Holy Spirit, the fruits of His Spirit, anytime you need them. The Bible says, against such there is no law. In other words, ask and He will give. There's no strings attached. You know, you cannot fight the battle alone. If you know that you're struggling with puke and you're having a hard time, you gotta give it to God, but you need His power to help you deal with it. If you find yourself hating and you know hating's not from God, then you need the power of His love to work through you so you don't hate anymore, okay? So you don't wanna do the first five and not do six. You got to have the fruit of his spirit to help you get through it. And he will. If you're combating anxiety, ask for peace. If you're combating hatred, ask for love. Yada yada, it goes on and explains us. Number seven, ask for the grace to obey God's revealed will. Ask God for grace because the battle is going to come to you again and you have to be ready. Satan never goes down without a fight. And when the testing comes, two choices, one good and one evil will be available to you. Make the right choice. Make the right choice. God will give you a command either from his word or from a godly teacher or from a man of God. Don't second guess the command, just obey it. Just do it. If it means swallowing pride, just swallow pride. Just obey it, just do it. The second you choose to obey God's word, the second you choose to step out by faith to obey what he tells you to do, then you enable the Holy Spirit to help you take the second step. You know, sometimes we're guilty of saying, oh God, you know, help me say the right thing. He will. But until we step out by faith to choose to say the right thing, he's not going to just sprinkle spoofing dust on us and say, poof, you will say the right thing now. It doesn't work that way. We have to make the choice. We have to choose good over evil. But once we do, the Holy Spirit enables us and fills us to be able to really follow through with what we need to do. Make the right choice. And it is just vital that you repeat this prayer formula as often as you struggle with hurt, pain, negative thoughts or emotions. Some of us have a lot of junk buried deep inside of us. and we need to get it out of our systems. We need relief. It may not happen in one single session of prayer, you know, but the Bible says we can have the peace that passes understanding if we just take it, these things to him. All right, I've got to stop. I've gone long. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for again, for this time to be with the ladies. I hope and pray I haven't said anything that has hurt somebody or made them feel bad or, That's not my intention. I can get pretty dramatic about things. I know I can. I get intense because I want so badly for us to get it. I want so bad for us to have all the joy and the peace and everything, all the good blessings that you have for us. It's just so hard for us to not choose the bargain brand. It's just hard. Father, we need you. Please help and bless these truths in our hearts, our minds, our lives. Help the ladies just to see that choices do determine destiny. And we've just got to, we've just got to make the right choices for the sake of our homes, for ourselves, for our children. families, our children, our relationships with other people, for our church family, for those that we have influence over. It's just paramount that we choose your will and your way. Thank you and bless these truths to our hearts in Jesus name. Amen.