And in thee, this is my song. ♪ Give more love to me ♪ ♪ Once earthly joy I craved ♪ ♪ Saw peace and rest ♪ ♪ Now in the Lord I seek ♪ ♪ Give what is best ♪ Okay, on this last verse, we're gonna let her start us off and then she's gonna drop out and we're gonna sing the rest of verse three a cappella, okay, in parts. how we're used to singing, okay? Ready on verse three. ♪ Then shall my latest breath ♪ ♪ Whisper thy praise ♪ ♪ This be the parting cry ♪ ♪ My heart shall raise ♪ ♪ This to his prayer shall be ♪ ♪ More love, O Christ, to thee ♪ ♪ More love to thee ♪ ♪ More love to thee ♪ Ronnie, thank you tonight. Good evening. It's good to see you, each and every one of you. I appreciate you being here so much. Good to have our guest with us tonight as well. Looking forward to this eight-week series of messages through September. This is October, though, isn't it? October and November, and then in December, ADL. take the reins again. So, but be in prayer for us as we study together. And as we study together, let's turn over to the book of Ephesians and the fourth chapter, if you would please. We'll begin a series of messages. on the theology or the biblical perspective of feelings and emotions. Now when I say feelings, I mean F-E-E-L-I-N-G-S, not F-I-L-L-I-N-G-S. There's a little bit of difference. So we're talking about feelings and we are not talking about the sense of feelings, the touch. the physical touch where I felt heat, I felt cold, I put my hand forth and felt something on my body. We're not talking about that. We're talking about something deeper than that. We're going to have to reach into the heart of man to understand why we have emotions, what they're for, what God intended them to be for, and God did have an intention for your emotions, by the way. And we'll talk more about that, but if we ask the average person what do you think emotions are, they may list some emotions, but they couldn't define emotions or maybe they couldn't define feelings as far as that's concerned. Now if you think this isn't an issue, I want you to stop and think about the relevant or the current appeal in our culture today. Everything that's sold is appealed to your emotions. If you want to buy a new car, Sit in the leather seats and feel the luxury. That's one advertisement. Feel the luxury. And he's not talking about on your skin. He's talking about you're going to feel. luxurious. Someone was teasing me Sunday about driving a Cadillac and I said, no I can't ever have a Cadillac. Well, why? Because I'm not wearing a suit every day. Forget it. If you have a Cadillac, you're expected to wear a suit. That's just me. It's just a joke. It was a crummy one, but it was a joke. But I'm not going to wear a suit. Well, that's how you feel. Brandy and I were talking today about feelings and I said, that were so feeling oriented that when I get up in the morning, now you ladies don't do this, I know. Let me do some confession here, okay? Don't nod and say, well, me too. Then I'll preach harder if you do. When I get up in the morning, I have several watches, wristwatches. And I sort through them to pick one that I want to wear today. I have one I have on today I bought at a yard sale for five bucks. I've got watches that cost hundreds of dollars, and I've got a $5 watch on, because it appealed to me, the way it looked for the day. It's casual looking, it's kind of antiquated, it's got nostalgia written all over it, kind of like me, and so I thought, I just felt like wearing it. Now if you ask me what was the real reason I wore it, I just felt like wearing it. Hey, get off me, would you? I felt like wearing this shirt. I felt this and so forth. And I've got three pair of eyeglasses. And some I feel better or more comfortable in than others. They're all made by the same people under the doctor's prescription. The same doctor, by the way. Okay. I've got two pair of prescription sunglasses made by the same people. One pair I I just don't feel like wearing. Paid the same amount for both of them, by the way. And I just don't feel like wearing. I feel cooler in the other ones. Just go on and on and on. And I could, everything you've done today probably was in response to how you felt. Now be honest. What did you eat today? What you felt like eating? You said, well, no, I ate what I Felt like it appealed to me, but it was feeling-oriented. And we are a feeling-oriented society. I mean, say what you want. People go to church because they feel like going. People don't go to church because they don't feel like going. How about that? And I'm not talking about how they physically feel. I understand the maladies of the flesh very well. Jimmy and I were laughing a little while ago. If this is the golden years, I'm going to kill the guy when I meet him that set this thing up. He probably died at the age of 29. He never got to be 71 years old. He never knew what it was to go to two chiropractors a day. He didn't know what it was to take water therapy. He didn't know any of that stuff. To be blind in one eye, couldn't see out the other. He didn't know. He died early, so the golden years that he was looking forward to. Yeah, right. If he's in heaven, he's not. Don't worry about it. But anyway. He lied. But we live in a culture or a feeling-oriented society. We are not a command-oriented society. You are not by nature command-oriented. Do you hear this? You're not. You're a feeling-oriented person. No matter what the pastor says, I just feel like it means this, I feel like this. Eddie, am I telling the truth? We're feeling-oriented people. And that's exactly why we're in the course. What we have done, and let me just flip it around for you, and then I'll get started in the theology. Let me flip it around. We have become a society that live under subjective thinking rather than objective thinking. Subjective thinking, is subject to whatever is right and so forth. Objective is based upon truth, solely upon truth. Now let's flip it around. Subjective, let's put that at the top. And let's have our experience according to our feelings. I felt like he was the man I should have married. I felt like she was the woman I should have married. I felt like beating on a kid. Whatever I felt like. And here's the Bible passage to say that I was right. So what I just did was took the subjective, made it the rule of thumb, put the objective under it, which wouldn't have matched it to start with, and justified my activities. Come on. You've done it. I've done it. God's rebuked me for it. And if you've ever done it, he's rebuked you for it. And if he hasn't, I will tonight. I just don't feel this. I just don't feel that. Blah, blah, blah. You're already making decisions on what you're going to do at your church according to how you feel. Want me to prove it to you? I'll use me as an example. After services tonight, I'm going home. And when I get home, I'm going to what we call jam me down. You know what that is? You get rid of all the paraphernalia. and you get your jammies on, you get comfortable. You might get you a soda, you might get you a little sweet snack or something like that. I'm gonna take my literature that I'm studying over and go to the bed and in 15 minutes be out like a light and then about an hour and a half wake up and go to bed. That's how it works. It's just how it works. I feel like closing my eyes. I'm not sleeping, I'm just going to close my eyes. Have you ever done that? I just want to close my eyes and meditate. Right. I did that all through Bible college and just barely got through. I'm just saying we're a feeling-oriented people and I don't have to go on and on to prove that to you because you're an example of it. And I'm an example of it. Unless something happens to us. Now let's go to Ephesians chapter 4 and let me give you a little bit of theology, okay? Because everything we want to do around here, we want to be Bible-oriented. Okay? You hear what I just said? It has to be Bible-oriented. It can't be what the psychologists, psychiatrists, or what the world is saying. By the way, I don't know whether you've noticed or not, but I've heard more about mental disease in the last 10 years than I've ever heard in my life, or mental disorder. Everything's because of a mental disease or a mental disorder. Now, let me agree with them on this aspect. We do have a mental disease, and we do have mental disorders, okay? And I'm gonna tell you what caused it just here in a minute, every one of them. There's only one man that ever lived, two, counting Christ. One man that lived for a period of time that didn't have a mental disorder. They called him Adam, before the fall. And once he failed, he began to think completely different. Would you agree, theologically now? Now I want you to understand this because I want to help you. I want to help you understand that all emotions, just because we rag about it sometimes, are not evil. And not all of them are good. Okay? Not all of them are evil. Not all of them are good. Now, Eddie has been teaching in the book of Psalms forever. How long will he continue? Forever. He'll finish the book, unless the rapture occurs, then we don't need Eddie anymore. But for now, we'll use Eddie. But anyway, have you not exposed the emotions of the psalmist over and over and over? That whole book is about emotions. I mean, he's down one minute, up the next. He's rejoicing one hour, he's sorrow for the next hour. He's afraid, he's comforted, on and on, the whole spectrum. Just keep reading it. Just emotion after emotion after emotion after emotion after emotion. So, then he establishes hope. I mean, there's a pattern there. There's hope established, there should be, and that's just an emotional status as well. Okay, so emotion, and God meant for us to have emotions. God is emotional, by the way. God rejoices. For instance, he rejoices in the prayers of his saints. Rejoice, what is that? That's an expression of an emotion. God gives the gifts of love and peace and joy and hope. He gives those spiritually. Those are affecting our emotion and are expressed in an emotional way. Sometimes, Brandon will be taking pictures around the church here, and when I'm in them, my smile is not like your smile. I'm just standing there. And inevitably, she's going to say, would you please smile? I said, this is my happy look right here. I'm as happy as I'm going to be. Well, force it. Now, that's what she wants, the Colgate deal. But the point being, we all have emotions. We all express emotions. It's just what stimulates those emotions makes the difference. You got this? One is stimulated in a reactionary way. Others are in a responsive way. Many are under the objective truths of the Word of God. Many have become the objective truths in place of the Word of God. You hear this? That's threatening. That's dangerous. So let's look at Ephesians 4, verse 17. And we'll get started for a few moments this evening. And this is all we're going to get done tonight. Started, by the way. This I say, therefore, in testifying the Lord, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind. Please don't think your mind isn't important. It is very significant in this series, okay? Or any other series. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness and greediness, but ye have not so learned Christ." Now that verse 20 distinguishes it from this condition of 17 through 19. In 17 through 19 we're talking about the state of being of unregenerate Gentiles. Got this? So 17 through 19 is the unregenerate. Now let's go back and look for just a minute at the unregenerate, okay? He said, I testify unto the Lord that we don't walk as Gentiles walk. In other words, there's a distinction between the two and the vanity of their mind or the foolishness or the frivolousness of their mind. Now wait, what's wrong with the mind? Hang in there. And you got to put all this together. You don't have to, but it goes together. If I got to talking about the mind of man, I would have to go back to the Garden of Eden. I'd have to go to the pre-fall condition. And Adam would be our example. Adam received the commandments of God and the instructions from God, was in fellowship with God. Is that true or false? Get on the page. Okay. Very true. So Adam had perfect communion with God and Dennis And I talk, and Eddie and I talk about the communion we have with one another, the communion we have with God. Adam had something that we don't have. Perfect communion. Okay? Now why? No sin. You hear this? No sin. You don't even know what that means, do you? Especially by experience. You can't even imagine what it is to be without sin, can you? Even though we stand before God, innocent and blameless and without sin to give an account for, but not without the experience of sin. We experience sin every single day of our lives. Because of what Adam did with God, he rebelled against God, and immediately his mind was affected. It's called the noetic effect of sin on Adam. And we all got that, by the way. So we all have what Adam developed after the fall. Now, how did his mind change? Well, we find him in Chapter 2, perfect communion with God. In Chapter 3, we find him hiding from God. In Chapter 2, we find he and Eve naked or transparent and were not ashamed. In Chapter 3, we find them hiding in the bushes and they are ashamed or guilty. What happened? Now, their physical status didn't change. They looked the same in Chapter 2 as they did in Chapter 3, physically. Okay? It was just the same. The communication was the same between the two. All that was the same. What happened? Something happened in their mind. And to use my imagination in that picture, I imagine they were afraid. Because God had said, Bronnie, God had said that in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. So the death is going to come from God, so if God speaks to them, they may be thinking in their imagination, it's time. He's ringing my bell. He's calling the roll. He's holding me accountable. I don't want to die, even though they didn't know what death was. They knew then what spiritual death was, but didn't know what physical death was. So they may have hidden out of fear, and guilt, and shame, et cetera. And then God confronted them, and they didn't like that. And he said, Adam, what is this you've done? I mean, come on, Adam. Didn't I tell you not to eat of the tree? And I'm paraphrasing here. Didn't I tell you not to eat of the tree? And Adam said, it's the woman that has given me. Now, Deborah, don't take this personal. Well, you might. He wasn't blaming Eve. I want you guys to understand this. He was blaming God for giving him Eve. Now you hear what I just said. So get off her back. If you got any complaints about her, take it to God. He gave her to you. Wow, that'd make a marriage sermon, wouldn't it? They'd either divide the home or build the home, one of the two. But he was angry with, it was God. You gave me this woman and she calls me to eat. He took it back to God. The different mindset He didn't blame God for anything in chapter two, although he had the command in chapter two of what? All this is yours. You can eat of any tree in the garden except this one. Now he could have said, now God, why'd you put that tree there to start with? I've heard a lot of you Baptists say that. Why'd God put the tree there to start with then, okay? God's sovereign. Man's not. Man has never been created not to be obedient to God, even in the garden. He had one commandment, don't eat of this tree, and he couldn't keep it. He didn't keep it, by choice, didn't keep it. That affected his entire mind from that point on. And you know what happened? God cursed the ground. God cursed a woman, God cursed a serpent, God cursed a man, God put them out of utopia, out of the world, where things are gonna be a lot rougher out there than they were in here. Matter of fact, so that you won't go back and maybe eat of the tree of life, let me put the chair to guard the gate to the garden with flaming swords. You're not going back in there, okay? So you might as well get on and get down, okay? And so he goes out. He worships God, and he takes God in Genesis 4 at an altar that we personally believe was a sin altar, where the offerings were offered. That's why we find Cain and Abel there offering. By the way, there was only one offering at that time. What could it have been other than for sin? Because one offering, by example, had already been made when God slew the animals and clothed them in the skins of the animals. That was a sacrifice. So they're continuing on. And Cain did what he did, and God said, no, Cain, I can't accept this. And Cain was angry. Angry. The first sinful expression of an emotion. What was he angry about? God's grace allowed him to come to the altar. What was he angry about? because God didn't accept him any longer within his own works. So he's angry. So he's expressing that anger. So his good old brother's out in the field keeping the sheep, okay, and killed him. He killed him, and why did he kill him? Because his brother's works were righteous, John says, and his was unrighteous. So let's get to the beginning of this. You didn't originate emotions. I didn't originate emotions. And we all have, believe it or not, the same emotions. Women do not have any more or less emotions than men. And men don't have any more or less than women. We just have a tendency to express them differently. You hear this? Any part of the creation of God in humanity is equal. Tim, you're no more like God than I am. Or less. Understand this? Well, we don't like this because this puts everybody on common ground. So there's no elite of the elect. I hate to break the news. There's no elite group that's above this. We're all for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The problem is not necessarily the sin. The problem is the shortness when it comes to the glory of God. OK, so, Adam, you're no longer glorifying God. So his brother, or his son, killed his other son, and calamity began, and all out of emotion. Feelings. Feelings. Was this fruit not good to look upon, she said? Come on, people, talk to me. We'll be here all night. I wanna go home, get my seven up, and go to bed. I feel like it. Was the fruit, it was good to look upon. Well, what was that an appeal to? his emotional desires, okay? Have you ever watched a commercial on television and got hungry? I mean, you weren't hungry until the commercial came on. Or you thought your sweet tooth was satisfied until there's a new Reese cup come out. And they had to show it on television at 10 o'clock. Thank God, thank God that the service station seats is just down the street. Man, that's a quick trip for a Reese's Cup, and it's worth every mile. The Reese's Cup is, by the way. You ever do that? I'm satisfied. No, honey, I don't care for anything until Burger King says they're open till midnight. Look at that Big Whopper. Don't you remember tasting that? Or a hot piece of bread with butter. or something that you desire, that's good to look upon. You know what they're doing? They're appealing to your emotions. They're not appealing, you're not hungry, come on. It's not like you did without supper and you fasted for two weeks and if you don't eat something you're gonna pass out, you know? Yeah, that's not the case. It's your desire, it's your passion, it's your emotion we're appealing to here. And sad to say, this is the mentality of many churches. Let's make it emotional. Let's sing music that we're going to swing from the lights by. Let's tap our toes. Let's run the aisles. Let's get all emotional. And I'm not opposed to lift up your voices and that. Don't misunderstand me. But let's shout the victory and so forth and so on. Let's sing the song, I feel like traveling home. Remember that old song, Larry? I feel like traveling home. Yeah. So it's in our churches. So we preach these messages and make this emotional appeal, an emotional appeal. Some of you here tonight need to pray. You know you haven't prayed. So we're going to put this little guilt trip on you. Now, what is that other than emotions? You haven't prayed like you ought to. Now, who doesn't that fit? Has anybody here prayed as they ought, as God has ordained that we should pray? Or do you need some help with that to grow in that area? Well, I'm going to say we need help. We need to grow. Okay, so we have a perfect, but let's put a little guilt tip on a guy. The church light bill's past due. Now, it's not, so don't come see me about it. I wouldn't know if it was, by the way, until we meet with Brad, and Brad will let me know, cut the lights off and all. But anyway, we need money for that. So some of you, you got your air conditioner running, we can't pay the light bill at the church. God help you. Well, man, I've written IOUs to the church. Not this one, but the church. I'd be in those services. They'd take up those special offerings. I wouldn't have a penny. Not even in the bank account. Wouldn't have a penny. Ed and I had just gotten married and we didn't have anything. I'd write an IOU. I bought a set of tires for a pastor one time with an IOU. Several hundred dollars by the way. Did you pay it? Sure I paid it. It's better not to make a vow than to make a vow not keep it. Be careful. So yeah, I did it out of what? An emotion. Not out of good stewardship. Not out of Bible teaching. Have you ever done anything like that in the name of Christ? That wasn't necessarily according to Bible teaching. It looked good. It was humanitarian. It was a good effort and so, but it wasn't according to the word of God. And you did it because of some emotion. Now, listen, for $19.95, you can save these elephants. That's been on my heart for years, to save an elephant. They're becoming extinct, and we're raising money to save elephants. Now, this is a true commercial, by the way. I'm not doing it verbatim, but true commercial. $19.95, or for $19.95, I can give for the pet situation, the dogs and the cats and all that. I can do that for a month, by the way. And so they showed a little cat, and of course Edna's all over this one, aww. And I look at her and say forget it. Or a puppy, aww. She was wanting me to stop in the four lanes of traffic out here one day, and it was zooming down the road because a box of little puppies was sitting by the road, and we're going to rescue these puppies at the risk of sacrificing her husband. Pardon me? That's not a good deal. Deborah, I'm hurt. My feelings are hurt. But you see how we are? And that just is automated almost, is it not? Is it not? Now how many times are we going to sin according to feelings? When we react rather than respond. When you take the subjective rather than the objective. So this is the issue of the day. And we hear things like this, even in our pulpits. Number one, you need to feel good about yourself. If you don't feel good about yourself, you're not gonna feel good about anybody else, which goes into the arena of you need to love yourself. If you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. Hmm, I love me by nature. You don't have to command me to love me. I had to be commanded to love you. Loving me comes by nature. Loving you is an effort. And practicing love is a work, by the way. It's hard to love people sometimes. And it's hard to let people love you sometimes. With their generosities, their benevolences, and so forth and so on. You need to feel loved in order to love. I said that one. We have passions, we have feelings, we have lustful desires, et cetera. Paul brings us out in Ephesians 4, 17. And the problem is, as an unsaved man, I learned a lot of stuff. Stuff being Hebrew for stuff. I learned a lot about me. And the world turned every day because of me. Okay? The sun came up in the morning because I came up. It went down in the evening because I went down. Everything happened because of me. You hear this? Everything good. Everything bad was because of you. And that's how I felt as a lost man. And that's how lost men think, by the way. I had a man in the chambers one day and I was talking to him. I said, you feel like there's a target on your back. Now listen, millions of people, I don't know what the population of Earth is. But I said, out of all the people in the world, do you feel like you have a target on your back? And he said, yes. Out of the millions of people in the world. Now, I'm not going to tell you what this man's vocation was, because you're going to laugh. My thinking is, why would anybody want to assassinate this so-called worker? Not that he didn't have a good job. It just wasn't a job where you wore a coat and tie and wore the president's sign on your door. You got a target on your back. What makes you think that? I just feel like people, this is the phrase, I feel like people, blah, blah, blah. And none of that, come to find out, was true. It was all according to his imagination, his darkened imagination. You hear this? Everybody's not a cane, okay? And you're not an able, okay? So don't get that feeling. I feel like the world's against me. Well, the world is if you're a Christian, by the way. So I feel like this, I feel like that. We don't want to live that way. That's subjective living. It hinders our fellowship with God. It hinders our fellowship one with another when we start to live according to feelings and emotions. And we didn't start to do it. We were born doing it. Watch. Evidence. Walk by the baby's crib. Why is this little snoot crying? Nobody hit him. Nobody pinched him. We just fed him. We just cleaned him, put him down, and he's squalling like we're beating on him or something. What's wrong with that guy? Attention, maybe? And so good old mom does what, according to her feelings for him? She's very sympathetic. She's so compassionate, which are feelings, by the way. She's very compassionate. She picks him up. and reluctantly walks the room with him, pats him on the back until he does his little gas stuff, and then puts him back in the crib. And he's satisfied because he got what he wanted, even before he knew what he wanted. He's not different than a pet. If you have pets, you know what I'm about to say. When your pet wants what it wants, it'll let you know. Really, our cat lets us know what time it is to get up in the morning. 6.30 exactly, that cat starts. You know, one of these days, that gun I got laying every side of my bed, I'm gonna feel like killing that cat and his twin sisters. But the point being, they let you know. Well, that's like this kid. Why, they're so self-centered. It's when I want to eat, what I want to eat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now we have one cat, for instance, who likes wet cat food. But she don't want it after it's been in the refrigerator. So a fresh can has to be opened for this cat. And I told Ed, I'd shove that can and all down her throat before I'd go through all that. And she has to eat out of her bowl. Now, we have three cats. Each cat has its own bowl. And each cat eats out of its own bowl. Now, if one cat goes over to her bowl, she is all uptight about it. And don't share, because you're not going to get any more, right? Right. How many trips to the grocery store we make just for the cat? OK? You know what I'm saying. All of you do have pets, OK? Oh, that's how we are. So don't put yourself above them sometimes. That's how we are. according to what we want, what we desire, what we feel. We are a self-centered vehicle, if you want to put it that way. And he said, we have our understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. It's a heart issue. And being beyond feelings, in other words, apathetic toward that which is good or evil. They don't care. They're beyond it. Feelings are beyond what's right and wrong sometimes. You ever notice that? You ever do right and it turn out wrong? I have a man who told me every time he tried to help somebody do right, He suffered. So he's going to quit helping people do right. I hear it all sometimes, I'm telling you. But the point being, that's not even the issue. The issue is I did right, and that's pleasing to God, but we don't look at it that way. But he said, they're pastor, they got to the point where they don't care what's evil and what's good. That's Romans chapter one, by the way, the same with the sexual offenses, sexual sins and so forth. They really don't care whether this is right or wrong. Right or wrong is not the issue. Moral, immoral is not the issue anymore. It's how we feel about things. She loves her because she wants to. She feels like loving her. She wants to love her, or him, him. You know what I'm trying to say, I hope. But the point being, that's just us. Now where did all that come from? Adam, Adam, study the Bible, would you? Study the Bible and watch how soon and how often immoral or vicious acts happen between men and women. That's not God. You think God created man so he'd go out here and murder one another? Or hate one another? He gave Cain his brother so he could kill him? I mean, that's why God gave Adam those two boys? So one could kill the other one? I think not, by the way. Matter of fact, I know not. But that's the extremity of our feelings and our emotions. I'm trying to really pound this home so we can understand that when we react with feelings in a situation, we may not be doing right, even though you think it's right. And even though it may turn out pragmatically, it may turn out right, didn't make it right. The end doesn't justify the means. Let me put it that way. Okay? So it's important that we use these emotions like God. I'm not asking you to get rid of them. I'm not asking you to put them away. I'm not asking you to do that. That would be a violation of scripture. I'm not going to do that. But I am going to tell you this. Jesus Christ was very emotional. And he expressed emotions. Anybody got an example for me? One at a time? Paul? He wept. Why did he weep? He was sorrowful, Paul. Yes, because of the sin of Jerusalem. Let me help you paraphrase that. Pardon me? He was very compassionate. He looked out on the fields that were white already into harvest. They were scattered as sheep who had no shepherd, and he was moved with compassion, the Bible says. Wow, that's an emotion. What else? Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but ye would not. And he wept over the city. How about at Lazarus' tomb? John chapter 11. And he wept. What is that? An expression of emotion. Uh-oh, hang under your seat. What about the time, and I've stood on the steps of the temple where this happened, where Jesus cleansed the temple of money changers. The temple where he sat down and made a cord, a scourging cord, a whip, and turned the tables over and said, you've taken my father's house and made it a den of iniquity. And he threw them out of the temple in anger. He was angry. He's angry. God has recorded the fact that he's angry with the wicked every day. What about where Paul told the church in Ephesians later, he'll tell them, be ye angry and sin not. As if to say, you can be angry without committing sin. Jesus did. Jesus did. Would you do yourself a favor right now? Will you turn over to Ecclesiastes with me? Come on. And I'm still reading Ecclesiastes. I love it so much. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Very familiar passage of scripture. That makes it easy to teach. Watch this. To everything there's a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Now, under the heaven is implications of here on earth, okay? So we're talking about you living your life in this wicked world. He said there's a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up, that was the planting, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up. Here we go, a time to weep, A time to express the emotion of sorrow. Got that? So this old man, Solomon, at the end of his life has observed there's times that we have to weep of sorrow. Well, you don't have to be old to realize that, Jimmy. We realized a long time ago There's a whole lot of weeping going on, you know. We understand that. There's sorrow. Like Job, it's like the sparks from an anvil. They're innumerous. They continuously fly upward. And a time to laugh. So there's a time to be joyful. And earlier in Proverbs, he'll say, and a merry heart doeth good like a medicine. There's a time to express this emotion. There you go. So what I'm trying to say is all emotion isn't wicked. That's not what makes emotion wicked. There's a time for it. Go ahead. A time to mourn and a time to dance or time to rejoice. Those are emotions. A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, that's affection, and a time to refrain from embracing, which is stimulated from emotions primarily. A time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to cast away, a time to rend, a time to sow, a time to keep silent, a time to speak, a time to love, and a time to hate. There's two more. There's two more. You can't express either one of those without emotion. Okay. You can't. Wait. A time of war and a time of peace. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth? I've seen it prevail which God hath given to the sons of men, and to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his time, Also, he has set the world in her heart that no man can find out the work of God that maketh from beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice emotion and to do good in his life." This is the conclusion of the matter. In other words, Solomon found this very natural that you learn to express emotions at the proper time. So we're not going to preach against you expressing your emotions. Some people fuss in my methodologies in preaching. I get excited. I get emotional. I call it passionate, adamant about what I'm saying, absolute, et cetera. And you can see when I preach and listen when I preach to the emotion that's pouring out. It affects my emotions. Now, I'm not preaching because I'm emotional. What I'm preaching makes me emotional. what I'm experiencing brings out these emotions. And that's what he's saying here. So I wanted you to see that. So as we're teaching on emotions, there is a bad side to emotions. As a matter of fact, the psalmist, if you haven't heard anything about the psalmist, I feel sorry for the guy on many occasion, that's emotion by the way, on many occasion because the way he responded to his adversities. I mean, he let them beat him to death. David, I'm talking about. And he was a man that's known as a man after God's own heart. So where does that put us? If we're not careful, it won't be your circumstances that beat you to death, it'll be your emotions. You know, there's many occasions that I ask people, are you saved? Many occasions. Do you know Christ as your Savior? If you were to die right now, would you go to heaven? And the answer is, I feel like I would. Or I've stood by the deathbed of people at the hospital and bring them to one more confrontation before they pass from this life. It's vital. And I did this with a family member as he was dying. And I'd been witnessing to him, witnessing to him, witnessing to him. He had hours to live, and he was conscious. And I asked this question about eternity. And the answer was, I feel like I'll be all right. Hmm. I wonder what prompted that feeling. What caused him to feel like he'd be all right? He'd never obeyed the gospel. He'd never repented of his sins and asked Christ to forgive him, as far as we know. And he died, as far as we know, without Christ, sad to say, which is an emotion. And there's a time for that. But then there's a time where they're evil. I think David himself went through much himself under the chasing hand of God. And God helped him deal in every scenario, he had to deal with those emotions. He couldn't do anything about the armies of Syria, he couldn't do about this, he couldn't do about that, but he had to deal with those emotions. And you notice in there, how many times, hope thou in God, our hope, our sense in the Lord. We're not in horses and swords and armor, but in God, the Savior, and so forth. And that's how he had to deal with that. But our psychology today, I'm gonna give you this stat and we're gonna conclude the introduction. I took the liberty, Dennis is gonna like this. I took the liberty of going on the internet, Dennis. This is where Dennis gets his theology. I'm teasing about that by the way. A list of emotions published by a young lady with her PhD, she's gonna know a whole lot more than I do. I don't even know what PhD spells. Next time I play Word, I'll put it on there and see if it takes it. But she's written an article on the list of emotions and she's given 271 words to describe emotions. I bet you couldn't give 15. But she, this genius, has given us 271 words to describe our emotions. Now the study goes on and breaks these 271 words down and puts them into six categories. Six categories that humans experience emotions. And every one of them are in the objective position. Thinking is in the subjective position. In other words, here's the objective, what I'm feeling, that's the truth. Here's the thinking, and that's why that thinking is right, because I experienced it earlier. Every one of them. So the world comes at it with the flip side, because we're not going to humanly change the mind of man. True? It's impossible. Absolutely impossible. I mean as far as spiritual regeneration and quickening. We don't have that. God has to quicken, give life. So let's complement it. Let's take this emotional wreck where he is. His whole life is dictated by feelings. He married her because he felt like it. He went to school because he felt like that'd be the place to be. He had children because he felt like he wanted children. He took the job that he felt like he should take. And he'll change according to those feelings, by the way. And feelings do change, by the way. And so as the feelings change, his life is a transitory experience that goes on and on. Well, OK. So he built his whole life on feelings. That's the objective of his life. OK? Wouldn't you be afraid of that? Have you ever felt like just jumping? I mean, just jumping off the bridge. Put me out on the bridge and leave me alone. I'll jump. I won't because I'm afraid of heights. So push me. Get it over. Or have you ever prayed this prayer in times of trouble? Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Now there was a high motive for wanting Jesus to come, wasn't there? Come quickly to get me out of this. To get me out of this mess. And I tease sometimes, I don't know whether I should do this or not, about Jesus raising up the church. And when he got raised up, he saw what was going on and went on back to heaven and left it to us. That ain't exactly what happened, is it? Here's 271 words that describe my emotions. I can't even pronounce some of them. Well, I can most of them, but some of them. And she breaks them into categories. Negative, optimistic, confident, contemptible, et cetera, et cetera. Sad, joyful, acceptance, insecurity, loneliness, love, assertiveness, et cetera, et cetera. On and on and on, it makes you sick. Because we're gagging in a nap. There's no restrictions. Yeah? I mean, I can call you a dirty rat, but because of restrictions, I have to. This is where the world is. Sometimes they do diagnose things correctly. They just don't prescribe the right remedies. Because neither side of us, Christian or non-Christian, can deny humanity. The only thing that can be denied by the unsaved is the deity of Jesus Christ. And we don't deny it because we have the regenerated mind. So therefore we look, first of all, we recognize the problem. And then we look for the remedy. For instance, you don't tell a man he's a sinner without telling him there's a Savior. You hear that? The antidote for man's sinfulness is the Savior's blood. Would you agree with that, by the way? So the hope that we have is for them to be saved. Watch what Paul does. Turn back one more time. And I told you I'd quit, and I didn't say when. So I'm not lying. Look at Ephesians chapter 4 one more time. Verse 21, and remember you haven't learned this of Christ, it was of the flesh. If so be that you've heard him and have been taught by him as he is truth is in Jesus, that you put off, and here's the hope, that you put off. Now in between put off, well, after the next verse there's a put on. So you don't just put off and say, okay, I'm never gonna smoke again. That's the worst thing in the world, by the way. What is the antidote for sin? Repentance. There's no repentance. I'll never smoke again. Well, what were you doing in the place of that? Chew? OK. We was at the doctor's office today, and I was, and this girl that works there, they're all great good people. Carmen Jade. Is that her name? The new girl? And she has a beautiful smile. I mean, just a beautiful smile. And so we were talking, and And then I told her what a beautiful smile she had. And she thanked us and so forth. Then she began to tell Edna about the treatment. Well, I'm really interested in this, you know, about the treatment. So the antidote for her dingy teeth, we went through the next 30 minutes listening to how to not have dingy teeth and so forth and so on. I'm 71, I'm lucky to have my teeth, okay? Don't put anything on that's gonna put them at risk. But the point being, it's not just take the teeth, it's what are we gonna do about it? So we put it off. And what does he say in between to put it off and on? Renew. Renew the what? The what? The mind. Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Ephesians chapter 4, Colossians chapter 3, renew the mind. Renew the mind. What does that mean? It doesn't mean just to change the mind. It means to strip down that old thinking and replace it with God's thinking. And let the mind of Christ be in you as it was in Christ Jesus, Philippians says. Paul said in Corinthians, and you have the mind of Christ. And here it is. Okay. So I feel depressed. Let's do this one real quick. I feel depressed. I must have eaten something. to make me feel this way. I doubt it. I've eaten in countries all over the world, and none of them, and I've had some residuals, but none that's been depression. Regret, maybe, but not depression. What's going on with you? Well, Sally left home, and Junior, he won't do good in school, and my husband lost his job, and all these circumstances. All these circumstances have depressed me. No, they haven't. Let me say this. David wasn't depressed because of his circumstances. Who in here don't have some adversity going on right now? There's no temptation to take abuse as a common man. And God is faithful. Will not suffer you above that you're able, but will with that temptation make a way for you to endure or escape. Okay? So what has to take place? Well, earlier in the verse, casting down imaginations, the mind, and bringing every thought into captivity. Let's start thinking right about this. Let's get off the pressure and move over. Well, I love the church, but the church don't love me. Well, first of all, that's impossible. Now hear what I'm saying, or I'll keep you until you do. I love the church, but the church don't love me. That's impossible. Theologically, absolutely impossible. We don't have it within us not to love one another. Now we have it within us not to express that love, but every child of God has the love of God shed abroad in his heart. Yeah, but he said this, wait a minute, love thinketh no evil. I've got to start thinking that way. He may have even said what you said he said. He may be as guilty as he can be. That's not my responsibility, is it? Am I going to allow that to affect me? You know, Ecclesiastes said, you'll hear all about this later. Ecclesiastes said, you know, be careful whom you curse. And remember at one time, you've cursed others. In other words, what you're letting upset you, you've been guilty of. Put that in your little pipe and smoke it. Just don't tell me you're smoking. In other words, the very thing that you're telling him not to do, you have done. Anybody guilty besides me and Deborah? Just thought I'd make an example of you. But anyway, so you see what I'm saying? And it's all according to feeling. Now how many people will change churches, get mad at the church, get mad at the pastor because they feel like blah, blah, blah. They feel like somebody's more capable of teaching, so they quit teaching. Without any counsel whatsoever, they just back out. They stop serving because they can't keep up with the part, the quota, whatever. without any spiritual admonishment or encouragement. They just feel like this, they feel like that, et cetera, et cetera. Well, what makes you think that way? No, it's not what makes you think that way, it's the thinking that makes you feel that way. David's thinking got him in more trouble than his circumstances did. One illustration there, go get Bathsheba, tell her the king wants to see her. Now there's some good thought for you. David, you're headed for trouble. That's somebody else's wife. Problem number one. Problem number two is you have a wicked heart, you rascal. You looked at her, and I don't think he just glanced over and happened to see her. I think old David got his binoculars out and got a good view. And he sent for her. And they did what they did. And he did what he did, all because of the way he was thinking. The man had a house full of wives, concubines. What does he want with one more? It's right here. So yes, we all have mental disorders. Let's get that straight. And so do you. We don't always think like we should think. We don't always put off and put on. Sometimes we live as though we've never been regenerated. And you make decisions accordingly. You make decisions that an unsaved man makes. Declarations that unsaved men make. Because you're thinking as though you've never been saved. I know people write tonight, I know people write tonight that before I was saved, I wouldn't have given the time of day. I got saved and all of a sudden, Those are the very people that I went to witness to. Some of them were converted to faith. They still stay in touch with us. I'll get a letter, an email from somebody I haven't seen in 40 years. Jim, I just want to tell you we love you. We appreciate you. Wow. And I wouldn't give that guy the time of day we were in school together. You know? But he had saved and I got saved and God's grace abounded and God changed my heart, my life. I don't think about those things. I don't think about all the stuff we used to do against each other. I think about the fellowship we're having now through the emails and the phone calls and so forth. Just those kind of things. Why? Love thinketh no evil. And it's work. It's work and it takes the renewing of the mind. So you hang with me during this series and we're going to work real hard at being very direct and very obvious about the emotional sins that we're committing day by day by day. How many medicine cabinets are filled tonight with medications for emotional distresses and sins? Come on. Anxiety, worry, depression, etc., etc., etc. Maybe even blood pressure. These are the kind of sicknesses that James tells us to pray over. He wasn't talking about praying about somebody having cancer, in James chapter 5 anyway. He was praying about those that had committed these emotional sins to the point where it affected their biological being and they developed sicknesses, ulcers, and et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. And you can differ with me on that if you want to. When we get to heaven, I'll straighten it out for you, okay? All right? Any questions, comments, promises, pledges, or threats, see Stan Mosier. The handsome guy in the back. No, Jamie, not you, Stan. Jamie, it's good to see you tonight. It really is. I feel good about you being here. How about leading us in a word of prayer and dismisses? Would you please, Deborah, it's good to see you, our guest here. Good to see you both, and we look forward to spending more time with you. Jamie, please. Father in heaven, Lord, holy, and sovereign, and righteous, and just, and fair, Father. I'm so thankful, Lord God, that the creator and sustainer of the universe would not only be mindful of us, Father, but that you would give us such love and such grace and such mercy and kindness that you would send your son to die for us. I'm so thankful for Christ and all that he's done for us and all that he continues to do for us, Lord, at your right hand. We thank you, Lord God, for the opportunity to gather together and open your word and learn of you. And just pray that you would dismiss us from this place tonight and that we'd have safe travels home and that we'd be able to apply what we've learned tonight for the rest of the week. And we just thank you again, Lord, for your many wonderful blessings, the kindness, the love, the grace, the mercy that you show us every day. And we thank you most of all for Christ and his worthy and precious name we pray. Amen.