I like to meet with God and open my heart up to him and let him speak to me. So before we flew out yesterday, I wake up every day at least four o'clock in the morning or before, because I start discipling guys at the office between four and five before the work day so I can have a wonderful time. It's really exciting meeting with guys that want to go with God. And I was reading my Bible and God gave me a verse. for here. You know, I didn't have one, really, but if you buy your Bible, we do preach from the Bible, and we counsel from a Bible. If you're coming to counseling, bring a Bible, because we happen to believe that the word of God has the answers to life. And our office is called biblical, and that's because we counsel from an open Bible, and have for many, many years. But Psalm 34, I should have known, but I read it, I read a Bible through and I never read it again. And I'll read it in different translations just to see how it was. And the last new one I'm reading is called The Names of God Bible. And who's the gal that did The Names of God? She's a road in the dust of the rabbi, or sitting at the feet of Jesus the rabbi. She and another gal? Anne Spangler. It's really an interesting book. I don't want to spend a lot of time on that. But if you go to a bookstore, look it up. It'll list all the names for God in Genesis, before you get into Genesis. Every time they introduce a new name for God, there'll be a page in there that explains it in Hebrew, the meaning of the name, how it's used, and you can channel that name, or take it all the way through Scripture, because you get the next reference where that name of God is mentioned. I like it, it's been fun to go through, because I don't want old promises from God. I want new ones. I want to, when I read the scripture, I want it to be brand new, unmarked, and just let God show stuff that will warm my heart and give me stuff. I mean, warmed over some stuff's okay, but not really scripture or God's truths. But Psalm 34, I was reading it and I stopped. I know you can go a long ways through this. It's a wonderful verse. It's just like, when you're reading and God speak to you, you know that's it. When God just says, that's it, take it, that's my promise. He said, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. And let us exalt his name together. I'm trusting that's what we'll do. Lift them up. When I read the Bible, usually I go through and mark things. Sometimes I'll mark them all the time, sometimes I don't. I always mark every prayer that was made, and every answer to prayer, and every prayer promise. And I always use green for that. So when I opened a Bible that I'm using and it's green, I know this is a prayer promise, a prayer whatever. But one of the things I did that really blessed me, and I'm encouraging you to do this, is His name. Do you know how often that's used in Scripture, His name? And I mark His name all the way through Scripture. Let us exalt His name. You know, the Lord's Prayer, Lord, What's the second word there? Don't get old. You know, our Father, hallowed be thy, what? Name. How do I hallow God's name? If I prayer that prayer, am I gonna hallow his name today at home? You know, at work? In the store? In the marketplace? You know, am I gonna hallow God's name by my actions and words? in friendliness, in the way I witness, some people witness, I wouldn't want to receive Christ. And I mean, it's so offensive. But you don't have to be an offensive witnesser. So, there's a lot of things that I mark as I go through scripture. And it just makes scripture jump out at me. Now, I'm gonna say something, and I know I can misquote it, take it out of context. But I really don't like devotions. I don't like the word. Let's sit and devote, OK? I'm devoting, OK? I love the old word, having a quiet time. That says it all, isn't it? Having a quiet time. I started this book when I went down to speak at Verity College and I threw it in a thing that I don't go in and I packed the goals and I found it again. I go, oh yeah, I gotta finish it. It's Living Close to God When You're Not Good at It. I thought, that'll be a good book. Living Close to God When You're Not Good at It. But he said something in here that really spoke to my heart. We do prayer seminars. In fact, I've been asked to come back here, not to JARS, but come back here to an area to do a prayer seminar and if the Lord wills it. I'd love to do that. I love teaching prayer because I know that that's the key. That's the key to your walk with God is to be able to talk with him. And he put three steps to intimacy. So if you have a pencil, you ought to write it down. You don't have to buy the book, but this is worth the price of the book. You know, if I want to be intimate with God, and I, when you read something you've studied, I don't want you to think that I haven't really looked at this. I have probably 1,400 books on prayer and a deeper life in my personal library that I've read. And that's where we got all the material for the prayer seminars from great men and women of the past and some contemporary people that had, you know, important, like this fellow has a wonderful thing to say about When you have a quiet time, you know, when you're having that time with God, number one, be still. It's only three things, be still. Be still and know that I am God. I love what someone said, without stillness there's no knowing. And stilling your mind is not easy. And you know, if you want to hear God's voice, I don't think he hollers. I want to hear God speak from his word. I want to hear God speak to my heart. I want that. And stillness is a part of it. And that was hard for me. My mind is always going. You know, you don't realize how much your mind is going until you try to tell it to shut up. And it didn't obey like my kids. Because they're afraid of me. Shut up or your dad's going to get you. Works really good. You ought to hear me teaching how to raise kids and frighten them to death, you know, with all kinds of emotional problems. Okay, the second thing is to be quiet. Quiet my mind and just be quiet before the Lord. And the third is be slow. And what does that mean, be slow? I'm a little slower than I was before I turned 80. But what does it mean to be slow? It means I used to want to read the Bible through in a year, right? And I read it through. 10 chapters today. What'd you get? Oh, 10 chapters. So you can read the Bible and get nothing because you didn't park. God doesn't care how fast you read it. He wants you to read it. Now, I'll tell you something I learned. I got a DVD. I know we're going, we're not into warfare yet, but we are in warfare. This is warfare stuff. You start developing intimacy with God and you're going to know the enemy's real. You want to be quiet? You'll hear every squeaking tire around here. You know, I wondered why they call this place Jars. So we looked for the canning factory. There isn't a canning factory here. But then we drove around the property and we know why it's named Jars. The speed bumps. If you have one doing around, you don't know what you're missing. But drive slowly or you may find the roof of your car that you've never found before. Anyway, I got a CD from Ray Vanderlaan. Now, Ray Vanderlaan has got wonderful DVDs about tours. I mean, he sells them through Dobson and that, taking people through Israel. He's got one now, we just got, was that In the Dust of the Rabbi? We just watched at the office, In the Dust of the Rabbi, where he shows how Jesus and where he picked the disciples, why he picked them. It's really super. Well anyway, I got this one. Ray Vandalon is known in Israel as a man who loves the Jewish people, the Jewish culture, and understands Jewish cultural history. Now, Ray Vandalon, has done a lot of study of rabbis. I didn't, I can't go into all this. Anyway, there's three different levels of rabbis. You know, there's a guy that ministers in the synagogue, there's a guy that sorta teach, and then there's the ones that teach with authority. Remember when Jesus was teaching, what'd they say? How can he teach? He's teaching with authority. He didn't sit under a teaching rabbi. Now you watch this other thing, you see why it's important to sit under a teaching rabbi. In order to qualify to sit under a teaching rabbi in his school, Remember Paul's senator who? Gamaliel. The Einstein. You know, I mean, that was, whoo, you went there to school, whoo. You know, you got to really be a good teacher. They had to, all boys had to memorize the first five books of the Old Testament before their bar mitzvah. They didn't have bar mitzvahs. You know, when they went from being a kid to being an adult, about 12 or 13. And they went to pass a test. Jesus did. Remember when he was 12? And they were not surprised that he had memorized the first five books. He wouldn't have been there if he hadn't have. They were surprised when he's telling them why God said it. Ooh, kid, can you come back? This kid's really got a lot of insight here when they're asking that question. But if you want to be a teaching rabbi, you must memorize the rest of the Old Testament to qualify to possibly sit in a class. And then they sit in the back of the class If the teaching rabbi acknowledges them, they're part of the class. But if, and they live with the rabbi, if they follow the rabbi, that's why they say in the dust. I mean, they're there. What did Jesus' disciples do? Walked with him, slept with him. They were being disciples. That was real discipleship. You just live with them all the time. Well, if you ever fail a teaching rabbi one time, you're sent back home to what you used to do. What happened when Peter denied Christ? Remember, he failed his teaching rabbi, and he said, I'm going back to fishing. And wasn't it beautiful what Jesus did? There he's out fishing, thought that would be it. He would never want anything more to do with him because he failed him. Anyway, it's really interesting to understand a lot of Jewish culture because the Bible wasn't written for Americans, I'm sorry. It was written in a culture, and the more I sort of understand the culture, the more it comes alive. Wow, I understand why Peter said I'm going fishing. Well, anyway. Ray Vandalon heard there are two major teaching rabbis in America. One, I believe, is in Los Angeles. The other one's in New York City. And he wrote this man and asked if he could sit in his class. Well, they usually don't let Gentiles in the class, but they know who he is. And they gave him permission to come to his class and sit in the back. And he sat in the back of the class. The rabbi never acknowledged him. But he knew he was there, but he never acknowledged him. And one day the rabbi said this, for Ray Vanderlaan's benefit, and I hope it grabs your heart like it did mine, it was like a knife in my heart in my office when I was by myself listening to this. This rabbi says, you know, he's telling the class, what amazes me, Christians say that Jesus is their rabbi, and they don't even read his words once a year. So I, when I had the school that one of your students here goes to, I had the kids start reading the Gospels through. When they get through, go back and read it again. And I'm always reading the Gospel. I read the rest of the Bible. But do I really understand the words of Christ? Why is that important? Well, look at 1 Timothy 6.3. He says, we base sound teachings on two things. on the words of Christ, and that's what leads to Christ-like living. Check what I'm saying. Am I teaching you what is based on the words of Christ? You hear a message that isn't, put a big question mark there. The Bible says that's the thing. And if I do this, will it make me godly? That's the test. That's a test from Timothy, where he says this is the test. The words of Christ are important. I think he's the founder. You know, I saw a book it had an old man on it. I couldn't believe it. Uncle somebody or other. Over there in the lounge. I'm not going to read a book by that old guy. Uncle whatever. I'm sure he hadn't got anything to say that was important. Well, I happen to know he's the founder of this mess, OK? This is his vision. Just think you're part of his vision. Are you a good part or what? But you know what he's saying? Hey, it's kind of important what he said. It's kind of important why you founded this thing. Someone told me this. Disintegration is sown in a foundation of an organization. Disintegration is sown in the foundation of the organization. And often that one thing comes up to get you. And that's why in founding if you have a chance to found really be praying. that as you put the foundation there, you're not setting it up for a big clash down the road because of a weakness in the foundation. And I've been with a lot of organizations and I understand what they're saying. Okay. I want you to go to, I know that we're kind of talking a lot, but I want you to know Jesus. He's the answer to the spiritual battle. That's the answer. We've never had anyone in our office, and we've had, as I said, who's who in the zoo in the Christian world, people you would know that are big name, quote unquote, Christians. Missionaries, we have people fly in from countries and fly back. We see no one in our office that lives in Iowa. They all come from out of state or out of the country. And not one person ever that we had that was being defeated. had a meaningful prayer life. No one we've ever counseled that was being defeated in their Christian life as a Christian had an intimate relationship with the Lord. They did not, I can't, can I hit it hard enough? I don't wanna see you in my office. Get close to God, you won't be there. John 14, 27. is an excellent, excellent verse. How do you know, are you experiencing all that you should be experiencing as a Christian? Where you are. If you're a new Christian, you know, middle or at the other end of the Christian life, and that is inner peace. Do you have peace? It's my birthright. My peace, I leave unto you. My peace, what? I give unto you, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be what? Afraid. And when your peace goes, you ought to find out why. When my joy goes, I want to find out I'm a very joyful person. And when I don't have joy, I got to find out what robbed me of my joy, what's robbing me of my peace. Are you a worrier? You know why you worry? Because you can't control the future. We can't go into worry, but on our website, we did a series for 500 Christian counselors on how to help people that are warriors. So you can go there and look, and it's free. In fact, everything we do is free. I want you to go, and I'm gonna do one thing and then turn this over to Paul. I want you to go to Hebrews. Chapter 12. So I don't think I said, but I want you to read the Bible slowly. I think I left that out in my mind to say I didn't really emphasize it. Read slowly. And when you read the words of Christ, read slowly. What is he saying? What's he trying to tell me? What insight is here for me? What truth is not true in my life where I could ask God to make it true? Because we need to grow. Everybody here needs to grow. You know that? There's not a person here that's arrived spiritually, not one of you. Because it says God will perfect that which concerns me. And when you've been perfected, well, find your shoes on the road outside, but you won't be there just like, what was that guy's name? Enoch, remember Enoch, they found his shoes, but there was no signs that he was swallowed by anything. You know, God took him. As long as you're around, we know what? God's working on you. I wanna know, are you cooperating or fighting? But he's gonna work. God wins, you know what I'm saying? Might as well cooperate with God and let him win. As to find him, he's a little bit bigger than you and me. And he will perfect that. And we need to cooperate with that. Okay. Now we're officially starting why you showed up here. Paul is going to introduce, not here, but in Hebrews, spiritual warfare. And in spiritual warfare, what he's telling here is he's using sports terms. Paul often used sports terms for a spiritual truth. And he's using running as a sports illustration of the Christian life. Well, my son went to junior high, he said, Dad, I want to go into sports. Well, I just finished teaching at a Bible college, and the guys who were big men on campus weren't too big with God. And that kind of bothered me. I'm going, I don't know. I said, OK, Richard, you can go into sport as long as it's not a glory sport. And he said, what do you mean? Everybody cheers and yells and all this stuff, because pride goes before a big crash. And he said, well, Dad, what about cross country? I said, wonderful. Nobody goes. That would be less of a thing. And so he ran. And he was a dedicated runner, almost demonic. It'd be snowing. He's out there running. It's raining. He's out there running. And I'm going, I think you're nuts, kid. I don't even like driving. And he's out there chugging. And it gets cold up in Sioux City, Iowa. But you've seen the dedicated runners. They give it all they can because he wanted to run well. So he says, wherefore, seeing we're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. As we run the race, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of God, at the right hand of the throne of God. Okay, there's some important things I want to put here. He said, as we run this race, there are two things that can trip us up. Two things. One are sin issues. Now we know that, right? Absolutely. It's black and white in scripture. God says, thou shall not, guess what? Thou shall not. That's what he said, that's what he meant. But what are weights? Weights are not sin issues, but they're issues that keep me from winning. There's a lot of things that a dedicated runner will not do. Not sin, but they want to run well. My son ran one marathon in the Twin Cities, and he didn't wear a sweatsuit, and it was cold. There's nothing wrong with a sweatsuit, the kind he wears. But it would be what? A weight. Are there weights in your life that God is saying others may, but you may not? If you want to run well, you allow the Holy Spirit to put his finger on those things that could hinder me in becoming the person the Lord wants me to be. And all of us are gonna have weight issues. What he's saying, it's not just saying a few people, all of us have weight issues. Maybe sin issues is not your issue anymore, but what about the weight issues? Are you willing to let the Spirit touch that? And when he touched it, are you willing to let go of it and say, Lord, I give that to you? Okay, because he said either one will beset us. It'll cause us to trip. Now as we're running this race that is set before us, and all of us have a race, God has gifted us for that race, we're to focus on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. The enemy's attack on believers is to get my eyes off of Jesus onto something else, to break my focus on others, Do you ever see, you know, running and that kind of thing? Do you ever see them, runners, looking to see where anybody else is? Not that they're going to win, are they? There's a movie I watched, and I really appreciated it, because of my son's running, was Chariots of Fire. And remember, that one guy would glance a little bit, and it took a few seconds. You may win because he always glanced to see where he's coming to the finish line and just slowed him down a little bit. But you see, you don't see these guys looking around at other people and all of that. They're focusing what? On the course and on the finish. The enemy would like me to do this, focus on my feet and not on Jesus, who's the author and finisher of the faith. So I want you to know as we move into this, we see the attacks. is to get our eyes off the Lord, either onto ourself, onto the ministry we're in, onto our job, onto our family, get our eyes off the Lord. And I trust for most of you that this will be a refocusing experience, that you'll get your eyes back on the Lord as a result. If they're already there, then pray for us that there may be others here that have kind of looked away from the Lord. They're just not where they, they're not all that they could be right now, and they know it, and we'd like to help them. Paul is going to pick up in the book of Matthew, isn't it? The book of John. Okay, if you have your Bible, let's turn to John chapter 10, verse 10. Okay, as Jim was talking about how the enemy wants me to focus on myself, focus on others, and things like that, well, what also does he want us to do in our life, and how does he go about doing that? So, John 10, 10, to steal, to kill, and to destroy, I came that they might have life and they may have it more abundantly. And mine's in red. I hope yours is in red too. If not, you know, these are words from Jesus that Jesus spoke to all of us and to his disciples that he was there with. Okay, now the thief he's talking about in this verse is the enemy. Now here's the enemy, the ultimate thief, and the question is, What does he want to do in your life and what does he want to do in my life? Okay, so the first one it mentions here, Jesus said he wants to steal. Okay, so I'm so glad most of the missionaries are here. Dr. Logan and I hired a professional thief to go amongst the community here and break into your house and to steal. couple of things. Yeah, teenagers. They may be missing right now. I don't think they'll be looking for your socks and you know all those valuables. They'll be looking for something that has tremendous value. TVs, if you have one of those, computers, money, gold, silver. So as a believer in Christ, what do I have of greatest value that the enemy would want to steal from my life? Now most of our counselees will say, well, he wants to steal my relationship with God. Okay, he may want to, but we see in scripture he can't. Okay, well what else may he want to steal? So we got to spend a lot of time really thinking and praying about that, and the thing we noticed is why wouldn't the enemy want to steal that I would have any eternal significance in heaven? Okay, that's an eternal perspective. When I die, I'm done. And then I'll be in heaven. And what I lived for on earth, that's when I get to go and see what really had eternal significance. So the enemy would love Paul to be focused so much on himself and so much on my life that I couldn't reach out and help someone that's close to me. I couldn't reach out and help my family. I couldn't humble myself to pray for my neighbors or to encourage people that are around me that are other believers or may not even be a believer. So it's very significant that he wants me really to be focused on myself. So that's how the enemy works. He wants to really steal that I would have any eternal significance. He doesn't want that at all. Okay, the next thing it says, is that the enemy wants to kill. And that's where we get the interesting question. Well, obviously, the enemy wants to kill me. Well, he may want to kill you, but the rest of John 10 talks about the protection that we have in God, and how God is protecting us so much. A lot of times, we don't even think about it. I got a splinter in my toe, and I'm saying, God, why me? What's going on? I thought you were going to protect me. So here the enemy wants to kill us, and often a way that we can tell if the enemy is really wanting to destroy what's going on in our life is by those suicidal thoughts. If he can't directly take my life from me, he will want me to do it for him. And most people that we've had in the 23 years of counseling, we'll ask them that question. Have you ever had suicidal thoughts? And very rarely, we may have one or two people that come in that said, no, I've never had that. And usually what precedes those suicidal thoughts are the feelings of hopelessness, that I just, oh man, what I'm going through is just hopeless. Or discouragement or despair is usually what precedes those thoughts that the enemy can give me. Okay, so that's where I need to understand, wait, it says in scripture that We have a God of hope. That's who he is. So here Satan wants to steal, he wants to kill and destroy. Okay, now we thought about that one a lot as well. What would the enemy want to destroy the most? Okay, and I think he has his target mostly on relationships. It's through relationships can we share about Christ. It's through relationships can we talk about God. It's through relationships can we even point them towards Christ. Well he wants to target our relationships because if something that he can do can come between a relationship like the relationship between Dr. Logan and I, the enemy can use that to really destroy. and to really separate, to really pull us apart, and to destroy not just that relationship, but then how many other people could be affected because of him wanting to destroy our relationship. Okay, now to understand how the enemy works, he works primarily in two different ways. He works covertly and he works overtly. OK, so I was born in Australia, in Sydney. And then right when I was born, my parents took me to India. I didn't get a vote on it, because I was about two months. So I was kidnapped and went to India. So when I was in India, my parents were there. And there was a missionary couple. And when you're especially overseas and you have the animistic cultures, you don't have to convince them that the enemy is real. They know that he's real. And this couple, they had a three-year-old daughter, and then they had two other boys. And they said, our daughter is waking up every night screaming and having nightmares. And it's been going on for about a week or so. And so they met another missionary couple that was there, and they said, well, the first thing we see in scripture is that the enemy, he binds the strong man, and then he spoils the goods. So he goes for the dad first. So they asked the dad, are you into anything that you should not be into? Are you hiding things? And he said, no, no, I'm really walking with God. My whole life's open. The relationship with my wife and I is really good. So then they asked the mother, you know, are you into anything? No, no, everything is going well. You know, I'm really spending time with God, nothing I'm hiding or anything like that. And she's only three. She was only three years old or so. And so she wasn't really into anything and couldn't really be into anything. So then they thought, well, you know what can happen in these third world countries where animism is so prevalent is they can be given something. And if what they were given was dedicated to the enemy, then that can affect the family. So they asked, well, were you given anything? And so they thought back and said, oh, we remember she was given a cabbage patch doll in India. Well, they said, oh, do you know that where we are in India, their cabbage patch dolls, they're put in front of idols. All of them. And before they're sold, the person that's in charge of those cabbage patch dolls wants the idol to bless those dolls before they get sold. So remember we learned in the New Testament, Paul is saying that when I'm worshiping an idol, I'm worshiping the demonic spirits behind that. So they said, why don't you burn it? That's what we see in scripture, just get rid of it. So they took the cabbage patch doll. When they burned it, it started to scream. Okay, so that's where you have the enemy is very overtly. Who did that happen to? That was my family. So that was my sister, my older sister, and I was just a baby. So that's how I entered into understanding spiritual warfare. And then they sent this video of this really old guy named Jim Logan to India, and they said, oh, he's not too bad. We'll listen to him. And so that's how my family started in that. But in the United States, that doesn't work. Now, that's why we don't see idols around. That doesn't work. Remember how clever the enemy is? Okay, he works covertly. He works behind the scenes. He doesn't want me or you to understand that he could actually be working. That he may be giving me thoughts and things that I don't even see is happening. Okay, so this is what he wants to do. Steal, kill, and destroy. We ask our counselees, do you see this in your life? And we don't have to convince him. Oh, yeah. Oh, we see it, it's happening. Okay, but the rest of the verse is very interesting. Jesus said, I've come that you may have life and have it abundantly. He wasn't saying I came that you may have eternal life when you die and get to heaven. And he was saying on earth, Jesus came to fill us so full that it overflows into your lives, my life, and into the people that were around and were influencing where we are. Okay, if I am not having that abundant life, then something is happening. And what Jim was talking about, maybe I need to develop that intimate prayer life to be dependent on God. Okay, now we're gonna see how Satan primarily works. I wanna interrupt you, Paul. That's what they do overseas, you have an interrupter. I'm gonna translate what he said in English. I'm Australian. Yeah, no, but he was saying something, and the Lord just brought this on my mind. I have been involved with many, many Christian organizations. And how do you, Christian organizations, when they're attacked, and the one I was vice president of, which is, I think, the largest mission organization in the world, we were attacked from within. You hear me? We've had problems in some of the Bible schools, where I've been called even to other Bible schools, and the attack is coming what? Not outside, but within the ranks. Satan is getting through to people, this is what I want. I can't tell you, it just tears my heart out, but I'll tell you, any organization that is doing something significant for God will become a target for the enemy. You guys hearing me? And this is a wonderful organization. It's been around a long time. And do you think Satan is pleased with you guys going into countries where he's held the people in darkness and in fear for generations? And you wanna take the light in and he's going, oh my, what am I gonna do? He's gonna steal, kill, and destroy is what he's gonna do. The thing that's so sad, we'll get to it later on, but I gotta say it now, and that is, The person and persons that do this are people you would never expect. You and I have to be dedicated to the Lord and pray, Lord, don't make me a tool in the hand of Satan in this organization or in a family or anywhere. Remember David said, I was wounded in the house of what? Friends, we even went to the temple together. Yeah, Jesus was betrayed by who? A disciple. So I just felt so led I needed to say that, and I'm sorry to interrupt Paul, but since we're right here, and Satan wants to take down Jars, or Wickliffe, or whatever, any, I don't know, any mission organization that hasn't come under attack, and I've been on a board of a lot of them, and they all came under attack, and it's always from within. Outside, we can fight it, right? We get together and fight the outside attack. But inside, it begins to erode, and people take sides. Oh, it's awful. We need some real prayer warriors. Pray over Wicklow. Pray God's protection. God put his heads around this place. That the enemy would not sift and work in this organization. Or any others that you may be familiar with. The church that was today. It's a neat little church that's trying to get started. They've already sifted some. And I'm not surprised. I enjoyed the service. You know, they even sang hymns at that church. Couldn't believe it. Real old fashioned, you know. But it was a blessing. Go ahead, Paul. Okay, we're gonna turn to Matthew 16. Chapter 16, and what we read in chapter 15, kind of the end of 15, Jesus feeds 4,000 men plus the women and children. Okay, then he comes up and he's teaching in 16th Now he asks a very interesting question. And unless we were Jewish, we kind of would say, well, that's kind of interesting. But what was happening in Jewish days and the way they were trained is when there was a speaker speaking, they would be in groups and they would talk about what the speaker was talking about. Now his disciples, you know, weren't standing up front as bodyguards protecting Jesus. They were walking amongst the crowds and listening to what these men and people were saying about what Jesus was speaking of. Okay, so verse 13, Jesus came to the coast of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples saying, whom do men say that I, the son of man, am? And who do these men say that I am? Verse 14, We see something interesting. They say, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias or one of the prophets. That he's getting all these different answers from all these different groups of people. And what they're coming up with is, oh, I think he's this guy, this guy, this guy. Okay, now Jesus, verse 15, turns it to his disciples. Do you agree with what these men said? You know, so he turns it around. These disciples have been living with Jesus for three years. You know, everywhere he's been going. And he says, verse 15, but whom say ye that I am? Okay, verse 16, Simon Peter answered and said, thou art Christ, son of the living God. Whew! Well, Peter had, he had a lot of wisdom right there. I mean, wow. Out of all the disciples, here this one man, Peter, says this. Okay, if Jesus didn't tell us what just happened, we wouldn't know the significance of what happened. Verse 17, Jesus answers and said, unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. Okay, very simple understanding. Peter, that thought that you just shared to everyone out loud, God gave you that thought. Okay, God can speak to you, God can speak to me. Now we don't see Peter having the hallelujah chorus, you know, from heaven, the bright light shining. He didn't even know. Here Jesus had to tell him, Peter, God just spoke truth to you, to your heart, and you shared it. That did not come from you. Okay, now what we're gonna do is go down to verse 22 and 23, because in verse 21, Jesus tells his disciples, I am going to die. I'm gonna be crucified and I'm gonna leave. Now these disciples, they left everything, their families, financial, I mean, they had, everything was gone. They left to follow Jesus and the leader is saying, I'm leaving. Okay, so Peter, we know verse 22, then Peter took him and began to rebuke him saying, be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. Jesus, I'm gonna protect you. Okay, then verse 23, he being Jesus turned and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offense unto me, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. He didn't say, get behind me, Peter. He said, get behind me, Satan. Where did Peter get that thought? It wasn't from Peter, and it wasn't from God. It was from the enemy. So I can, even though I'm a Christian, I can still have thoughts from the enemy. He can just shoot those arrows, and if I say it, I could be being used by the enemy. We're gonna see that just coming up next, so I need to be really careful, not just what I'm thinking, what am I saying, what am I doing in my life, okay? So if you can grab this today, you can have thoughts from three places right here, Matthew. I can have thoughts for myself. Jesus told us, think on these things, okay? Think on heavenly things, all right? I can have thoughts from God, all right, which are always gonna be pure, admirable, Those things have come up in our office more times than we have found. God just pops in a verse. God just gives us some truth that we need when a person is talking. But I can also have thoughts from the enemy. And it will fit, usually, the situation that I'm dealing with. And that's what we're gonna look at. If you turn to 1 Chronicles 21.1, Okay, this was King David. King David was fighting all these battles in Israel, and he was winning. The only reason why was because God was fighting his battles for him. Remember what Jim said in Hebrews, his eyes were on Jesus, and then God was giving him this victory. So as he was fighting, this thought entered, what if I lose? a lot of battles. How many men could I draft into the army? How many people do I have in my nation? You know what I probably should do is I probably should start counting people. That way I know how many people we can add in and things like that. Well it's not necessarily evil to start counting people. But God specifically said, David, don't number the children of Israel. Well then David decided, He's gonna do it. So he did, he started numbering the children of Israel and then he was severely punished for that choice. Okay, so even though David had a thought to do something, what we're gonna see is he was punished because he gave into it and he did it. Chapter 21, verse one, Satan stood up against Israel and provoked, pushed, encouraged David to number the children of Israel. Okay, let's also go to John 13 verse two. Okay, Judas Iscariot is here. And the supper being ended and the devil have been putting it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, to betray Jesus. Now Judas was actually stealing money from the purse. And oftentimes, when we make choices and we make decisions, we don't see the consequences that could happen if I make a wrong choice. I think if Adam and Eve somehow were given insight into what we'd all be dealing with today, I think they would have had a second thought. Well, maybe we shouldn't, you know? But they saw the fruit. It looked good. They took it, ate of it, disobeyed. And I can't imagine what happened afterwards. They saw the consequences. of their choices that they made. So here, Judas, not seeing the consequences that happened, he betrayed Jesus. When he realized, I imagine that's what happened, he took those pieces of silver and threw it back at him. He didn't realize what really was gonna happen, I think. So here, the enemy fit the situation. He could replace that money he had taken maybe with just that 30 pieces of silver. Now we're gonna go to Acts 5.3, Ananias and Sapphira. This is kind of interesting. This is when the church is just getting started. You see how God is blessing the church. You see people are selling their possessions, selling what they have, giving it to the missionaries. God's blessing them. Ananias and Sapphira show up. Okay. Verse 37 in chapter four, having land, they sold it and they brought all the money. That's when they're giving it to the apostles' feet. Now there was this man, Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, they had this piece of land. Okay. It doesn't actually say that they had the church praying, but I would imagine they would, you know, have the church praying and wanting to sell this piece of land. Well, they didn't realize that they had a temporal value issue. I mean, here, one of the missionaries here wins a million dollars. Whoo! That's a lot of money. Okay, well, are we gonna give away all this million dollars, you know, to poor Dr. Logan and Paul's ministry on Wednesday? Let's just keep a couple, you know, hundreds of thousands. So they decide just Ananias, just Sapphira. that they are gonna give over some of the money, not give all of it, but tell everyone that they gave all the money that they had, okay? So here, verse three, but Peter, and that's interesting, but Peter, remember Peter was the man that Jesus said, get behind me, Satan. Here we see in Acts 5.3, God is giving Peter insight into what's happening. Okay, but Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back part of the price of the land? All right, if you look up in a Greek study, that word filled, it's the same word that Paul uses when he says we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Okay, so he was saying, Ananias, your life is being more filled by the enemy than it is by the Holy Spirit using your life. Okay, then verse four, while it remained, was it not thy own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. Then, Verse five, Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. In great fear came upon all them that heard these things. He said, Ananias, when you owned this property, wasn't that million dollars or however much he sold it for, that belong to you? Okay, you could have kept it. You could have given 500,000 and said, we gave 500,000. Okay, you didn't have to give any, but the issue is Ananias, you lied to the Holy Spirit. Okay, and then you see the punishment that happened in verse five. Okay, well the issue that Ananias had is verse four, he said, why hast thou conceived this thing in your heart? So we see David, right, he was not judged because he had a wrong thought. Because if a wrong thought would be punishable, David was guilty even before he counted them in. But he conceived into it, he gave into it, and he decided, I'm gonna do this thing. Then we have Judas putting in the heart, and Judas betrayed Jesus. We have Ananias, and the enemy put this thought into his head, and he thought about it, and he thought about it, and he dwelt on it, and then he decided, honey, Let's do this thing. We're going to do this. We're going to choose to do this. And then that's where they were punished for their choice. OK, now if you would take your Bible, we're going to look into 2 Corinthians. So chapter 10, 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians 10, 3, 4, and 5 is the spiritual battle in a nutshell. Now, I've gone through many Bibles and read every reference to angels, demons, satans, all of that, you know, and looked at it, wrote it down, and probably this is one of the better nutshells, if you want to say, that kind of gets it all together here. The first thing he tells us in verse 3, though we live in a physical body, this battle cannot be won. in the physical body. A spiritual battle cannot be won in the flesh, because it's the very thing Satan likes to use. Paul's already brought that out. So although we live in a physical body, this is a spiritual battle, and we need spiritual weapons, and we'll get into that a lot more this week. What has God given us to be able to live a victorious Christian life? But he says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. If you have a modern translation, it's not weapons of this world. See, we can't sell them in the bookstore. They're not tangible as far as we're going to put this thing in the door or put it in the windows and all that kind of stuff. In fact, be careful of some of these things to protect you. When I was working with the, not the Apaches, but the Sioux Indians, They're the ones that Custer said, I think they're Sioux. That's about the last thing he said. They're really quite characters. I love working with the Sioux Indians on their reservation. They won a lot of battles, but they won it with physical weapons. But these physical weapons won't work. We need weapons that are mighty in God. If you have a modern translation or look it up in the Greek, mighty means divinely empowered weapons. It's phenomenal. We have divinely empowered weapons for what? A spiritual battle. Is there a doctor friend of mine that's come a long ways to be here tonight? No, I think they're going to come on Tuesday. This doctor, I think I'll share this illustration because he could say, there was a young man in ministry and we tried to counsel him in his home in, at that time, Washington, D.C. And we were doing pastor seminars in all the major cities. And we didn't get anywhere. I mean, he was really bad off. I want to be careful of names, but there was a major man that I was traveling with doing the pastor seminar with me that is a major Christian leader. And we're sitting there. with this guy, and all of a sudden he opens his mouth, and a voice speaks out of him in Washington, D.C., and says, Logan, we know what church you go to. They named the church, but it's only a thousand miles away. Then they said, there are two men in that church, they're not getting along. And they named the men by name. One of them had a very difficult name that I never said right, but the demons said it absolutely right, the one speaking, and told the name of the man. And he said, we plan to take this church down through these two men. And then they said, after we take that down, because one of them had helped financially to get our office started, we're gonna take your office down. I said, fine, I'll fight you in my garage. You know what I mean? You can have the office if you want it. But what I'm getting at is, they knew what was going on in an organization 1,000 miles away. This Christian leader that most of you would know, if I mention his name, goes, wow. He says, Jim, the enemy really does know what's going on. It was 1,000 miles from where we are. And so we went to New Jersey for the next one. We had over 2,000 pastors. And he got up and said, you know, this is what happened yesterday. And it happened to be this was a youth pastor where the voices came out. And he said, this is what happened. This is what he said. And he said to these 2,000 pastors, if I was you, I'd listen to them. And you could hear a pin drop. And I got up there and I waxed eloquent as best as I could. But they were interested. Don't think the enemy doesn't know. Don't think he's not scheming to take things down. Anything that is a threat to him in his kingdom has had it. Just know that. Anybody wants to start living for God, you're going to come under attack. I came under attack by my family. You know, they thought, wow. Be careful. Don't get too religious, because my family's all unsaved. And I thought, boy, I wish one day I'd be too religious. You know what I mean? Be so godly. But I'm still in the process. But I want you to know that we have divinely empowered weapons. And when I counseled this young man in my office, he tried to strangle me. And he leaped quickly off the couch, leaped his hands around my throat. And I'm a jumper. I mean, here I'm the Bible, he's got a Bible, reading Bible, and usually when I read the Bible to someone, they don't try to strangle me. Thank God. But I pray God's protection. Can God protect? Or do I have to protect myself? Do you understand what I'm saying? There's no way I could protect myself. You know, he was young. And I'm mature. And... Isn't that nice? Okay. And... He had his hand right here. And I knew the verse. And when he said, I'm gonna rip your throat out, and the hand came up, a verse came to mind. I'm in Christ, the wicked one touches me not. And he couldn't close his fingers. Guys, we're on the winning side. Do you understand? I'm not trying to spook you out. I just wanna say, hey, God has got more power than the enemy. And I don't care whether you're in Jireh or any place. I've been all over the world. But I said, be careful about fake stuff. I was on one of the Indian reservations, and this woman had been married to the man who's now medicine man. And the medicine man is really the big honcho on a reservation, more than a chief. I mean, he's the guy that can do all kinds of hokey pokey stuff. And she said, what do you think of tobacco ties? And I thought, not practical. I have no idea. Well, I don't care where I am. If I don't know, I'm going to ask. I'm not going to, oh yeah, mm-hmm, sure, mm-hmm. No, hey, I don't know what a tobacco dye is, but I don't think it's around your neck. And I said, I don't know what they are. He said, well, haven't you seen them? And I said, maybe I didn't know what they were. He says, well, haven't you seen the flannel hung in windows? You know, they take old pajamas, flannel pajamas, cut squares, put tobacco in it, and put it in the window. And I said, why do you put it in the window? I said, it keeps spirits out. And often we bury them outside of the house. Now, you've seen dream catchers, haven't you? What I'm talking about that looks like a spider web you put over a kid. Do you want your kid to have nightmares? Well, if you're a good mom, what are you gonna have? A dream catcher in your culture. But see, that has to do with what? The spirit world. So it's not good for a Christian to do that part of their culture. And that's where you have to be very careful. You can't throw out people's culture. but the part of it that is what? Demonic or satanic or has that involvement, you need to let them know don't do that because they can be inviting the spirits in. Other people hang them up, they don't have any problem. They hang them up and they start having all kinds of strange things going on in the house because God is my protector. We're told that you're supposed to put olive oil all over the windows and all over the doors and all this stuff. I'm telling, olive oil has never kept a demon out of the house. It lets it slip in quicker. So be careful of Christian magic. You understand what I'm saying? Trust the Lord. The Lord is my protector. He's powerful. So now let's look at this warfare. But remember, our weapons are divinely empowered. It's wonderful to have divinely empowered weapons. And he said these divinely empowered weapons are to pull down strongholds. What in the world is a stronghold and how do I have them? Now remember this is written to Christians, isn't it? Corinthians was not written to the unsaved outside of Corinth, it was written to the church and the people at Corinth. And Paul said you have strongholds. Well, when we say strongholds here, we may have a hard time, but you say strongholds in Israel at that time, they understood what you're talking about. What was the first place, okay, right here, Northwoods, kid. What was the first place when Joshua and the children of Israel came to Israel? What was the first place called after they crossed the Jordan River? He already said it, and he wins. I'm sorry, sir, but he gets the Porsche, okay? He's down at the dealer, told him I sent you, okay? But see, Jericho was a walled city. Well, let's say I was one of the spies. I'm going, you know what, there were more, I've been to Jericho, there's more people lived outside of the city than in the city. They didn't raise animals in the city, they had farms outside. So when an army came, what'd they do? They left everything there and went into the city and shut the gates. Jericho had two walls. I didn't know that. I like to get biblical archaeological review, you know, they stick a spade in the ground and found out there really was Tarsus, where they said there couldn't be Paul because they couldn't find a Tarsus. You just didn't put the spade digging up in the sand, you'll find Tarsus. If the Bible said there's a Tarsus, guess what? It's there. But Jericho had two walls, an outer wall and the inner wall. And guess where Rahab lived? I mean, how protective would a wall be with apartments with windows that overlooked, you know, with balconies outside? That would be, there was no protection at all. No, there was two walls. They found two walls. the outer wall and the inner wall. You know the waving wall where the guys pray at that wall? One stone in there, one stone, the biggest stone, weighs 16 tons. Go ahead, push it over the wall. Now these were not made out of pebbles. These were not bricks. And they built these walls to stand, to protect in there. And they had wonderful gate things and everything. You go to Israel, you can tell every single walled city that Solomon built, because he used the same gate system in there. So if you haven't been to Israel, go. I mean, I know if you've been there, you're saying it was the most wonderful experience to see what Jesus talked about, to stand where he stood. And if you can't go there, get Ray Vandal on stuff, it's really good. At least the second best you know because he takes small groups And he tells you what went on there at you know down through the ages not just right now But he's really a sharp guy when it comes to Israel all that stuff, okay, so So strongholds are walled cities Now the key is What is a stronghold in a life of a person See, a stronghold in my life is something that has a strong grip on me. It's something that is very, you know, I can get rid of some things pretty easy, but this thing is very, very, very difficult. Strongholds are often the result of deep wounding. See, these strongholds are often the result of deep wounding, and that wounding often took place in my childhood. Now, today, the problem today is not that I was wounded. That's really not it. You gotta get this. The problem today is the lies I believe because I was wounded. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is extremely important. Because this happened to me, I believe this. And as long as I believe a lie, it becomes what? True for me, and it will also affect my choices and actions. I grew up with an alcoholic father that told me I was worthless. I would never amount to anything. I had to work with him. He was a gardener in Beverly Hills. And I worked every Saturday and all summer long mowing lawns, trimming hedges of beautiful homes and things. And my dad would get drunk and be so mean and say such terrible things that I believed that I was inferior. I believed that I would never amount to anything. It's pretty hard to get beyond your parents. I mean, some kids would take it like, I'll show you. I went, ugh. I wasn't the one, I'll show you. I just crushed under all that. but I covered it up by being outgoing. And for many, many years, after being saved, it didn't go away. Why? Because I still believed the lie. Do you understand? The lie was still there and it was still affecting me. I wouldn't have spoken to this crowd years and years ago there wasn't enough money, because somebody here may not like me and I couldn't handle that. So I'm looking at your faces. If you scowl, I'm leaving. You're quick by that door. It was so important that people would like me and would think I'm, oops, that I'm OK, that I'm not dumb and stupid and ignorant. And I had a terrible time in school because in school I thought I was. And it went on for years. If my wife disagreed with me, you think that went over really great? But I had a godly wife. It's a good thing. She didn't have a godly husband. She had a new believer for her husband that came with a lot of baggage, a lot of inferiority and stuff. And I'll tell you two things that set me free. And I share this with people. You think I'm the only one that comes to our office that had this experience of feeling inferior and not wanted and having to prove themselves and afraid that if you really got to know them, you wouldn't like them. I'd say probably three-fourths of the people that come, I understand where they are, I've been there, I've lived there. The two things that set me free, until I believe truth, I'll always be bound by the lies. Am I making sense, people? This is so important, this is the, I'm giving you the groundwork of warfare, this is it, as long as I believe that lie, the enemy can access it. I make decisions on the basis of what I fear, what I feel, and I can make a lot of negative decisions. Well, I won't go into all this stuff, but I'll tell you what freed me. Two marvelous truths. Now, you can know truth, but it doesn't mean you believe it. Am I making sense here? It has to be internalized. The first truth that I really, really got into my very soul was I'm accepted in the beloved. Totally, completely accepted, warts and all. That's that. That freed me from your acceptance. When I have the ultimate acceptance by God, I'm not a victim to be chained to how you're gonna respond to me. It's so freeing. After years of being in bondage that I had to be accepted. And the other one, which was very hard for me to believe, that I'm loved with an eternal love. God really loves me? I believe that basically I was in God's dog show. You know, if I would sit up and roll over and jump through all the hoops, then maybe he would what? Accept me and love me. That is what I think tremendously legalistic. If I do all the laws, if I do all this stuff, and jump through, and I go to a new group, and they've got more stuff. You know, you don't wear a beard if you're godly. I don't have a beard, see, I'm godly. And you know, you could say, well, I could talk to these young men, and they say, you know, I don't kiss girls. I don't chew tobacco. I'm not shooting drugs. You know, I don't do this, I don't do that. I'm saying, kid, neither do dead men. You're not godly from what you don't do. That is right out of the pit. You're godly for what you do do, isn't that right? It's people that are moving towards God. Then the Spirit says, I don't want you to do that. So I have the ability to put it off in my life because I have what? The power of God because I'm walking with God. Hey, I'm sorry. The poor people watching this, they'll die. Slogan. What are you watching, Dad? Me. But I can't tell you how important this is. It's so important. If you can identify the lie that is keeping you in bondage, keeping you from freedom, from peace and from the inner whatever, and then the truth. But I'll tell you something, it's a lot easier to believe a lie you've always believed than to believe just words, objective words. Because see, the lie is all subjective. I feel that way, I act that way, it makes me know I am that way, and God says I'm not. Do you understand the battle? That's the battle. Will I believe what God said in spite of how I feel? Right? I want you to believe God. And remember this, obedience precedes understanding. You think of all the people in the scripture that had no clue of what was happening. The last one I read was wonderful, the 10 lepers. These 10 lepers, I was telling them, I was sharing this with the guys I'm discipling. And I always focused on the one that came back and said, you know, thanks, and Jesus said, where's the rest of them? Remember that, those guys? Well, they went to Jesus and said, would you heal me? Have you seen lepers? I mean, if you have, it's a pretty awful thing to have. They had leprosy, and they said, would you heal me? Jesus did not heal them. See, I always thought he healed them. He didn't heal them. You read that carefully. That's why I said, read what? Slowly, and if I had marked it, I wouldn't even read it that slow. Oh, I know this. I preached on it once, or more times. I waxed eloquent with this one. Now, he said, go to the priest, show him, and then he'll declare you healed. But why should we go? I mean, I still had leprosy. He didn't do it. I thought he'd do one of his things, you know? Wave his hand over us or something. But he didn't do anything. He just said, go to the priest. And you know what the next verse says? In going, they were healed. See? Their faith and obedience is what healed them. It's beautiful, isn't it? Jesus said go. And it takes a lot of faith to go to a priest with leprosy. And it's still there. We need more lepers with that kind of faith than the church. You know? I'm gonna do what God said. And I don't need all kinds of proofs and all this other stuff. He said, do it, I'm gonna do it. Okay. So, we are to pull down strongholds and we do it with truth. Jesus said, what will set you free? Our counseling center, I think it was what he said. No, he said the truth. See, our job is what? To show people the truth that counters the lies they're believing that's causing them to live such a messed up life. Okay. Then verse five says, we're to casting down imagination. Every high thing exalts itself against the knowledge. I know some people put it in two things. I just put it in one. But I want you to know this. What it's saying here is extremely, extremely important, and we've just come to this very strongly, and Paul gives a lot of insights, and Paul brought this out, and it makes sense. Why do believers have a distorted view of God? Believers, I don't care about unbelievers. Why do believers have a distorted view of God? Because on this hand, they have life experiences, negative ones. tragedies, disappointments, they have all this stuff that they've experienced. They have unanswered prayers, because they may have been praying out of the will of God, or whatever. They have all this over here. And over here, they have what God says. And they have a tendency to take their distorted view of God in their relationship with God. Am I making some sense? Okay, I had one. I went to a seminar, and there was a short man that was speaking, and he said, God puts you in your family. And I sat there, and I was a pastor, and I said, that's what you think. God wouldn't put me in a family where I wasn't wanted. That's not the kind of God I'm serving. I'm a pastor saying that. Do you understand why? Look at my experiences. Look what happened being in this family, pushed down, feeling inferior, You know, a loser, protecting myself, not taking jobs where I would be exposed. I mean, it was awful when you live in fear of that kind of stuff. And I lived there. God wouldn't do that to me. God is a God of what? Love and kindness and all that stuff. God would not put me in a family where I was not wanted. Right? That's what I thought. And I wanted to walk out on this guy and had to pay money to go hear him. Give me a break. I didn't need money for that advice. Now, I was able to forgive my dad. We'll get into that later on. But there was a harder step than forgiving him that comes next. And we don't have time for that tonight, so I hope you can come back. So realize that my concept of God is always, or can be, excued by negative life experiences. I pray God didn't do it, you know, I had a loved one that died, I pray they wouldn't die, and all of this is in there, and then it gets in the road of my being able to really trust him. You know, how can a loving, I mean, I'm going, how could a loving God Put me in a family I wasn't wanted. Why would God do that? You call that love? I don't. Man, I didn't, sorry. I don't want everybody watching this thing praying for me. Oh, Logan's got a long ways. Well, I got a long ways to go, but I was able to handle that one with the word of God. Okay, and then he said, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And I had sort of an understanding of what he was saying, but I look up the word captivity, and I was surprised. In the Greek, it means spear point. Hmm. I love it when I have to go, hmm. It must be significant, it's the word of God, and we base sound teachings, you know, and this is scripture, hmm. What in the world does he mean taking thoughts at spear point? Well, if we're in a battle and I have a spear and there's 10 guys running towards me, I hope to get two. You know, one and then put my foot on his chest, pull it out and go after the other one. He's talking about a battle, isn't he? He's actually putting it in the battle thing. He's saying one wrong thought, one spear. And if I don't take a wrong thought captive, it will captivate me. It's like a snowball that turns into an avalanche because it wasn't stopped at the top. The easiest way to take thoughts captive, and we'll see others, the easiest way to say, I give no consent to that, that's it. I'm not going to do it. The enemy, you can talk all you want. but I'm committed, I'm not gonna do that. You can do what Jesus did, and we can't get into that. We will really get into it later on, but remember, Jesus took a rhema from scripture to deal with what Satan said. But what happens is, when you have racing thoughts, I can't imagine, you know what some people are telling me, they're sitting there and they're getting, all of these thoughts are horrible and they don't stop one after another after another. And if they have to come up with a scripture verse for every thought, who's gonna get tired first? Satan or them? Them. And then go to a psychiatrist and get a pink pill or a red pill or something and try to find out, you know, so they can call them whatever it is, you know. But no. That's where I give no consent to that comes in. But if it's just, I'm always bombarded in one area of my life. Then I want what? Biblical truth in my arsenal. And to share that with the enemy. I'm not gonna do that. My body is what? The temple of the Holy Spirit. Or whatever that, what it is, the word of God can set free. And the more I engraft scripture, I'm glad I was saved through the navigators. Now I have two learning disabilities. I'm dyslexic. And I don't visualize, I see nothing in my mind. I didn't know people did, but I don't. And you know, being dyslexic isn't a lot of fun when letters whip around. I don't have whole sentences, but I have letters. You know, E could be a C or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Anyway, I felt sorry for my wife. She helped me to read scripture before I had to read scripture. You know, because I'd read it all screwy. And God, I was saying, God, are you sure you're calling me into ministry when I can't read right? It was so funny, Moody called and asked if I'd write a book. I said, no. They called again, so would you write a book? I said, no. I said, guys, I can't spell. Why would I write a book? You know, I mean, you guys don't know I can't spell. You know, we don't have overheads. You may think I'm a great speller, but I'm not. And when you're dyslexic, it's hard to be a great speller. And the third time they called, maybe God sent it. And that little old book is on Moody's bestseller list that was written a long, long, long, long time ago. You know, I didn't want to do it. Well, let me tell you, learn from me. You know, in my flesh, I didn't want to do that, but God wanted me to do it and he wouldn't let them stop hounding me to do it. Because God says, somehow you got something to say that I think ought to be written down. And in your life, You know, if God keeps ringing the doorbell, answer it. You know, God keeps sharing something with you. One of the greatest disappointments I had in my life, and I don't know if I'll forgive any of you, is when Wycliffe rejected me as a missionary. Isn't that interesting? They wouldn't have me, now I'm talking to all of you. God has a sense of humor. You know why Wycliffe had to reject me as a missionary? I had too many baggages you couldn't see to go on the field with. I would've come back, oh the kids are sick, or you know, I have a good legitimate reason why we washed out. And I'm telling you, if you're thinking of serving God, deal with the baggage. Because when you get under the pressure of the fields, under the pressure of languages, under the pressure of trying to listen to all the burps and grunts and all these things people do, And I'll end with one wonderful story in a magazine I used to get from Wycliffe. They don't even send it out anymore. I forget what it was called, but it was good. And I knew this because I studied phonetics and phonemics and all that stuff. And these missionaries were in a village. And there were two guys, and they were keeping their own notes. What is this? Woo! Woo! OK. What's that? Woo! Woo! You gotta get those glottals in there, you know? And so they're going around writing all this stuff down, and they still don't hardly know anything, and they're comparing notes. He said, you know, I don't get it. Now this was in Wakewood Magazine, so this is gospel. And he said, I don't get it, but let's look at our notes. He said, you know, it looks to me Like they're saying the same thing, whether we point at a tree, we think, is it the bark? Is it a worm? Or is it the leaves? What are they telling us? And you know what they figured out when they said, what is this? They said, finger.