It's good to be with you this morning. We're delighted. I've been excited for some time about the opportunity to be here. It was a couple of years ago, learning about pastor's burden for this area and seeing how God has provided. And I'm more excited today than I was then. You say, why is that? Because what I saw then was building. But here I see people and that excites me even so much more. So I'm glad to be a part of these next few days and a privilege to be a part of the first type of meeting like this for this church. And so I hope that as you go through the week that you'll understand a little bit more about the work that God wants to do in your heart. We talk about revival. And a pastor mentioned it last night in our prayer meeting, getting back to where we need to be. And by the way, you're studying the book of James. That's such a powerful book. I really think that that study will certainly point you back to New Testament Christianity. It's a shame, but what used to be normal in first century Christianity is abnormal today. And I really believe when it comes to the subject of revival, God working freely in our hearts, boy, wouldn't that be wonderful if that was the status quo rather than the exception. And so I hope the Lord will use this week in your lives in a great way. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, to just learn how God's worked in your heart and life and brought you to this point. And I hope that you'll pray for us in every service. Pray for me that the Lord will continue to guide me, help me to know our needs. And I tell people the Lord has to work in this preacher's heart for he, you know, is going to work in others when it comes to service. And so we pray that he'll do that this week. I want you to take your Bibles and join me in turning to Galatians chapter number 5. Galatians chapter number 5. I think it is important for every Christian to know about the work of the Holy Spirit. I think it is important for every Christian to know what it means for somebody to be spiritual and to be controlled by the Spirit. When you go out in secular society and sometimes you'll hear somebody say, oh, that man's a spiritual man. And what they mean by that is this man goes to church, he's affiliated with a particular religious organization, he seems to be very devout and committed to his principles, whatever they may be. I was reading an article years ago, and it was referring to one of the members of the band of the Beatles, and it said that this particular man was a very spiritual man, and he was a Hindu, had worshipped in India, had been by the sacred river, and they said he was a very spiritual man. That word spiritual really has lost any sense of meaning in the world today, but I'm afraid that that word has also been distorted in our churches. You know, when revival takes place, there'll be a revival of spirituality. What does it mean for somebody at the First State Baptist Church to be spiritual? Somebody says, well, if you go to church every Sunday. Somebody says, well, if you go to Sunday school all the time. If you go to every night of the revival meeting, like I hope all of you can. And if you can't because of work, I certainly understand. But really, what is it that makes a person spiritual? I know, it's a tie. Let me tell you something. You think we preachers like to wear ties? You know, it's not always the greatest desire that we have, but we certainly want to represent the Lord well in the positions that he's given us to serve. But what is it that makes a person spiritual? You say, well, I'll tell you what makes a person spiritual. It's, you know, if he prays every time before he eats, that makes him spiritual. A lot of what I've mentioned to you are good habits. A lot of the things that I've mentioned to you are acts to be commended, but that in and of itself does not make a person spiritual, although they may do many of those things because they are spiritual. Well, how is a person spiritual? I'll tell you how a person is spiritual by being controlled, by the Holy Spirit. And we Christians need to regain a sense of what it means to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. And so this morning I want to look at Galatians chapter 5. You know what I love about the Bible? When you look at it with the help of God, God can just give you things in a very plain fashion to help you. You know, I've listened to a lot of preaching, I've listened to a lot of instruction, and you know on occasion you listen to people and they're just way up here the whole time and you leave and you're like, what did they say? But you know, when you just read the Bible and you take it at face value, it's amazing how God puts, if I could say it this way, the cookies on the shelf so that we can say, alright, that's how God wants me to live and very plainly understand it. And I think that's what God does in Galatians chapter 5. And this morning my prayer is, is that through this week, God will not only teach us what it means to be filled with the Spirit, but that we would be. And so with that in mind, let's begin reading Galatians chapter 5 verse number 13. Paul says, For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. Now this I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the witch I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love. joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And so in the Sunday school hour I want to talk to you about the test of spirituality and I want to give you four things to consider as we learn from the Word of God. Now the first thing that I share with you this morning is the idea of calling. You say, where do you get the idea of calling? Well, it all begins back in verse 13 when Paul writes, For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love serve one another. When Paul's talking about this calling, you have to recognize that he says, for brethren, so he's mentioning specifically who he's talking to. That helps when you're having a conversation, doesn't it? To be able to mention a specific name or somebody mention your name and immediately your eyes light up and you say, alright, he's talking to me. Well, who is Paul talking to? He's talking to saved peoples who he's talking to. So make no bones about it. For saved people, Paul is saying this, he's saying, listen, you have been saved not to serve yourself and do what you want. You have been set free from the bondage of sin to serve God. That's basically what Paul was saying. And so if you're here this morning and the idea of salvation has never been nailed down in your heart, You're always going to be frustrated about this idea of being a Spirit-filled person until, first of all, you know for sure that you've been saved by the grace of God and the Spirit of God indwells you. I've talked to some frustrated people in my lifetime, and there's some, they got frustrated because they tried to live the Christian life, but the problem was is they'd never been a Christian. So when we talk about the filling of the Spirit, we're not talking about something that everybody in the world experiences. We're talking about believers should have a familiarity with this. But he says, for brethren ye have been called, now notice the first aspect of this, unto liberty. It's hard for us in America to really get a grasp of what it means to be in bondage in a physical sense. What I mean by that is we've had freedoms in our country, even though at times we could argue and say they've been more restricted during certain seasons. But the freedom that we've experienced, we've never known what it's like to be in the bondage of communism, to be under the bondage of oppressive regimes like other people in the world. So when it comes to liberty and bondage, all we've really known is liberty. When he says, for brethren, ye have been called unto liberty, I believe Paul's alluding to the fact that there was a time in our lives where we lived in the bondage of sin. I'm not here to dredge up your past, but for some of you, do you remember what life was like before you were saved? Now I'll be honest, I was saved as a 12-year-old. I'd never dealt meth. I'd never robbed a store. But I'm going to tell you what, I still was in the bondage of sin. But I'm talking to maybe some of you, listen, later on in life you were saved. You remember the bondage that sin brought your way? Aren't you glad for Romans 6.18, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. And so this freedom that you experience, well, what do you do with it? God has set you free from the bondage of sin. Just always remember, He set you free, not to serve yourself, but to serve Him. Now there's some preachers today, and I would encourage you, be very careful. Be very, very careful of the influences that you subject yourself to when it comes to preaching and teaching. Listen, via the Internet, you can get more than ever before. Listen, if you want somebody who says the sky is green, I'm sure if you searched the Internet long enough, you could find somebody that says that and believe it. And there's a lot of people, you know, it really bugs me, what they do is they get so captivated with the radio and TV preachers, and they overlook the fact that God has put a shepherd in their auditorium every Sunday, every Wednesday, who takes the Word of God, gives it to them verse by verse, and they neglect that teaching, but their ears are tickled elsewhere. I just think, you know, when it comes to the local church, listen, it's a great thing to listen when a man preaches the Word of God from behind this pulpit. You give this your greatest attention. You say, are you saying that every radio preacher is bad? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying there's a lot of rotten ones out there. And there are some that teach this. They say, listen, when you get saved, you can live ever how you want. I mean, listen, that sounds good to the flesh. I mean, a guy who comes, he's in skinny jeans, he's got all kinds of lighting, the stage looks like a drum set, a rock band area rather than a church, and he stands before the people and he says, God has set you free. Listen, you go out there and be who you are. Here's my problem with that. What does God say? Can any of us in this room really, in our liberty, live any way that we want? 1 John 2.1, the Bible says, My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. You know, apparently in my liberty, there's a subjection that takes place in which, you know what, God saved me, not for me to do my own thing, but to serve Him. The Bible says in Romans 6.12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. So when you listen to the podcast, you watch the live stream of the preacher who says, you can live any way you want. Listen, God didn't put any rules on you. Turn him off because the Bible makes it very clear. He didn't set us free to sin. But he tells us, he says, for brethren ye have been called unto liberty But it says, only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh. And that's what I think that some of these recent modern preachers do. We talk about liberty as Americans. You have the right to bear arms, but you don't have the right to go across the street and shoot your neighbor. Well, I mean, after all, if somebody stood before a judge and said, listen, it's my liberty, the right to bear arms, the judge would say, yeah, you're right, but it doesn't give you the liberty to murder somebody, and the same thing is true spiritually. God has set you free, but it's not for you just to do your every whim and will. So when he talks about this calling, he says, for brethren, you've been called unto liberty. But then notice the second part of that calling at the end of verse 13. He says, but by love serve one another. Not only has God called us and set us free from the bondage of sin, but as believers he's called us by love to serve one another. A love for the brethren. You know, let's be honest, here we are in this church, we're in close quarters, aren't we? I mean, you look around and you say, wow, there's not a thousand people in here. We all know each other well. That's probably what you're thinking. The time in a church setting, and that's a great thing, but you know, let it always be said that a very strong attribute of this church is there's a strong love among the brethren. You say to yourself, well, you know, our church sometimes I feel like, you know, is maybe a little hard for somebody to find. Which, by the way, I didn't. You see the sign out there, and your signs just guide you right. I mean, you just have to be blind to not see it. But, you say, ah, you know, this location, you know, maybe if we had a bigger sign, or one day maybe if we had a piece of property that was right on some... Listen to me. You know one of the greatest identifying factors of a church? It's not a sign. Jesus said this, By this shall all men know that you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. Better for you to have fervent love for the brethren among each other in this room and not have a single sign than to have a very clear sign system and there not be love among the brethren. You've been called to do that. I know we talk about people who've been called to preach, we talk about people who have this... Listen, every one of you in this room, if you're a believer, you've been called to love one another. And but by love serve one another. We husbands, we can talk about how much we love our wives all we want, but if we don't mow the yard or occasionally do the dishes, what's our wives thinking? Nowadays we load the dishwasher instead of doing the dishes. You know, love reveals itself, and the way that we show love to one another, and one of the ways is that we serve one another. And so we see, first of all, our calling. We've been called unto liberty. and we've been called to love one another. But now, number two, I want you to see the second aspect, and that is of command. In verse 16, he says, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, while it may not seem very obvious to you, verse 16 is not an option for the Christian, it's a command to the Christian. At a very early age, my dad taught me the difference between a suggestion and a command. It didn't take me very long to figure out whenever he said, take out the trash, that was a command. Now if he told me to go fishing, I took that as a command, but that was a suggestion. This, in verse 16, is not an option. It's a command to every Christian. It ought to be the norm in our lives when He says, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, I want to highlight two aspects about this command. The first thing I want you to see is the picture that's given. Now, I love it in the Bible. Jesus, when He would teach, sometimes He would draw us pictures. He'd say, I am the door. Well, listen, that's not too complicated. Every one of us, we can relate to that. You had to get in this church building going through the door. I don't see any holes in the wall. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. We say, oh, wow. He's talking to the woman at the well. He talks about water. What was Jesus doing? He was drawing a picture. Well, Paul does the same thing for us when he talks about the Spirit, when he says, in the Spirit. You know what Paul did? He took an everyday activity that we see and do, and he talks about an aspect here of the Christian life. He says, walk in the Spirit. Now the big question in a lot of places today, and one of the reasons this church is here is because there's a lot of confusion about what does it mean to walk in the Spirit. You get some denominations, and they teach, well, in order to walk in the Spirit, you have to speak in tongues. They say, well, in order to walk in the Spirit, you have to thrash around in the floor uncontrollably. There was a Pentecostal revival that took place, quote-unquote revival, down in Brownsville, Florida, years ago, and there were people rolling in the aisles as the preacher was encouraging them on, and then up in Toronto, Canada, same thing was happening, and the media caught that and said, oh, that's a revival. What does it mean to walk in the Spirit? Have you ever walked in the Spirit? Think about this picture for a moment. The idea of walking in the realm, walking in collaboration, walking alongside the Spirit. That is the idea. When I was in high school, I went to public school. And there was one day of the year besides the last day of school that I really loved every year and that was called field day. I love field day because it was the day they canceled classes and we just had fun participating in activities all day long. And there was one particular activity that I always enjoyed. It was called the three-legged race. I enjoyed that. There was one particular fellow that I would always, always participate with, and his name was Larry Atkins. Larry and I just thought the same about a lot of things, and really enjoyed each other's company. And I don't know how many times we would sit down and we would tie our inside legs together, and we'd stand at whatever the 50-yard line, and at the sound of the whistle, The goal was to run all the way to the end zone 50 yards away, and Larry and I won it every year. Every year. We could sit down in the end zone, we'd be untying our inside legs from each other, and we'd see human pretzels scattered all over that football field. You know why? Because those two weren't walking together. They weren't agreed. And you know, you can't walk in the Spirit unless you're willing to get in step with God. You can't walk in the Spirit unless you're going to be in agreement with Him. And it's like, Lord, it's your way, it's not mine. It's total submission. That ought to be the norm in the Christian life, not the exception. I don't think walking in the Spirit should be some, oh wow, I happen to just feel really good this one day out of the year. Wow, that's great. No, no, you know what? That ought to be something that we experience on a regular basis. You know, there's some people and they say, well, you know, just I hit the spiritual high once every while. You know, and I thank God for spiritual highs in the sense when you see a great supernatural work. Yes, I'm thankful for that. But, you know, every day God wants you to live with consistency and God wants you to have a stability where you're not riding a roller coaster all the time. So He draws a picture for us. Walk in the Spirit. Amos said it this way. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Don't you ask God to get in step with you, you have to get in step with Him. But I ask you this question when we think about this command. We've seen the picture that's been drawn for us, but what's the period of time? When should we walk in the Spirit? Somebody says, well, I'll tell you when we should walk in the Spirit when we come to church. You know, there's some great transformations that take place between that car and the front door right here. Sunday mornings come and, you know, it's on Sunday morning a lot of different things happen. That's when you burn the toast, that's when you step on the cat, that's when the kids don't cooperate. Sunday morning. And it's interesting, sometimes in our Christian homes we can be all over each other on Sunday mornings, cranky and crabby. We get in the car, we drive to church, we get out the door, we walk down the sidewalk, the preacher meets us as soon as we walk in. And he says, how are you doing today? And we lie right through our teeth. We say something like this, boy, it's just been a great morning, so good to see you, preacher. Sometimes we ought to listen to ourselves. Somebody says, we ought to walk in the Spirit when we come to church. Somebody says, well, you ought to walk in the Spirit when you go on church activities. Do you know God didn't qualify that command? Do you know why? Because He wants us to walk in the Spirit 24-7. There's a reason He didn't put a time frame on it. You know what? We've got to walk in the Spirit in our homes. Now I'll admit there are things that I do in my home that I wouldn't do in church. You say, like what? Like put my foot up on a chair. I wouldn't do that in church. Now if you're here and your foot's hurt and you do it, that's one thing, but I'm talking about kicking back and relaxing. There are some things I'd listen at home. I'd probably sit there and drink a soda pop right there. I wouldn't do that necessarily here in church during a service. There's things I'd do at home that I wouldn't do at church. But I'm talking about being controlled by the Spirit. Listen to me, your language ought not change. Wow, boy, you come home and talks like a sailor comes to church. Boy, he's really refined. Listen, there's something wrong with that. And I'll tell you, there are some people, their idea of Christianity is to be one thing everywhere else and then another thing at church. That's not New Testament Christianity. That's being fake. Being filled with the Spirit. So I want to ask you, you look over the last week of your life. Could you say during a large portion of that that you were filled with the Spirit? Could you say before this Sunday school class that some Christians, because they have not been taught, they do not have a conscious idea of what it means to be filled with the Spirit? And to those people, if you're like that and you say, I've really never thought about it before, I'm not going to sit here and scorn you and say, well, man, I can't believe it. But listen, when you leave this place, you better be thinking about it. Because it's in the Bible. We ought to walk in the Spirit. So number one, we see the idea of calling. We've been called into liberty, not to do our own thing, but to serve God. We're called to love, but by love serve one another. We see the command. God draws a picture. He says, walk in the Spirit. The period of time is all the time. It's not qualified. But number three, I want you to see the conflict. There are two main characters here. You have the flesh and you have the Spirit. Verse 17, For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to another, so that you cannot do the things that you would. These are two entities that every believer has. Flesh and Spirit. Some people tell me that, oh, when I got saved, all that totally disappeared and I never God eradicated my flesh." All I say to those people is, you're better than the Apostle Paul. Because in Romans 6, 7, and 8, when a man says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? He says, sometimes I do the things I shouldn't and I don't do the things... Listen to me, Paul had flesh and if you've beat it, I'll tell you what, you're better than the Apostle Paul, but if you think you've beaten it, you know what, either you're right and the Bible's wrong, or the Bible's right and you're wrong. And I know where I would side every time in that argument, no matter how good a person you think you are. The flesh and the spirit. Jesus said this in Matthew 26 and verse 41, Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Every one of us in this room We have something that's just rotten, with a capital R. It's called our flesh. Now I know we don't like to talk about that, but you know your heart, left apart from the grace of God, is capable of doing some awful things. You know why? Because of your flesh. There's a part of you that enjoys hating. There's a part of you that enjoys evil. Why? It's that sin nature, it's that flesh that you have. 1 Peter 2.11, Dearly beloved, I beseech you, strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. That word war, that's pretty strong. That's the idea of a battle. So mark it down. Every one of us in this room, we have flesh. That's why when we're wronged, we want to hurt them back. That's why when we experience something of a bad nature, we want to dish it out even worse to that individual. That's why we have bad thoughts. Why? Because of our flesh. But then he says, he talks about the Spirit. Now notice in chapter 5 verse 17, for the flesh, here's a key word, lusteth. You know, typically when you hear the word lust, it has an inherently evil connotation. But if you take that word very simply for the meaning that it has, it means to desire strongly. Okay? Now, if the flesh lusts against the Spirit, but it's also implied here the Spirit lusts against the flesh. You see, they both strongly desire the throne of your heart. And that's a battle that takes place in every believer. Now let me remind you a little bit about the Holy Spirit. The day that you got saved, according to Ephesians chapter 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, you became indwelt with the Spirit of God. And when I got saved, nobody told me that. When I got saved, all I knew is my sins had been forgiven and it was a great thing. But later on in my Christian life, I learned the day I got saved, the Holy Spirit took up residence in my body. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God? And ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Ephesians 4.30 And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. So before I got saved, all I knew was one part of that battle, flesh. And that's why I was really good at making a mess of my life. But when I got saved, now the Holy Spirit indwells me and I begin to experience this thing called conviction. We ought not be afraid to talk about conviction because the Holy Spirit's work is conviction, and conviction, when we respond to it properly, will keep us out of a lot of trouble. So now you see the battle between the flesh and the spirit. These are contrary one to another. You know, the question is, is who wins that battle in your heart between flesh and spirit? Years ago, the story was told of an Indian who lived on a reservation, he was saved, he trusted Christ as his Savior, and the missionary was talking to him after he was saved, and he said, well, how are you doing today? And the Indian told him, he said, you know, it is like a white dog and a black dog fighting in my heart. And the missionary asked him, he said, well, which one wins? And he said, the one that I feed the most. So I ask you, flesh or spirit, one of the two is controlling you at this very moment, and that's the battle that goes on. So number one, we've seen our calling. Number two, we've seen our command. Number three, we've seen our conflict. The battle between the flesh and the spirit, but the last thing I want you to see is our control. In verses 19 and following, God gives us a list of characteristics. And these characteristics reveal who's in the driver's seat of our lives. Several years ago, my wife, Michelle, this has been many years ago now, we've been married for 23 years. It was before we were married, I decided I had a small pickup truck and it was a manual transmission. And I want to tell you, driving a manual transmission today is a lost art. My boys, sad to say, they probably aren't very well-versed in driving a manual transmission car. And so I thought, you know what, I am going to teach my wife-to-be how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. You know, I thought that was going to be really easy. I still remember sitting there on the passenger side, and the way I explained it, I felt like it was perfectly adequate. It was like, honey, now listen, with your left foot, you press that clutch all the way to the floor, and with the right foot is on the gas, and what you have to do is as you let that left foot up off the clutch, you're going to feel a little bit there, and that's when you just give it a little more gas, and you just ease, and it'll just take right on smoothly. It never works like that. I remember that day we were at Tanglewood Park in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Whenever I got in there and changed gears, it was as smooth as could be. We never got out of first gear with her. I can still remember sitting there on the passenger side, and I'd be explaining it, and all of a sudden feeling the truck just vibrate viciously. And you know, the first two or three times, oh, it's fine, it's fine, yeah, start again. It just takes a... But I'm going to tell you, after about the tenth time, and you're smelling the clutch burning, and you finally just wave the white flag and say, you know what? I don't think this is a good idea. This is getting mighty expensive. But anybody from a distance, they could tell who was driving that truck just by watching it. Do you know the same thing's true of your life? Now, I'll be honest, I don't go into a church and say, alright, him, yeah, he must not be walking in the Spirit today, yep, she's in the flesh, and she looks like she's in the Spirit. I don't sit there, but listen. The Bible makes it very clear, when the flesh is controlling you, certain things are going to happen. When the spirit is controlling you, certain things are going to happen. You can take that to the bank. Notice with me in verse number 19. When the flesh is in control of your life, listen what's going to be there. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. You know when the flesh is in control of our lives, you know what's going to be their immorality, whether it be as a willing participant in it or an observer of it. Now I want to make that distinction. Some Christians would say, well, you know what, I don't think I could ever be unfaithful to my wife, and yet they allow forms of entertainment to flow into their homes that teach that kind of living. Let me tell you, there's a great desensitization that has taken place in our country, and I'm afraid to say it's taken place in our churches, because people have become content with watching or listening to entertainment that promotes immorality and anti-biblical views about sexuality. And I'm here to tell you, God said, if that's there, that's of the flesh, that's not of God. That's why I take a strong stand in certain areas because I'm like, you know, men can say, well, this just doesn't feel like you should be able to say, listen, the Bible says that these things are markers of being controlled by the flesh. Never one time can a man with legitimacy Say, well, it was God's will for me to cheat on my wife. Listen to me. A man to say that, that's akin to blasphemy, because that's accusing God of something that He's not within a hundred miles of. Why? Because adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, uncleanness, those are all works of the flesh. He talks about in verse 20, idolatry and witchcraft. Worshipping something besides God. You know, there are people that take good things and make those good things, things that are not wrong, in and of themselves and exalt them above God. That's idolatry. Witchcraft. It's amazing to me in the Christian community, the tolerance sometimes of witchcraft and occult things, like on holidays such as Halloween, that type of thing. Just the other day, somebody was asking me, he said, Brother Beal, why are you a stickler about this thing of Halloween? I said, listen, let me just tell you, when I was a carnal teenager, I was saved, but I wasn't living for the Lord. You know, we would dress up like the most awfulest demonic things, but I said, eventually God just got a hold of my heart, and I said, you know, I can't do that. I was grieved. What was it? It was the Spirit of God working in my heart. Because one of the ideas here, idolatry, witchcraft, and then he says hatred. You know, when you just lash out at somebody with hatred in your heart, that's not God speaking, that's for sure. Emulations, wrath. Somebody says, well, God just made me with a short fuse. Listen to me. Don't you go to blaming God for your foolishness. We blame it on our nationality. Well, I have Irish blood, and we have short tempers. I have red hair. We could just all make up all kinds of different things, but, you know, the best thing we could do is just own it and say, I am a fleshly creature, and I am not where I need to be right now. Envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings. But you notice those next three words, and such likes. You see, this isn't an all-exhaustive list. You just take your little pet sin and shove it in there, and God says, that's flesh. But you know what happens when the Spirit of God is in control? Look at this. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. You know, when I read that, there's just a calmness that floods my soul. That's what's there when God's in control. Now, I don't know about you, but you take that first list of hatefulness and the second list of the fruit of the Spirit, there's no comparison. Wouldn't you rather live the second way? Well, you can if you choose to be submitted to the Spirit of God. You know, wind is a very powerful thing, and when it's harnessed, it can create electricity, it can bring refreshment, but when that wind is quote-unquote out of control, it can level entire towns. Fire? Don't you like fire when you're warming your hands in the wintertime, or you're making s'mores, melting that marshmallow so you can shove that calorie-free chocolate to melt on it, and those graham crackers? You know, fire, I'm telling you, when it's under control, it's a great thing, but when it's ravaging out of control, it destroys communities and forests. But there's something worse than wind or fire that's out of control, and that's a life that is yielded to the flesh instead of the Spirit. And so you know what I ask you to do this week? Let the Spirit of God have His way. Let Him make you more into the image of Jesus Christ. But for that to happen, you have to yield to Him. And my prayer is that we would have a greater yieldedness to God at the end of this meeting. Let's bow our heads together for prayer.